EMR 158: Land, Labor, Legacies: New Perspectives on Black and Indigenous Histories
Note: This class syllabus is ambitious--covering roughly 500 years of history, and materials often studied in distinct departments.
For the Fall 2024 semester we will indeed read much of the material already listed from the Fall 2023 syllabus. However, the class *will* be adapted to focus on 4-5 critical themes to provide a framework for rigorously analyzing several centuries of overlapping and diverging histories of Black and Indigenous peoples.
These will be among the core themes that organize our approach.
First Contact. This section will examine a truly trans-Atlantic history, looking at the dawn of European exploration, and consequences of Contact between Europe, the Americas, and the African Continent); this section will examine, at its broadest, the development of settler colonialism, and Slave Systems that targeted Black and Native peoples
Warfare. While examining the rise of chattel slavery and genocidal campaigns, this section will look at various resistance strategies amongst oppressed Black and Native peoples, including everything from resistance on plantations to slave rebellion, marronage (the formation of independent communities of former slaves that lived in a state of total warfare against surrounding hostile states); and on the Native side, everything from global warfare to international diplomacy.
Law. An examination of ongoing legacies of violence through a study of the distinct but similar ways in which the legal system oppresses Black and Indigenous peoples (i.e. criminal justice, Supreme Court decisions affecting Indian Country; LANDBACK and Reparations).
Capitalism. We will cultivate a long durée perspective that examines the impoverishment of Black and Indigenous peoples; and also, the contemporary ways in which Black and Native peoples have pursued economic sovereignty as a means of survival.
_______________________
Land, Labor, Legacies:
New Perspectives on Black and Indigenous Histories
Professor Mandy M. Izadi
The study of North America, at its root, is the study of Native America and African America. Typically, scholarship on the first Americans—and Africans and their descendants—are studied in isolation. Dominant trends in scholarship, journals, academic disciplines, and university departments tend to reinforce these boundaries. And yet, from the dawn of European colonization to the present day, the worlds of Black and Indigenous peoples have collided in ways that have shaped not only the history of each group, but also, European empires, the United States, and the Atlantic World. The legacy of this past is one that lingers.
In this seminar we will study the distinct and shared experiences of people of Indigenous and African descent. Within the broader context of Euro-American expansion, war, colonialism, and global capitalism, we will investigate:
The historical relationship of Native peoples to land—and African-descended peoples to labor. We will then develop a broader perspective on dispossession and slavery by examining the shared experiences of Black and Native peoples. On the one hand, we will study slavery as an institution that included Indigenous Americans, predominantly as slaves, but also, as enslavers. We will also examine land loss as a historical phenomena that impacted Black Indians and Black Americans.
The history of alliance and antagonism between Indigenous Americans and African Americans will provide another layer of analysis. It forms yet another dimension of the intersecting and shared experiences of both groups. Sometimes, Black and Indigenous peoples were allies in war and resistance, more generally; in other instances, they were antagonists. For decades, Indigenous Southerners enslaved people of African descent. While studying these contradictory relationships, we will also study the formation of mixed racial categories and identities. In this section of class we will focus on the lives and experiences of Black Indians.
Key subjects and themes include: Euro-American imperialism; settler colonialism; dispossession; chattel slavery; (racial) capitalism; the Atlantic World; Indian enslavement and Indian enslavers; race, racism, and the formation of racial categories; the contradictory nature of Black-Indian relationships; Black-Indians and mixed-race identities; American state formation and contemporary state violence; emancipation and sovereignty.
Course material will draw from classic and groundbreaking works across several disciplines, including Native American and Indigenous Studies, African American Studies, Black & Native histories; the law. Literature, documentary film, and scholarship on Black-Indian peoples and histories will also afford us new ways of learning the histories and legacies of people of Native and African descent in North America, and occasionally, the wider world.
Writing assignments
You will write 12 short reflections over the course of the semester. These reflections, posted on Canvas, will be part of the conversations we have in the classroom over the course of the semester. For these assignments (averaging 120-170 words), you will reflect on an argument, subject, or question that most interests you.
