Full transcript
0:02hi everyone welcome back
0:04so today we're gonna come full circle
0:08we started this course
0:10talking about native americans talking
0:13about
0:14uh than the americas before the arrival
0:17of columbus and
0:19so
0:21we're going to conclude the first port
0:23part of the course today and we're going
0:25to return to native americans
0:28i think
0:29sometimes there's a tendency
0:31when we want to sum up their situation
0:34in the opening of the atlantic world we
0:36say oh they were wiped out by disease
0:39and they lost in battles
0:42uh due to the superior weaponry of the
0:45europeans they had guns and metal swords
0:48and so forth
0:50and that's true
0:51but this also does a disservice to
0:53native americans in that it ignores
0:56their efforts to struggle and make a
0:59world that they could live in
1:01native americans did not disappear
1:05and while their numbers do drop
1:07precipitously many tribes and cultures
1:10survived for a long time after the
1:12arrival of europeans in fact
1:15oftentimes you'll hear native americans
1:17today with the refrain we are still here
1:21meaning that they've come through
1:24genocide disease starvation
1:27and yet they persist and their cultures
1:30persist
1:31and so
1:33certainly what it takes
1:36is
1:37for a culture to survive it's going to
1:39take adaptation and to be sure
1:42some native american groups did this
1:45better than others
1:47and
1:48so that's what i want to focus on here
1:51we've already seen
1:53how people are shaped by their
1:55surroundings
1:57as well as their encounters with others
2:01people that are very different from
2:02themselves
2:04and so the opening of the atlantic world
2:07brings together very disparate
2:10very highly different elements
2:13disparate people
2:16climate environment and it churns out
2:19something new
2:21what happens when we mix europeans with
2:23a new environment well
2:25what you get i guess is americans
2:27ultimately what happens when you mix
2:29native americans with new conditions
2:31because we have to acknowledge their
2:33conditions change quite a bit too coming
2:36in contact with new
2:38animals and new cultures microbes new
2:42economic systems new religions
2:45and these people are transformed as well
2:48and i think it it's maybe fair to say
2:50they are living in a new world too
2:54and so
2:56if we kind of take stock of the native
2:58american experience here we can talk
3:01about
3:02um what their experience was like
3:05generally generally environmental
3:07transformation brought about
3:10by
3:11animals and plants
3:13and microbes that they've never come in
3:16contact with before some of that for the
3:18better right
3:20you know
3:22access to new protein sources like cows
3:25and pigs
3:26horses for transportation
3:29but also
3:30truly
3:32devastating impact with disease and
3:36depopulation a crippling of
3:39native americans throughout the
3:41hemisphere
3:42and of course
3:44on top of that we're dealing with
3:46conflict too everywhere
3:49it seems
3:50europeans are looking to expand or
3:54looking to extract resources
3:57looking to
3:58push native peoples off their land or
4:00even enslave them
4:02so
4:03in in spanish colonies
4:05uh you know working in mines or on
4:07plantations early on
4:10uh working in the encomienda system but
4:14english settlers are much the same
4:16puritans
4:18growing their colonies in say
4:20massachusetts bay and new england
4:22and pushing
4:25native americans off their land in
4:27virginia
4:28demand for tobacco fuels
4:32search for more lands and of course all
4:34of this leads to violence in war and you
4:36see
4:37most of these wars i haven't mentioned
4:40in this class we talked very briefly
4:42about king phillips war
4:44um you know we've talked about bacon's
4:46rebellion
4:48um but just to kind of make you aware of
4:51the names of other wars conflict in the
4:541600s
4:56was pervasive and of course this takes a
4:59toll on native americans too
5:02and so
5:04um
5:05what i want to show you then
5:07is
5:08that if we look at some specific cases
5:12we can see
5:13that native americans not only survived
5:18they actively made choices to adapt to
5:22change their culture to change their way
5:24of life
5:25and in some states cases we can say that
5:28they ultimately had success
5:31in dealing
5:32with europeans and americans and so i'm
5:36gonna present three case studies today
