I've now gone through this book for the third time. The word that jumps out at me: gaslighting.
The biggest problem with this book: one needs to have a good understanding of Indian names for the various tribes / nations (not Anglicized names) and Indian names for geographic areas.
A glossary or "translation," as it were would have helped: commonly used English/American words vs the current Native Nations / Native American words.
The American Continent
- three nations: Canada, US, Mexico
- hundreds (?): native American nations -- how's that working out?
Classification of the indigenous languages of the Americas.
- Sioux.
- Dakota family of the Sioux -- known as the Santee (Norman E. Matteoni, p. 22); bands of:
- Mdewakanton, Sisseton, Wahpeton, Wahpekute -- woodlands on east side of the Missouri (Minnesota side)
- beaten down by the Chippewa in the last half of the 1700s; unable to put up much resistance to white man incursion
- Algonquian.
- Plains, Central, Eastern -- of the three, only Eastern Algonquian constitutes a true genetic subgroup
- Algonqin: a dialect of the indigenous Ojibwe language (Chippewa) which is a senior member of the Algonquian language family.
- Iroquoian.
- subdivision Cherokee.
- Muskogean.
- subdivisions:
- Choctaw-Chickasaw
- Alabama_Koasati
- Hitchiti-Mikasuki
- Muscogee
- Apalachee
- Caddoan.
- Pawnee: Nebraska and northern Kansas, now in Oklahoma.
- Kiowa.
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The Book
Part 1
The Indigenous Peoples of North America, 1000s to 1750
Chapter 1: Ancient Cities in Arizona, Illinois, and Alabama
Chapter 2: The "Fall" of Cities and the rise of a More Egalitarian Order
Chapter 3: Ossomocomuck and Roanoke Island
Chapter 4: Mohawk Peace and War
Chapter 5: The O'odham Himdag
Chapter 6: Quapaw Diplomacy
Part II
Confronting Settler Power, 1750 and Beyond
Chapter 7: Shawnee Towns and Farms in the Ohio Valley
Chapter 8: Debates Over Race and Nation
Chapter 9: The Nineteenth-Century Cherokee Nation
Chapter 10: Kiowas and the Creation of the Plains Indian
Chapter 11: Removals from the East to a Native West
Chapter 12: The Survival of Nations
Foreword: Many Nations
Part I
Pre-1750
Chapter 1: Ancient Cities in Arizona, Illinois, and Alabama
Setting the stage; focus on archeology of the big cities in Native America.
Begins with the supernova of 1006 and then again, in 1054.
Halley's Comet: 1066
1056: the beginning of the grand civilizations called "Mississippian"
spread across the Mississippi Valley and the American Southeast
About the same tim, 1056: the already sprawling civilization of the Huhugam -- Arizona, began its greatest period of growth and centralization.
The author: first chapter to correct the myths about primitive and nomadic Indians -- early on had developed "large cities" -- a sign of civilization
Man-made hills, p. 10:
flatlands of the Midwest (Mississippi Valley, Illinois)
floodplains of the southeast (Alabama)
deserts of the southwest (Arizona
In area of St Louis, 200 mounds; one of St Louis' early nicknames: "Mound City"
One of the great Native city studied by archaeologists: Cahokia
O'odham: Arizona.
Worldwide: rise of large-scale farming --> urban centers
began in the last millenium BCE / late first millennium CE - at the start of the Medieval Warm Period.
only a few degrees difference but huge changes on the ground -- p. 15
but now crops developed in central Mexico could now be grown farther north -- into the US -- large-scale farmer, at scales never before seen.
Might be called city-states.
Author re-looks at the definition of a city -- p. 17. The author can re-define the definition of "a city," but from the descriptions, one certainly gets a feeling that there are great differences. In addition the European "cities" were often co-located with fortresses and castles, something not seen in American, except farther south, Mexico and South America.
The author compares Native American trade routes with the Silk Road. -- p. 17.
Says NA cities were similar size or bigger than biggest cities in Europe and Asia.
The Huhugam Way Of Life
O'odham -- Phoenix area
"hottai ki" or "siwan wa'a ki" -- Jesuit priest called it "casa grande" -- 1694, p. 18.
Sonoran Desert -- 12th century North America....p. 18
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Chapter 2: The "Fall" of Cities
and
The Rise of a More Egalitarian Order.
Her thesis.
Chapter 3: Ossomocomuck and Roanoke Island
-- an amazing 48 pages.
July 19, 2024: map of NYC subway system into the Bronx.
