How did native North American peoples shape the early Atlantic world? what impact did they have on European colonization

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PROMPT: How did native North American peoples shape the early Atlantic world? what impact did they have on European colonization

THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND

  1. Take notes + write down quotes with page numbers "like (Richter, p. 123)"

  2. Have a clear thesis for the paper that directly addresses the prompt

  3. Use an example in each paragraph

  4. “Every sentence counts.” Be Specific! No overly general, vague, or repetitive statements.

  5. Avoid Passive voice. "Andriy helped Teri", not "Teri was helped by Andriy"

  6. Agroecological – i.e. Agroecology is sustainable farming that works with nature

  7. How did natives help inform farming techniques
      

STEP 1: West’s Contested Plains

  1. Key Themes and Concepts

  2. What is his thesis?

    1.  His thesis of this chapter seems to be around people and the innate fight for survival. At this primitive time, humans were still navigating a constantly changing terrain and followed food sources until climate became more predictable and then were able to make more stable communities with predictable sources and trade networks. 

  3. What are key characteristics of prehistoric North American cultures?

    1. Clovis people – hunters a lived in small traveling camps. Climate warmed and extinction of large prey turned to bison hunter and seasonal camps. Nomads – agroecological moving with nature. Drought + plants + smaller prey for energy. Discovery of “front range” elevation, rivers, woods, plains it got it all and began cycle rotation – possible influence on crop rotation? p.24. Horticulture and expansion west of “woodland people” p.25. As people begin to settle so begins trade which was overseen by chiefs and priests p. 26. “Plain mounds marked an economic boundary between the populous centers to the east and the nomadic hunters and traders living on the high plains and in the mountains” (West, p. 27). Nature brings in wet period and civilizations rise up next to streams, grow instead of travel. Labor begins to be divided by sex, women farmed and men set out to hunt. These plain farmers lasted twice as long as the history of the american republic. Drought again and people moved east. “White pioneers who moved onto the plains east to west believed they were leaving the old country for the new. They had it exactly backwards.” (West, p. 31). “Their only point in common was not any particular way of living but their approach to finding one” (West, p. 31)

STEP 2: Richter’s Facing East From Indian County

  1. Ritcher’s thesis: “while american indians might make ‘contributions’ to the dominant culture – corn, moccasins, snowshoes, or eve, some wishfully tell us, constitutional democracy – Native people remain bit players in the great drama of a nation’s being born and spreading, for better or worse, westward across the continent.” 8. Or “yet if we shift our perspective to try to view the past in a way that faces east from Indian country, history takes on a very different appearance. Native Americans appear in the foreground, and Europeans enter from distant shores.” 8

  2. P. 14 “the world was a morally neutral universe of potentially hostile or potentially friendly spiritual forces” “human persons needed to band together in families. Clans, and villages; they relied on animals and plants” GIFT GIVING FOR PEACE

  3. De sotos travels in search forv treasure. And then in 1542 cartier in canada

“Enough information is available to reveal how each [native american] confronted the forces of material change and tried to incorporate Europeans into an Indian world on indigenous terms” (Ritcher, p. 69). Warming of the earth improved squash and maize and beans, no more hunting and gathering (5). Trade at distances spices / gold / shells / beads/ minerals ; between neighbors corn / meat / more exotic finds like stone tools or weapons. 6.

  • 1610 – war with natives mainly over colonists increased food demand as well as claim to land p. 72.

  • 1621 – betrayal “‘ our first work is expulsion of the savages to gain the free range of the country for increase of cattle, swine, etc.,”’ (Ritcher, p. 75). This is probably something to conclude with. Influence of natives was lost after settlers essentially got what they needed; once they learned from the natives how to navigate the new world they no longer had any use to the europeans. The reason why is not what this paper is about. “Whites and Indians had to learn to hate each other” (Ritcher, p. 2).

STEP 3: Foner’s Give Me Liberty!

  • “You can write an A paper without referencing any of Foner” – Professor

  • Chapter summaries here at this link

  • potentially relevant paragraph drafted based on Foner Chapter 1 – maybe an example of overlap? Find a quote in section about Land and Property if you wanna use this

    • “Europeans were able to get property for free in great locations due to their different understanding of property rights. This helped support fledgling economies as much of the acquired land was rich in natural resources. Although the concept of property ownership seemed strange to the highly magnanimous native people of North America at first, these early gifts laid the foundation for much of the disparity that was to come.”

STEP 4: Write a thesis

  1. Use what you learned to make some kind of interesting point

  2. Try rephrasing the prompt

  3. I was always taught that making a slightly controversial/surprising statement is best because you can spend the rest of the essay explaining it.

  4. Native North American people helped shape the early Atlantic world by teaching the european colonies their agro ecological model 1) improving efficiency in the use of resources; 2) conserving, protecting and enhancing natural ecosystems; 3) protecting and improving rural livelihoods, equity and social well-being;

    1. Improving efficiency in the use of resources

      1. “Surrounding networks of agricultural hamlets provided food to support the urban centers,” (richter, p 3)

      2. Colonists would not survive w/o native

    2. Conserving, protecting and enhancing natural ecosystems

    3. Protecting and improving rural livelihoods, equity and social well-being

      1. The Natives were big into gift giving whether to others or to the spirits. Offering gift were for peace and may have influenced settlers and Americans today. This is mentions in the beginning of Ritcher pages 14-15 may have some good quotes if needed. Alao the idea of how gifts defines the gifters. 

→ american identity outside the conquest 

Back and forth of cooperation and conflict between the natives and the settlers – trying to find examples of cooperation aspect (against the narrative of conflict) 

  • Main point is that the settlers would not have survived had the natives not helped them

  • Theme is survival 

  • Natibe americans saw the helping as creating a bigger community (written somewhere in a quote, they didn’t have the same conflict / control issues “world was morally nuetral” 

  • Tactics were like assimilating, they would bring in stranded colonists and bring them into their cultures 

    • Turning point is 1621 – and it’s on the colonists’ end, since the

  1. HOW they impacted atlantic world: helped them survive (there would BE no atlantic world without their influence – talk about how the colonists would not have survived if they hadn’t gotten with the agriculture 

    1. The actual mechanisms of helping them out were the ecological practices, and the agriculture

    2. The underpinnings of THIS practice of helping them was the natives’ moral culture, they were willing to change and integrate and make them a big community – the moral culture is why they helped 

  2. You’re saying that the colonists really only received ag help (the impact wasn’t cultural, it was practices) → only agricultural because the colonists weren’t willing to accept any cultural exchange 

The analysis is about why the impact is AG and not CULTURAL (you could say that this was the impact because it was the only impact the colonist would allow) 

STEP 5: Put it all together

  1. Make an outline

Introductory paragraph

Brief summaries of each of the writings and present thesis

Paragraph 1 remain in chronological order

Explain reason 1 likely from west prehistoric

How colonists survived based on natives’ teaching.

  • Agricultural  practices first

Paragraph 2

  • terrain

Paragraph 3

Emphasize meaning and tie together

Adapting to environment, hunting, horticulture.

Attempt to assimilate 

Conclusion