To the website. If ive got that right ok. Thank you for your rapt attention this morning, i think you are in for more surprises this afternoon. Our first speaker is ed ayers. I feel like he needs no introduction to the Richmond Community but i will introduce him. He has received the National Humanities level from president obama at the white house and served as president of the organization of american historians and won the bancroft prize for distinguished writing in American History. He has served as the founding chair of the board of the American Civil War museum. He hosts the future of americas past, a Television Series that visits sites of memory and meets the people who keep those memories alive. He is the executive director of the new American History, and of course we all know him from a when we are driving around in our cars, as one of the American History guys. An online project design that has promoted the student in all of us to divide to dive into history and see it in new and unexpected ways. He is a University Professor and president america this at the university of richmond. Please welcome ed ayers. [applause] hello everybody. I see myself as a kind of change for the day. Weve had this wonderful talk from a former student Lindsay Robinson i want to claim that because its such a good job. Or gonna go back to and were gonna try to talk uncovered to try to integrate native history, african American History and white southern history in a way that is not usually done. We usually separate our histories out by tennessee rather than. Weaving them together. We will see how this works its all an experiment. I have not given this top before it makes me want to put my glass on so i can read whatever it. And we are going to cover all of this land. The one thing we have in common from millennia is the lines cape. These are the different soils of the south. Here is the thing, the south expanded with a speed and size few could have imagined in 1790. When lindsey started our stories. Three migrations created the south over the next 70 years. Millions of white farmers filling the expense larger than Continental Europe and millions of inflate people moving to plantations. The path of migration began from many sources, and many directions at the same time, and if we can trace those paths, we can see how these stories wove together. What we will see is that slavery defined much of what is happening in this story. Slavery concentrated on the richest land and yet spread everywhere in the south. Most white southerners did not own enslaved people and yet slavery went everywhere white settlers went. It benefited nonslaveholders little and yet it allowed the slave south to expand as fast as the north. This is what we have to figure out, how does the displacement and survival of native americans fit into this story . It is 1790. After centuries of continual conflict and change, Indigenous Peoples maintain a presence in every part of the southeast of north america, from the atlantic, to the gulf, to the plains. Some had been reduced to small and isolated groups, some had bound themselves with others to form alliances. Neighboring towns often spoke different languages, incorporating languages from europe and africa. They regularly communicated with each other, often across great distances on heavily traveled routes. The purple arrows its not that native people are waiting for white people to show up. They had their own history that is living and breathing and moving and going on, all of this still happening as the american is being fought. You have to keep everything in movement all along. And some of these people enslaved one another. They found ways to live amid loss and gain an threat from a growing and relentless population of spanish and english and french and then americans and with the pressures from the white settlers, the tensions in and among the native peoples grew more urgent. While some indigenous men and women embrace the ideas of private property and became christians, others defiantly embraced the older ways, more traditional ways of life. Mobility defined the lives of these folks, and increasingly they defined themselves in terms of sovereignty, in terms of territory and boundaries. Those are ideas that were created in tandem with the people who are moving onto their land. The cherokees, choctaws, chickasaw, and the seminole are the main folks we will focus on today. What we see is that the first settlement of the south began in kentucky, and here too let me show you how to read these new maps. I will just gesture over there. On the map, the varying shapes of blue are where people are decreasing. Areas of varying shades of brown are where people are increasing. You will see we have these broken down by different racial groups. This is white population change. The first decade of american nation. Poor virginia, you will see it is blue from beginning to end. People are fleeing virginia, and most of the white people are going to the north. Here in the first decade, it goes down the Shenandoah Valley into east tennessee, you hang a hard right up the road to central kentucky. This is the first frontier of the south. At the same time, this is the first decade of cotten expansion, they are moving into South Carolina. You will notice from the earlier talks weve had, this land is occupied by the cherokee, as you can see. But all of the lands that have diagonal lands on them are lands still in need of possession in 1790. This is the black population change at the same time. We will toggle back and forth. White people are not moving to the same places where they are taking enslaved people. Enslaved people are moving into the piedmont of virginia and what becomes georgia and South Carolina at the same time they are moving enslaved people into the bluegrass region of kentucky. In the next decade, you see how rapidly this is growing. This is where Andrew Jackson would be moving into as part of this bright pattern because he moves from west North Carolina into central tennessee. Central tennessee, like the bluegrass of kentucky, is rapidly growing. Look at georgia. What you are seeing is white people are moving up to the very