Anth 316 Weekly Readings
http://links.jstor.org.libproxy.usc.edu/stable/pdfplus/482159.pdf?acceptTC=true
This article examines the origins of the Cherokee syllabary, and tries to sort through the many differing opinions that have been written about it. While it is apparent that the syllabary has not changed much in the number, form, or order of presentation of the characters since 1827, the debate is over what changes, if any, took place before then. The history of native literacy in America began when Europeans invaded the country and derived native languages based off of their own to help spread Christianity to the Indians and to integrate them into the Euroamerican culture. However, when the Cherokee syllabary developed in the 1820s, it broke from this pattern, as it was syllabic and had no links to Christianity or any Euroamerican language. It was invented in the early 1820s by a monolingual and illiterate Cherokee named Sequoyah, and, by 1821, he was publicly demonstrating the system with his six-year-old daughter, Ahyokeh, serving as his first student. The language spread rapidly by Oct 4
http://links.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/30147227.pdf
This article takes an in-depth look at Britishs strategy for attacking the southern part of the US in the War of 1812, and the role that Native Americans played in those plans. Hoping to create a diversion from the battles taking place near the Canadian border, the British zoned in on trying to capture New Orleans. The British hoped to create a pro-British force consisting of Negroes, Florida Spaniards, Frenchmen, and, especially, Indians who were angry at how they had been treated by the United States. The British had a close alliance with Indians up north, largely due to Tecumseh. However, when they sent Tecumseh southward to gather support from various local tribes, he was largely unsuccessful, with the Chickasaws and Choctaws holding out from joining the British and the Southern Creeks split over what to do (the Upper Creeks or Red Sticks decided to join the British, while the Lower Creeks did not). The British officials who were working from the South region, however, largely misi by Oct 4
Online Speech Bank: Chief Tecumseh - Address to William Henry Harrison on Selling a Country
One of the most fascinating and inspiring pieces I have read so far this semester is a speech that Shawnee Chief Tecumseh addressed to General William Henry Harrison in 1810 at Vincennes (in the Indiana Territory). Tecumseh begins the speech by describing his background, and how he has come to be in the position he is in. Then, he begins the main message of his speech a plea and warning for Harrison and the Americans to stop dividing Indian tribes and taking their land. He derides Whites for [taking] the tribes aside and [advising] them not to come into this measureto make them war with each other, which is [preventing] the Indians from doing as [he wishes] them, to unite and let them consider their lands as a common property of the whole. Tecumseh then describes how there have only been a few Indians who have sold land to the Americans, and that they have [destroyed these] village chiefs. He promises that those who continue to sell land in the future will be punished, and that if Ame by Oct 3
http://zb5lh7ed7a.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=The+Indian+Trail+of+Broken+Treaties&rft.j
The Indian Trail of Broken Treaties is an article that takes an interesting approach in viewing the treaties made between the US and Indians in the 19th century. After decades of pushing Indians further and further west as new land-hungry settlers kept taking their land, the US decided to take a different approach. In the 1840s, when most of the Indians were west of the Mississippi, the commissioner of Indian Affairs came up with the idea of the reservation system in which the federal government would try to concentrate the tribes into restricted areas. The paper then described in detail many of the major treaties that took place as a result of this plan, starting with a treaty made with the Lakota (Sioux), Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Assiniboine, Gros Ventre, Mandan and Ankara tribes in 1851; and ending with one made with various bands of Lakotas, Cheyennes, Arapahos and Crows in 1868. All of the treaties discussed in the article maintained, more or less, the following provisions: all by Oct 2
http://links.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/20177861.pdf
The paper Symbol, Utility, and Aesthetics in the Indian Fur Trade takes a close look at the trade that occurred between Indians and European explores and settlers. At first, there was a major disconnect between the Indians and Europeans. Whereas the Europeans viewed items (as many still do today) in economic terms, the Indians did not. The Indians accepted European items such as beads, mirrors, bells, and caps, not for their economic value, but rather for their decorative, aesthetic, magical, curiosity, or amusement value. Indian culture has always held gift-giving in a significant manner. Presents are given to establish rank and prestige, as well as to mark important occasions in peoples lives. Each gift possesses a specific message or symbolic meaning. Thus, Indians were willing to give generously of their material goods and services (including gold) without demanding seemingly an equal amount in return (at least to the European who viewed items in economic terms). However, demand fr by Oct 2
