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Indigenous Law and Public Policy, Spring 2024

January 8, 2024 admin Leave a comment

The new semester begins next week. I spent a chunk of time this winter break updating the syllabus, making changes to the reading list, and what I hope will be successful adaptations to the new challenges teaching in the Post-Covid era presents. I am posting this in hopes that someone out there will find it of value or interest.

History 262 Indigenous Law and Public Policy Spring 2024

Professor: Michael Oberg

Meetings: MW, 8:30-10:10, Welles 225

Office Hours: MW, 12:30-1:30 Doty 208.

Contact: oberg@geneseo.edu

245-5730

Website: MichaelLeroyOberg.com

Required Readings:

Taiaiake Alfred, It’s All About the Land: Collected Talks and Interviews on Indigenous Resurgence, (2023).

Stuart Banner, How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier, (2005)

Daniel Cobb, Say We Are Nations: Documents of Politics and Protest in Indigenous America since 1887, (2015).

Sarah Deer, The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America, (2015)

Luke Lassiter, Clyde Ellis, and Ralph Kotay, The Jesus Road: Kiowas, Christianity, and Indian Hymns, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002)

Readings online.

News Articles in online sources like indianz.com.

Court cases and documents as per syllabus.

Recommended Podcasts:

This Land, Seasons 1 and 2.

Missing and Murdered: Finding Cleo.

Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s

Stolen: The Search for Jermaine

5-4: Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta

5-4: Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl

Recommended Movies and Television Shows

“Reservation Dogs,” 3 Seasons, HULU

“Little Bird,” 6 episodes, Amazon Prime

“Wind River,” Movie

“Killers of the Flower Moon.” (Movie)

“Frybread Face and Me” (Movie)

Course Description: This course will provide you with an overview of the concept of American Indian tribal sovereignty, nationhood, and the many ways in which discussions of sovereignty and right influence the status of American Indian nations. We will look at the historical development and evolution of the concept of sovereignty, the understandings of sovereignty held by native peoples, and how non-Indians have confronted assertions of sovereignty from native peoples. We will also examine current conditions in Native America, and look at the historical development of the challenges facing native peoples and native nations in the 21^st century.

A Note on Grading: Your work this semester will consist of Participation, Journals, Quizzes, and a Final Paper.

1). Participation is much more than attendance. I view my courses fundamentally as extended conversations and these conversations can only succeed when each person pulls his or her share of the load. You should plan to show up for class with the reading not just “done” but understood; you should plan not just to “talk” but to engage critically and constructively with your classmates. Our conversations will depend on your thoughtful inquiry and respectful exchange. We are all here to learn, and I encourage you to join in the discussion with this in mind. Obviously, you must be present to participate. Please have all assigned readings available when we meet. The reading load in this course is quite heavy. It will challenge you to keep up. If you have trouble with the reading, please let me know. You obviously will be able to participate in classes with the most success when you complete the reading.

2). Journals: On seven occasions during the semester I will read your journals. I want you to think about what you are reading, and I want you to write about that experience. You will submit your journals on Brightspace. You should plan on writing a minimum of 300 words a week. DO NOT SUMMARIZE OUR CLASS DISCUSSIONS. DO NOT SUMMARIZE THE READINGS. I hope you will take this assignment as an opportunity to reflect upon what you are reading in class and in terms of current events, to discuss the things you wish that we had a chance to discuss in class, or to say what you wanted to say during one of our class meetings. Show me that you are thinking about the material we cover in our readings and in the classroom. Show me that you are keeping up with current events in Indian Country. Use the journals as an opportunity to educate yourself on issues in Native America that matter to you. Write each entry in the spirit of an essay, with a thesis and evidence to support your reasoning. For inspiration, you might read the news on INDIANZ.COM, National Native News, Native News Online, Indian Country Today, and CBC Indigenous for Canada, and the National Indigenous Times for Australia. In addition, I would like you to follow news on one Native Nation. You can set up a news alert on Google News, and stories will appear in your inbox whenever they occur. You can find a list of federally recognized Indian Nations here. Some Indigenous nations receive more coverage than others.

3). Quizzes: To assess the extent to which you all are keeping up with the readings, I will administer a brief quiz most class periods consisting of five questions.

4). Final Paper: Your paper should be approximately 15 pages in length. You will take the role of an adviser to a new President. Your assignment is to advise this President on Indian policy. In your paper you will do the following:

1). Identify what you see as a major problem or problems in Native America today that you believe the President should tackle during her or his administration.

2). Explain briefly the historical origins of this problem and how and why previous solutions have either failed to address it or ignored it entirely.

3. Offer a thoughtful, plausible, and realistic path towards solving this problem, and justify it legally and constitutionally.

4. Have at least 30 sources in a thorough bibliography that includes each of the following: news articles, government documents, reports from agencies working with indigenous peoples, and works by scholars who study these issues published in academic journals and books.