5:39we'll look at the pueblo
5:41in the spanish empire
5:43we'll look at the comanche also kind of
5:46um
5:47in
5:48in the in the west or the southwest
5:52having kind of they have encounters with
5:54both the spanish and the english and the
5:56french um and then finally with the
5:59iroquois in the northeast so i just want
6:02to show you this map first of all to
6:04consider kind of the first well we could
6:07say the first
6:08all all three of them here so we're
6:10going to be focusing on this area right
6:12here when we're talking about the pueblo
6:15right what's today
6:16taos or santa fe new mexico this is the
6:20far end
6:21the remote the most remote part of the
6:24spanish empire
6:26the comanche also sort of in this area
6:29as well but they're known to traverse
6:31the plains throughout the midwest
6:34sometimes to go up as far as canada
6:36they're
6:38an equestrian culture
6:40so they're very mobile to be sure and
6:43then finally uh the iroquois in this
6:46area and what would today be upstate new
6:48york but they are expansionist and we
6:51can say that at some point they're able
6:53to sort of expand northward into the
6:55territory of the euron up here
6:57as well as southward um into what would
7:01today be pennsylvania or even virginia
7:04in some cases so
7:05anyway we're gonna kind of cover the
7:08continent here
7:09so let's talk about the pueblo first of
7:12all and as i said if we look at what
7:15would be today new mexico this is the
7:17colonial outpost the far edge of the
7:21spanish empire it's not really crucial
7:24to their economic or political endeavors
7:26this is not an area
7:29where they're growing sugar or
7:31or
7:32mining silver or gold
7:34uh but the spanish had been successful
7:37early on in persuading some
7:40pueblo indians to accept spanish rule
7:43others though are unwilling to submit
7:46and of course then the spanish turn to
7:48more violent means to subdue them
7:51and so the capital of santa fe
7:54is established in 1610 and just to kind
7:58of put us on the same timeline here if
8:00we think back to the jamestown colony it
8:03was established in 1607
8:06and at this
8:08this capital
8:10we have franciscan missionaries who were
8:13trying to convert indians to catholicism
8:16they claimed at one point that they
8:18converted more than 80 000 native people
8:21um in less than a century's time but we
8:25also have to ask ourselves if you're a
8:27native american
8:28how do you understand this conversion
8:31why do you undertake it in the first
8:33place well it probably gets you benefits
8:37like you
8:38clothing and other necessities food or
8:41shelter
8:42um
8:44and you know you might understand
8:46most native peoples are polytheistic
8:49right they have multiple gods so
8:52the the missionaries the franciscan
8:54missionaries show up asking you to
8:56accept the christian god and you say
8:59okay it's just you might shrug your
9:01shoulders and say it's just adding
9:02another god to the pantheon right it's
9:04not like you're choosing one or the
9:06other exclusively
9:08but a lot of indians resent the priests
9:11efforts to change their life they not
9:14only want to turn them into monotheistic
9:16christians
9:18but they want to change them into
9:20farmers as well and this is a little
9:22problematic because in native cultures
9:25very often
9:27farming is the work of women men are the
9:29ones who go out and hunt
9:32women are the one that may tend small
9:36plots of you know corn or beans
9:39those sorts of things
9:41and so
9:43um
9:44slavery is outlawed technically as we
9:47talked about
9:48before but the encomienda system still
9:51exists right and these indians are
9:53paying tribute to landowners
9:55through their service so essentially
9:57they're working for free
10:00um it's it is kind of just like slavery
10:02they're facing disease and violence and
10:06they're suffering from depopulation as a
10:08result
10:10and so there's a lot of resentment and
10:13we see one leader emerge his name is
10:15pope
10:17and he unites the pueblos and they start
10:20praying to ancient gods and they start
10:24throwing out the spanish and they
10:26believe if they do that food would be
10:28plentiful and so there's a revolt a
10:30pueblo revolt in 1680
10:33the indians sees horses and mules they
10:36block the roads to santa fe to prevent
10:38reinforcements from arriving they
10:41destroy all the spanish settlements they
