Perspectives – Unheard Voices

12Jun 2020 by mlee

Understanding Gender Roles in Native American Communities Using Computational Analysis

Perspectives

By Eustina Kim, Michelle Lee, and Vicki Truong Introduction and Corpus Overview In our capstone class led by Dr. Ashley Sanders Garcia (Vice Chair, Digital Humanities Program), we investigated the significance and distinctions of gender roles in Native American communities. Using both humanistic and computational approaches, we explored a corpus including early Native American treaty council notes and other historical records. We were interested in seeing how textual documents could be transformed into quantitative data to determine insights and trends that may not be evident with only human reading. Using text mining methods in Python, we examined how the notion of gender not only shaped individuals in Native communities, but also transformed the perception of entire tribes. Thus our motivating question was: “Using computational analysis, how can we examine the…

11Jun 2020 by jhui

19th Century Native and Euro-American Relations

Perspectives

By Jessie Hui, Gabbi Kester, Jon Gordon ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ Introduction: Throughout early North American history, land was often at the center of conflict between the Native peoples, European settlers, and American colonists. In the late 18th and early 19th century, the newly founded United States sought ways to repay their war debts—ranging from the revolutionary war to the the War of 1812. Unfortunately for many Native peoples, the U.S. often employed methods rooted in the explicit and implicit exploitation of the land they lived on and its resources through trade. As the indigenous peoples’ territories became threatened, the importance of land and trade extended beyond cultural significance, eventually becoming an indication of their ability to survive and thrive in the “new world” that European settlers desired to take control of. ‎…

17Mar 2020 by ekim No Comments

Text Analysis on a Native American Corpus

Perspectives

Eustina Kim, Michelle Lee, Priyana Patel, Vicki Truong Overview Corpus Background The corpus used for analysis included documents from the American State Papers and notes from treaty councils with Native Americans. The American State Papers is a collection of legislative and executive documents from Congress during 1789 to 1838. The documents are arranged in the following ten classes: Foreign Relations, Indian Affairs, Finances, Commerce and Navigation, Military Affairs, Naval Affairs, Post Office Department, Public Lands, Claims, and Miscellaneous. We used texts from the Indian Affairs class for analysis, which has two volumes: Volume 1 from 1789 to 1814 and Volume 2 from 1815 to 1827. The treaty council papers include transcription notes from treaty councils during the period 1784-1814. Initially, treaties between the United States and Native American leaders focused…

13Dec 2019 by dayounglee

Native and Euro-America Women in the Early Republic

Perspectives

Although the scholarly study of American women’s history mainly focused on the nineteenth century, attention started to gear towards women in the eighteenth century as more information began to appear through extensive research. These women’s experiences included victim narratives and accounts of resistance to gender ideology. With the growing field of early American women’s history, the intersection of gender with other factors like race, class, and region has been studied through new methodologies. Women in Early America examines the choices women made during the revolutionary era and explores the socially defined female behaviors, and demonstrates the shared goals of women of different races. In the reading, the author demonstrates that Indian women went beyond contributing to extensive food resources by challenging the colonial belief that viewed Indians as uncivilized and…

13Dec 2019 by marycooperwahlen

The Heart of the Matter: Land in Early America

Perspectives

“Stories of origin are always instrumental in creating and reinventing the narrative of national identity. Frontier stories occupy a significant place in American imagination.” Johannes Ledolter and Lea Vandervelde Introduction: In the chaotic times of post-Revolutionary War America, squatters such as “Prisoner Ross” were eager to stake a claim and begin their lives in early America (John Armstrong to Josiah Harmar April 12th, 1785). One of the problems with squatters like Ross was that they were illegally attempting to establish settlements on inhabited Indigenous lands. This created inter-ethnic friction which often led to violence and disrupted the Native lifeways on their ancestral homelands. During this period, America was working to form its identity while actively attempting to maintain a cohesive union. It was clear to the early government that these…

11Dec 2019 by Elizabeth Cruz-Nakamura

Women and Gender in the Early American Settler Nation

Perspectives

Research Questions What ideologies were at work in early America?Which ideologies of womanhood seem to be at play as women supported their soldier-settler husbands through correspondence, in person, and as co-emigrants to the western borderlands? Using Text Analysis, what do the words that the women use say about their role in society? Introduction Widowed and left with nothing in Ireland, Mary Keating desperately begs her cousin, Anthony Wayne, to help her cross the Atlantic. She sends a series of letters that go unanswered. Unbeknownst to her, her cousin is gravely ill. Wayne dies, ultimately unable to assist his cousin. Such is the precarious nature of woman’s stability in early America; women were forced to rely on patriarchal figures in order for them to create a new version of American identity. This…

04Dec 2019 by kaicolorado

Power Dynamics Across Nations

Perspectives, Uncategorized

The process of successful negotiation is one that requires fluid communication and mutual understanding between parties. It is one that calls for give and take from all those involved. In the case of the negotiations between indigenous leaders, cross-cultural boundaries of language and negotiating standards hindered the fluidity of treatymaking and created misunderstanding between parties. Generally benefitting Europeans, these failures in communication created treaties and relationships that were perceived differently between the two groups. The skewed perceptions of these relationships built upon established disparities in power and societal constructs across cultures and further disadvantaged Native American tribes during the process of European immigration. Analyzing council transcripts of negotiations between Europeans and indigenous people sheds light on each party’s motives and perceptions of the other. The council minutes I…

04Dec 2019 by nashramahmood

Race Relations in Upper Louisiana

Perspectives

Introduction In 1767, Spanish general and the imminent governor of Louisiana, Don Antonio de Ulloa arrived with his men near the Missouri River. He intended to establish two fortified settlements on both sides of the river, ensuring Spanish dominance in the newly acquired territory, following the ceded land agreements of the Treaty of Paris. Along with Ulloa’s expedition came a set of projected guidelines that were meant to facilitate the construction of an ideal society. Unfortunately, Ulloa underestimated the trials that the land and his own soldiers would present, as many disputes between officers arose due to the instability of power and control over the fort’s development. His unsuccessful efforts were eventually saved by outside Spanish reinforcements following his arrival in Upper Louisiana. While Ulloa’s envisioned regime was short-lived, his…

Category: Perspectives