Please post your Canvas reflection by 11PM the night before class meets.*
Essays
There will be a mid-term essay and a final essay (5-8 pages each, double-spaced). The first essay will ask you to answer a question that requires synthetic analysis of 2-3 critical texts from the first half of the semester. The final essay will be similar, but you will reflect on what you have learned over the course of the entire semester. Both essays will offer room for creative analysis that engages the questions or readings that most engage you!
Over the course of the term, we will discuss writing styles and techniques. My aim is to offer space and time to think about good writing; we will spend time talking about your writing process and also, university resources that are available and very helpful. For additional support, you may also choose to purchase a very short and classic work on how to write well: William Strunk and E.B. White, The Elements of Style. Your mid-term and final essay will be evaluated for clarity of style, grammar, logic, organization, accuracy, and content, including originality of thought.
Grading
Grading will be based upon class participation and written work. Class participation represents 25% of the grade; short writing assignments 25%; and the exams 50%.
Readings for the course include articles as well as selected chapters from several books.
Participation and Attendance
Attendance is expected. You are allowed 1 absence throughout the semester for any reason.
Our class will be a space for debate, conversation, and questions, so your active engagement and participation are imperative. If you are quieter by nature, please come speak with me in office hours so we can discuss strategies for your participation.
Our Learning Environment
Our differences are our strength. Together we will cultivate a learning environment that supports diverse thoughts, perspectives, and experiences. This sort of dynamism is a vital root of democratic debate and conversation.
This means that our classroom will honor who you are; accordingly, we welcome and respect a range of identities relating to ability, sexuality, gender, race, class, religion, etc.
Pronouns. Preferred gender pronouns will be respected by everyone in class. I will defer to the pronouns you have selected on my.harvard. If you have other preferences, please let me know.
Wellness. If your performance in class is affected adversely by experiences outside of the classroom, either on campus or beyond--please know that I am here to talk to you. We can speak during office hours, or set another time to meet.
Additional resources include:
The University's Counseling and Mental Health Service offers appointments for initial consults within 3-5 days; while Urgent Care is available throughout the day, and the CAMHS Cares Support Line (617.495.2042) is available 24/7.
SHARE Counselors also offer a range of support to all members of the Harvard community with trauma-informed counseling, education and support groups, a 24/7 confidential hotline (617.495.9100), community referrals, and advocacy work.
The Harvard College Office of BGLTQ Student Life is a central resource for bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, queer, and questioning students. And the Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, & Learning website lists specific organizations and resource groups that are available University-wide offices and School/Unit-based departments.
Checking in. Our conversations will offer opportunities for us to explore some challenging issues relating to the American past and present. These conversations may not be easy.
The measure of the difficulty we confront may be a direct representation of the importance of the issue at hand. Imagination, patience, understanding will help us through these moments as they ebb and flow.
If you find that any topic of conversation or a comment has made you a bit uncomfortable, please reach out to me. If you think communicating anonymously would be more helpful, you can always slide a letter under my door. It is my utmost priority to create a room in which you feel heard, welcome, and safe.
Accommodations
If you need academic adjustments or accommodations in this course, please speak with me and present your letter from the Disability Access Office (DAO), which is a resource for students with disabilities and temporary health conditions who may require accommodations to fully participate in all aspects of Harvard student life. All discussions will remain as confidential as possible within the parameters of FERPA; I may consult DAO to discuss appropriate implementation. I encourage you to please reach out to the DAO directly if you are not yet registered.
Email and Canvas
You will receive email updates about readings, assignments, and other course matters. You are encouraged to reach out to meet during office hours and to reach out via email with any questions. I will aim to respond to all emails asap, and in certain cases, within a 48-hour period during the regular work week. Please read and respond to your email regularly. Please also check Canvas regularly for any updates to readings and assignments.