5. Format the paper according to the guidelines spelled out in the Turabian Manual. Write the paper with careful attention to grammar, style and substance.

With any of these assignments, I encourage you to visit with me during office hours if you have any questions. You should be clear on what I expect from you before you complete an assignment. The door is open. If you cannot make it to my office hours, please feel free to contact me by email and we will find another time. Many questions can be answered, and problems addressed more effectively in person during office hours than by email.

I will write extensive comments on your written work. I will ask you challenging questions, offer what I hope you will view as constructive criticism, and encourage you to push yourself as a writer and a thinker. But I will not give you grades, in the traditional sense, on this work. I want you to benefit from this course. On the date of our first class meeting, we will discuss the standards for the class. You and I will work together to arrive at a set of expectations for the sort of work that will earn a specific grade. In your final journal, and in individual meetings scheduled during Finals Week, we will discuss how well you think you did in meeting the agreed upon standards, and what your grade for the course ought to be. A proposed grading framework can be found, below.

A Note on Phones: I ask that all cellphones be stored during the entirety of our class meeting. If you expect an important call that just cannot wait, please inform me before class. Otherwise, I expect you to refrain from using your cellphone and I expect you to keep it out of sight. Please be present in mind and body. Much of the reading for this course will be online or available on Brightspace. You will need to bring your laptop to class, but I expect you to use it for class-related work only. Students who violate these policies will be asked to leave the class.

Discussion and Reading Schedule

22 January Introduction to the Course: The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Reading: Banner, How, Introduction, Chapter 1; The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

24 January Native Nations in the United States

How to Read a Supreme Court Case

Reading: Articles of Confederation, Article IX; United States Constitution; Northwest Ordinance (1787); Federal Trade and Intercourse Act (1790); Treaty of Canandaigua (1794); Rights of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada; Banner, How, Chapters 1-3

29 January The Marshall Court and the Definition of Native Nations

Reading: Johnson v. McIntosh (1823); Banner, How, Chapters 4 and 5. If you are interested in a comparative perspective, I encourage you to look at Stuart Banner’s article, “Why Terra Nullius? Anthropology and Property Law in Early Australia,” Law and History Review, 23 (Spring 2005), 95-131, available on Brightspace.

31 January The Expulsion Era

Reading: Documents on Jacksonian Indian policy (Brightspace); Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831); Samuel A. Worcester v. State of Georgia, (1832); Banner, How, Chapter 6.

Journal 1 Due.

5 February The Reservation System

Reading: Ex Parte Crow Dog; Major Crimes Act (1885) and US v. Kagama (1886); Banner, How, Chapter 7.

7 February The Policy of Allotment

Reading: Cobb, Nations, pp. 19-49; Banner, How, Chapter 8;Talton v. Mayes (1896); Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock (1903); United States v. Celestine (1909)

12 February The Indian New Deal

Reading: Reading: Cobb, Nations, pp. 54-93; Banner, How, (finish book) and the Indian Reorganization Act, 1934.

14 February The Termination Era

Reading: Cobb, Nations, pp. 97-106, 115-123; HCR 108; Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States (1955).

Journal 2 Due

19 February Williams v. Lee and the Modern Era of American Indian Tribal Sovereignty

Reading: Williams v. Lee (1959); Native American Church v. Navajo Tribal Council (1959).

21 February The Era of Self-Determination

Reading: McClanahan v. Arizona Tax Commission, (1973); Morton v. Mancari (1974); Alfred, “Constitutional Recognition and Colonial Doublespeak;” “The Psychic Landscape of Contemporary Colonialism.”

26 February Red Power

Reading: Cobb, Nations, 124-188; Alfred, “On Being and Becoming Indigenous.”

28 February The Supreme Court’s 1978 Term, Congress and Tribal Sovereignty

Reading: US. v. Wheeler (1978); Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez (1978); Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe (1978); Legislative Packet (Brightspace)

Journal 3 Due.

4 March The Power of Tribal Governments

Reading: Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe (1982); Duro v. Reina, (1990Atkinson Trading Company v. Shirley (2001); US v. Lara (2004)

6 March The War on Native American Children and Families

Reading: Margaret Jacobs, “Remembering the ‘Forgotten Child’: The American Indian Child Welfare Crisis of the 1960s and 1970s,” American Indian Quarterly 37 (Winter/Spring 2013), 136-159 (Brightspace); Brackeen v. Haaland (2023).

This would be a good time to listen to Season 2 of the “This Land” podcast hosted by Rebecca Nagel

Journal 4 Due

18 March Jurisdiction and Sovereignty in the 21^st Century

Reading: McGirt v. Oklahoma (2020); Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, (2022). Listen to 5-4 Podcast episode on the Castro-Huerta decision.

