Transcripts For CSPAN2 American 20240704

Are you thinking its just a Community Center . No. It is much more than tha creating wifi enabled list so students from low income families can get the tools that they need to be ready for anything. Comcast along with these Television Companies support cspan2 as a public service. I am an assistant professor at the history university of southern california. This is my first inperson Conference Since the pandemic. After two years we are giving a conference paper with basically sitting alone in my part apartmentss. Its wonderful to stipulate a person to you guys today. I wanted to say thank you for putting together this conference and for accommodating all the different varieties. Even though that i know that it came with some great logistical challenges. I want to thank Ray Lynn Barnes who unfortunately cannot be here today what is really the one responsible for bringinggi us al together today. Ultimatelyas last year around february deciding to focus on 1852. He this is the year when the Republican Party succeeded and the original campaign promises, abolishing slavery in the district of columbia and the western territories as well as passing the homestead act. It achieved legislative victories that would help the union when the war, like the direct tax act of 1862, establishing the first income tax. This islo the year when the fighting intl civil war took a particularly muddy turn with the battle of the shiloh among others. It seemed increasingly likely that france or england may recognize the confederacy and when the congress and later lincoln recognized what many africanamericans free and enslavedth had known all along. That this was a war over slavery , not just union. And, of course, the war in the west is even more complicated and i am sure will be the subject of much of what we areec discussing in todays roundtable all of these decisions, events have shaped the world that we live in today and so it seems particularly apt 160 years later to think about this year together in this roundtable. As you may notice, our ranks are somewhat diminished. Unfortunately, glenn had a family emergency and could not come to the conference at all. Unfortunatelyan a flight cancellation and if youre wondering which one it was united and was not able to get here in time for the roundtable. They are to not be able to be t with us today. So, what we are going to do is ask the two members of our roundtable to share some thoughts. I will introduce each of them before they speak. Then we will open the floor up to a broader discussion. I really hope that we can do that as a conversation. First up, we have monica who is an assistant professor of studies and affiliated faculty with women, gender and faculty studies where he has taught since 2014. His work centers a critique of imperialism with a focus on antiracism and indigenous. Hes teaching courses on racism, u. S. Imperialism and radical internationalism. Critiquing the economy and liberation. The author of e empires tracks indigenous nation, Chinese Workers in the Transcontinental Railroad which was published in 2019. I want to echo thanks to the organizers of Public Comment which i know is a huge amount of work especially in these conditions and also to ray lynn. I feel kind of sheepish because it feels like from here the big 1862 did not feel so big. I hope that we can just have a discussion with everyone in the room. Thank you so much for making time to join us. So, in my remarks today, i plani to focus on 1862 as a moment of escalation in the destructive power of the u. S. And the world linking the wartime expansion of u. S. Military power with the development of u. S. Financial institutions. I am particularly interested in the relationships between the war, military and financial power in the west and in the caribbean. No links between these two appeared in its wars and occupation against the seminoles which up until that point were the most expensive wars that the u. S. Fought until the civil war and wars that they were militarily defeated and also against mexico. The u. S. N war economy had tied together the production of farms in new england with the stabilization of slavery in texas in the deep south. By the early 1860s, the war economy marked the confrontation between northern Merchant Capital which required a protected market to grow in southern capital which required International Experts to ensure itthe future. Merchant and insurance capitals based in new york city and the Connecticut River valleyar began the war paralyzed and divided undertaking a transition from cotton to a diversified Portfolio Investment across ranching, agriculture, mining and industry. The u. S. Victory over the confederacy was thwarted by a series of battlefield catastrophes. On february 25, 1862 authorizing 150 million in u. S. Treasury notes socalled which eventually increased to 450 million with an additional half billion dollars in war bonds raising funds to support military power over land and sea which would be necessary to defeat the confederacy. It provided a windfall for industrial and military contractors launching the careers of robber barons of the coming period. In a further effort to raise more funds and bitter Political Polarization the revenue act which lincoln signed into law july 1, 1862 established both thee First Federal income tax is the first tax on inherited wealth and the agency would eventually become the irs. In turnov setting the stage for the National Bank act speared between 1863 and 1866 which formed a National Banking system giving the u. S. Federal government the ability to issue war bonds and authorizing the federal government to regulate and tax a commercial banking system. On april 19, 1851 lincoln had issued a proclamation against southern ports. The naval blockade was necessary to stop the flow of capital, weapons and consumer goods into the confederacy. It was a coercive policy to break thehe alliance of new york merchants with southern planters which is running goods by nassau , bermuda and havana. They began the civil war with 42 ships in active service. By the end of 1862 this would increase the 384 ships and by the end of the war they had the Worlds Largest navy. This navy provided the muscle for an expanded Monroe Doctrine in the decades following the war which activate u. S. Interventions against caribbean and the National Movements in the service of ensuring u. S. Returns on investment. In cuba over the coming decade, the u. S. Would leverage Political Economic and eventually military pressure to support an alliance of the finance capital based in north america. The close of the 19th century the cuban revolution would seek to overturn this pressure. Two days after the passage of the legal tender act on februar. Executed Nathaniel Gordon of a respectable main family. He was captain p of the slave sp which had been apprehended the previous august at the mouth of the Chicago River carrying a cargo of 897 african catholics. This is the first and only time the u. S. Executed someone for participating in slave a trade. The u. S. Concluded a negotiation on thetr beyond sewer treaty whh effectively entered u. S. Sanction for participation in the slave trade to cuba and