CRE 151: Chapter 2: The shaping of a nation -lecture 2
CRE 151: Chapter 2: The shaping of a nation -lecture 2
1. Concealed Stories: Indigenous peoples in the Americas before Columbus
a. Our stock story-in 1492 Columbus sailed the blue
a. Chirstopher Columbus attempts to find shorter route to Asia
b. He is portrayed as a scientific/astronomical genus
i. Wanting to prove world round
a. More like an invasion, where the vastly more natives were overcome by guns, germs and steel
b. Most died by germs
2. America before Columbus
a. Thousands of Native American civilizations
i. Tied to land, hunted and gathered
ii. Organized geographically into Northeastern Tribes, Northwestern Tribes, Southwestern Tribes, Southeastern Tribes, and the Great Plains
iii. Knowledge systems, religions, culture, and farming techniques help form what has become known as the United States
iv. Influence is vital to who we were, who we became and who we will become.
v. Look at map..
b. 1493 Pope Alexander Vi -Papal Bulls
i. Defined newfound lands in Americas =free, open to be claimed by church and nation
ii. Indigenous people lost their sovereignty, lands and peoplehood
iii. This is the beginning of how our nation was shaped -through the lens of Europe and its desires to colonize, control, and define history and reality.
iv. With the colonization of much of the world, Europe laid the foundations for structural racism in all of our major institutions, politics, family, economic systems, religion, and education
1. Structural racism resulted in a long history of othering -involves actively marginalizing minorities by individuals and institutions alike
2. Deliberate actions created racial boundaries and realities became normalized
3. Process started in Americas with the targeting of the first Americans =the Indigenous people
3. The Earliest Americans
a. Native Americas -such as the Abenakis of Maine to the Zunis of New Mexico =occupied all the Americas
b. The descendants of Asian immigrants arriving more than 20,000 years ago
i. Probably came via two different routes
1. People on foot traversing the glacial land bridge between Siberia and Alaska -mostly hunters and gatherers following mastodon and long-horned bison- might have led to these animals’ becoming extent
2. Fishers and hunters utilizing boats from Pacific Islands following the currents that guide them to these shores
ii. Many early native American communities were urban -with populations reaching the tens of thousands
iii. Archaeologists have identified several towns, with temples with evidence of a priestly class, nobles, merchants and artisans
1. Thus, a stratified, hierarchical and technologically sophisticated civilizations.
c. A Rich history
i. In Northeast the Iroquois and the Algonquin two major language and cultural groups, occupied region known as Northeastern Woodlands
1. The Algonquin controlled two major areas -Great Lakes and an area near the Atlantic Ocean
a. Several tribes constitute Algonquin
i. Wampanoag -first tribe in this region to encounter Europeans
ii. Both Illini and Potawatomi occupied the Illinois region
iii. The League of Iroquois -formed as early as 1090, comprised tribes who lived in the areas today known as New York State and the Southeastern Woodlands (from Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi river, and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Ohio river)
iv. The largest northern groups in the confederation were the Cherokee, the Chickasaw, and the Creek
b. The southern regions were dominated by the Natchez, Biloxi and the Seminole (aka the Mound Builders)
c. Half of the U.S. state names are representative of the original inhabitants to include
i. Michigan -from the Allegany language meaning big water
ii. Minnesota -from Siouan Language -water that reflects the sky
iii. Missouri -from Siouan language =water flowing along
iv. Ohio -Iroquis language =good river
d. Some state names reflect dominance of particular tribes
i. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois, and the Dakotas
e. They typically did not name a entire river or mountain, but typically gave specific names to certain features such as the mouth or bend of a particular river
i. Potomac (Iroques) =the place to which tribute is brought
ii. Allegheny (Iroquois- Monogathela meaning falling banks
2. The histories reflect in many names they gave the land such as the Lakota and Mohawk’s Anowakwowa (turtle Island), the Powhatan’s Tsenacommacah -densely inhabited area, and Shawnee’s Kantukee -great meadow or the dark and bloody ground
3. They lived in teepees, huts, cities and villages
a. They built burial mounds temples, and multistory buildings
b. They routinely and systematically planted an harvested more than 100 different crops including tomatoes, quinoa and peaches
c. Practiced crop-rotation techniques and understood the importance of seasonal flooding to enrich the nutrient poor soil.
d. They often added charcoal and broken pottery to tropical red clays as a way of enriching the soil -a method used today
e. They were also skilled at metallurgy -knowing both the malleability and toughness of different metals of which they used for weapons, tools, farm implements and jewelry.