20 March #MMIW #MMIWG

Reading: Watch this advertisement from the Native Women’s Wilderness, and this one from the United States Office of Justice Programs/Office for Victims of Crimes; Absorb as much of the following as you can: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls, (Seattle: Urban Indian Health Institute, 2017); a PBS NewsHour report featuring Abigail HenHawk, who oversaw the Urban Indian Health Institute report; National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. (Explore the website, read the summary of the 2019 Final Report); the report from the Trump Administration’s “Operation Lady Justice”; and President Biden’s Executive Order 14053 from November of 2021.

Search on Twitter using the hashtags #MMIW and #MMIWG. The podcast on the disappearance of Jermain Charlo would fit well here. Give it a listen, if you are able to find the time.

25 March Sexual Violence in Indian Country

Reading: Deer, Rape. We will discuss the book in its entirety. You will want to begin reading well in advance.

27 March Issues in American Indian Religion

Reading: Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith (1990); Lyng v. Northwest Cemetery Protective Association (1988). Please watch on your own “The Silence,” a PBS documentary on one small Catholic Church in Alaska.

1 April Issues in American Indian Religion: Christianity in Indian Country

Reading: Lassiter, Ellis and Kotay, The Jesus Road, (entire book).

Journal 5 Due

3 April Issues in American Indian Education: Boarding Schools and their Legacy

Reading: Gord Downie, “The Secret Path.” I would also like you to go to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School online project. You can find the website here. Your assignment is, first, to read Louise NoHeart’s student file (Brightspace) and then to read a minimum of at least 5 additional student files from the Indigenous Nation you have been following this semester (or a related Nation)(Ask for help if you are not clear on how to do this!) In general, for each student there is an information card and a student file. Read both of those and search for the student’s name in the newspapers and other documents. What do you learn about those students’ experiences at Carlisle? Be prepared to discuss what you found.

Please spend some time as well with the ArcGIS project from the University of Windsor looking at Canadian Residential Schools and this nine-minute report by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

8 April No Class—View the Eclipse.

Reading: “Come to Geneseo, Give Us Money, Look at the Sky.”

10 April Mascots and Other Forms of Appropriation

Audra Simpson, “Indigenous Identity Theft Must Stop,” Boston Globe, November 17, 2022; Darryl Leroux, “State Recognition and the Dangers of Race Shifting,” American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 46 (no. 2, 2023) (Brightspace).

15 April Economic Development and Poverty in Indian Country

Reading: California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians (1987); National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) website.

Journal 6 Due

17 April The Land and its Loss: The Consequences of Dispossession and Environmental Degradation

Reading: City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation (2005); Stephanie H. Barclay and Michalyn Steele, “Rethinking Protections for Indigenous Sacred Sites,” Harvard Law Review, (forthcoming, on Brightspace).

22 April Resistance: IDLA to Red Lives Matter, Idle No More

Reading: Watch Film: “You Are On Indian Land;” Cobb, Nations, 203-250; Lakota Law Project, Native Lives Matter; Jonah Raskin, “Red Lives Matter,” Tablet Magazine, October 10, 2021. You can also read my report about the death or Reynold High Pine in 1972; Jason Pero in Wisconsin and Colten Boushie in 2018; Please also look at the Idle No More website and read about this Canadian movement.

24 April GREAT DAY—NO CLASSES

29 April Health and Well-Being in Native America

Reading: Indian Health Service, “Disparities,” Updated October 2019; Linda Poon, “How ‘Indian Relocation’ Created a Public Health Crisis,” Citylab, 2 December 2019; Mohan B. Kumar and Michael Tjepkema, “Suicide Among First Nations people, Métis and Inuit, 2011-2016),” Statistics Canada, 28 June 2019; Rural Tribal Health Overview, May 2022; Prabir Mandal and Jarett E. Raade, “Major Health Issues of American Indians,” 28 June 2018

1 May What Is To Be Done?

Reading: Alfred, “Reconciliation as Recolonization;” “From Red Power to Resurgence;” “You Can’t Decolonize Colonization”

Final Paper Due

6 May What is to be Done? (Continued)

Reading: Harold Napoleon, Yuuyarq: The Way of the Human Being, (Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Knowledge Network, 1996); Alfred, “Rooted Responsibility.”

Journal 7 Due

8 May Final Class Meeting

16 May Final Exam Period, 8:00-11:20: Individual Discussions to consider your final grade.

Learning Outcomes. This course fulfills the requirements for Diversity, Pluralism, and Power: Students understand (i) the diversity of identities that characterizes the United States; (ii) the ways in which systems of power lead to different outcomes for members of diverse groups; (iii) the reasoning and impact of one’s personal beliefs and actions; and (iv) how to participate effectively in pluralistic contexts (e.g., by communicating and collaborating across difference). It also fulfills the requirements for World Cultures and Values: Thus Students will strive to (i) understand systems of value and meaning as embodied in one or more cultures from different regions of the world; and (ii) assess interconnections among/across local and global systems and cultures. Courses in this category engage extensively with the past and/or present in cultures outside Europe and the United States (though they may also engage with content from cultures located within those regions, e.g., Native/Indigenous cultures).