10:43kill more than 400 spaniards
10:46and they forced the survivors to retreat
10:48all the way back to el paso which would
10:50be in texas
10:52today
10:53and this is a success the spanish are
10:56kept out for 13 years
10:58um
11:00and then after that
11:02they are allowed to return
11:05um
11:07the
11:07the pueblo
11:09let them come back but with a different
11:13set of conditions and some of those
11:16conditions
11:17include
11:18that
11:19the encomienda system
11:22has to be abolished
11:24they also
11:25say that they have to have some degree
11:28of religious freedom yes maybe we'll
11:31worship
11:32um you know your catholic god but at the
11:35same time we're still going to
11:38worship our own gods too
11:42there was
11:43um
11:45you know
11:46this was not necessarily a prosperous
11:48time when the spanish were gone it was
11:51dry there was a period of drought
11:54so it wasn't necessarily a time of
11:56flourishing but at the same time we do
11:59have to acknowledge that
12:01um
12:02pope and the pueblo got what they wanted
12:05they got autonomy they got freedom from
12:07the spanish on the spanish
12:10depending on who you ask were you know
12:13came back but there was a particular set
12:16of conditions that they had to
12:18acknowledge and so to this very day pope
12:21is something of um
12:24you know
12:25a hero
12:27in native american communities in the
12:29southwest you may know that each state
12:32in the united states has uh two cap two
12:35statues in um statuary hall in the u.s
12:38capitol and one of the statues for the
12:41state of new mexico is of pope which you
12:43can see right here but i also want to
12:46show you that this is not ancient
12:48history we may be sort of
12:50remote from that area of the country
12:54but at the same time this is something
12:57that is important that there's still
12:59tensions within this society within you
13:02know the native communities in the
13:04southwest today and i want to show you
13:06the outcome of this here you have a
13:08statue of a guy named don juan de genote
13:12he was
13:14a spanish leader
13:16he was responsible
13:19for
13:20halting a revolt
13:22um in the late 1500s and early 1600s and
13:26he brutally put down
13:28this revolt a different revolt
13:30um and he was known to have cut off the
13:34feet of young men once they were
13:37captured and so here
13:39in new mexico you have this statue of
13:42don juan de onote
13:44and
13:45within you know
13:47the last decade or so
13:50you have this statue and it was
13:52mutilated in this form of sort of poetic
13:54justice
13:56um native activists cut off the foot
13:59of don juan
14:01in the statue i mean this was sending a
14:03message right that this is not somebody
14:06that we look up to this is not somebody
14:08who should be celebrated
14:10and his foot just disappeared i do
14:13believe that later on actually years
14:16later the foot turned up again but this
14:19is just to show you i mean we think of
14:21perhaps
14:22fights over the civil war or we think
14:24about the legacy of george washington or
14:26thomas jefferson and those are things we
14:28certainly talk about in the class as we
14:29move forward
14:31but this is something that
14:34is also
14:35in some ways living history
14:38to a different
14:40region of the country to
14:42different
14:43groups of people
14:45so
14:46we can talk about the comanche now and
14:48one of the things that we can say is
14:50that there's a connection between the
14:52pueblo revolts
14:54and the rise of
14:56the comanche empire
14:59when the spanish were chased out by the
15:02pueblo
15:03they left their horses behind and so
15:06what to do with those horses well the
15:08pueblo trade them to planes indian
15:11tribes like the comanche
15:13and this allows the comanche to become
15:16more effective buffalo hunters it allows
15:19them to be better fed
15:23allows them to clothe themselves better
15:25and house themselves better and it also
15:27gives them an increased sense of freedom
15:30and this is basically a group of people
15:33that have reinvented themselves
15:36as mounted bison hunters
15:39they um dramatically i mean this is sort
15:43of backwards in some ways they simplify
15:45their life
15:46uh by focusing on
15:49one source of protein by focusing their
15:52hunt on one animal and that is the bison
15:56rarely in history can you point to this
15:58is a successful strategy