4. They hunted buffalo, boar, turkey, rabbit and dear
a. Their diets included perch, catfish, oysters, and salmon
5. They mastered carving, weaving, tanning and pot making
6. Highly sophisticated artistry in jewelry, weaving, and textiles, but also pictorial art on cave walls and rocks
a. On display in finest museums across the world today
7. Highly developed written, oral, and symbolic languages
8. Had math and calendar systems
9. Religious, political systems and constitutions
10. Civilizations older than oldest European nation
11. Much more complex than the stock stories of cowboys and Indians
12. Neither brutes nor savages, neither pagans nor infidels
13. They were humans, with all the creative and marvelous social inventions we come to recognize as human, such as democratic governance, constitutional bodies, federations and confederations, family and community
14. They had philosophies and mythologies, prophecies and paradigms, educational systems and beliefs about the cosmos, hopes and dreams
15. They had wars and civil unrest, military, political, civil and religious leaders.
16. Long before Columbus and the Europeans discovered them they lived a full expansive, rich and complete lives
4. Colonialism: the Shaping of our Storied Past
a. European colonization began in the Americas in the 10th and 11th centuries when Viking sailors explored what is currently Canada
i. They settled Greenland, sailed up the Artic region of North America
ii. Engaged in violent conflict with several indigenous populations
b. More extensive European colonization began in 1492 as the Spanish ships captained by Columbus inadvertently landed on northern tip of Cuba
c. The names of each of the colonial adventures tell the story Nueva Espano9la, Nouvelle-France, and New England
i. Thus, the settling of the New World centered on transplanting, cloning and grafting European institutions into the Americas
ii. For the competition over control of land, ports, raw resources and native peoples.
5. The Basics of Colonialism
a. Colonialism set of hierarchical relationships in which groups are defined culturally, ethnically, and/or racially
b. These relationships serve to guarantee the political, social, and economic interests of the dominant group
c. Ander the guise of advancing the Kingdom of God -the Spanish, French, and English pursuit of colonies was more closely aligned with greed and desire for fame.
d. Religious ideology used to justify wars of aggression, exploitation, subjugation, extermination, enslavement and ultimately colonization
e. The structures, ideologies, and actions that form the patterns of colonialism shaped groups interrelated experiences in profound ways
i. Ther realities of colonialism are complex, structurally and culturally catastrophic for the colonized.
f. We shall look at colonialism through three lenses
i. Structure of domination subjugating one group of people to another across political entities
ii. Internal or domestic colonialism =a structure occurring within a given nation state, typically against socially marked groups
iii. Colonialism of the mind wherein the colonized are institutionally, pedagogically, linguistically, and cognitively conquered by the colonizer
6. Colonies in Americas best classified as Settler colonies
a. Distinguished by colonizing nation’s control of political, economic, social and cultural mechanisms in the colonies -leads to creation of colonial elite
b. European elite migrating to the settler colonies intent on settlement, creation of self-sustaining independent political, economic system
c. Domination of both geography and indigenous populations
d. Maintained dependency relationships with their respective European nations, even though they achieved significant autonomy.
7. Pre-Colombian population estimates suggest Native Americans distributed throughout the Americas
a. Most occupying areas that are now Mexico and Central America (47%)
b. Next, South America (35%)
c. And then the Caribbean (10%)
d. Remainder scattered across what would become the United States and Canada
e. The first colonizers were the Spanish and the Portuguese
f. They settled in the most densely populated areas
8. Next came both the French and English
a. Created settlements in less densely populated areas
i. Mostly in North America and Canada
9. This produced very different sets of opportunities and issues for both colonizers and the colonized.
10. Spanish Colonialism (1492)
a. Colonies were not fully independent nor politically isolated from what as happening in Europe or among the various Native American nations
b. Columbus, when he stumbled on a set of islands off coast of Florida 0 he named the area Hispania
i. Columbus declared the land as terra nullius -or empty land
ii. Thus demonstrating that they considered themselves the first or the only significant persons on the land
11. Constructing a Racial Ideology
a. Spanish did however encounter significantly different people with specific cultural, political and gender systems
i. The gender systems of Native Americans varied across tribal groups
ii. Gender relations within the Taino tribes for example were both egalitarian and nonexclusive
iii. Women were able to won property and serve as ritual leaders and organized most of the subsistence work.
b. Spanish utilized two basic racial distinctions:
i. Spanish-born or descended: This group consisted of those born in either Spain or the colonies and included both those of mixed heritage and those considered “purebloods”
ii. Native-born or descended: This group consisted of all Native Americans, considered vassals of the king.
c. Each of these groups had different rights, obligations, and privileges
i. Natives, under Spanish laws were obligated to provide labor for both government and private enterprises deemed vital to colonial interests
ii. Pay poll taxes or tributes
iii. Laws intended to create two distinct classes
1. The flexible laws of both marriage and residence allowed many Native Americans to adopt European-style dress and pass as purebloods.