Teaching Native American History

History 261, Native American History, Fall 2023

August 7, 2023 admin Leave a comment

It has been several years since I’ve taught the Native American history survey course at Geneseo, and at the end of this month, I will be teaching it for the first time with the new edition of the textbook Peter Olsen-Harbich and I published last fall. As I have mentioned in earlier posts on this blog, I no longer give grades on student assignments. Drawing inspiration from the teaching of Cate Denial at Knox College, I develop a rubric in collaboration with the students. In meetings at the end of the semester, and with reference to this rubric and the extensive comments and suggestions I will have written on the students’ work, students assign themselves a grade for the course. Usually, about half the students enrolled in the course are history majors, and the rest enroll to fulfill some part of the general education requirements, which have recently undergone a thorough revision at Geneseo. Any questions or criticisms, please let me know in the comments below. I am aware of the funky formatting below, but I have not been able to figure out an efficient way to make what I have included below look like the document that I will make available to the students on the college’s clunky learning management system.

History 261 American Indian History Fall 2023

Instructor: Michael Oberg Meeting Times: MW, 10:30-12:10, Newton 21 Office Hours: MW 12:30-1:45 EMAIL: oberg@geneseo.ed Phone: (585)245-5730 (office) Website and blog: www.michaelleroyoberg.com The website and blog are designed to complement the textbook. There is a review section for each chapter of the textbook. Click on the “Manual.”

Required Readings:
Michael Leroy Oberg and Peter Jakob Olsen-Harbich, Native America: A History, 3d. ed., 2022.
Colin G. Calloway, ed., Our Hearts Fell to the Ground: Plains Indian Views of How the West Was Lost, 2d. ed., 2017.
Frederick E. Hoxie, Talking Back to Civilization: Indian Voices from the Progressive Era, 2001.
Francis Paul Prucha, ed., Documents of United States Indian Policy, 3d ed, 2000.
Additional Documents and Articles available on JSTOR and as noted below.

Course Description: This course surveys the history of Native Americans in the region that ultimately became the United States. It traces the effects and consequences of the European “Invasion of America,” analyzes changes in and among native cultures in response to the arrival of Europeans, as well as native responses, resistance, and accommodation to European colonization. We will examine the role of Native Americans as players in the intercultural, imperial politics of the Colonial Period, their involvement in the American Revolution, and their response to the westward expansion of Anglo-American settlement in the decades after the American Revolution. We also will explore the historical background of the problems, issues, and challenges facing Indians in contemporary American society, and, in outline, the challenges posed to native peoples by Settler Colonialism. We will discuss the genocide that Indigenous peoples experienced and survived.

Participation: In my view participation is more than attendance. I expect you to arrive at each class meeting with the readings completed and that you will be ready to discuss what you hare read. This is not a lecture course, and your contribution to our discussions is an important part of the learning experience. Though participation is more than attendance, attendance is critically important. As you will see from the attached grading agreement, after four unexcused absences you will not be able to earn any grade higher than a D for the course. If, for some reason, you are unable to attend a class, please let me know in advance.

Writing Assignments: On two occasions over the semester, I will read your journals.You will write each week on short topics I assign you, but also on current events and on any outside reading you choose to do. I will provide you with these writing prompts in class.

I will also assign two short take home writing assignments, of no more than 1500 words in length. I will pose for you a number of broad questions that will force you to consider widely what you have read to that point in the semester, develop an argument and an effective answer, and to present that answer in writing with grace and style.

With any of these assignments, I encourage you to let me know if you have any questions. You should be clear on what I expect of you before you complete an assignment. Please use office hours, and if you cannot make these make an appointment to see me. I want to encourage you to ask for assistance and advice with your assignments.

I will write extensive comments in your journals and essays. I will also make comments on these papers about your class participation. I will ask you challenging questions, offer what I hope you will view as constructive criticism, and encourage you to push yourself as a writer and a thinker. But I will not give you grades, in the traditional sense, on this work.

I want you to benefit from this course. On the date of our first class meeting, we will discuss the standards for the class. You and I will work together to arrive at a set of expectations for the sort of work that will earn a specific grade. In your final journal, and in individual meetings or phone calls scheduled during Finals Week, we will discuss how well you think you did in meeting the agreed upon standards, and what your grade for the course ought to be.

Discussion Schedule

28 August Introduction to the Course

Reading: Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native America, Introduction, Chapter One.