brazil. This ended u. S. Participation, legal u. S. Participation in the atlantics and the atlantic slave trade. On july 1, 1862 the same day as the revenue act link inside the Pacific Railway act into law appeared chartering the railroad for thehe Union Pacific in the Central Pacific railroad which is chartered in the state of california. In these corporate land grants the u. S. Congress violated treaties that it signed with indigenous nations along with the railroad. They use these land grants to raise capital to fund the construction and maintenance to the road. The infrastructure that they built raised capital to finance. Itmo moved resources out and it moved troops in. These rail developments took place on a global stage. The end of 1862 a completion of the first rail line in algeria in theri spread of the rail network and western india built by the british. Julyif 2 establishing the structure of the university through land grants. A continental by Opening University education to small property owners. The shapes of the colonialism. Organizing Higher Education around modern disciplines producing Accounting Administration and the universities produced what train and educate the corporations in a rapidly modernizing and expanding state. The political economy continues to operate within the constraints in place by land grants to corporations and universities over these two days in 1862. At the end of the year on december 26 u. S. Executed 38 prisoners in what remains the largest mass execution in u. S. History. A Historical Context of the railway act and landgrant act the mass execution this involved a transition of relating to north america in the place of war to a space of policing. It remains unfinished. We see the prioritization of the corporations over and against International Treaty obligations the expansionon of land and sea based military power was accomplished through finance capital. This set the stage for Subsequent Development such as territory ionization vigilantism in the application of treaty applications that provide the context for the same massacre on november 29, 1864. In the subsequent period following the defeat of the confederacys and the democracy the war financed the condensation of u. S. Power between the mississippi and california and the caribbean. The definitive break in the alliance between northeastern Merchant Capital in southern slaveholding capital around shared investments in cotton led to the development of finance capital. By the 1980s they had economic terms controlling the production of sugar mining operations. Burning down to establish massive sugar estates building rail and Road Networks to transport Raw Materials and importing thousands of Seasonal Workers from haiti and jamaica. I have spoken about two executions in 1862 as windows into the transitions in place during that year. I am particularly interested in how it was accomplished not to revolution of land relations but a new alliance between finance capital. Particularly on the plains of north america and in the islands of the caribbean. I want to call our attention to the saudi execution of 81 prisoners this past march 12 followed by the shipment of missiles to saudi arabia march 21 as reported in the wall street journal. While they report that they are unable or unwilling to rapidly increase Oil Production for russian oil for consumers in europe. This is taking place as we witness rapidly unfolding experiments between countries seeking to trade in currencies other than the u. S. Dollar. In the recent developments we can also see assertions of power over sea and land and attempts to stabilize the dollar to project a future for u. S. Power. The world remains caught in the graph of finance nexus. [applause] thank you so much. Our next panelist is jimmy sweet who was an assistant professor of american studies at rutgers. His current book project race, wall and indians in the 19th century midwest analyzes the legal and racial complexities of American Indians of mixed indian and european ancestry with a focus on kinship, Family History , land possession and citizenship. Dedicated too indigenous languae and preservation and his research is driven by a need to understand the full effects of american colonialism on indigenous americans and how those consequences influence people today doing so with the hope of contributing to the hope for the fight for indigenous communities. Jimmy. [inaudible] that was a formal dakota greeting. I said hello my relatives. Is my mic not working . Is it on . Is it working now . Okay. [speaking in native tongue] a formal dakota greeting. It means hello, my relatives. I shake your hands in a goodhearted manner. It is a really big thing in that culture. When i was invited to the panel, i intended to talk about the war of 1862 which is much closer to my area of expertise but two of the panelists were already going to talk about that. Not all of them are here today. [laughter] my thinking lately has been turning a bit more broadly from the u. S. Dakota war. Tmore broadly in scope in the time. To think more about native people and though west particularly during the civil war years. So, 1862 when the civil war years is a particularly horrible moment for native americans i would say. In this moment where the u. S. Government really goes all out and makes it, you know, the full policy to dispossess native people of their land and replace them with white settlers. This really was not something new. The u. S. And other colonial growlers in north america have been carrying out genocide and dispossession for hundreds of years. But the civil war acted as cover for american lawmakers to explicitly make native land dispossession a policy of federal government. In 1862, we heard about the congressional acts of that period. The homestead act, the Pacific Railroad act, moral act, even. All of these were legislations that focused on the dispossession of native people. The dispossession of salford indigenous nations. Not just individuals but nations these are sovereign nations. This was a policy. To remove them from their homeland and replace them with white settlers. In the same year during the civil war we also see the creation of a large number of territories. Colorado, nevada and the anterritorial governments were created in 1861. Arizona and idaho in 1863 in montana in 1864. A huge swath than what is now, you know, government presence of administration has now dramatically increased over the huge swath of native american territory native American Land which all of these things couple together the creation of these territories, really all about using what was going on in the civil war to dramatically overtake indigenous land. That is always been kind of the practice, unfortunately, of the American Government and other colonial nations. It really kind of ramps up this moment. We see the rampup and violence. In this particular moment in 1862. Some of these are better known. I mentioned the u. S. Dakota war of 1862. A major war that depopulated the state of minnesota and resulted in, you know, hundreds of settlers dead, hundreds of native peoplee dead and thousans displaced from their homes and eventually removed fromm their homelands in minnesota appeared one