http://zb5lh7ed7a.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=James+Smith%3A+Indian+Captive%2C+Indian+F
When James Smith was an 18 year-old settler, he was captured by Delaware and Caughnawaga Indians. The Indians decided to adopt him, making him go through the customary gantlet and adoption ceremony. Even though Smith wanted to go back, the Indians would not let him. Rather, they wanted him to fill the role of their lost members - to become a great man and a skilled woodsman, hunter, and warrior. However, Smith remained loyal to his settler community, and didnt fight with the Indians. However, he was able to listen to and record the Indians' battle plans, by which he learned about their warfare plans and principles. Smith stayed with the Indians for five years and, although he respected and admired them, he escaped on a French ship in 1759. Smith later went on to become a captain for American settlers who were fighting against Indians over land. He and other former captives instructed other settlers on Indian tactics that they had learned, and dressed and painted themselves as Indians ( by Oct 1
American Antiquity, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Jul., 1999), pp. 499-516
This study compared maize (corn) production at different historical periods. The time eras being compared were: the early historic Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands; Native Americans using traditional farming techniques in the nineteenth century; nineteenth-century Native Americans using plows; and nineteenth- and twentieth-century farmers in Illinois and Missouri. Although previous studies had looked at these eras separately, none had done a comparative look at all of them. In addition, this study used different methods for calculation than previous studies had used. The results were as following: the mean yield of maize during a typical year was 10 bu/acre (bushels/acre) for late prehistoric groups in the Eastern Woodlands, 18.9 bu/acre for nineteenth-century Native American groups who did not use plows, 21 bu/acre for nineteenth-century Native American groups who did use plows, 31.4 bu/acre for nineteenth- century Euroamerican farmers, and 55.1 bu/acre for twentieth century by Sep 29
A molecular analysis of dietary diversity for three archaic Native Americans — PNAS
This article examines the results found from the examination of three fecal samples that are believed to belong to Native Americans from the Archaic period who lived near Hinds Cave, Texas. The study analyzed the molecular composition and the DNA of the three paleofecal samples. The results showed what the three Native Americans had eaten and were as followed: Sample I contained evidence of four animals (pronghorn antelope, cottontail rabbit, packrat, and squirrel) and four plants (hackberry, sunflower family, yucca or agave, and opuntia); Sample II contained two animals (packrats and fish) and six plants (hackberry, oak, sunflower family, yucca or agave, nightshade family, and legume family); and Sample III contained three animals (bighorn sheep, packrat, and cotton rat) and eight different plants (Buckthorn family, hackberry, oak, sunflower family, yucca or agave, legume family, ocotillo, and opuntia). DNA from paleofeces is considered to be more accurate than that from skeletal rema by Sep 29
Indians and the American Revolution
Yet the passions engendered by the American Revolution, despite the good will expressed in the formal policy enunciated by the government, was to lead to bitter and violent confrontations on the frontier. The bloody ground of Kentucky was to be repeated in region after region as the undisciplined and unregulated expansion of the American people got underway. In the end the Indian was the loser. That he would have been a loser even if the King had repressed the rebellion is probable; but his decline would not have been so swift or so bitter. 1.
When Wilcomb E. Washburn was the Director of American Studies at the Smithsonian Institution, he gave a speech in Riverside, California on Indians and the American Revolution. His story began with the Great War for Empire, in which the English defeated the French and largely knocked them out of North America. The British went on to make a number of treaties with the Indians in which they reserved land beyond the Appalachian Mountains for the Indians. Partly due to these treaties, American colonists fought back against the British Empire in what became the Revolutionary War. For a while, neither side asked Indians for support, but rather wanted them to remain neutral. Then, in 1776, both sides formally and officially attempted to involve Indians both in the north (especially the Iroquois) and the South (largely the Cherokee). After remaining neutral for a while, the pressure from British agents and their gifts of rum, provisions, and goods led to four of the six Iroquois nations (the O by Oct 1