Deadlines and Extensions
Everyone will start with 3 "grace days" you may use for extensions on assignments. Your 3 days may be divided up (e.g. 1 day for the first assignment, 2 days for the second), but once you have used all three, no more will be granted, so plan accordingly. After all days are used, assignments will be deducted a step for each late day (an A becomes an A–, etc.).
Use of Generative AI
All work students submit for this course will be their own. Based on collective classroom discussion and agreements, we will decide on the use of ChatGPT or any other generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools; though this will be for preliminary stages of the work. Violations of this policy may be considered academic misconduct. At this time, different classes at Harvard are experimenting with—and learning from—different AI policies. But we will follow the general AI guidelines that have been encouraged across the board by the university. Let's be patient with ourselves, and remember that we are all adapting to the opportunities and limitations of this new technology.
Acknowledgment of Land and People
Harvard University is located on the traditional and ancestral land of the Massachusett, the original inhabitants of what is now known as Boston and Cambridge. We pay respect to the people of the Massachusett Tribe, past and present, and honor the land itself which remains sacred to the Massachusett People.
Section I: A Collision of Worlds—Old and New
Week 1 – An Indigenous Continent
Neal Salisbury, “The Indians New World: Native Americans and the Coming of Europeans,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd. Ser. Vol. 53 (July 1996): 435-458.
Pekka Hamalainen, Indigenous Continent, (2022), read: Introduction + Part 1 (Chapters 1-3), pp. 3-36; Part 2: Chapter 4, pp.37-).
Week 2 – First Encounters: Memory & Myth
Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), PP. 27-80 of the PDF (pp. 1-54 of the numbers on the document itself).
Andres Resendez, A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca, (New York: Basic Books, 2009), Introduction (PDF link) + Chapter 1.
SECTION II: Atlantic Slaveries — Indigenous & African
Week 3: Gender, Race, Diaspora: Slave Societies in North America
Stephanie E. Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), Introduction + Chapter 1 + Chapter 2. *PDFs sent via email.
Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), PART I: Prologue – Chapter 4 (pp.1- 92)
In class:
Screening: The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, episode 1
Week 4: Race, Land, Labor
Patrick Wolfe, “Elementary Structures of Race: Land, Labor, and the Difference,” American Historical Review.
Christina Snyder, “The Long History of American Slavery,” OAH Magazine, (2013); Snyder, “Native American Slavery in a Global Context,” from What Is A Slave Society? (Cambridge UP).
Stephanie E. Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), Chapter 3-4
In class:
First of several in-class discussions of Mid-term, with time for questions + brainstorming potential approaches to the question.
***Indigenous Peoples' Day. No Class. Please upload your Canvas reflection by Friday Oct. 13, 11pm.***
Week 5 – Indigenous Women, Indigenous Land, & Atlantic Slaveries
Stephanie E. Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), Chapter 5-6
Jean O’Brien, “Divorced from the Land.” (this is re: Indigenous women in New England, and questions of resistance + culture change).
In class:
Discussion of mid-term.
Week 6 – Black Venus, Black Women, & Capitalism
Saidiya Hartman, “Venus in Two Acts,” Small Axe 26 (June 2008): 1-14.
Jennifer Morgan, Reckoning with Slavery: Gender, Kinship & Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic, Intro. + Ch. 1.
Stephanie E. Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), Chapter 7
Week 7 – Indigenous Slavery + An American Genocide
Benjamin Madley, An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873, Introduction (15pp), Ch.1: "Prelude to Genocide" (26pp) + Ch.2 (25pp) Ch2 "Gold, Immigrants, and Killers" (PDFs via email and in course files)
In class:
Indigenous Harvard Tour with Harvard University Native American Program
Week 8 – American Genocides
Benjamin Madley, "Reexamining the American Genocide Debate: Meaning, Historiography, and New Methods," American Historical Review.
In Class:
"We Charge Genocide" (1951), Civil Rights Congress, Introduction (3pp.) + "New Acts of Genocide," p.xiv.
Read Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin), American Indian Stories, (autobiographical text), selection.