of our commenters who will was not able to make it today is actually a defendant of one of the 38 men, at least one of the 38 men executed on december 26, 1862. I wish he was here for powerful talk about that. But that is one of the betterknown ones. There is a decent of that. Another one is the sand creek massacre in 1864 in colorado. Most people have heard of that. There is some historical literature on that as well. But there are many, many other moments of violence in this particular. In theha civil war years particularly in california under what is known as the california genocide which was going on a decade or two after the civil war and continued after. It was a bloodied time during the civil war. Four example, a lot of these are lesserknown. There was the bearr river massacre in idaho where the u. S. Army massacred 280 shoshone men, women and children appeared there was another massacre around the same. In california where settlers, was not even the army, local settlers roads up and murdered in california. These are just to name a couple ofof the more extreme ones. So many of these massacres going on in the west during the civil war years and many of them are just completelyrt unknown. Particularly those in california just completely understudied. People who are more expert on california than i. The native population of california was greatly reduced. Seventyfive80 , i believe. A little bit broader of a timeline in the 19th century. Something like 300,000 to 30 50,000 or Something Like that largely through the settler violence that was going on. Back to the u. S. Dakota war, in the aftermath of that, general john pope who was the commander of the new department of the northwest that was created as a result of the war, he wrote to september of 62 writing about his thoughts about the dakota people. He used the word soup. It is my purpose. The power to do so and even if it required a campaign lasting the whole of next year. It took two years. It goes on to destroy everything belonging to them. It is by no means people with whom treaties are compromised to be made. Of course many of them did. Probably most notably the mastermind of the sand creek massacre a few years later. These thoughts of the military officers at the time and some of the people in the administration another aspect of the civil war was that it completely devastated the territory which is now oklahoma. This is where the u. S. Government forcibly removed thousands ofn people just a generation earlier and now the civil war devastated their new homeland. There there were thousands of native people that ended up surveying both on both sides. That gets us to president lincoln. Lincoln is someone who scholars in the public often viewed as one of the greatest american president s. But, the reality is he did little to nothing to curtail violence towards native people during his tenure. He did nothing to curtail the suffering particularly in indian territory and places like that. He saw native people as a threat to white settler expansion. He perceived the future of the u. S. As one in which Indigenous People would be swept aside and white settlers would occupy their homelands and that is why we have that legislation that we mentioned earlier. The homestead act and so on. Political appointees in the Indian Servicef at that timeff called the office of indian affairs, they were largely incompetent and they were corrupt. That was not just something from his administration. This is quite common in administrations before andnd afr this. These were political appointees. They work directly in d. C. , washington, d. C. With the office of indian affairs. They were not appointed because of their skills or their abilities to work with native people,r you know, things like that are really federal policies of the government and the relationships or the treaty responsibilities of the federal government. They were appointed foror political reasons and so often they have no experience with native people whatsoever. They t were there to make money. That was a huge problem. These a indian agents and other workers regularly stole money and stole supplies that were meant to go to native people as treaty guarantee supplies or they wereut sent to the indian agencies to be distributed to andean people. Very often these appointees were , you know, skimming off the top or sometimes skimming from the top all the way through to the bottom. That is one of the causes of the u. S. Dakota war. You know, dakota people literally starving to death because a lot of the local politicians in the state of minnesota whoho were also often, you know, worked for the government as part of the Indian Service who was later also in an army officer. You know, they embezzled pretty much all of the money for the dakota people. One of the causes of the war. This is what is going on during the lincoln administration. So, lincoln and his appointees were most interested in reservation land. And taking their land for settler expansion. If authoritieses or militia grop s felt it was necessary to commit genocidal violence to achieve that, they did so. And we have seen that of course with various others of these massacres. So often, scholars right of lincoln just being too busy to do anything to help native people or relate to you know carry out policies that would be protective of native people and their lands in those things. But rather lincoln was the architect of the administration. He was the architect of the policies of his administration. He was the architect of the actions that his appointees and people carried out. But, anyway, i will wrap up my comments as a historiographical question here. Just thinking about this in this historical literature about this during the civil war. I am looking forward to a good conversation. I think that l there is a twofod issue here. It is a matter of scale. We need some smallscale work and we need more largescale work. On thehe smallscale, like i sae a decent literature on the u. S. Dakota war. Some work on the massacre. Members who could not make it today. A beautiful book, well, beautiful and horrifying the trauma thatsa is in their of the massacre. And i wish he was here, but obviously they have other circumstances and just were not able to make it, unfortunately. Now i lost my train of thought. There are some historical work on things like that. But so many of these other moments ofed violence, extreme violence, massacres have gone understudied or in some cases completely not studied at all. We may know the names of them and that is really about it. That is one issue, we need a lot more work of people digging into study these things. These particular events that are going on in the civil war. But another issue is we also need more work that takes these events as a whole and gives them broader interpretation and understanding of why and how these things happen. And how they relate to the civil war and i what was going on in that particular. Just before the talk i had lunch with a great scholar who was in the audience today. He just had a recent book come out deriving genocide. Up until 1860 and we are waiting his second volume which says we may be waiting for a little while which kinda brings out into a later