SC361-6-AU-CO American Society: Ethnic Encounters in the Making of the USA Module Outline 2025-26

SC361: American Society: Ethnic Encounters in the Making of the United  States

Margaret Bourke-White, ‘World’s Highest Standard of Living’ 1937.

Introduction  

In this module, we will examine the social, political and economic encounters  between European settlers, Native Americans, and African-Americans that  have shaped the social and political development of the United States. The first  term will primarily deal with social and political relations between the United  States government and Native Americans. We begin with the early English  colonisation of North America, proceeding with Westward expansion, and  federal policies including moving Native Americans to reservations and  removing children from their parents. We finish the term by looking at  contemporary issues such as the industrialization of Native American  landscapes, ill health and alcohol abuse on reservations, and the new and  exciting social movements associated with Native American cultural  revitalization.

AUTUMN TERM: EUROPEANS, COLONISATION AND NATIVE AMERICANS

Week  Subject

2) Introduction: What is the Place of Native Americans in American Society?
3) Colonial New England: English Puritans and American
4) Westward Expansion 1 – The Frontier and Indian Removals
5) Westward Expansion 2 – The Clearing of the Great Plains
6) Westward Expansion 3 - An American Genocide in California
7) ‘Kill The Indian to Save the Man’: Assimilation Policies of the 19th Century
8) The Suppression of Native American Culture and Religion
9) Native Americans And Environmental Racism: Resource Extraction on Native American
10) Native American Health and Alcoholism
11) Native American Cultural Revitalization: Activism, Bison, Salmon and Seeds

WEEK 2: INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS THE PLACE OF NATIVE  AMERICANS IN AMERICAN SOCIETY?

We will start with an overview of the issues to be discussed and analysed over  the term beginning with the establishment of the US as a colonial enterprise  by English, French and Spanish invaders, but to do this we must consider  what Native American societies were like before these invasions. I will also  provide an interpretation of how European colonisation has both altered  Native American life and shaped a distinct new society. The overview will also  give students an overview of contemporary Native American circumstances  and the place of American Indians within a global indigenous world. 

Required Readings and Viewings:  

James Wilson, (1998), ‘This is how it was: Two Views of History,’ in The Earth  Shall Weep: A History of Native America, London: Picador, 3-15,  Taiaiake Alfred and Jeff Corntassel, ‘Being Indigenous: Resurgences against  Contemporary Colonialism’, http://www.corntassel.net/being_indigenous.pdf Colin Samson and Carlos Gigoux, (2016), ‘Colonization’ in Indigenous  Peoples and Colonialism: Global Perspectives, Cambridge: Polity, 38-74.

WEEK 3: COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND - ENGLISH PURITANS AND  AMERICAN INDIANS

The culture of the United States has been marked profoundly by early English  colonization. It is important to know what happened in the 17th century to be  able to put subsequent US history into perspective. In this session we will  concentrate on the encounter that established the tone of ethnic relations for  centuries in the United States.

Here we will consider the attitudes towards  Indians held by the English Puritans, groups of religious zealots who left  England to create the ‘New Jerusalem’ in North America, and their reactions  to those native peoples whose lands they encamped upon. We will cover the  constant displacement of Indians by the spread of English agricultural  settlements, and the extremely bloody King Philip’s War that this precipitated. 

WEEK 4 WESTWARD EXPANSION 1: INDIAN REMOVALS and  WEEK 5: WESTWARD EXPANSION 2: THE CLEARING OF THE GREAT  PLAINS

Territorial expansion has been perhaps the most powerful driving force in US  history. Accelerating with the famous Lewis and Clark expedition into the  Louisiana territory in the early 19th century, white Americans encountered  American Indians on a vast scale as they pushed westward. In this session,  we will explore some of the classic episodes in Euro-American expansion and  examine them as they impacted upon Native Americans. One session will  focus on Indian Removals, including the ‘Trail of Tears’ in the 1830s and the  Navajo ‘Long Walk’ in 1864, and the second will look at the ‘Indian wars on  the Great plains and slaughter of the bison. We will also try to understand how  some explained the carnage that settlers left in their wake by appealing to  ‘manifest destiny’.