30 August The Columbian Encounter

Reading: Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native America, 23-32; Columbus’s Letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, 1493; The Requerimiento;

Also, have a look at the Re-Envisioning Greater Cahokia Story Map. Students interested in Native American languages might look briefly at the materials placed online by the John Carter Brown Library in Providence, Rhode Island.

6 September When Indians Discovered Europe

Reading: Harriot, Brief and True Report and John White Paintings of Algonquians on the Outer Banks.

11 September The Shatter Zone

Reading: Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native America, 33-44; Some images from John Smith’s Generall Historie are available here; Take a good look at John Smith’s Map of Virginia as well. Also, read the poem from Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony available here. For students who have the time and some familiarity with Disney’s “Pocahontas,” I encourage you to take a look at “Missing Mataoka,” which includes an alternative audio track to be played as you watch the Disney film. Take a few minutes to read John Rolfe’s letter to Sir Thomas Dale, justifying his decision to marry Pocahontas.

13 September The Shatter Zone, Continued. Reading: Oberg and Olsen Harbich, Native America, 49-59; Treaty of Middle Plantation (1677). Please read as much as you can of John Eliot’s Tears of Repentance, a history of his efforts to bring Christianity to Indigenous peoples in southern New England.

18 September The Iroquois League and Confederacy.

Reading: Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native American, 44-49, 59-79;Daniel K. Richter, “War and Culture: The Iroquois Experience,” William and Mary Quarterly, 40 (October 1983), 528-559 (Please locate this article on JSTOR, download a copy of it, and makes sure you have a copy with you on your computer for our discussion. If you are unfamiliar with JSTOR, please ask for assistance. Look on the library webpage and click on databases). One of the most important primary sources used by Professor Richter in this well known essay was a collection of writings by French Missionaries to New France known as The Jesuit Relations. You may follow this link to the Relations. I would like you to check Professor Richter’s sources occasionally, and look at how he uses his evidence.

20 September Life Behind the Frontier

Reading: Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native America, 80-98; Samson Occom, “Short Narrative;” “The Confession of Samuel Ashbo of Mohegan” and Temperance Hannibal’s Narrative, dated 7 February 1754.

25 September Native Americans and the Wars of the Eighteenth Century Reading: Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native America, 98-109; Proclamation of 1763.

27 September The American Revolution Reading: Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native America, 110-129; Michael Oberg, “What’s So Great About the American Revolution?” and “No Mercy.”

2 October What Do We Make of the Revolution and Native Americans? Reading: Jeffrey Ostler, “’To Extirpate the Indians’: An Indigenous Consciousness of Genocide in the Ohio Valley and Lower Great Lakes, 1750s-1810,” William and Mary Quarterly, 72 (October 2015), 587-622 (JSTOR)

4 October Indians and the New American Empire Prophets of the Republic Reading: Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native America, pp. 129-157; Prucha, Documents no. 1-21.

11 October Native Peoples and Long Knives Reading: David A. Silverman, “The Curse of God: An Idea and its Origins among the Indians of New York’s Revolutionary Frontier,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser. 66 (2009): 495-534 (JSTOR).

First Paper Due

16 October The Mechanics of Dispossession: Or, How Chenussio Became Geneseo Reading: Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native America, 157-161; Prucha, Documents, Document no. 27, 29-34, 36-38; 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua; 1797 Treaty of Big Tree; Oberg, “The Treaty of Big Tree: Let’s Follow the Money”; and “Chenussio: The Indigenous History of Livingston County.”

18 October The Removal Crisis Reading: Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native America, pp. 162-174; Prucha, Documents, 39-45, 50.

First Journal Due

23 October The Indians’ West Reading: Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native America, 175-190; Calloway, Hearts, Introduction, Chapters 1-4.

25 October The Indians’ West, Continued Reading: Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native America, pp. 190-204; Prucha, Documents, nos., 51-66; Calloway, Hearts, Chapter 5; Angela Cavender Wilson (Waziyatawin), “Grandmother to Granddaughter: Generations of Oral History in a Dakota Family,” 20 (Winter 1996), 7-13 (JSTOR).

30 October The Plains Wars: Concentration and Enforcement Reading: Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native America, 204-214; Prucha, Documents, 67-81, 83-85; Calloway, Hearts, Chapters 6-8.

1 November Reformers and the Indian Problem Reading: Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native America, pp. 215-227; Prucha, Documents, no. 82, 97-98, 101-102, 104, 124; Hoxie, Talking Back, Introduction; Calloway, Hearts, Chapters 9-10.

6 November Wounded Knee Reading: Black Elk Speaks, (excerpt, available here); And this website based on Historian Justin Gage’s We Do Not Want the Gates Closed Between Us. (Take some time to understand Gage’s argument about the Ghost Dance movement and its consequences.

