HIST
4990 Senior Research Seminar:
Indians of the Southeast
from Prehistory to Removal
Fall,
2008, MWF: 9:00-9:50
Dr.
Katherine
M.B. Osburn; Office: Henderson Hall, 110
Office
Hours: MW: 10:00-11:00, M. 12:30-3:30, and by appointment
Phone:
372-6297; email: kosburn@tntech.edu
Web
Page: http://iweb.tntech.edu/~kosburn
Class
STRUCTURE
AND Assignments.
·
Since this is a research seminar it is not constructed around an historical
narrative. Therefore, I am not going to lecture you on the history
of this region. There are, however, lecture notes on the web to help you fill in
the background and chronology of Southeastern Indian history. Please print these
off ASAP. We will take time in class with a few of these--see syllabus below. On
the days that we will discuss these, I expect you to read through them so that
you will be prepared for class.
We will meet for five weeks to consider scholarship on this area. You are
expected to come to class prepared to discuss the day’s readings. We will be
reading a lot of material in a short time, so please don’t let yourself get
behind. I am going to operate on an honors system for the first time in fifteen
years of teaching. If it appears that students are not reading, then I will be
forced to resort to the dreaded pop quiz or to give you questions to answer
while you read. You don’t want to have to do them and I don’t want to have
to grade them, so let’s all do the reading and save us all the hassle.
RESEARCH PAPERS
The
goal of this class is to produce
an historiographical paper running roughly 12-16 pages. You will pick a
topic in this field, scour the secondary literature in books and scholarly
journals, and give me an analysis of one of the major issues discussed by
historians and/or anthropologists. I will provide a handout on exactly what I
want. For help writing your papers and the criteria by which your papers will be
graded, see Academic
Writing
and Performance
Standards.
Paper timeline. You
will earn points for following these instructions. These will be added into your
final grade so that the paper is worth 225 points, or 2/3s of your grade.
1. You must provide me with a brief description of what you want to write
about by class time on Monday of the seventh week.
(10 points)
·
2. By the eighth week you must provide me with a thesis
statement, outline, and a bibliography of at least 5 sources.
I have a number of bibliographies that you can consult if you need help.
For information on appropriate sources for a college paper, see Bibliographies:
Appropriate and Otherwise.
(20 points)
·
3. You will turn in a first draft during week fourteen.
This should not be a "rough draft," but rather should be in
what you consider to be its final form. I
will critique the paper and return it to you for revisions. (90 points)
·
4.
You will present your research to the class at the end of the semester.
(25 points)
·
5.
The final paper will then be due at finals time. (100 points)
Plagiarism Quiz.
It is imperative that you do not commit the mortal academic sin of
plagiarism in your papers. To make sure you are covered, see Policy
on Plagiarism. Because so many students ignore this handout and
turn in plagiarized papers, there will be an open-note quiz on the plagiarism
handout on Monday of Week Six. (five points)
TEXTS:
1.
Daniel H. Usner, Jr. American Indians in the
Lower
Mississippi
Valley
2.
Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green, eds. Cherokee
Removal: A Brief History with Documents
3.
Two Handouts
GRADES:
1.
Class discussions & readings 13 @ 5 points = 65
2.
Plagiarism quiz 5
2.
Research paper 225
3.
Total points: 295; 295-286 = A;’ 285-256 = B; 255-226 = C; 225-196 = D
LATE
ASSIGNMENTS: All assignments must be
turned in on time--that means at the beginning of the class period for which
they are due, not the end of the period. (Thus, if you skip class to finish your
work you will be out of luck.) Late assignments and papers will be docked one
letter grade unless the student can prove, through appropriate documentation,
that an emergency occurred. Computer
problems are not an acceptable emergency, for computers "know" when
you are on a deadline and will deliberately chose not to function.
Having been warned that this occurs, I suggest you print your work out
well before class time.
SCHEDULE OF
READINGS
Part One: Foundations
Week One: Overview:
Southeastern Indians
M.
Introduction:
The Problems of Native American History; Web lecture notes: Anthropological
Concepts in Studying Native Americans.
W.
The Southeastern Culture Area:
Discussion of Web lecture notes: The
Southeastern Culture Area.
Cherokee Ball Play and the
Green Corn Ceremony
For the original article on the Ball Play by anthropologist James Mooney Click
Here For the original letter by John Howard Payne describing
the Green Corn Ceremony, Click
here.
F.
Historiography of SE Indians: #1.
Daniel Usner, "The History of American Indians in the Early
South.”
Week Two: “Explorers”
week
M.
LABOR DAY! NO CLASS (SING UNION SONGS AND DRINK BEER)
Part Two: Invasion and Empires:
Europeans
held to a common ideology of conquest that was present in one form or another in
each nations' explorations and settlement: The Right by Discovery; The Right by Cultivation; The Right by Civilization ;
The Right by Extermination, by
Gunpowder ; The Right by Authority: The Papal Bull. For
an overview click
here
: http://www.lehigh.edu/~ejg1/irving/irving1809Transcript.htm)
See
web overviews for specific contact and colonization narratives see::
the Spanish Empire; the
Spanish in the Southeast
the French Empire The
French in the Southeast and the
British Empire
the
English in the Southeast For
background information on initial contact see web lecture notes: The
Colombian Exchange.
W. #2 Handout:
Charles Hudson, "The Hernando
de Soto
Expedition, 1539-1543." and Rodrigo
Rangel, “A Narrative of the De Soto Expedition.”
For an overview of the Native Peoples the Spanish encountered in this
early period click here:
Indians
in the SE Spanish Empire
F. # 3
Handout: The La Salle Expedition to
Texas
: The French Among the Cenis; For an overview of the Native Peoples the
French encountered in this early period click here:
Indians
in the SE French Empire
Week Three The
Lower
Mississippi River
Valley
M. #4 Daniel H. Usner, "French-Natchez Borderlands in Colonial
Louisiana
Part
Three: The New Republic.
W.
#6 Daniel H. Usner, “American Indians in a Frontier Exchange Economy.”
F.
#5 Daniel H. Usner,
“American Indians and the Early Cotton Economy.”
Week Four The Choctaws
M.
#7
Carson
, Searching for the Bright
Pat
h, Introduction through Chapter Two
W.
#8
Carson
, Searching for the Bright
Pat
h, Chapters Three, Four, and Five
F.
#9
Carson
, Searching for the Bright
Pat
h, Chapters Six, Seven, Conclusion
Part Four Removal
Week Five
The Cherokees
M.
#10 Perdue & Green, The Cherokee Removal Introduction and Chapter One
W.
#11 Perdue & Green, The Cherokee Removal Chapters Two and Three
F.
#12 Perdue & Green, The Cherokee Removal Chapters Four and Five
Week Six Plagiarism
Quiz
Week Seven-Paper topics due on Monday.
Week Eight: Work on your paper;
Paper outlines and annotated bibliography due on Friday of Week Eight.
Weeks Nine-Thirteen
Work on your paper; Rough Draft
of paper due on Monday of Week Thirteen
I will read these and return them to you for revisions by Friday.
Week Fourteen Thanksgiving Break; revise your papers. Your final
revisions are not due until the end of the period in which the final exam would
be held if we were having one.
Week Fifteen: Presentation of Papers, M
& W
Week Sixteen: Finals
Final
paper due no later than 5:50 on Wednesday, December 12th
late
papers will not be accepted except under the most dire ofcircumstances