16:00relying on a single force of a single
16:03source of food and that's what's
16:05happening here and yet they are able to
16:08increase their caloric intake at the
16:10same time
16:12horses revolutionize bison hunting
16:15and so this becomes
16:18um
16:19something of an empire right we could
16:22debate what it means to actually be
16:25an empire
16:27whether
16:28you have to have particular seats of
16:30government
16:32this being a society that's more mobile
16:35may not have sort of the stationary
16:37capital but some historians refer to
16:40the region in which
16:42the comanche dominated is comancheria
16:45they control a lot of
16:48texas
16:49even northern mexico this is ostensibly
16:52spanish territory
16:54but seldom did the spanish meet
16:57the comanche on equal terms there um
17:00in fact comanche the word comanche is
17:05um a derivative of something that their
17:08enemies called them the ute indians
17:12um
17:13called them the comanche and i guess
17:15what this translates to literally the
17:17word comanche is something like people
17:19who want to fight me all the time
17:22and so this gives you a sense of how
17:24aggressive they were they fought their
17:26battles on horseback
17:28and
17:30um
17:31you know again they had unparalleled
17:33equestrian skills
17:35and they were well on their way to
17:37becoming the dominant indian nation
17:40in the american west and so
17:43we don't know of their their total
17:46population it wouldn't have been massive
17:48by any means
17:50maybe upwards of
17:5230 000 individuals but again they do
17:55command a lot of respect
17:58um they trade horses with the english
18:02and the french and what do they receive
18:04in exchange well they get weapons and
18:06this of course alarms the spanish even
18:09more
18:10um and so
18:13this is a society that truly
18:17has sort of the run of the middle part
18:19of the north american continent like i
18:22said their homeland would be what's
18:24today texas and northern mexico but they
18:27were known to venture all the way up to
18:30what would eventually be the canadian
18:32border
18:33and everybody whether it be other native
18:36peoples or the spanish
18:38had to see the comanche as diplomatic
18:42equals this was not somebody
18:45that you marched up to and tried to
18:47dictate the terms of trade instead
18:50you had to deal with them as equals
18:54however there's just an image of um you
18:57know kind of their home range and their
19:00their rating zone into the south in
19:02mexico
19:04their end came pretty quick though um
19:07and that is
19:08because again they're a scattered tribe
19:11they're a
19:12tribe that's not sedentary
19:15they're less susceptible to
19:17these epidemic diseases at least early
19:20on the diseases are slow to come to them
19:22but by the late 1700s
19:25they are showing up and smallpox at
19:27smallpox epidemics are wiping out
19:30thousands of tribal members
19:32and then after the civil war
19:34we see
19:36um the united states turn its attention
19:38to native peoples in the west finally
19:41the idea we're done fighting each other
19:43with the civil war we're going to turn
19:45our attention um to clearing native
19:47americans so
19:49clearing native americans out of the
19:51west so
19:52settlers can move westward in peace so
19:56to speak
19:57um so
19:58part and parcel to this
20:00is the destruction of the bison
20:03there was not
20:05a systematic effort to wipe out the
20:07bison because the comanche and other
20:10tribes relied on it so much but this was
20:13something that was not lost on the
20:15united states government they say hey
20:17you know what
20:18bison are in demand right now
20:20part in part because of their leather um
20:22it was used for machinery
20:25to make really strong belts their hides
20:27were used to make these belts to power
20:30machines in the industrial age and so
20:33they were often killed in great numbers
20:35because they were not really afraid of
20:38people they represent a big target and
20:40so forth and so a byproduct of this
20:44from the point of view of the american
20:46government was and you see it right here
20:49in the words of general philip sheridan
20:51if you kill the buffalo you destroy
20:53the indians commissary basically you
20:55destroy their cupboard you destroy their
20:59food supply
21:00and what you're looking here at here is
21:05a