8 November The Nation’s Wards Reading: Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native America, 227-247, Prucha, Documents, nos., 105-112, 117-118, 120-123, 125-129, 132-134, 137; Calloway, Hearts, Chapters 11-12; Hoxie, Talking Back, Ch. 1-3.

13 November The Boarding School Experience Reading: The Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center

15 November The Search for American Indian Identity Reading: Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native America, pp. 247-263; Prucha, Documents, nos. 136, 138-144; Hoxie, Talking Back, Chapters 4-7, Afterword.

20 November From Termination to Self-Determination Reading: Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native America, pp. 263–275; Prucha, Documents, nos. 145, 147-149, 151-160, 162-163

27 November The War on Native American Families. Reading: Magaret Jacobs, “Remembering the ‘Forgotten Child’: The American Indian Child Welfare Crisis of the 1960s and 1970s,” American Indian Quarterly, 37 (Spring 2013), 136-159; Oberg, “Texas is Making Me Crazy.”

29 November The Struggle for Sovereignty: 1978 Reading: Prucha, Documents, nos. 167, 169-187; Oberg and Olsen-Harbich, Native America, 275-284;

4 December Native America in the Era of Self-Determination Reading: Oberg, Native America, Chapter 10; Prucha, 189-190, 201, 204, 207, 210-211.

Second Journal Due

6 December Native Nations and the Supreme Court in the 21^stCentury Reading: McGirt v. Oklahoma (2020); Halland v. Brackeen (2023) (read Gorsuch’s concurrence and Thomas dissent).

11 December Final Class Meeting: Where Do We Go From Here? Reading: Oberg, “The Trump Administration and American Indian Policy: A Post-Mortem” and Michael Oberg and Joel Helfrich, “Why Deb Haaland Matters.”

14 December Final Writing Assignment Due, 8:00AM

18 December Meetings to Discuss Final Grades

Teaching Native American History

HISTORY 262: Indigenous Law and Public Policy, Spring 2020 Syllabus

December 28, 2019 admin 2 Comments

The spring semester begins in just under a month, but the syllabus is ready and the book orders are in. I find this an immensely challenging course to teach. Because it focuses so heavily on current events, I find myself constantly changing the course readings. To keep up with the scholarship emerging across several academic disciplines, as well as reports from organizations and institutions, and some excellent journalism in far-flung publications, is difficult. But I find the course a rewarding one to teach. I would love to hear your thoughts. (Copying my Word Document onto the WordPress platform made for some gloppy formatting in places. Apologies in advance). Happy New Year!

History 262 American Indian Law and Public Policy Spring 2020

Professor: Michael Oberg

Meetings: TTh, 1:00-2:15, Sturges 223

Office Hours: TTh, 12:15-12:55 and by appointment, Sturges 15A

Contact: oberg@geneseo.edu

245-5730

Twitter: @NativeAmText

(I will occasionally tweet out news stories or other items related to our class discussions under the hashtag #HIST262MLO) You need not follow me on Twitter, but you should activate an account if you do not have one and begin following the hashtag listed above.

Website: MichaelLeroyOberg.com

Roughly every week or so I post to my blog on matters related to the teaching and writing of Native American history. You are welcome to follow along.

Required Readings:

Daniel Cobb, Say We Are Nations: Documents of Politics and Protest in Indigenous America since 1887, (2015).

Sarah Deer, The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America, (2015)

Luke Lassiter, Clyde Ellis, and Ralph Kotay, The Jesus Road: Kiowas, Christianity, and Indian Hymns, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002)

Steven Pevar, The Rights of Indians and Tribes, 4^th edition, (2012).

Brianna Theobald, Reproduction on the Reservation: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019).

David Treuer, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, (New York: Riverhead Books, 2019).

Readings online.

News Articles on www.indianz.com

Court cases.

Students Will Demonstrate:

an understanding of knowledge held outside the Western tradition;
an understanding of history, ideas, and critical issues pertaining to Non-western societies;
an understanding of significant social and economic issues pertaining to Non-western societies;
an understanding of the symbolic world coded by and manifest in Non-western societies;
an understanding of traditional and/or contemporary cultures of Latin America, Africa, and/or Asia and the relationship of these to the modern world system;
an ability to think globally.

And

understanding of social scientific methods of hypothesis development;
understanding of social scientific methods of document analysis, observation, or experiment;
understanding of social scientific methods of measurement and data collection;
understanding of social scientific methods of statistical or interpretive analysis;
knowledge of some major social science concepts;
knowledge of some major social science models;
knowledge of some major social science concerns;
knowledge of some social issues of concern to social scientists;
knowledge of some political issues of concern to social scientists;
knowledge of some economic issues of concern to social scientists;
knowledge of some moral issues of concern to social scientists.

A Note on Grading: Your work this semester will consist of Participation, Journals, a Current Events Project, and a Final Paper.

