engl 1201 - intro to american studies midterm

“culture,” as defined by deloria and olson

• patterns that structure the behavior of people in a group

• practices rooted in a history of meanings that dictate present and future actions

• patterns and practices are transmitted through human action, which carries it foward into the future

“the social,” as defined by deloria and olsen

• refers to humans acting in relation to one another, forming social groups that in turn create in groups (we/us, inclusion) and out groups (they/them, exclusion)

ideology

• a system of cultural assumptions which uphold or oppose the social order

the enlightenment

• intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries

• reason over religion

• think for oneself

  • systematic understanding of nature and everyday life

• resistant to descriptions of the natural world and man’s place in it that didn’t arise from scientific evidence-based reason

• ideals of freedom, equality, and consent of the governed (john locke)

slave narratives as a genre characteristics

• sentimentalism

• religious narrative

• political text

• autobiography

venture smith

• connecticut man who wrote a slave narrative about his transatlantic voyage on the charming susanna

paratext in slave narratives

• a preface/introduction that confirms the honesty of the writer and the truthfulness of their account

what year is incidents published?

• 1861

what year does the civil war begin?

• 1861

partus sequitur ventrem

• virginia law passed in 1662, literally translating to “offspring follows belly”

  • children serve according to the condition of the mother

  • enslaved status is a heritable trait

• reverses legal standards where a child’s status was determined by the father

consanguinity

• being related by blood to someone who shares a common ancestor

what does partus sequitur ventrem accomplish?

• the transformation of kin into property

the fugitive slave act of 1850

• part of the compromise of 1850

• expands federal government’s role in enforcing slaveholders’ “property” rights

• appointed commissioners to carry out the Act

  • incentivized to issue certificates; received $10 for each certificate but only $5 for insufficient proof

• slaveholders and their agents seized alleged fugitives with ot without judicial process and brought them before a commissioner for judgment

reconstruction amendments

• 13th amendment

• 14th amendment

• 15th amendment

13th amendment

• abolished slavery and involuntary servitude across the nation except as a punishment for a crime

14th amendment

• established birthright citizenship, due process, and equal protection under the law

15th amendment

• prohibits federal government and individual states from denying a citizen’s right to vote based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”

dred scott v sanford

• dred scott, an enslaved black man, sued for his freedom after living with his enslaver in the free state of Illinois and the free wisconsin territory

• chief justice roger b. taney delivered the majority opinion, stating that african americans had no rights which white men were bound to respect.

imperialism

• the policy, practice, or advocacy of extending the power and dominion of a nation especially by direct territorial acquisitions or by gaining indirect control over the political or economic life of other areas

colonialism

• domination of a people or area by a foreign state or nation: the practice of extending and maintaining a nation's political and economic control over another people or area

colonialism as extraction

• a form of colonialism in which land, people, and natural resources are recast as property

colonialism as settlement

• a form of colonialism in which large amounts of settlers are sent to occupy foreign lands 

doctrine of discovery

• 15th-century series of papal bulls (declarations) that gave christian european nations the authority to claim non-european/nonchristian lands

papal bull of 1455

• pope nicholas v grants king afonso v of portugal the right to “invade, search out, capture, vanquish and subdue all saracens and pagans.” (natives)

papal bull of 1493

• pope alexander vi issues a papal bull supporting spain declaring that any land not inhabited by christians was vacant

what does the doctrine of discovery define non-christian land as?

• “terra nullius,” or vacant land

  • allowed european settlers to assert sovereignty on land occupied by indigenous populations

johnson v m’intosh

• landmark supreme court case that ruled native tribes didn’t have the authority to sell their land because they did not possess legal titles to prove they owned it

  • turned indigenous persons into occupants, not sovereign nations and sovereign territory

indian removal act

• relocated nearly 100,000 eastern native ameicans to “indian territory”—what later became eastern oklahoma

• trail of tears

genocide, as defined by dunbar ortiz

• killing members of the group

• causing serious bodily harm or mental harm to members of the group

• deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

• imposing measures to prevent births within the group

• forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

assimilation/americanization

• process whereby individuals or groups of differing ethnic or cultural heritages adopt the traits, language, and customs of a dominant culture until they become socially indistinguishable from it

indian boarding schools

• operated under the motto, “kill the indian, save the man,”

• goal was to assimilate native kids into american culture

who is richard henry pratt?

• the founder of carlisle boarding school in pennsylvania

what state has the most boarding schools?

• oklahoma with 95 schools