2. The Catholic church, through Spanish Inquisition and Franciscan order, used purity certifications to impose barriers on some Spaniards who sought to immigrate to America
3. Church imposed same purity levels to label both Africans and Natives as New Christians and mark both as impure.
a. Any offspring of interracial unions involving New Christians were thus less valued
b. Blacks, Native Americans and others could be redeemed and baptized but could not mix with the purebloods
c. These created vague notions that assumed both racial purity and supposed biological differences
i. They became the basis for the racial caste system
1. A permanent hierarchy based on race and presumed
biological differences came into being.
ii. These laws reveal also centrality of gender relations in
construction of both culture and race
1. Served to distinguish one culture form another
a. One defined as superior
b. Which served to maintain borders
c. These borders inscribed onto woman’s bodies and policed
by regulation sexual relationships
d. Bodies and wombs of White women considered sacred
i. The only source of future generations of whites
ii. European men on the other hand maintained for
themselves access to all women’s bodies.
12. Concealed Stories: Columbus Encounters a New People/World
a. Barbecue, tobacco, canoes, hammocks, or watched a hurricane cross the ocean.
i. Thank the Taino who invented these words long before Columbus “discovered” the new world
b. Capitulations of Sante Fe by Ferdinand and Isabella -the Catholic monarchs of Castile or Spane.
i. Columbus as admiral was supposed to rule on behalf of the monarchs all lands he discovered and acquired in the name of Spain
ii. Be judge and jury, hold the offices of admiralty, viceroyalty and governor
iii. He was to receive 10% of all removable assets including but not limited to gold, silver, pearls, precious stones, and slaves
iv. The act created a monopoly for the crown that would control all removable assets.
v. The rules would ultimately lead to the absolute capitulation and genocide of indigenous populations in the Americas.
vi. When the first Spanish settlement in the new world came into being…the Tanos lost all right to the land and resources
c. Columbus described the native Tainos as docile and easily controlled
i. He was a tyrant that regularly visited cruelty on the native Tainos as well as other Spaniards
ii. Extreme cruelty included rape, torture, genocide and slavery were reserved to the indigenous populations
iii. After less than 30 years, by 1519 between 30-85% of the Native population had died as result of smallpox
iv. These decided the shape of our nation from the very beginning.
d. The Slave system
i. Columbus first to employ slavery in the colonies
1. Two days after the “discovery” Columbus wrote in his journal that with just 50 men he could take the entire population into captivity.
ii. Second voyage -December 1494, Columbus captured 1,500 Taino’s on island of Hispaniola
1. He selected 550 of the best males and females who he presented to queen Isabella and sold as slaves marked of Seville
iii. Impressed with the ease of conquest, Columbus began seizing land and enslaving the Tanous to work his mines
iv. He precipitated sexual slavery of girls as young as 9 and 10
v. From his log
A hundred castellanos are as easily obtained for a woman or a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls , those from 9 to 10 are now in demand.
e. In 1525 a total of 5,721 slaves appeared on the notarial records of Seville; almost 400 were listed as blacks or mulattoes.
f. Strangely the Spanish colonies were considered lenient regarding racial classifications.
g. Multiple reasons:
i. Colonial laws accorded protections to native Americans and to slaves
ii. Slavs’ rights were protected by both judicial and ecclesiastical authority
iii. Spanish slave laws derived from roman legal traditions
iv. Manumission (the freeing of slaves) did not require prior approval from the crown
v. Slaves could purchase their own freedom
vi. Slaves had legal recourse through the courts and could even lodge grievances against their masters.
h. Supply of Native American labor in Spanish colonies decimated by continual warfare, disease, and overwork
i. Under the licensing system, created by King Ferdinand in 1513, sent an estimated 75,000-90,000 African slaves to Spanish America by 1600.
i. More than tripled by end of 17th century, accounting for almost 350,000 enslaved Africans
ii. This shifted the colonies to plantation economies
iii. Blacks soon outnumbered Whites in Hispaniola and Mexico by as much as 10 to t by mid-16th century
iv. Many of early slave protections stripped away
v. Followed by lave insurrections that repeatedly threatened the settlements.