21:05an enormous uh stack of bison bones um
21:10you know this gives you a sense there
21:12might have been
21:1330 or 40 million bison on the planes but
21:16by the time we reach the 1880s there is
21:21maybe a handful maybe a couple dozen or
21:24a hundred
21:25of course that's a story for
21:27the second part of this course but you
21:30get a sense of just
21:32how thorough the extermination of bison
21:35were and the you can imagine the effect
21:38that this has had on
21:40native american peoples like the
21:42comanche but again for a time they were
21:45feared they were respected
21:48they controlled their territory um and
21:51you know this would have been for the
21:53better part of a century and a half
21:56perhaps
21:57and so we can't just sort of ignore um
22:00this period of prosperity that they
22:02experience so one last example then and
22:05that is
22:06the early american fur trade this is
22:10you know part of the colombian exchange
22:12too it's part of the atlantic trade this
22:15exchange is a little more deliberate
22:17right it's like we'll trade you
22:19furs for dollars or uh manufactured
22:22goods um but this is also something that
22:26changes the lives of native americans
22:28and so we'll focus on
22:30the northeast here um
22:34the area that would today be
22:36upstate new york
22:38that would be around the great lakes
22:40that would be lower canada
22:42french canada
22:44the cities of montreal
22:47um
22:49and uh quebec along the st lawrence
22:52seaway
22:53and
22:55what
22:56people discovered was
22:59that beaver pelts had real value in this
23:03society um the fur trade
23:06started way back in the 16th century in
23:10the 1500s before
23:12europeans had much of a presence in the
23:15americas
23:16um the french they realized pretty early
23:19on oh we can get really rich in trading
23:22for furs and so the french
23:24put an outpost
23:26on the saint lawrence lit river
23:28and they forge alliances and business
23:31relationships with a handful of tribes
23:34like the huron and like the iroquois
23:39um
23:40they also bring missionaries as well
23:44and so
23:45the french are more interested in
23:48extracting resources than colonizing
23:50they don't have the numbers like say in
23:52the spanish empire right there's not
23:54enough people to conquer
23:57uh native peoples in the area and so
23:59they see them instead as more of a
24:01business partner
24:03um
24:04and so
24:06they aren't putting the same type of
24:08pressure on native americans that the
24:11english and spanish are
24:13and they know that if we want these furs
24:15well probably the best way to get them
24:18is to trade and the dutch in new
24:20netherland are also trading to some
24:23extent the puritans also a little bit as
24:26well
24:27um but the dutch also as we know had a
24:31pretty small population and what this
24:35leads to
24:37is mutual dependency the idea of mutual
24:41dependency
24:42so if we ask the question who has the
24:45upper hand well
24:46neither side so often when we want to
24:49think about
24:50native and european relations we think
24:52well europeans
24:54dictated the terms
24:56the indians
24:59never got a good deal or a good bargain
25:02and
25:02that's not the case here um traders
25:06could not afford to make enemies of say
25:10the the euron people they were their
25:12workers right they're the ones who are
25:13going out and trapping beavers and so
25:15this means
25:17indians have a particular protocol that
25:20they uh work by
25:22um
25:23okay we'll accept that protocol
25:26um for their part native americans
25:28thought they were getting the better
25:30part of the deal
25:31beaver seemed immensely plentiful and
25:34what were they getting in exchange
25:37well lots of stuff as one native
25:39american said at the time the beavers
25:42does everything perfectly well it makes
25:45kettles hatchets swords knives bread and
25:48in short it makes everything
25:50another one said the english have no
25:52sense they give us 20 knives like this
25:55one like this for one beaver skin
25:58and so europeans
26:00are paying a
26:02if not a high price at least a
26:04reasonable price for these beaver skins
26:07and in fact
26:08sometimes they feel the need to actually
26:11go to war
26:12to assist native peoples to stay on
26:15their good side so france in particular
26:19um steps into the war between the huron
26:22and the iroquois and they fight on their