An American Horror Story: Martin Scorcese's Killers of the Flower Moon. We'll arrange a theatre screening.
Midterm: Take-home essay due Friday at midnight. Please upload on Canvas.
SECTION III: Alliance + Antagonism & Race
Week 9 – Indigenous Enslavers, Black Slaves
Tiya Miles, Preface (xv - xviii), Introduction (pp.1-13) + Tiffany McKinney, "Race + Federal Recognition in Native New England," Crossing Waters, Crossing Worlds: the African Diaspora in Indian Country.
Philip Deloria, “When Tribal Nations Expel Their Black Members,” New Yorker, July 18, 2022.
Week 10 – Race + Identity
Tiya Miles, Ch. 5: "Dispossession," in Nikole Hannah-Jones, ed., The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. (p.135-155)
Tiya Miles, Ch. 3: "Free Citizens of This Nation: Cherokee Slavery, Descendants of Freedpeople, and Possibilities for Repair in Time for Reparations: A Global Perspective. p.47-58
David Chang, "Where Will the Nation Be at Home? (Ch. 4, 20pp.) in Crossing Waters, Crossing Worlds: The African Diaspora in Indian Country.
In class:
Short story, "Sold South," by Jesmyn Ward in Ch.5 of The 1619 Project, p.161-162.
Tamara Buffalo, "Knowing All My Names." Buffalo is a Minneapolis based artist who discovered she had African ancestry when she was thirty-six. Her short piece is a powerful treatise on pain of racial violence--within the family, and beyond.
SECTION IV: LEGACIES, DECOLONIZATION + AFRO-INDIGENOUS FUTURES
Week 11 – Black Dispossession: the U.S. and South Africa
Robin Kelley, "The Rest of Us: Rethinking Settler and Native," (11pp), 2017.
Alaina Roberts, I’ve Been Here All The While, (Penn, 2022), Ch.2 + Ch.3 + Intro (recommended)
note: you may choose to read the Introduction, and to skip some of the final pages of Ch.3 to keep the page count ~60pp.
Week 12 – Red Power, Black Power
Vine Deloria, Ch.8: The Red and the Black," Custer Died For Your Sins, 1969.
Kyle Mays, An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States, Ch. 5: “Black Americans and Native Americans in the Civil Rights Imagination”; Ch.6: “Black Power and Red Power, Freedom and Sovereignty”
OPTIONAL
Selected chapter from: Time for Reparations: A Global Perspective
In class:
“Black Indians Explore Challenges Of ‘Hidden’ Heritage”, NPR, November 30, 2010
Week 13 – Resistance, Alliance, & Art
Nick Estes,* Our History Is The Future, **you may choose to read either Ch.5 or 6: Ch.5: Red Power; Ch.6. Internationalism (re: international solidarity)
Kyle Mays, Ch.8: "Black and Indigenous Lives, Policing, and Justice" (9pp.); Conclusion: "Possibilities for Afro-Indigenous Futures"(18pp) * these readings pair beautifully with Kyndra's films below!
Please note: we have 2 special guests who will speak to the twin histories we've studied this term. For our conversation with LA filmmaker, Kyndra Kennedy, please make sure to watch the following short films:
- "A Million Dollar Cage" [30 min.]
- "Black Matters" [5 minutes]
Optional:
Time for Reparations: A Global Perspective, Foreword + Introduction (pp. xi- p.9* it is not necessary to finish the rest of the intro.) + Ch.10 "Colonial History at Court: Legal Decisions and Their Social Dilemmas." (p.153-170)
Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations,” The Atlantic, June 2014. *editor of the New Yorker referred to this article as a piece of journalism that "changed the world."
Class Dinners @ Russell House Tavern, 7pm. please reach out in case you can't recall which dinner you're attending!
Reading Period
Final Essay
please remember you are required to meet with me during Office Hours so we can talk about your chosen topic + how you'll approach it (i.e. argument, sources, etc.)
Course Summary:
| Date | Details | Due |
|---|---|---|