boundary of cherokee land. They are pushing into it as hard as they can. Also in this first decade, they are moving to the Mississippi River and louisiana. We sometimes think of this as westward migration, but migration is moving in multiple directions at once. This is the black population change at the same time. What you will see is that black people are being concentrated, and this is the pattern we will see all along, where they are of use to white people. The train of enslaved people is relentless and it is very efficient. Down in natchez, mississippi, it had been a french town beginning to grow. This is the beginning of the sugar trade in louisiana. This has enormous consequences. You will also see upcountry South Carolina, and this helps explain some of the pressure on the cherokee, because they are living where the cotton kingdom is expanding. This is 1810, 1820. The black population change. No sooner do white people take black people into areas than they start moving them. You can also see now, look at southern alabama. We know this is occupied by native peoples, but already white people are taking black people into that area. Here is the thing to understand about all of this even while the laws lindsay is telling us about are being framed, white people are pushing, they are infiltrating lands owned by native peoples, and they are taking slavery with them wherever they go. This is 18101820. This is the decade that embraces the war of 1812, when interjection surges into prominence of Andrew Jackson, by freeing new orleans and taking millions and millions of acres of land from Indigenous People as a result of the war. Some of the native people ally with the british or the spanish as a way to protect themselves. When the americans win, they find they are forced into treaties you heard about the treaty of rabbit creek. It is a consequence. White people are moving into the upper south, the black population is far more concentrated in the plantation district. What we are talking about here, this is something that is happening globally. The creation of what is called a Settler Society. These are englishspeaking colonies, former colonies around the world. The idea is why people claim the right to take land from Indigenous People as a destined path toward civilization. It is a Settler Society because they are displacing native people through forced migration or death rather than incorporating them, as you might find in other colonial societies, like england and india. These settler societies, like australia, new zealand, canada, the United States depend on breakneck demographic growth. This is what underlies everything else. We talked in the first lecture from dr. Butterfield about the enormous doubling natural growth of the white population, but its also the case of the africanamerican population. In Slave Society, this is the only place where the Slave Society biologically reproduces itself. By 1808, the International Slave trade is closed, but the enormous slave population is in the south. It is unusual because you dont have to come from england or australia or new zealand. These are people generally moving within the south. Cheap land, valuable commodities, high profits, assumed racial and cultural superiority drove and justified the migrations of millions of English Speaking people in every hemisphere in the 19th century. The United States is an example of this, but here is the main difference for the south this is the only place where the white Settler Society possessed control over one third of the ethnicity to use in their expansion. All of those other places, white people displaced the Indigenous People, but in the American South, they displaced Indigenous People and brought slaves with them. It is a feverish growth and expansion, and a lot of the legal cases you heard about this morning. The American South is not the only Slave Society in the hemisphere. Jamaica, brazil, cuba, british guiana. But unlike those places where white settlers stayed on big plantations, here this is the only ruling class, and virginia is a great example of this, that uproots itself and recreates its society again. Most of the south is white southerners with or without enslaved people moving across the south and recreating the south. The south is completely unique, a different kind of combination. It has all of the energy of the american north, but the power of the enslaved population it controls. As we have seen and think about how short a period this is. People talk about the old south, but by the civil war, the south is about as old as subdivisions in chesterfield county. [laughter] look at how little of mississippi has been settled by white or black people, not to mention texas or arkansas. This idea of the old south, we can say it here, you heard from jamie about how old we are, but most of the south is not old at all but a product of this vast expansion. What you are seeing too is this is not just a result of the cotton gin. These people will find something to do with the slaves they control, whether it is sugar in louisiana or raising cattle in southern alabama. The main crop of kentucky and tennessee is livestock and hemp. This is not the cotton south. It has barely begun. The idea that it is cotton that causes it no, it is people who cause it. I am all fired up. [laughter] so what we see is that as this cotton frontier expands, this gives us a clear idea again, look at georgia. White people have brought black people to the very edge of the land they could claim. So there are treaties with the cherokee in georgia almost every four or five years as this pressure, and they take more and more of the land. A lot of times before it is taken, it is infiltrated. You have people coming and trying to finagle into the land, training illegally and so forth. You have this a enormous democratic pressure. If you go back to 1790 and remember how much of the land was occupied by native people, how rapidly it is that this map that i think is in every presentation, what the situation is by 1830. It sets up a lot of the scenes of the drama that lindsay told us about. Starting in the 1830s, this has not slowed down. You can see the cherokee being surrounded in every direction by the enslaved population from the south and coming from the east. But look at mississippi and alabama. The choctaw, the chickasaw. You can see western tennessee is being infiltrated by slavery as well. At the same time that all of the things we were talking about are happening to native peoples, slavery is driving this relentless push. This is white population change, and it shows you Something Else you can see them moving in in georgia. But look at them leaving upcountry South Carolina. Why . They have already used up the land. Look how fast this is happening. White people, no sooner are they settling in a place, look at the bluegrass of kentucky. 