HIST 2055 : Test 1 Notes
HIST 2055 – Prof. Frost
Test 1 Notes
Friday, January 17, 2013
“The Indigenous People of America”
Who are the first indigenous people born to America?
• There was a myth that they sprung up from the ground of Attica (Means that you’re
indigenous)
• Native Americans – they didn’t come from the ground – they came from the Bering Land
bridge (How they got here) – They came from Siberia (Russia)
• The original inhabitants of the Americas were from Siberia – East Central Asia
• Ancient Siberians some 12,000 to 15,000 years ago journeyed 600 miles across the
Bering Straight near the Arctic Circle – Called Paleo-Indians (old Indians)
• This united the N. American continent with Eurasia
• When the earth warmed up, the Bering land bridge was cut off, they couldn’t travel back
and forth anymore
• They followed the animals
• Evidence for that: Anthropological sites found 9,000 year old arrow head points that
were identical to Siberian arrow heads
o Linguistics also point to Native Americans being from Siberia
o Genetic study of Native Americans said that 95% of all of them are related to one
another and another 90% of those people are related to Siberians
o 95% of Native American peoples are descendant of no more than 4 families, they
began to populate and spread out
o 12,000 years ago the Americas had lots of people – How many?
• How many people in 1492? Highly debated
o Some say 100 million, but since the 1950s that number has reduced
o 1980 said 40 million people combined
o We have no idea how many people were in the Americas in the late 15th century
o Historians split the difference – 25 million sounds good (not scientific)
o Fair to say millions of people in the Americas
• Once in the Americas, they spread out
• Americas below the Rio Grande were far more populated – the most people lived in the
south
o Inca and Peru and Aztecs in Central America for instance, #ed in the millions,
urban societies (could support large cities, large populations)
• These people were nomadic and they developed differently as time went on
• Native Americans make up from 1 - 1½% of the population
o Half of those live on reservations
o Tribes have various requirements which require you to be Native Americans –
some 50% blood, some as low as 1/8th Native American – Federal government
agrees
• Translates to little purchasing power, and very little political or economic power in the
US.
• What do we call these people? Indian, then Amorindian (American Indian) to distinguish
them from Indians - moving into the 1970s-1980s, they wanted to be called Native
Americans (first people in the Americans)
• In Canada they are called First Peoples, First Nations, Aborigines
• 1970s – Pressure to change mascots – Stanford used to be the Stanford Indians – today,
they are the cardinals (the color) to avoid offending anyone
o This started a trend – in the 1990s colleges started changing their names left and
right to be more PC, high schools and junior highs also followed suit
• Exceptions, The Florida Seminoles (they don’t mind them using it) – there may be a
financial reason behind this – Florida has a great relationship with Indians
• Redskins term – goes back to the 17th century to the French in Canada – they referred to
the people they came into contact with as “lezon rouge” (red men) – point being, the
term did not start out as a pejorative term – second half of the 19th century the term
became more offensive
• The Redskins controversy has gotten away because the group of people the pejorative is
offensive to is so small
• Native Americans that concern us for the semester, we will refer to them as Eastern
Woodlands People (people whom lived east of the Mississippi) (Common Culture
o Anthropologists estimate in the 16th century that anywhere b/t 1.5 and 5 million
people lived
▪ Even if it’s 5 million people, that’s basically the population of Louisiana
spread out over 48 states
o Anthropologists group them together but:
▪ They spoke different languages
▪ The origins of those languages were different
▪ Languages:
• Algonquin (language) – N, NE to Virginias and the Carolinas
(mother of all native American languages)
• Hokinsuin
• Iriquoian
▪ Convenient split, Iriquoian speaking people didn’t get along with
Algonquin speaking people
o These people tended to live in similar ways, it’s why they are grouped together
o There are exceptions – for example most of these tribes held lands in common –
no one owned the land
▪ Exception, the Pamonkie (they did have land ownership
o Most tribes didn’t have a powerful chief or king
▪ Exceptions, the Pamonkie
• Emperor like Montazuma, nothing like that found in N. America
EASTERN WOODLANDS PEOPLE:
• Live by agriculture
o They knew how to farm (pumpkins, squash, beans)
o They primarily farmed corn (maze) – key staple of their diet
o Important that they had a certain amount of land to sustain their villages – E.W.
Person could be fed for a year on one acre
▪ A Village of 200 people (average size) needed at least 200 acres of
farmland to support that population for a year
▪ Population of 500 is a large village, some top out at 1,000 people
o People lived in agricultural villages, when you expand the connections you get
tribes
o In addition to farming (done primarily by women, with the exception of clearing
the land), they had virtually no processed metals
o In the North, some Native Americans produced copper, it is very soft metal,
couldn’t be used to cut down trees, but was great for jewelry
o So, clearing the land was done by:
▪ FIRE – burn bark around and at base of tree, slow burning fire killed trees
▪ STONE KNIVES – used to take bark off of tree, killed tree
o After field was cleared, the women poked sticks into ground (no plows used),
they made fields of shit this way
o Women also harvested these crops
o The men went out hunting and fishing while all of this happened – all tribes
depended upon hunting to supplement their diets
o Also, constructing shelters was primarily the women’s job
▪ Typical E.W. house was oval or rectangular and held one family, women
were in charge of building and maintenance – not constructed to be
permanent
o E.W. people engaged in a form of field rotation, they cultivated one area of land
(400 acres, corn, beans, squash, whatever), the fertility of the soil began to die,
then they moved all of their shit and cultivated a new area for as long as they
could (until the fertility diminished)
o This process required a large amount of land; and they didn’t have draft animals
(ex. Oxen, horse) (plowing allows for agricultural surplus), Native Americans
weren’t big on surpluses, they needed a large territory to support a relatively
small population
o They knew where their territory began and ended, it could be trees on the edges
of the territory, NOT maps, crossing into others territory could lead to conflict
▪ Most famous Indian boundary in the country in baton rouge, a tall red
pole that marked a boundary, red because of animal blood from bear
heads and what not being placed on top
• Cold weather led them to seek land elsewhere, led to conflict amongst groups
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Recap: Last lecture – First Americans – Siberians – Bering Land Bridge - what to call these
people – 99% certain that these people are from Siberia – Why not Siberian Americans? –
