EMR 158: Land, Labor, Legacies: New Perspectives on Black and Indigenous Histories
Semester: Fall
Offered: 2024
Professor: Mandy Izadi
M - 12:45pm to 3:00pm
The study of North America, at its root, is the study of Native America and African America. Typically, scholarship on the first Americans—and Africans and their descendants—are studied in isolation. Dominant trends in scholarship, journals, academic disciplines, and university departments tend to reinforce these boundaries. And yet, from the dawn of European colonization to the present day, the worlds of Black and Indigenous peoples have collided in ways that have shaped not only the history of each group, but also, European empires, the United States, and the Atlantic World. The legacy of this past is one that lingers. In this seminar we will study the distinct and shared experiences of people of Indigenous and African descent. Within the broader context of Euro-American expansion, war, colonialism, and global capitalism, we will investigate:The historical relationship of Native peoples to land—and African-descended peoples to labor. We will then develop a broader perspective on dispossession and slavery by examining the shared experiences of Black and Native peoples. On the one hand, we will study slavery as an institution that included Indigenous Americans, predominantly as slaves, but also, as enslavers. We will also examine land loss as a historical phenomena that impacted Black Indians and Black Americans.The history of alliance and antagonism between Indigenous Americans and African Americans will provide another layer of analysis. It forms yet another dimension of the intersecting and shared experiences of both groups. Sometimes, Black and Indigenous peoples were allies in war and resistance, more generally; in other instances, they were antagonists. For decades, Indigenous Southerners enslaved people of African descent. While studying these contradictory relationships, we will also study the formation of mixed racial categories and identities. In this section of class we will focus on the lives and experiences of Black Indians. Key subjects and themes include: Euro-American imperialism; settler colonialism; dispossession; chattel slavery; (racial) capitalism; the Atlantic World; Indian enslavement and Indian enslavers; race, racism, and the formation of racial categories; the contradictory nature of Black-Indian relationships; Black-Indians and mixed-race identities; American state formation and contemporary state violence; emancipation and sovereignty. Course material will draw from classic and groundbreaking works across several disciplines, including Native American and Indigenous Studies, African American Studies, Black & Native histories; the law. Literature, documentary film, and scholarship on Black-Indian peoples and histories will also afford us new ways of learning the histories and legacies of people of Native and African descent in North America, and occasionally, the wider world.
Link: Course Site