30 years ago they were settling that and now they are leaving and moving to places that are new. You have to picture we are living in the least mobile time in American History right now and our population is moving less than it ever has in American History. This is moving as fast as it ever does and we think about westward migration, look at how the south is being defined during all of this time. White people are moving and the richest of them are taking enslaved people with them. You have seen a version of this map before and you know the story, the 1830s, and how these folks are being driven from their homes. So to give some sense of the total numbers of this, in 1830, the native people still occupied about about 60,000 cherokees, chickasaws, choctaws and creeks live between the appalachian mounds in the Mississippi River and would not move willingly. The cherokee who occupied georgia, North Carolina and tennessee fought against white settlers and officeholders through legal means, inventing printed languages and newspapers, and often converted to christianity and instituted gender roles more like europeans. But white sellers in georgia repeatedly infringed on cherokee land in 1806, 1809, 1817, 1820 eight and 1829. At each step, the cherokee ceded land. Faced with such relentless pressure, some cherokees decided they would do better farther west, before removal. Some moved to arkansas, missouri and texas in the 1820s, but most held on in the 1820s. Andrew jackson, i assume this is an accurate quote build a fire under them, he told white georgians. When it gets hot enough, they will move. Settlers do not wait for land issues to be determined by law before they moved in. The 1830s culminated the displacement of Indigenous People who had already taken 100 million acres from them in the south. Most of the native people lived directly in the path of the richest cotton land. Why . They knew what the rich land was, they had their own farms, they were along the rivers that were necessary for the transportation of cotton. This is the growth of slavery in the 1830s. Look at virginia. Here is a remarkable fact, look at how many black people are being taken from throughout virginia, and yet virginia remains the largest slave state until the civil war. More people held in bondage here than anywhere else, but also more people sold out of virginia than anywhere else. One way to think about this is this would have been one of the most dangerous places to have lived in slavery because any day, your children could be sold from you. This voracious hunger of alabama and mississippi, and now look up and down the Mississippi River going over to louisiana. We also know that in louisiana, and you can see how densely it is burning down there, the sugar regions. They wanted young men. 90 of the men they would buy in virginia, 90 of the people they would buy would be male. The women they bought were girls, and as soon as they could possibly have babies, they would have children. Infant mortality was horrific. What do the dots mean . It means two million enslaved people were moved in the south in these decades. 2 million, americans moving other americans. You can see now how the displacement of the American Indians is tied to this voracious expansion of slavery and of the south. As the white population changed in the same decades, notice they are not the same. Most white people do not own slaves and cannot afford the land where the big slaveholders moved, and they take their 12 enslaved people and get the best land. You have to go somewhere else. You go to the upcountry, northern mississippi. Look at the result of all of this. As soon as native americans are driven away, white people are rushing in. You can see the abandonment of land they had occupied a few decades earlier. The patterns continue, expanding into texas after the war with mexico, into arkansas. Now South Carolina is taking back up again. 1850s, this is slavery at full peak. Look at how fast texas has filled in with enslaved people. So as we put all of these pictures together, look at how the upper south is being depleted of enslaved people. Why . They are being shipped to the south. As we picture all of these histories and motion and interaction, we have to see how the relentless pressure against native peoples is a part of the creation of the south and of the United States. This is not a marginal story, it does not deserve to just be a couple of pages. This is central to the creation of the United States and central to the creation of the American South. Here is something that is interesting to think about. Thousands of native people were moved in the 18 30s, but 1830s, but many remained. White people proclaimed the differences, but many intermarried with those who had indian ancestry. Black people were held in bonds, but they also found companions among native people. They remained in North Carolina and virginia. Seminoles in florida. One generation after another, they demonstrated the flexibility and fluidity of American Indian life, and the durability of self understanding with one another and their path. I cant make these kinds of maps for American Indians because this is from the census and they did not count as people. They are justified by the territory and it is frustrating. They are, throughout all of this history, even after the removal to oklahoma. After the removal to oklahoma in the 1850s, after you heard earlier, the horrific losses of people, once they arrive in indian territory, devastating