26:25behalf against the iroquois
26:27this is good in the short term um but
26:30the iroquois
26:33eventually defeat the euron and they
26:35become the primary power in the region
26:40the iroquois
26:41gained control of hunting grounds as far
26:44west as the ohio river valley
26:48and they dominate a pretty big area as
26:51you can see on the map here
26:54and so as a result
26:56everybody has to deal
26:59with the iroquois
27:00and
27:01um
27:03the iroquois can to some extent set
27:06their terms so
27:07why are beaver pelts so important well
27:11they become quite the fashion in europe
27:14as you can see all of these different
27:16hacks here on the screen
27:18are
27:19examples of the kinds of hats that would
27:21be made out of um
27:24beaver wool and so beavers are known for
27:27having a dense fur
27:30undercoat
27:31um they make a very luxurious
27:34hat
27:35and
27:36um
27:37it's a very expensive hat too if you
27:40were to look at
27:42the wills of uh you know estates or you
27:45know kind of the inventory of estates
27:48you would find often
27:50that
27:51beaver hats were so valued so expensive
27:53that a man might leave one in his will
27:56to his son
27:58um their beaver hats were also water
28:01repellent too
28:03and this fact coupled with with the fact
28:06that they had wide brims a lot of the
28:08time
28:09explain like why in a place like england
28:12they would be really popular england's
28:15pretty rainy climate and this is prior
28:17to the invention of the umbrella so this
28:19is
28:20uh you know kind of protection against
28:22the weather and then on top of
28:24everything else there were also legends
28:26around at the time that said that if you
28:27wore a beaver hat it actually made you
28:29smarter too
28:30so i can't vouch for that one
28:33but i'm sure some people believed it and
28:35so
28:37beaver hats are becoming so popular
28:40they're dominating the market
28:42but the problem is
28:44that the beaver population is very slow
28:48to grow um they're
28:50at i mean at first there's maybe
28:54who knows how many beavers 60 million
28:56200 million in north america but they
28:58reproduce very slowly
29:01they don't venture very far either they
29:03don't have a big range so if you find
29:06um
29:08beaver you can probably pretty much
29:10count on them being in that same spot
29:12most of the time
29:14and so
29:16if we want to consider
29:20how
29:21you know the arrival of europeans
29:23changes native americans here right so
29:27in the past
29:28um indians didn't have any reason to
29:31over hunt right they would
29:34um take just what they needed
29:37um
29:38they believed in lots of gift giving
29:40right there was no haggling over prices
29:43in native society you would bestow
29:45somebody with a gift they would accept
29:47it
29:49that same person would bestow you with a
29:51gift too
29:52this is what's known as
29:54reciprocity right you know kind of this
29:57reciprocal giving
30:00uh to each other and
30:02this
30:03um you know was kind of
30:06this is what the way that native
30:08americans dealt with one another and so
30:11when europeans arrive and they seem to
30:14want more they continue to offer more
30:17for more and more
30:18uh beaver pelts well you know they are
30:22doing this because the market
30:25demands them the market is offering ever
30:28higher prices
30:29and so
30:31capitalism in a sense
30:33drives
30:35or accelerates the eradication of beaver
30:38this guy here who's surrendering says i
30:40give up
30:42um so
30:44if we want to sort of think about what
30:46native americans
30:47traded for right here's the inventory of
30:50one particular
30:52what they call factory or trading posts
30:54and you can see lots of different items
30:56that were in the inventory
30:59and you can see
31:01if you look at the right hand columns
31:04basically
31:05the number of these products that they
31:07had
31:08in their possession so what's popular if
31:11we looked at this together i would ask
31:12you
31:13but since we're looking at this
31:16virtually i mean we can see that guns
31:18and powder this would have been popular
31:21amongst native americans shot as well
31:25but other stuff household goods look at
31:28blankets and kettles
31:30um you know
31:32blankets that were
31:34made in a factory
31:36keeping people warm iron kettles this
31:38would be something that native peoples