date. But that is just one example of the important work being done. There needs to be a lot more work of not only the smallscale stuff, but really figuring outs what happened but then the broad scale to get more into the meanings of this. He how these episodes relate to the creation of the United States and coming out of the civil war and issues of reconstruction or the lack of reconstruction in many cases when it comes to Indigenous People in the west after the civil war. [applause] thank you both for such fascinating talks. It really is giving us a lot to think about. I ampr going to exercise the chairses prerogative and asked e first question. After that, we will open up the floor to your audience questions just a quick reminder to go to the microphone in the middle of the room and just take the time to kind of think about what questions you may want to ask. I know that there will probably be a lot. Really fascinating talks give us a very, really make the case for why it is sunny in the west and looking more broadly at the civil war is so important. Whether the caribbean nor the north american west. I will follow up on jennys points because i think what both ofng these talks are showing uss getting us to think more esexpensively about the civil wr and reconstruction. There has been a lot of debate about exactly how to do that. Elliott west has proposed the framework of greater construction about the west and the south together as periods of , a larger period of debates over federal control. Suggesting some limitations to that instead arguing for thinking about the United States as a whole during the time of urthis post war nation. And im just curious to hear if you guys have any comments about how we might, or to expand upon the comments you already made about how we think about what is happening in the south and what is happening your typical textbook detection of the civil war in relation to everything else. The rdf talked about that a bit. Talking about the civil war and talking about the financial and federal expansion that was prompted by the civil war and that larger effect. I am curious to hear you reflect more broadly about how we may think about the United States as a whole during this or whether we should all. That is a great question. One that i would need to think about a little bit more. Just some comments is, you know, obviously what is going on in the west is very different than what is going on in the eastern United States during the civil war. Obviously the civil war, the eastern United States. The historical attention during this period. This great work particularly in the last couple of decades about the civil war directly of battles between the confederacy in the United States and new mexico and places like that. There is some work thinking about t like, again, some of the particular moments with native people. There is a growing historiography of the civil war as fought in the indian territory with numerous battles, i think it is one of the most fought over pieces of ground actually is the indian territory maybe not in terms of numbers of troops on the ground but number of firefights and things like that. And i had in our discussion before this is, you know, we were kind of using the reconstruction may be not be the right word for at least what was going on in the west is nothing was really reconstructed rather than being constructed are many senses deconstructed. At the same time, the United States was constructing in expanding on top of these other nations. And then the one place that probably really needed reconstruction, indian territory , was not. Lincoln had no real interest in you know, helping the people that were suffering then. Talking tens of thousands of people that were refugees in indian territory as a result of the war. Not much was really done after that. And, i think, professor on the second half of this panel who waser much of an expert may have some more pertinent stuff there. Those are the things that im thinking about right now in terms of what that looks like. I have been really interested in turning back to learn from debate in the 30s among radicals about the interpretations of the civil war a revolutionary. In debates about the nature of that revolution, what kind of revolution of course striking the analysis of reconstruction in the most revolutionary moment javert a revolutionary moment, you know, forced by the general strike of the enslaved. There were other analyses at the time. This is a. In the 30s of course in the depression where it is just systemic crisis, social and political crisis, all kinds of experiments and out of these kinds, out of that moment people are reinterpreting reconstruction to this revolution. A revolution that opens up within a battle lets say between different fractions of the american capitalist class. I think maybe that sounds, maybe that sounds abstract, but i think it speaks to the political demands of our moment in some ways. Really interesting ways with the antieviction movement experiments and mutual aid. They learn more broadly understanding the indigenous history. I think one question for me is the question of land. If we go with the latter interpretation of the civil war, the revolution between what becomes industrial finance capital and southern agrarian capital so it seems like there is egg component to it. Similar kinds of revolutionary pressures in other parts of the world in developing nations, countries developing capitalism. In cuba itself in the coming decades there would be periods of time where an Industrial Capital class within cuba would try to assert its own interest and transform policy. More protection so that there could be more Domestic Production and a return by u. S. Economic and eventually political and military power. Of course in reconstruction across america we see a different notice instead of patterns that play where there is kind of a strengthening. There is never really a question of this reform. Except for in the pockets of the south that we learn from. The reform across this expanded United States is not really on the table. It is the opposite. The expansion of this Industrial Capital. The expansion of finance capital is achieved through the expansion of private property claims on land. The legal appropriation of indigenous land. Thank you guys so much for responding to that. I think the issue of land is really key for us to be thinking about. I love that idea. Maybe we need to have a deconstruction, a book about deconstruction to go aside the masterpiece reconstruction. We will now open the floor to questions from the audience. If youou have a question, please just go to the middle aisle and ask away. Thank you. After our sort of critique of lincoln and various heroes, pushing a lot of buttons that need to be pushed so thank you for your comments. I am wondering about the comment or the observations that the civil war was a cover for this. This sort of implies oh, now we can do it, no one is paying attention. I just want more motivation, more evidence as opposed to just coinciding with the civil war. If there was no civil war, there would still be some of these policies may still well be taken the role of the civil war in these policies. As a graduate