Participation is much more than attendance. I view my courses fundamentally as extended conversations and these conversations can only succeed when each person pulls his or her share of the load. You should plan to show up for class with the reading not just “done” but understood; you should plan not just to “talk” but to engage critically and constructively with your classmates. Our conversations will depend on your thoughtful inquiry and respectful exchange. We are all here to learn, and I encourage you to join in the discussion with this in mind. Obviously, you must be present to participate. Phones should be stored before you enter the classroom with the ringer off. Laptops should be used for accessing readings and taking notes. Please bring all assigned readings with you to class.

On two occasions during the semester I will read your journals. I want you to think about what you are reading and I want you to write about that experience. You should plan on writing 300 words a week. DO NOT SUMMARIZE OUR CLASS DISCUSSIONS. DO NOT SUMMARIZE THE READINGS. I hope you will take this assignment as an opportunity to reflect upon what you are reading in class and in current events, to discuss the things you wish that we had a chance to discuss in class, or to say what you wanted to say during one of our class meetings. Show me that you are thinking about the material we cover in our readings and in the classroom. Show me that you are keeping up with current events in Indian Country. Use the journals as an opportunity to educate yourself on issues in Native America that matter to you. Read the news on INDIANZ.COM and CBC Indigenous. I will also tweet out stories that I find of interest under the hashtag #HIST262MLO.

Current Events Project: You will write a paper of approximately 10 pages in length, on any current events topic in Native American Studies. You must research the topic by reading at least 20 primary sources—newspaper articles, government documents, reports from agencies involved in working with native peoples, and other first-hand accounts. You should demonstrate that you have an awareness of the importance of the issue, a detailed understanding of the issue, and some idea for its solution or why a solution has been so difficult to find. You should check with me before you begin your research, so that we can agree on a topic that is important and interesting. Your paper should be formatted according to the Guidelines in the Turabian Manual.

Final Paper: Your paper should be between 10-15 pages in length. You will take the role of an adviser to a new President. You can imagine this President as a Democrat or a Republican. Your assignment is to advise this President on Native American policy. In your paper you will do the following:

1). Identify what you see as the major problem or problems in Native America today.

2). Explain briefly the historical origins of this problem and how and why previous solutions have either failed to address it or ignored it entirely.

3. Offer a thoughtful, plausible, and realistic path towards solving this problem.

4. Have at least 30 sources—articles, government documents, reports from agencies working with indigenous peoples, and works by scholars who study these issues.

5. Format the paper according to the guidelines spelled out in the Turabian Manual.

I will write extensive comments on your papers. I will ask you challenging questions, and offer what I hope you will view as constructive criticism. I will encourage you to push yourself as a writer and a thinker. But I will not give you grades, in the traditional sense, on this work.

I want you to benefit from this course. On the date of our first class meeting, we will discuss the standards for the class. You and I will work together to arrive at a set of expectations for the sort of work that will earn a specific grade. In your final journal, and in individual meetings scheduled during Finals Week, we will discuss how well you think you did in meeting the agreed upon standards, and what your grade for the course ought to be.

Discussion and Reading Schedule

23 January Introduction to the Course.

The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Reading: Pevar, Rights, Ch. 1-2; Treuer, Wounded Knee, Prologue and Part 7; The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

28 January Native Nations in the United States

How to Read a Supreme Court Case

Reading: Articles of Confederation, Article IX; United States Constitution; Northwest Ordinance 1787); Federal Trade and Intercourse Act (1790); Treaty of Canandaigua (1794); Treuer, Wounded Knee, skim Introduction and Part 1 which you should complete by 6 February.

30 January The Marshall Court and the Definition of Native Nations

Reading: Johnson v. McIntosh (1823).

4 February The “Removal” Era

Reading: Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831); Samuel A. Worcester v. State of Georgia, (1832).

6 February The Reservation System

Reading: Ex Parte Crow Dog; Major Crimes Act (1885) and US v. Kagama (1886); Nikhil Pal Singh, “The Pervasive Power of the Settler Mindset,” Boston Review, 26 November 2019; Ruth Hopkins, “Mass Shootings are Connected to America’s Legacy of Anti-Indigenous Violence,” Teen Vogue, 29 November 2019.

11 February The Policy of Allotment

Reading: Cobb, Nations, pp. 19-49;Talton v. Mayes (1896); Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock (1903); United States v. Celestine (1909)

13 February The Indian New Deal

Reading: Reading: Pevar, Rights, Chapter 12; Cobb, Nations, pp. 54-93; Treuer, Wounded Knee, Part 2;and the Indian Reorganization Act, 1934.

18 February The Termination Era

Reading: Cobb, Nations, pp. 97-106, 115-123; HCR 108; Pevar, Rights, 333-337; Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States (1955); Treuer, Wounded Knee, Part 3.