contagious disease had killed up to one third of the native people who survived forced marches. Each of the nations settled in the eastern part of the territory where the landscape resembled those from which they have been driven. East of the mississippi the three largest nations claimed about 13,000 people each in 1860, chickasaw head while the chickasaw had 4200. Each of these owned large numbers of enslaved african the cherokee and choctaw were about 15 of the total population. Enslaved people were and count were counted for an even larger share of the chickasaw and seminole, with nearly one third held in slavery. We know what happens after this. The white south says ok, it is clear what we have to have, the right to keep expanding. The civil war is the result, a direct result of this expansion. The leaders of the wouldbe nation of the confederacy say is their right to take their property into or territory to take more from native peoples. They gambled everything on that vision of the future, based on generations of migration. The end of slavery transform the south from a unique Settler Society to a new society, one without a blueprint or example to follow. Oklahoma witnessed the history of the new south in an especially concentrated form. After the civil war, the federal government punished native peoples who aligned with the confederacy. The members of the five tribes were forced to relinquish rights to railroads. The territory took on the name of oklahoma. The federal government forced native people to relinquish shared land and settle on individual allotments, and year after year, land was taken from that originally reserved for native people so that only a small portion remained in their hands. Officials and socalled reformers worked to dissolve tribal bonds and make American Indians citizens. After a series of legal decisions, tribal sovereignty shifted from a focus on the land people occupied to their membership in a particular native people. This transition alienated American Indians from the land even as it made their bodies the vehicle of their identity. This is particularly dangerous in the south at a time when legal segregation is gripping the region, and overt racial prejudice filled the nation. White southerners due to anyone claiming native identity with suspicion, suspecting they were actually socalled colored people. Claiming membership of a tribe granted some security as a citizen as well as claims to tribal identity. American indians found strong incentives to maintain their identity as American Indians. Tribes began keeping roles of those recognized tribal citizens, although practices varied and generated conflict within tribes and with white officials and claimants. The lives of American Indians you can see where most people lived in the south in 1860. It is where slavery is strong. We are switching from 19101920, seeing a national pattern. You can see oklahoma, and in 19101920, the south is growing well among white people. That same decade, what is this . The great migration, ok . This is when africanamerican people finally have a chance to make lives in the north. You can see where they are leaving, the places where they had been held in slavery. It is interesting to think about that today the political future of the nation will be determined in South Carolina, which is a direct consequence of all of this migration, and the fact that other seven Southern States will determine who wins the vote for president. It will be determined by the patterns established right here. During this period, the last American Indians with roots in the south changed in dramatic ways in these decades as well. Those the 1920, 1930 white people. And you can see more black people are leaving. You could see the small and powerful dots of the cities of the north. Thats the population we recognize today as the urban population. That is black people leaving large parts of the United States for the cities of the south and for the north. The new deal offered some opportunities for some native people. Especially cherokee. World war ii saw more than 25,080 people fight for the United States, gaining recognition and gratitude. Laws in the 19 fifties pushed American Indians off tribal lands and into cities. But 1970 more than half of all native people lived in urban places. As tribal identity became increasingly disconnected from reservations, native americans with ancestral ties to the south became more determined to maintain ties to one another. The Civil Rights Act and the black freedom struggle inspired activism among American Indians. A lot 1988 gave some American Indian tribes the opportunity to open gambling casinos on their lands, and native people sign opportunity to have pride in their ancestry and their lines. Tribes across the south turned to a broad array of strategies to determine who belong to their people, depending on their owns histories and situations. Native southerners became more visible and active in places where their ancestors lived. And we have seen this in virginia, where people as we heard eloquently before, 400 years ago where the objects of attempts at displacement are still here. A remarkable event that we will end with. American indians register to 39 increase in the federal census between 2000 and 2010, growing twice as fast as the National Population as a whole the apparent resurgence was partly definition. In 2000, americans were first presented the opportunity to self identify with more than one race, which tells you a lot about American History that you could not do that before. Almost half of those who claimed American Indian or alaska native identity claimed along with another identity. About two thirds were white, followed by black, or white, black and native. Those who claimed native backgrounds with other backgrounds, the south tied with the west at about one third of the population. Twice as many as the midwest and three times as the northeast. The history we are talking about today is continuing to echo. The south share of the self identify native populations grew in the first decade of the 21st century, relative to the rest of the country, advancing at 48 . The three states