Ghost Dance

The course is titled "American History in Fifteen Weeks."
Focus on themes of religion, diversity, and political life as a central thread.
Upcoming class shift from focusing on religion to focusing on monuments as a representation of historical memory in America.

Shift focus to monuments to examine how different periods of American history are remembered today.
Example topic: Slavery and its representation through monuments.
Class exercise: Use ChatGPT's image generation to design new monuments, highlighting the deficiencies of current representations.

Upcoming extra credit opportunity through Loyola's McNamara Center (affiliated with the sociology department).

First Third of the Semester: Focus on religion in governance structures of Spain, British North America, and the United States.
Three main themes:
1. Growing Religious Diversity: Increasing raw diversity in American life and internal splits within religions.
2. Industrial Capitalism: How the changing economic structures facilitated religious diversity.
3. Shifting Religious Alliances: Examination of Native American religious alliances in the West, especially as they adapt and unify against federal oppression.

Wovoka's Background:
- Birth name: Kitzi Ao.
- Member of the pine nut band of Paiute Native Americans, inhabitants of the Lake Tahoe area.
- Self-identification as Numu, meaning "the people".
- Historical Context: Paiutes have occupied the area for approximately 6,000 years with genetic ties tracing back to ancient Aztecs who fled Central Mexico.
- Family background: Wovoka's father was a respected tribal leader and weather doctor, involved in spiritual and political leadership.
- The religion of the Paiute aimed for ecological harmony with their environment.

Description of Nevada's harsh, arid environment impacting the Paiutes.
Economic transformation due to white settlers arriving in the 1850s, leading to introducing diseases that decimated the Paiute population (e.g., typhoid fever).
Settler mining activities disrupted the ecology, leading to widespread starvation within the Paiute community.
Personal impact on Wovoka: His family became destitute, leading to his temporary displacement to live with a white rancher, resulting in his name change to Jack Wilson.

Key Event: On January 1, 1889, a solar eclipse led Wovoka into a coma, from which he claims to have emerged with a significant religious vision.
Vision narrative:
- Visited by a great spirit offering a gift to reconnect with ancestors through a ritual.
- The ritual aims to restore the community's former strength and unity, meant to heal the broken community caused by white settlement.
Wovoka's vision and its rapid spread (within 18 months) across Native American communities led to surveillance and eventual military intervention by the U.S. government.
Reactions by the government due to fear of unifying Native American resistance.

Shifts in federal policy regarding Native Americans post-Civil War:
- The emergence of the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Dawes General Allotment Act in 1887.
- Homestead Act facilitated white settlement by granting 160 acres to any American citizen who improved the land.
- The Dawes Act aimed to individualize land ownership among Native Americans, breaking up communal land into allotments.
- Resulted in the displacement and loss of reservation lands as unclaimed parcels could be subjected to homesteading.

Reference to the Great Sioux War of 1876 and various Native American resistance efforts against U.S. encroachments on their land.
The U.S. government forcibly renegotiated treaties, leading to violence against Native communities as they resisted loss of their territory.

Convergence of various tribal leaders for the Ghost Dance in December 1890 at Wounded Knee.
Misunderstandings leading to military confrontation and the massacre of hundreds of Native Americans, portrayed as violent despite their peaceful intentions.
Aftermath: The Ghost Dance movement dissipated in fear, and Wovoka blamed for the troubles experienced by Native communities.

After the Wounded Knee Massacre, Wovoka fled to San Francisco where he struggled to survive economically.
Despite the decline of his following, his influence can be traced to the emergence of the Native American Church.
Wovoka continued to live a quiet life, occasionally meeting with curious anthropologists and Native Americans seeking spiritual guidance.
He maintained that the Ghost Dance was intended as a peaceful spiritual revival, not a call to violence.
His teachings emphasized moral conduct, hard work, and living in peace with both Native Americans and whites.
Enduring Legacy: Although the Ghost Dance movement was suppressed, Wovoka's vision contributed to the resilience and adaptation of Native religious traditions. His emphasis on cultural preservation and spiritual renewal resonated across Native communities, influencing later movements for Native rights and cultural identity in the 20th century.