of a landgrant university, uc berkeley, you know, i am part of this land confiscation and traininggi of engineersna and reorienting financial capital. That is all true important observations. It seems to me that of these things that occur with the moral act, how do we balance the critique and this holocaust of native americans and the other things that did arise from this progress . This development . Thank you. I think you are right. My comment was probably a little too strongr of a word. Some of the evidence that we do have is making nevada estate in 1864 when it was not even near the threshold that was usually necessary. I think the number was like 50,000 or 60,000 or something. Usually not counting native people in that. I think they only had like 10,000 or something, right. They rushed through making it a state because they could. They did not have southerners or something to tell them no, you cannot vote for that. Maybe that is one piece of evidence to get what you are saying. I think if we dug deep we could probably find more. You are probably right, probably a little bit stronger word there to get to your second point, though, thinking about the moral act and the land institutions, in the United States we tend to look at this is a really important point because it does create these Public Institutions that do a lot of good, in terms of education of the populace and a lot of people who would have never had in the past 150170 years who never wouldve had the ability to get that kind of education and agricultural ague education in the early years. Why would we say negative to that. So often so many of the things that we look at as these common goods has extreme consequences for their people. There was the recent article by high country times, high country news, sorry, it came out a couple years ago about the moral act and these schools and the way that they possess native people. I teach at rutgers which is also the Public University of new jersey and so i am kind of in the same boat there. Ga there is that legacy that the university has. It is a little bit indirect in that case compared to schools out west just because new jersey did notot have any public land o they basically used land script that they sold. They did not have direct access to federal lands. But, that is just like the legacy of so many of things in the United States. The next panel about 7076. Somehow i managed to get roped into that panel as well. I will be making some comments they are about the declaration of independence and the constitution which we look at these really Important Documents , but neither of those had native people in minded resulted in inconceivable suffering for the Indigenous People in the same thing with the moral act. Avwe have to recognize what it d in terms of dispossession of native people and with that comes a whole host of other things like starvation and loss of ceremonial sites and things like that. I guess what i am trying to say is like your first time we need bto kind of critique some of these things a little bit as being really important. It does not mean that we should not see them as important anymore, but we have to understand that they impacted people ine many different ways n very negative ways and those are things that need to be explored and need to be addressed and possibly you know readdress for people today and what that mayor mean in terms of Indigenous People. I will use that opportunity to give to plugs like the high country. It is really, really good about the moral act and the landgrant colleges and their effects. The land redistribution that did happen in indian territory among , and the ways in which that benefited free people and africanamericans and the complicated story that happened in indian territory. Interested in that very complicated story. A great place to look if you have not already. If i could just jump in briefly. I think that, for me, i understand not necessarily cover but the civil wars content. Like to really concrete ways. I talked about the expansion of the navys but think about the expansion of the army. Just the number of divisions, the number of officers. They wanted to keep these careers, many of them. It was not going to disband. It was a huge wrecking tool that needed to find things direct so to speak. And then there was the investment in the army. All of these small investors who had money. A rational direct interest in getting a return on their investment and that is investing in wars and investing in the growth ofov the military. I think that the civil war is the context. I dont know about the counterfactual, we could imagine all kinds of scenarios but the way that it actually unfolded happened in this way. It is also really interesting to read some of the accounts of the shoulder soldiers themselves that were sent into foreign countries, foreign territory. The territory of other nations who are very bitter about being sent to these places to fight under very difficult scary for them conditions. They left records. We signed c up to fight the confederacy. Why are we b being sent to attak another nation. That is not what were here for. Theire contradictions also in te historical record. I think in terms of universities , they are also contradictions they are. I am not a historian of education, but i think it would be very interesting to look at german Higher Education which is to modernize and develop in another state which is rapidly developing in a capitalist economy which looks very different than the u. S. Than what it looks like in the United States. I think that there may be lessons for us in understanding the development of disciplineses and the development of the universities, these institutions across these two countries. What a fascinating comparison our next question. Really generative rems here. I want to think about 1862 as the beginning of a decade in which the United States as a nation state radically transforms, its understanding and exertion of jurisdiction. Both in the south and in the west and just think about that all the things that youve just talked about from 1862, right . But we take that all the way forward we take that all the way forward to the enforcement act a decade later and similarly asserting centralized federal authority over really critical matters that are understood to be statebased or local. And in that context also making National Citizenship really other disparate elements citizenship as the aspirational form that we are accustomed to thinking of in terms of africanamerican and other communities. But the place where divergence becomes clear is as you say, by the end of this period it becomes clear i think while from, and maybe goes to your point in forms of capitol that while theri aspirations of africanamericans for their own acres. And they are relegated into forms of confrontation and sharecropping. In the west west we finance capitol to reduce the acreage that they could claim and in that context allotment which is anyway a cottony up what southerners are demanding is the tool of conquest rather than the aspirational form so theres a funny contradictory or a tension in the conversation about man andnd in this period. And thanks for provoking those ideas. I think and i