July 19, 2024: having pretty much completed Kathleen Duval's book and now using it as a reference book, I happened to come across this article in the July 22, 2024, issue of The New Yorker: "Paradise Bronx: The Borough's History Has Always Been Shaped By Its In-Between-Ness," Ian Frazier, p. 38, July 22, 2024. This paragraph on page 40:
[Talking about the Bronx River which cuts the Bronx in half, the east Bronx, and the west Bronx]: An eminent old-time historian wrote that the Indians called the river Aquahung. I find that hard to believe, but I can't explain why. Tribes with villages in what's now the Bronx were the Siwanoy, the Munsee, and the Weckquaesgeek, all subgroups of the Lenape. They belonged to the Eastern Algonquian language family, a linguistic grouping that did not include the powerful Iroquois, their inland enemies. In December, 1639, several local Munsee headmen sold five hundred acres of land adjoining the river to Jonas Bronck, a Swede who had arrived on his own ship, the Fire of Troy. [One day, fire and destruction would be what people thought of when they thought of the Bronx.] Jonas Bronck also paid the Dutch West India Company for the land. The Dutch were the European power in the region and had founded New Amsterdam, their outpost on lower Manhattan Island, fifteen years before [1624].
[The writer clears up a mystery about the Bronx borough flag which depicts a bowling-pin-shaped bird standing above a rising sun.] The bird is an auk -- a species found in the Faroe Islands, where Jonas Bronck lived before going to Holland and then to America. The bird and the rising sun are on the Bronck family coat of arms, along with the motto "Ne Cede Malis" ("Do Not Yield to Misinformation"), which became the motto of the Bronx. Designers included the Bronck coat of arms -- motto, bird, and all -- in the borough flag when they created it, in the early twentieth century.
Algonquian language. Wiki.
See how the Little Ice Age affected early years of colonization in the US.
Approximately 7,000 Indians inhabited Ossomocomuck (coastal North Carolina), from the Great Dismal Swamp in the north to the Neuse River in the south. They were loose groupings of semi-autonomous peoples rather than centralized political entities controlled by powerful rulers.
Three major peoples, the Chowanocs, Weapemeocs, and Secotans, inhabited the region in the late sixteenth century, all Algonquian-speaking peoples descended from ancestors who moved into the mid-Atlantic region thousands of years earlier. The Chowanocs were the most numerous and were ruled by an old and experienced chief called Menatonon. They lived in towns and small settlements scattered along the western bank of the Chowan River and lower reaches of the Merherrin and Blackwater. Their capital, Chowanoc, was situated on a bluff overlooking the Chowan River and had been inhabited for centuries. The town was made up of a central core of longhouses, storehouses, temples, and public spaces surrounded by the dwellings.
And then more:
Territories to the west and north of the coastal lands were occupied by powerful Iroquoian and Siouan peoples.
Back to Ossomocomuck and Kathleen Duval, p. 77:
If you look across the shallow sound from the east side of Roanoke Island, you can see the barrier island where the Wright brothers took their first flight. From teh west side, you can see the mainland. In 1584, this was all part of a place called Ossomoomuck. The name Roanoke ismore likely to be familiar to readers than Ossomocomuck. Both are from the local language, part of the huge Algonquian family, which includes languages from south of the Carolinas through eastern Canada. Ossomocomuk spanned North Carolina's Outer Banksa nd the lands these barrier islands protect along Albemarle and Pamlico sounds. Roanoke was a small island in Ossomocomuck, an important place for gathering resources. The Algonquian name Roanoke means "people who polish," a reference to making shells into beds.
Again, compare the 1580s in England with what the Native Americans were doing: making beads.
Page 83: "... both cultures were largely oral. Protestantism's emphasis on everyday people reading the Bible was only just introducing to Europe the idea that common people should learn how to read and write."
Did Native Americans have a printing press? Did they even have a written language?
Then this from Kathleen DuVal: "The wealthiest Europeans lived in grand (though drafty) castles and mansions" but even the wealthiest Native Amerians lived in thatched longhouses, with a central hearth, smoke holes in the ceiling rather than chimneys ....what would have surprised Indians was the cattle living at one end of European longhouses." Did Native Americans ever domestic cattle or horses before the Europeans arrived. Even after the Europeans arrived, were Native Americans ever known for domesticating and / or breeding cattle. LOL.
Iroquoian languages. Wiki.
Chapter 4: Mohawk Peace and War -- an amazing 52 pages.
Hiawatha Belt -- p. 124.