31:40would not have the ability to to make on
31:43their own
31:44um
31:47uh we can also see tobacco and brandy of
31:50course
31:51um we we are familiar with the fact that
31:55many native peoples drank to excess when
31:58they were urged on by colonists in part
32:01to make deals and stuff but
32:04um what i would ask you to consider here
32:07is you know what's this tell us about
32:09what native americans wanted well
32:12they wanted
32:15things of convenience just like the rest
32:17of us did yes uh a gun and powder
32:21and uh you know lead would have been
32:23good for self-defense and and
32:25that sort of thing but it also made
32:27hunting easier it was probably easier to
32:30kill a deer
32:31from a great distance
32:33with uh you know a musket than it was
32:37to
32:38shoot them with a bow and arrow or
32:40something like that kettles again these
32:43things are made of metal they conduct
32:46heat better this would have been far
32:47better than some sort of earthen pottery
32:50that native americans would have
32:53used
32:55in terms to to boil water and so
32:58they were interested in a wide range of
33:00products
33:01and
33:02these products
33:04help them to raise their living
33:06standards and i think you know that's
33:08something we can't ignore do we want to
33:09blame native americans
33:12for
33:13changing
33:14their
33:15belief system when it comes to
33:19animals for suddenly taking more animals
33:22than they would have in the past well
33:24think about the things that our own
33:26society um
33:28our contemporary world has done in the
33:30name of convenience or raising living
33:33standards it may not be good for a
33:35planet or an ecosystem
33:37but it makes our lives more comfortable
33:39and so we're willing to at least
33:41consider
33:42that and so
33:44native americans um they move from a
33:47system where they're working on this
33:49idea of reciprocity you know giving to
33:51one another to being motivated by profit
33:54in the past they wouldn't even haggle
33:56over prices
33:57but eventually this does change right
34:01they learn from
34:03traders that if you drive a hard bargain
34:07um you can get more so they're entering
34:10into this market economy
34:12as a way
34:14to improve their living standards and
34:16maybe they adopt the same tactics as
34:20other businessmen or women who appear to
34:22be
34:23relatively ruthless
34:25or drive a hard bargain
34:28so
34:29what does this do to native societies
34:31well
34:32it changes their life rhythms right um
34:35instead of you know harvesting beaver
34:38at only one time of a year um you know
34:41maybe when their fur would have been
34:43particularly useful when it got colder
34:45out
34:46now it becomes a year-round activity
34:49this becomes the center of their life so
34:51instead of hunting
34:53for a while and you know
34:55searching for roots or berries attending
34:58a plot some sort of garden fishing
35:03now everything is oriented around the
35:06fur trade
35:07women instead of tending gardens or
35:11you know taking care of
35:14other matters now they're drawn into the
35:16trade too they're the people that kind
35:18of dress the skin they scrape it they
35:21trim it they become laborers
35:23in this operation they're no longer
35:26hunting for
35:28for subsistence now right and not enough
35:30to just get by but now commercialism the
35:33beaver is going to supply everything
35:35else they need and so they're of course
35:37willing to kill more and they're willing
35:39to kill to take beaver not just the
35:42larger males but males and females and
35:45maybe you know smaller
35:48members of the species too that aren't
35:50full grown
35:51yet
35:52and so
35:53we see their numbers declining
35:57and we see
35:58the trading becoming shrewder
36:02and so forth and so
36:04the beaver pelt has a price tag we see
36:07it commodified and this is what global
36:10capitalism does i'm not saying this
36:13um
36:14in a way to sort of
36:16make the narrative seem um like it's a
36:19narrative of decline or anything there's
36:21certainly good and bad that we can
36:23stress here but what capitalism does
36:26when it steps in
36:27as we see in this instance is it totally
36:31reorganizes
36:32the life of people
36:34who are touched by it and so
36:38of course lots of warfare
36:40breaking out um between native peoples
36:42and europeans later but also between
36:44native peoples who were um you know