would love to hear you talk about that i think those are really great connections. This may be random. Hearing, just hearing you talk makes me, it draws my mind to the question of culture. This is the era where historians , its in the defeat of the radical promise of reconstruction in the south and theme sharecropping and that we often associate with the beginnings and you know with thatat said with that set of relationships was the eclipse that are radical possibilities andes i wonder what kind of patternsns you are tracking out and what kind of cultural shifts are taking place that we could track and read alongside the blues that still live with us and stay withn us. I dont have an answer for that. Im just thinking about the comments you made. I really appreciate that inn light of the energy. Thinking about the contradictions we have been talking about in so many ways that some things have a particular good to them but they also have the devastation for them. They are these contradictory moments to get to your mention of citizenship so for my own research riding about citizenship and that early state of minnesota where it was so contradictory with and it became a system where democrats were using people who acquired citizenship to use them for political purposes of princetons when the organic act was created a created a New Territory of the legislature one of the first things it did is it enfranchised people of the ancestry. It enfranchised them and in fact there were a number of bands the ojibwe o o. Dawa and one servedn the Territorial Legislature and the state legislature. So many, they were so many of them in so many of the legislatures they were all they were called democracy democrats because of their connection to the people. And it kind of sounded, their fascinating debates within the Constitutional Convention of 1857 about these issues of franchise and things like that. Anyway its very obvious that the democrats were only interested inn enfranchising the folks because they knew they were on their side. If they were going to vote for them they wouldnt have an interest in enfranchising the spokes or you can see how something that works really good and something that was intended to only for political purposes and another 1862 connection is, from every session of the territorial and state legislature in 1849 and 1862 has at least s some members that are part of the legislature. The west dakota war happens in the local populace very much turns against n the people so theres not another person that appears in the legislature until the 1930s. In that particular moment it ships the thinking know we are going to have people as part of this and to get to ideas of citizenship is fascinating because there were these debates at the time racially like okay these areul folks with ancestry and we should so its this moment of racial creation but it was very shortlived and very obviously had a political purpose. They were only interested in citizenship for those people they perceived as civilized. So thats whats in the legislationn is these people of mixed ancestry could vote. Only if they were civilized in and the course by doing so they created civilized as a legal term and what does that mean . Very obviously from the writings civilized was meant to mean assimilated into American Culture and the american clothing and things like that and oh sure you guysn though. Its a side story but you can see its an interesting case wherees citizenship rose to mean Different Things to different people and how they could be used in different political circumstances to the benefit of people and notions that sometimes contradictory work to benefit people and other times it didnt. In fact going the other way with the reconstruction legislation in the 14th 14th amendment for instance guaranteeing birthright citizenship the Supreme Court case in 1884 said the 14th amendment does not apply to americans. So the citizenship of the americans p in and the people is in limbo and up in the air and murky until the 1994 citizenship act. Qu there were those who acquired citizenship in various ways through allotment or through having citizenship with are mixed or something. And so but the idea was people in the Supreme Court case the ideaea was no we are going to uphold the sovereignty of the people and say subornation they cant be a member of the west to subornation so you can see its very contradictory where before its in any kind of case where and do gymnasts sovereignty was and in this case it sovereignty we will uphold that. Thats the contradictory nature of all the things that were ongoing during that period and you might get lucky and it works in your favor and very often though it works the other way against you in a paper of thank you so much. Well go now to the center aisle. Thank you. Thank you i really learned a lot and i enjoyed your presentations. When we think about historiography we think about riding and we think about words and obviously we have seen in the last few years how words like freedom seekers or water protectors can shift the way we think about things and i get stuck on the word massacre because on the one hand massacre is innocents being killed for no reasons. Indigenous women and children and men who bear arms pose some kind of threat to the United States and we dont really think of the question from that angle. My question for you is first if you have other ways to think about that word massacre which every time i write it im not surprised at what other words werego thinking if we are goingo rewrite the historiography or the narrative of thisve period d we want that narrative to travel through k12 and beyond the oah what are some of the words we might be thinking and what other words could we be thinking about . I share that i dont want to say a version necessarily. Massacre doesnt feel like the right term for the reasons you brought up. I think theres another way of looking at this that is part of a concerted military strategy. This is how the u. S. Fights wars. Roxanne dunbarortiz writes about this and there is ample evidence in north america but also in the history of the u. S. Wars elsewhere in the u. S. Attacks. It attacked civilians and attacks their food source and water source. I dont know if strategy is a good word just cut and paste with massacre but i thinksp that perspective is this is purposeful even in the case of where theres a big investigation and a lot of things that werent supposed to happen. It just part of the purposeful pattern that goes back for centuries. I think thats an important question intoth other conversations inhe the debate of genocide or ethnic cleansing and im not going to get into that. Thinking of massacre i mean i understand and i can see how it does lead you to think this is the right word and in some cases it doesnt sit and i think the reason in native American History become so important is it was a culture to the term battle were so many people would use the term sand. Battle or wounded knee of battle and massacres which have been around know this was not a battle between two opposing military forces on the battlefield. This was a massacre in the sense that when the u. S. Army announced the policy they werent attacking armies