with the most rapid growth for all southern, texas, North Carolina and florida. The tribe with the largest self identified population where the cherokee with 819,000 people. Lets look at the maps from todays senses that reflect this self identification. This is also showing white people leaving. Ok, this is self identified seminole people in 2000 not surprising, both anchors in florida but also oklahoma. The creek. Self identified choctaw people. I look forward to talking to people who know a lot more about this than i do. I am covering 230 years of southern history. What is striking, it is not surprising that the anchors in the choctaw in oklahoma, but the places where they were before removal. Chickasaw, some of the same patterns. What you are seeing is even though people are removed, they are still there. How was it this happened . It reminds us that the arrows from the little green boxes are missing part of the history of people who maintained the spiritual and physical connection with the land, who found ways to maintain their connection with these places in the south from which they were displaced by slavery and white mobility. What do we make of this . This is a strange turn in southern history, especially as people otherwise recognizes white are eager for a connection to people when their ancestors persecuted into leaving their homes. On the one hand, this is arguably a heartening change from most of American History. On the other hand, the claim of widespread self identification is a Major Political problem for native people themselves, who established standards within their own nations. Some claimants may express sincere beliefs in ancestry, but others may seek to leverage that identity for material social material or social gain. There is no understanding, and this is my main point. The history of the law, this is important, these are histories of millions of people acting on what the law is saying. People making their own histories. What we are seeing is that American History does not fit into the neat categories in which we often try to fit it, and people dont often fit into the neat racial categories the census has tried to force them, and left to themselves, americans have more connections among themselves than we might have realized. On one hand, this is politically problematic, but on the other hand, it suggests people are maybe trying starting to understand that native history is American History, is africanAmerican History. Without all of that you cant understand any of this. That is my message today. Thank you very much. [applause] it looks as if that torrid pace through American History, we still have five minutes. Who would like to ask an easy question . [laughter] the microphone is coming your way. You have a map of the identify turkey . I do, it did not make it into this slide. I will tell you what it shows a vast area. There are more self identified cherokee people across the country than any other people. I dont know how this did not make it into the slides. This will be in my book out this fall. [laughter] it is a wonderful gift for any holiday occasion. [laughter] but you can see a pattern of it being anchored in oklahoma, but it is across the south that people are self identifying as a cherokee. We all remember the president ial candidate identifying as cherokee and all of that. It is the group, it is my understanding, that other people imagine themselves belonging to through blood or some connection. So if i showed it, the map would be far more than any other native groups i have shown. I was hoping nobody noticed that, so thank you for bringing it to everybodys attention, especially on cspan. Do we have another question . How do you define the frontier . Yeah, and the first slides i am showing is there is no such thing as an empty space. Kentucky, the cherokee are trying to fight people off and saying we dont want you here. But that would be the area. There is nowhere in the south that was an empty frontier. It was all created by displacement of various sorts. The question is, where there native villages or hunting grounds, which were not to white eyes as deeply occupied. Kentucky was the first place where the pattern of the south recreating itself as fast as i possibly can is created. If you think about this, people are making small versions of virginia all across the south. When you get enough money to build a plantation house, you are mimicking eastern virginia. Thats why we started with the Indigenous People who live here for 10,000 years. White people were late, staggered arrivals, but relentless. If you think about how many millions of people all these dots represent it suggests a demographic tidal wave. The accomplishment of People Holding it at bay as long as they did is what this story tells me. Is there another question . All the way in the back. Enjoyed your presentation. There is a tribe seeking virginia recognition. Anybody know anything about that. Question . Virginia, end of story. [indiscernible] do not live here now. [laughter] that one. There is a group of cherokees on osborne turnpike, there is a small cherokee museum. I went out there with my grandchildren and they are very friendly and theyre trying to get some recognition. I know nothing about it. I dont know anything about it, and i hate to end my presentation by admitting willful ignorance. [laughter] kidding aside, ive had to learn a lot about this to write the book and it is humbling to learn about the complexity of the history of these peoples. And to say anything that is true about all of them is really challenging, except what is amazing to me is their determination to endure. And i think we are all richer from that determination. Thank you. Next, a session from a conference titled, john marshall, the Supreme Court and the trail of tears. The principal chief of the Cherokee Nation talks about the tribes history following their removal from the southeast to presentday oklahoma. He describes how the cherokee rebuilt and strengthened their culture despite much adversity. The conference was cohosted by the museum and preservation of virginia. It is my great
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