20 February Williams v. Lee and the Modern Era of American Indian Tribal Sovereignty

Reading: Williams v. Lee (1959); Native American Church v. Navajo Tribal Council (1959); Pevar, Rights, Chapter 14 and pp. 329-332; Treuer, Wounded Knee, Part 4

First Journal Due.

25 February The Era of Self-Determination

Reading: McClanahan v. Arizona Tax Commission, (1973); Morton v. Mancari (1974).

27 February Red Power

Reading: Cobb, Nations, 124-188; Treuer, Wounded Knee, Part 5

3 March The Supreme Court’s 1978 Term, Congress and Tribal Sovereignty

Reading: US. v. Wheeler (1978); Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez (1978); Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe (1978).

5 March The Power of Tribal Governments

Reading: Pevar, Rights, Chapters 3-10; Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe (1982); Duro v. Reina, (1990Atkinson Trading Company v. Shirley (2001); US v. Lara (2004)

10 March Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism

Reading: Theobald, Reproduction on the Reservation (entire book).

12 March The War on Native American Children and Families

Reading: Adoptive Couple v Baby Girl(2013) (this was a messy case, with two concurring and two dissenting opinions); this news story on the 2018 case, Brackeen v. Zinke; and Margaret Jacobs, “Remembering the ‘Forgotten Child’: The American Indian Child Welfare Crisis of the 1960s and 1970s,” American Indian Quarterly 37 (Winter/Spring 2013), 136-159 (Canvas). Please take a look as well at Gabby Deutsch, “A Court Battle over a Texas Toddler Could Decide the Future of a Native American Law,” The Atlantic, 21 February 2019.

SPRING BREAK

24 March Sexual Violence in Indian Country

Reading: Deer, Rape. We will discuss the book in its entirety. You will want to begin reading this book in advance, so that you will have it finished for our class discussion.

26 March #MMIW #MMIWG

Reading: Read as much of the following as you can: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls, (Seattle: Urban Indian Health Institute, 2017); Royal Canadian Mounted Police site devoted to issue of Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women (Read the Executive Summary and Conclusion in this Report)

National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. (Explore the website, read the summary of the 2019 Final Report.

Search on Twitter using the hashtags #MMIW and #MMIWG

31 March Issues in American Indian Religion

Reading: Pevar, Rights, Chapters 11, 13; Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith (1990); Lyng v. Northwest Cemetery Protective Association (1988). If you have half an hour, I would encourage you to watch “The Silence,” a PBS documentary on one small Catholic Church in Alaska.

Current Events Project Due

2 April Issues in American Indian Religion: Christianity in Indian Country

Reading: Lassiter, Ellis and Kotay, The Jesus Road, (entire book).

7 April Issues in American Indian Education: Boarding Schools and their Legacy

Reading: Gord Downie, “The Secret Path.” Watch the video, and watch the panel discussion in its entirety.

9 April Mascots and Other Forms of Appropriation

Reading: Jamil Smith, “Why Elizabeth Warren’s DNA Fiasco Matters,” Rolling Stone, 7 December 2018; Rebecca Nagle, “Elizabeth Warren Has Spent Her Entire Adult Life Repeating a Lie. I Want Her to Tell the Truth.” HuffPost, 23 August 2019.

14 April Economic Development and Poverty in Indian Country

Reading: California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians (1987); Pevar, Rights, Ch. 16; Treuer, Wounded Knee, Part 6.

16 April The Land and its Loss: The Consequences of Dispossession

Reading: City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation (2005); Adam Liptak, “Supreme Court to Rule on Whether Much of Oklahoma Is An Indian Reservation,” New York Times, 13 December 2019.

21 April Resistance: IDLA to Red Lives Matter, Idle No More

Reading: Watch Film: “You Are On Indian Land;” Cobb, Nations, 203-250; Lakota Law Project, Native Lives Matter.

23 April Health and Well-Being in Native America

28 April Indigenous America and the Presidency: What’s At Stake?

Reading: Donald J. Trump, Columbus Day Proclamation, 2019; Elizabeth Warren, Policy Statement on Native Americans; Julian Castro, Policy Statement on Native Americans; Bernie Sanders, Policy on Native Americans; Michael Leroy Oberg, “Ten Little Democrats,” MichaelLeroyOberg.com, 11 September 2019.

30 April What Is To Be Done?

Reading: Read the Preface, Introduction, and Calls to Action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report from Canada, 2015, entitled Honouring the Past, Reconciling for the Future and “Calls to Action and Accountability: A Status Update on Reconciliation” by Eva Jewell and Ian Mosby of the Yellowhead Institute, (2019).

Final Paper Due

5 May Catch Up Day.

Final Journal Due

11 May 12:00-2:30

Final Exam Period

A Discussion Forum for Teaching and Writing Native American History