of native americans. They were attacking militants and noncombatants on purpose to either kill them, drive them away and therefore destroy their food supply. Knowing full well that meant he it would lead to the starvation and deaths of noncombatants. I think thats why its useful is to as a way to combat the like these things were battles but i mean i think youre right theres probably a better term. I dont have one yet. As historians we always strive to use the best terminology for release to find the terminology we are using in the correct way and you are right about this it needs more examination. Hi. Thank you for your comments and actually i wanted to say what happened in 1840 with the u. S. Mexico war in mexico city as an example of a similar kind of targeting of homes in villages and so on. I was very interested in the way that you and manu were talking aboutm. Capitalism and the different forms of capitalism and i feel like one of the things that the conference has been really rethinking 1860s onward as this moment of the federalization of different kindss of powers and ive heard about it in terms of plenary power and federalization policy and thinking about that in relation to colonialism or something and what you are talking about with capitalism and material capitalism and different capitalist actors that helps us understand colonialism, federalization but also more broadly thinking about what becomes of the broader projects in these versions of power. So i wonder if maybe you could talk a little bit about this moment in what we didnt see comes t afterwards because i thk theres something very particular about this moment. So how do we think about settlee colonialism and the way that it changes over time. Thank you. Thanks. I really appreciate that question. Both of the questions. And i think they are related and length of course. Well, i agree if we look at this, the development of capitalism over time it can help us understand the contradictions in play and some of the underlying struggles. In the coming period i think this was set in the civil war era, this huge expansion of military power accompanied by the huge expansion of just not just financial power that finance capitol, investments and the institutions of finance capitol and the Securities Market and all of these. This requires new rationale in the ways of thinking. People with money to make decisions. Its a phrase i hate the Financial Literacy of that time. And these are the robber barons and some of the most wealthy and powerr people. And this is tied to the university. Requires of the new techniques of keeping statistics of keeping accounts, of measuring probabilities measuring the future and you know so this expansion of both scientists, investors and institutions of capitol alongside the expansion of the military to me explains a lot about the coming period. One of the things to me thats m very interesting as i turned to the o lenin and and both of theirs analogies of imperialism they were riding during the First World War. They argue that imperialism had a sense of imperialism and the staging development of capitol. Dubois in this article, hes explaining why the First World War broke out. He explains the dividends of whiteness. We were much more familiar with the wages of whiteness and reconstruction but in the earlier essay he writes dividends, dividends is financial so to you me it suggests theres a return on investment and a transformation underway. Whats really interesting to me is that we look at u. S. History and the history of the United States imploding itself over north america and into the caribbean. In the last quarter of the 19th century we have seen these pattern of plays much earlier than dubois and lenin were assessing in other parts of the world. In some ways north america anticipated patterns that were taking place trade for example the rail network which has been written about the rail network in north america is built in thisd historical period prior to the scramble for africa and the scramble for africa material took place in the destruction of the rover. One of the things thats really studyingng to me is u. S. History of north america is how in many ways it anticipates what we think of as modern imperialism taking place elsewhere. I think theres also a link there with the histories and historical changes in the structures and colonialism over time. If we look to the settler colonies in the continent of africa algeria in south africa roads exclusively looked to the Railroad Construction taking place across north america as a model for how British Empire could and in his thinking shed capturee control over the africn continent for those ideas, they were still being worked out in their rhodesian regime in south african apartheid regime. Arguably they are still being worked out with the people who made their wealth and those regimes and they are now at the heart of Silicon Valley in the United States. Anyway so those are some of the ways i would think about those patterns. S,and i mentioned this in the comments i gave with the nexus of war and fighting. Thats really the core of how this manifests. Thanks for your question. I would say to this particular moment was about the commodification. Thats what was going on in 1862 through the homestead act and these other acts was to make lands a commodity that something is a product and something that is bought and sold. So many of the treaties between the federal government and various sovereign nations were lan session treaties and the majority of them were coerced or fraudulent in some way. And he was forcing them to accept cash payment or other kinds of goods or services or Something Like that in exchange for giving up their land and ceding their land to the federal government. That was really very t much a pt of the americann political project was to commodified Indigenous Lands for the most part these people didnt commodified their lands in that way. Typically they bought resources just like human beings have done all over the world. For it least in the region i study, the midwest and the northern great plains does nations there economies were based on reciprocal kinship obligations. The most important thing youou could do was through marriage or ceremony and therefore they had an obligation to you to o hp you out if you had an obligation to them. A very different kind of conception of those economic systems that didnt necessarily react to commodities and i was in capitalism capitalism and those sorts of things but thats what this relationship was between theta United States and these tribes was trying to commodified lands and turn them into a product to make money off of work stand on period we have a little bit more than 10 minutes left so what i would like to do is have those of you whoever many questions to come up and share their questions out once and then we both have the last 10 minutes or so to have the panelists reflect on those questions. Hi. Interesting t panel. Im curious the emancipation proclamation because i dont think we have heard that. I would love to hear some thought about the ways in which a that kind of the union army and the defense of what role that narrative played and how do we link the stories . Any