13. French Colonialism (1534)
a. New France created in 1534 in expedition headed by Jacques Cartier along the Saint Lawrence River in what is now Quebec
b. His explorations allowed France to claim the land that later became Canada
c. French sought gold along Saint Lawrence river, but settled for fishing and fur trading instead
d. First French colony established in Quebec -1608.
i. They were vastly outnumbered and unable to establish cultural dominance or stable communities ultimately led to the failure of this first colony.
e. French colonial expansion conceived as a business venture and profits were seen as more important than colonial development
f. They gave lip service to Christianization of the natives
g. But it was all about the profits
h. This motivated the French to integrate the indigenous population as governors and foreign missionaries were determined to save the “savages”
14. Labor Crises and Slavery -as plantations and economies expanded
a. Soon the French discovered that Native American slaves could not provide sufficient labor
b. French colonies such as those in Louisiana experienced labor crises as they attempted to shift economies to tobacco and sugar production
c. In 1689 -King Louis XIV gave royal approval for trade and use of Africans as slaves
d. 20 years later slavery declared legal in New France -1709
e. First group of imported slaves came from both France and Africa between 1717 and 1720
i. Consisted of 1400 White men and women convicted as thieves and deported to New France
ii. These rioted and caused a sudden halt to this form of slavery
iii. At the same time close to 4,000 Africans were forcibly brough to the colony
iv. Africans did not become slaves because they were but joined many other cultural groups forced into slavery
f. French Black codes -colonial Ordinance of 1685 -laws governing laves and blacks
i. Qualitatively different from laws in France
g. Legislated life, death, purchase, marriage, and religion of slaves
i. Also, the treatment of slaves by their masters
ii. Required all slaves to be baptized and educated in Catholic faith
iii. Prohibited masters from forcing slaves to work on Sundays and religious holidays.
iv. Required masters to provide slaves with food, shelter, clothing and medical care when sick
v. Slaves could not own property or have any other legal recourse
vi. Established when they could marry, where they could be buried, and what forms of punishment could be used
vii. When they could be freed
viii. Attempted to curtail both sexual and moral problems generated in frontier society
ix. Blurred the lines between groups with differing status
x. Prohibited White as well as free black’s form having sexual relationships with slaves
xi. Any children born to such unions were wards of the state and held in perpetual slavery
xii. Slaves’ status could not be altered based on marriage
xiii. Child of a slave would become a slave
xiv. Thus, creating a firm border between slaves and free persons.
xv. Only difference applied to existing sexual relationships between free Black men and black women who were slaves
1. Their children were rendered legitimate and free
15. Concealed Stories: Left-Handed Marriages and Placage
a. Flourished in both French and Spanish colonies
i. Celebrated in New Orleans in what were known as quadroon balls.
b. Placage constituted a socially sanctioned form of miscegenation or mixing of different racial groups, lasting even after the man was legally married to a White woman
c. Technically free, the women in placage were both economically and socially dependent on their sexual objectivation, availability, attractiveness, and ability to satisfy the fantasies of elite White men
i. Eventually the large number of free people of color and their offspring of mixed heritages were declared free by the Louisiana Supreme court
1. The group had better access to education and wealth and became advocates for racial reform and freedom.
16. British Colonialism (1567)
a. After several failed attempts -the Plymouth Company’s Mayflower finally reached the New World in 1620.
i. Settlers declared indigenous peoples as barbaric
1. Needing to be saved by Christianity.
b. Building a tradition of slavery
i. First group of non-Native Americans to wear chains in New England were poor Whites primarily from Ireland
ii. These slaves arrived in New England in the early 1600s.
iii. English slave masters viewed Irish as backward, lazy, unscrupulous, and fit to be enslaved.
iv. Upwards of 50,000 Irish, mostly women and children, were forcibly deported to America
v. Harsh treatment, hostility, and degradation led Irish and Black servants to engage frequently in collaborative rebellions.
vi. First group of African entered Jamestown colony in 1619
vii. They were indentured servants
1. It was not until 1661 that they became servants for life
2. Next year, the statute revised linking slavery to maternity declaring that all children would be free or slave according to the status of their mothers
3. This was a significant departure from previous British laws which traced status of children to their fathers
4. Lucrative commerce in Native American slaves started with the founding of Carolina in 1670 and lasted till 1717
a. Distinct racial hierarchy in which male European landowners dominated both Native American and African Slaves
b. On the backs of Africans and Native American slaves a racial hierarchy was constructed
5. English, as well as Spanish and French, manipulated ethnic conflicts among various Native American groups
6. Encouraged Native Americans to avoid slavery by enslaving their adversaries and selling them to Engli9sh for trifles of cloth, beads, and guns.