The Hiawatha belt has a background of deep purple wampum (shell beads) interwoven with symbols made of white wampum representing the five Haudenosaunee nations, also known as the Iroqois Confederacy or the Iroquois League.
The Mohawk nation is the white squarre on the right, signifying the easternmost Haudenosaunee nation. The others, moving from right to left, are the Oneida, Onondaga, in the iddle, represented by a white Tree of Peace), Cayuga, and Seneca nations, connected in a row on the belt. Since the eighteenth century the Haudenosaunee have included a sixth nation, the Tuscaroras.
Mohawks -- Manhattan Island.
Chapter 5: The O'odham Himdag
45 pages
The Pima -- northern Mexico (Sonora) south of Tucson; Arizona; the Pima.
Begins with 1691 -- two Spanish priests with the O'odham -- to the lands that had been the home of the Huhugam in the 1200s. They had been visiting the Himuri O'odham in what is now the Mexian state of Sonora.
A town of around forty closely clustered houses.
Ramadas: derived from teh Spanish word for "branches." Ramada Inns took their name from them, as a symbol of an inviting shelter for welome guests. -- p. 177.
Ramadas" open-air structures made of poles and roofed with saguaro cactus ribs. Can probably be constructed in a day or so.
Across the border into what is now Arizona. Then to the town of Tucson, "at the foot of the black mountain."
Also to the very, very early town of Phoenix, although not called that at the time.
Living the himdag -- widely separated populations, as the cities "fell" -- cities exposed their risks of survival. After the fall of the Huhugam --> himdag.
Then the history of the seventeenth-century O'odham Himdag.
O'odham towns, 17th century:
Interesting history but to what extent did the Pima Nation have on American history.
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Chapter 6: Quapaw Diplomacy
40 pages.
Starts her chapter in Little Rock, Arkansas watching Quapaw dancers, etc, at the Clinton Presidential Library.
Then, Quapaw Country in the seventeenth century.
1673: the Quapaws lived in several towns.
Along the Mississippi.
Main town of Kappa, okaxpaxti, from their word for Quapaw, meaning "the people who went downstream."
Part of the southerly migration that included other Dhegiha Siouan peoples: Osages, Omahas, Poncas, and Kaws. Apparently fleeing Haudenosaunee-related violence.
The major tributaries in their area: the Arkansas, White, and St Francis rivers.
Dhegiha Siouan: probably began in the Ohio River valley.
Dhegiha Siouan: https://www.osageculture.com/culture/cultural-history.
Part II
Confronting Settler Power, 1750 and Beyond
Introduction:
250 representatives of Shawnee, haudenosaunee, Delaware, Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw -- met at St Louis
St Louis: four hundred miles upriver from Quapaws and on the site of one of Caholkia's vacated satellite citeis.
The Brits had taken over the French trading post two decades earlier.
The Native Americans were terrified of the colonists. They joined with the Spaniards to stop the colonists.
The colonists -- having defeated the British -- felt they had earned the right to most of North America east of the Mississippi River.
One way of organizing US history -- divide it into:
the "colonial period" before the American Revolution; and,
the "early republic" that starts with the independence of the United States.
"... became the basis for the idea of reservations." -- p. 267.
Similar to the reducciones that the Spanish had tried to impose on the O'odham, though usually without a missionary presence.
In the United States, as well as Mexico and Canada, reservations were part of a gradual reversal in thinking about land. -- p. 267.
Wow, wow, wow. Brilliant insight.
Part II
Confronting Settler Power, 1750 and Beyond
Chapter 7: Shawnee Towns and Farms in the Ohio Valley
42 pages.
Shawnee: Algonquian language. Pre-contact: Ohio River valley.
Begins in 1784.
250 members of the Shawnee, Haudenosaunee, Delaware, Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw meet in St Louis, near the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi.
Can the Mississippi be thought of a river that runs from headwaters in Minnesota all the way to New Orleans, with a huge tributary, the Ohio River entering north of St Louis and then another huge tributary, the Missouri, entering the Mississippi just a bit farther south, but still north of St Louis?
Chapter 8: Debates Over Race and Nation
Notes:
Chapter 9: The Nineteenth-Century Cherokee Nation
Notes:
Chapter 10: Kiowas and the Creation of the Plains Indian
From wiki: originated in western Montana. Migrated south and southeast towards Colorado. It's own language. Connected closely to "Plains Sign Language," a "trade language" that eventually became a language all its own.
Notes:
Chapter 11: Removals from the East to a Native West
Notes:
Chapter 12: The Survival of Nations
Notes:
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