A235, History of American Empire

This week we will go back in time to the beginnings of the United States, once it achieved independence from the British empire.  American independence meant transformation alongside inertia, all in the name of “freedom” and “liberty,” whatever those words meant in the contested realities of the 1770s and 1780s.  The inertia came in the form of violent, vicious continuation of slavery — and dispossession of Native Americans.  Neither of these were a single story, as there were dissenting voices among white Americans — as well as among Britons who lectured the young American nation about its unjust new political system.

Henry Knox, Secretary of War under President George Washington, was a slightly dissenting voice whose priority was to restore peace to the conflict-ridden messy “frontier” after the War of American Independence.  Married to a half-Ojibwe woman, Henry Schoolcraft served in the 1820s as “Indian agent” for the federal government, and sought to refute accusations of American injustice voiced by the British.  In both cases, virtue talk was hard work, like all virtue talk thoroughly at odds with harsh reality on the ground.  Indeed, that is the very mission of virtue talk.

1.  According to Knox, what was happening on the so-called “frontier” which was causing alarm?

2.  In what ways did Knox blame Native Americans?  What were they doing supposedly wrong?

3.  In what ways did Knox blame white settlers?  What were they doing supposedly wrong?

4.  How did the British treat Native Americans in “Canada,” according to Schoolcraft?

5.  How did Americans supposedly treat Native Americans in or near the United States?