7. This new racial system gave birth to racial classification and defined race relations throughout the nation until the dawn of the Civil war.
a. Also targeted those who chose to revolt
17. Resistance stories: Slave Rebellions and the Creation of Whiteness and the myth of White Privilege
a. Slave rebellions the greatest source of strain and stress for white planter class.
i. Response causes the continual evolution of racial hierarchies buttressed by laws, sanctions, and privileges
b. First significant slave rebellion against the English occurred in Gloucester County, Virginia in 1663
i. White indentured servants and Black slaves aimed to overthrow white masters
1. Folied by an informant
2. Led to execution of several plotters and passage of several laws that laid out the distinctions between slave masters and slaves
c. Bacon’s Rebellion of 1674 most significant challenge to class structure
d. The response was to create new identities of color and race to usurp the divisions of class and status
i. The revolt included Black, Irish, Scottish, and English bond servants who struggled against a small/nervous group of planter elites.
ii. Increasing use of Africans as bonded labor forced many White laborers out of their positions.
iii. Nathaniel Bacon, one of the displaced laborers
1. So while the rich planter elite were gaining more land grants and new allotments of workers, no provisions were made for the increasing numbers of displaced, now cheaper labors.
iv. Crop fail in 1675 provided the fuel fo the violence
v. The revolt quickly was a mass rebellion of bondservants aimed to topple government and entire class structure
vi. More than 6,000 Europeans and 2,000 Africans took up arms and fought against the tiny Anglo-American slave owning planter class
vii. They marched to West Point, taking the garrison and military arsenal
viii. They forced the military governor to flee and shut down all tobacco production for the next 15 months.
ix. The rebellion threatened the very core of British colonial system by challenging the Anglo-American slave-won in planter elite.
x. They responded by convincing not only the Irish, but also the Scotts, and the English bonded servants that they were white, and had the same rights as the white planter elite. Thus they created the illusion of White privilege and Whiteness.
18. Poor Whites and the myth of White Privilege
a. The myth of white privilege ignores the rigid class system enforced in Jamestown
b. Puritans obsessed with class rank pushed not only church membership =but also elite privilege
c. It was elite White men with the power to stigmatize the landless and later poor white trash
d. George Washington believed that lower class people could only serve as foot soldiers in Continental Army
e. Thomas Jefferson held that public schools should be restricted to the talented raked from the rubbish of the lower class
f. The belief that the underclass was different breed of humans
g. No better than savages these crackers and squatters.
19. All Europeans were not considered White. When the Germans and Irish began to immigrate in large numbers in the 1800s, they were not considered white enough
20. They were not part of the old stock
21. Also, those form places like Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Poland, mostly Catholics and Jews, were not immediately accorded white identity.
22. Whiteness affirmed during the Chinese Exclusion act and other anti-Asian immigration laws in 1910 and 1920 further affirmed whiteness
23. The Supreme court declared that Whiteness was indeed a social construct but also evident through the eyes of a common man
24. Bhagat Singh Thing, a high Caste Hindu, full Indian Blood, argued that he should be classified as white due to his Aryan ethnicity
25. Whiteness was defined, then as Nordic, Aryan, and there for he should be accorded that status
26. The Supreme court ruled that Whiteness was exclusively defined by European ancestry, and those white Americans who had assembled.
27. Soon Southern and Eastern European immigrants were deemed unfit for immigration and universally excluded from immigration.
28. Borderlands and Frontiers
a. Land controlled by Native American federations were defined by Europeans as frontiers or borderlands
b. These designations fail to appreciate that they were contested spaces.
c. in so designating these thusly, Europeans placed the Native Americans into a protectorate relationship where the stronger European nations took responsibility as protectors
d. protected spaces soon became convenient camouflage for more aggressive actions by various European colonial systems.
i. They serve 3 purposes:
1. Create the illusion of Native American national sovereignty
2. Outlet or safety valve for excess and displaced colonial labor and capital accumulation
3. Served as spaces where European powers could wage proxy wars against each other..wars in which Europeans typically encouraged or manipulated Native Americans tribal differences.
29. The turner Thesis -our first Stock Story
a. Historian Frederick J. turner -developed in 1893 included such notions as democratic governance, rugged individualism, innovative thinking and egalitarian viewpoints as the central features of the American frontier experience.
b. Thus the American frontier provided encouragement and the space to unleash the progressive freedom envisioned by various European revolutionary systems (particularly French and English revolutions)
c. This became the dominant story for over 70 years that described our taming of the frontier. The counter-narrative is one where the Native Americans were already civilized, that their lands were seized by barbarous, brutes from Europe.
30. Consider the story of Daniel Boone, Davy Crocket and James Bowie..
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