36:47fighting over hunting grounds for an
36:49increasingly scarce
36:52um
36:52creature um
36:54and again
36:56should we
36:59be critical of native americans for
37:01going down this road in the first place
37:03is it anything different than we do
37:06today
37:07um did they actually have the ability to
37:09reject the fur trade uh i mean it's the
37:12same thing of asking of ourselves do we
37:14have the ability to reject many of the
37:17material comforts
37:19uh that a life um out there in the real
37:23world today would give us or um you know
37:26do we withdraw from that so it's a tough
37:28question just because many of us
37:31um opt into it does not mean that
37:35uh
37:36we should think
37:38uh poorly of native americans when they
37:41do the same thing right their people too
37:43their needs historically are the same
37:46needs as ours um even in this particular
37:49moment
37:50so there's our friendly pesky beaver
37:53again
37:54and then so finally what lessons can we
37:57draw
37:58from
38:01these three case studies the pueblo the
38:04comanche and the iroquois
38:07um
38:09well
38:11i think you know we can say that each of
38:13these groups experienced prosperity for
38:15a time different kinds of prosperity
38:18maybe more material prosperity in the
38:20case of the iroquois for instance that
38:22we just talked about
38:24but others maybe experienced
38:27uh
38:29you know kind of political autonomy
38:32which may have been in some cases even
38:34more valuable than material prosperity
38:37and it also meant that indians were not
38:41on the losing end here that europeans
38:45had to see them as equal when it came to
38:48their dealings with native americans
38:51they're sure they may still look down on
38:53them in some cases but when it came time
38:57to exchange goods or work out uh you
39:01know political alliances or agreements
39:04they had to deal with them fairly
39:07um or suffer the consequences
39:10um and then the other thing that we can
39:12mention that you know we could have
39:15mentioned a long time ago when we were
39:17talking about native americans
39:19towards the beginning of this section of
39:21the course
39:22but something else
39:24that is
39:26key to survival for a lot of native
39:28americans is that they develop something
39:31of a hybrid
39:32culture in some ways they selectively
39:36pick what they want to incorporate from
39:39european culture religion and so forth
39:43and they put the incorporate the new
39:47within um some sort of traditional
39:49framework we see this um in religion um
39:53with sort of you know the version of say
39:56mexican catholicism that emerges
39:59in uh in the spanish empire
40:03um and so
40:04this is an act of choice that people are
40:06making they're making these choices
40:09for a better standard of living they're
40:11making these choices um to survive
40:14ultimately right so if they change their
40:17relationship with their environment to
40:21hunt more beaver so they can acquire
40:23muskets and kettles and tobacco
40:27um they're making this choice
40:29um rationally right it's a choice that's
40:32made out of making survival easier for
40:35them raising their standard of living
40:37and so
40:38yeah if we take the big really far away
40:42scope the big picture here
40:44yes europeans do come to dominate the
40:48continent but if we move in closer if we
40:51zero in on these three areas
40:53as well as
40:54perhaps dozens of others we can see that
40:57native americans were
41:00successful
41:01in
41:02adapting in making their lives better
41:06in surviving and that's something that
41:09you know we should not overlook
41:11um so
41:13sometimes this may last a century or two
41:17centuries right or half a century well
41:2050 years is a long time that's the
41:22better part of a person's life right 100
41:25years fully encompasses a person's life
41:28so to live in peace and relative
41:30prosperity
41:32um
41:33for one or more generations that still
41:36counts as a lot too
41:39all right so
41:40that is pretty much everything i'm going
41:42to say then um about native americans
41:45about
41:46this part of the course with the opening
41:48of the atlantic world
41:51we will move on next to start to
41:53consider the build-up to the american
41:55revolution and what was at stake there
41:58so
41:59i'll stop there for now
42:01hope all is well and we'll talk again
42:04soon