other questions . We will get through them all this time. In addressing complex and controversial history on a national and statewide level of particular and my professional background is in secondary education and if anyone can comment on how to address these complexities. Thank you. Anyone else . So just briefly that conversation we were having earlier i found incredibly fascinating and i would love professor sweet to talk about indigenous men fighting on both sides in the army. Doctors we brought up Indigenous People as a threat to settlers and i was wondering what we think about Indigenous People as a threat especially the ad up everything described by doctors we can federate treaties and indian territory and the 7000 troops diverted requires quite a lot of material and that sort of a broader question to what extent do you think there needs to be distinction between the u. S. Fight against indigenous sovereignty in the 1860s. Back in the fight against the alternative american sovereignty that the confederacy represents itself as . Doctors imt just wondering did these events going onn the west and we have so much to learn about have any direct impact on things or going on in the east and the way they played out . Last call. The last 10 minutes or so. Okay, theres a lot. I can quickly just jump in. Arguments in proclamation of very quickly say i think its very interesting to track corporate personhood which still a corporations are people and corporations are people in the way that you and i, obviously they haveos more rights than people and most of us do. And that person is directly traced to the 14th amendment. Theres something i think hannah comes back to land in a way and the lack of addressing the question of land. Remember itself in terms of property was a form of real estate so you are abolishing or making illegal. Youre keeping the real estate relation and i think that plays out. The case of 7 versus santa clara it was about a taxation of the Railroad Companies over expenses and its lands with the question of what kind of taxes were the corporation liable for fences running along the land so theres a land question in underlying land question. At a course is related to the abridgment of begin the radical promise of reconstruction in the south experiments of black free people. I think the question of how to address this in Public Education isis really profound and a realy beautiful one. As someone wh doesnt have experience teaching in Public Education i only have experience teaching in University Setting i can only guess but i think it comes back to the question about the language you use for example massacre. What language or reusing and what is the purpose of these studying these histories. I once had a senior colleague who teaches that taught european medieval history observe my teaching in the u. S. Survey and very critically writes the purpose of the u. S. Survey is to create a shared identity for a shared common identity. Which in a way i think i was doing just not the shared common identity that my colleague at the time would have preferred me to in teaching so i think these are questions of language and i will stop there. There a lot of questions to answer. A course thats an important question and we need to understand how these things but more broadly as a course we still need to do a lot more work on the intersections of africanamerican and native American History like Elena Roberts is doing that or kyle mayss recent book on after indigenous history. Its a general comment there a lot of works yet toto be done in making those connections between these communities w and i thinke could learn a lot in some important ways if we had more of those studies. The k12 setting the secretary of education to k12 question is one that ive heard quite a bit. Last year i worked with the new Jersey Commission i worked at rutgers for concept on indigenous history in new jersey and we got an inordinate number of questions from a lot of educators who showed up and it was a Virtual Conference for showed up and had so many questions. It least for me and i cant speak for everybody else. You mentioned you you were in train grabbed and im not sure that either and i felt because i do know how to answer that question i feel something as academics we should probably be pleased at these adding to that conversation and how to do that and i unfortunately dont have those skills and i think thats the case for too many academics. We dont have those skills of how to makeng the things were talking about accessible to younger k12 audience. Its something i think we all need to work on. The question about lands on both sides. There were lots of that joined the army and served in the regular army and served in militia groups and particularly in indian territory thousands of men who joined the confederacy and most famously the last general, confederate general to surrender. Thats an issue and it happens in other places like during the u. S. War there was a mixed ancestry men who fought on the side of u. S. Army joined minnesota volunteer regiments to fight against our own people. Somee of them joined the fight against the confederacy. Once the war started they have fought against their own people and Different Things happen. Theres a lot more work to be done there in terms of service in the war and things like that and innocence of their civil war you say its a civil war there were there fighting each other and the question about people being a threat to the union army, course. Thousandsere diverted of troops and they had to create a new military department, the department to send leadership in troops and things like that in lincoln exempted the governor of minnesota from vetting minnesota of people in the war efforts in the east. I think its a great question and one we can think more about. I dont know exactly have amateur that. People werepl a threat. Thats why they were fighting them but they didnt need to be a threat. The u. S. Didnt have too expand on theirnd territory. But i dont mean to the question but in the overall state of the civil war this is what was going on as troops head to be fed all over the place and maybe in some cases they were under a flag of troops. Anyway thats important question and one that needs to be thought about more. And then the last question when you think about things they were doing in the west and how they impacted the east and i think thats another run important question but i dont really have an answer toat that. The connection certainly there were people who served in the civil war. There were the galvanized yankees and the confederates that were captured and agreed to become the Union Soldiers and vets k the confederacy. Some interesting connections in that sense but thats another good questionet that i dont que have an answer to. Certainly its something to think about. Thank you so much for such fascinating comments and especially to everyone in our audience for participating in this really fascinating discussion. Il dont think we have answered all the questions but i think we have made a lot of progress here and if youd like to stay with us to talk about this even more just a round for the next part of this roundtable. Thanks so much. [applause]