Elizabeth A. Fenn: The Rise And Fall Of The Mandans

#1:The Black Legend, Native Americans, and Spaniards • Pre-Columbian North America o Native North Americans ♣ Population • About 2-10 million ♣ Didn’t metalwork, had no gunpowder ♣ Networks • social, political, trade ♣ No classical civilizations, monuments, architecture • 1200 CE-developed civilizations o collapsed from environmental degradation such as drought ♣ Zuni-Southwest ♣ Hopi-Southwest ♣ Organized as confederacy made by tribes • Tribes were matrilineal • Iroquois o Great League of Peace • Different lifestyles by region o West coast ♣ Fished, hunted sea mammals o Great Plains ♣ Hunted buffalo • European discovery of North America o

The Encounters at the Heart of the World by Elizabeth A. Fenn is a book that includes the history of Mandan people. Most of the people know this place because of Lewis and Clark, but in this book readers can also learn so many important things about Mandan and combination of important new discoveries. In this book, a reader can examine how an author can go far and beyond the expectation, the way she went into the Mandan’s history. The way author have written this book, makes easier for readers to read because she divides each chapter in many topics.

Thomas Jefferson had just expanded the United States territory immensely. This purchase was known as the Louisiana Purchase, which is arguably the best decision in US history. All the new land resulted in several unknown questions. Some of them were, “what does this land provide, what animals are out there, who can be found on this land?” To answer some of these mysterious questions Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the Louisiana Purchase. They also were sent to form learn and form relationships with the people all ready on the land they are about to explore. One of their stops on their journey was at what now is known as Fort Mandan, in Bismarck, North Dakota. Here is where Lewis and Clark’s relationship with the Mandan tribe was crucial because their next steps have never been explored by whites. Only the Indians knew what the land looked like from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean. The Mandan tribe was able to show the explorers areas of the land that was just bought by the United States of America. Between both the white explorers and the Mandan tribe they both benefited from their relationships they formed over the winter months of 1804 because Lewis and Clark did not anticipate spending the winter in North Dakota.

1) The book, 1491, by Charles C. Mann gives readers a deeper insight into the Americas before the age of Columbus, explaining the development and significance of the peoples who came before us. Moreover, Mann’s thesis is such; the civilizations and tribes that developed the Americas prior to the discovery by Europeans arrived much earlier than first presumed, were far greater in number, and were vastly more sophisticated than we had earlier believed. For instance, Mann writes, regarding the loss of Native American culture:

The Mandans were a semi-nomadic Native American tribe that lived in North Dakota. Self-named the Numakiki, the Mandans stayed in semipermanent villages throughout their native Great Plains of America. They had many special aspects of their culture that set them apart from other Native American tribes. The Mandans had many traits and traditions that have characterized this specific tribe for centuries. Their lifestyle has allowed them to thrive for a very long time.

Writer and Analyst; Kathryn Height; criticizes the work (more specifically the paintings/drawings) of Artist George Catlin during the time of the 1830’s and its parallel to the Indian Removal Act. Hight does so in the report “ Doomed to Perish”: George Catlin’s Depictions of the Mandan”. Hight highlights Catlin’s work, describes his subjects, and carefully provides evidence throughout her criticism report convincing the audience that his paintings lead to the covered true history of the Mandans (Native American tribe on the Mississippi River).

There are many ways in which we can view the history of the American West. One view is the popular story of Cowboys and Indians. It is a grand story filled with adventure, excitement and gold. Another perspective is one of the Native Plains Indians and the rich histories that spanned thousands of years before white discovery and settlement. Elliot West’s book, Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado, offers a view into both of these worlds. West shows how the histories of both nations intertwine, relate and clash all while dealing with complex geological and environmental challenges. West argues that an understanding of the settling of the Great Plains must come from a deeper understanding, a more thorough

It has been thought for many years that the Americas were a vastly unpopulated land until Columbus came. However new evidence disputes this previously thought notion. Archeologist, who have been studying the remains of Native American culture, have found evidence suggesting that the Indians were in the Americas for much longer and in greater numbers than what was believed. This new evidence shows us the impact the Europeans had on the New World and gives us insight into what the Americas were like before the Europeans and what they may have been had the Europeans never settled here.

Geologically ‘almost’ centered in North America, Mandan Indians occupied “the heart of the world”, present day North Dakota, where the Heart River joins the Missouri River. They were once cradled prosperous human settlements, but Mandan Indians are only mentioned in History when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark spent the winter with them in 1804-1805**. Elizabeth A. Fenn took a trip to North Dakota in 2002, and she had an urge to write about Mandan Indians. For twelve years, she spent time to gather and learn every aspect that can bring Mandan Indians. She learned archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science, anything that could bring Mandan past. Winner

Throughout the course of history there have been numerous accounts regarding Native American and European interaction. From first contact to Indian removal, the interaction was somewhat of a roller coaster ride, leading from times of peace to mini wars and rebellions staged by the Native American tribes. The first part of this essay will briefly discuss the pre-Columbian Indian civilizations in North America and provide simple awareness of their cultures, while the second part of this essay will explore all major Native American contact leading up to, and through, the American Revolution while emphasizing the impact of Spanish, French, and English explorers and colonies on Native American culture and vice versa. The third, and final, part of this essay will explore Native American interaction after the American Revolution with emphasis on westward expansion and the Jacksonian Era leading into Indian removal. Furthermore, this essay will attempt to provide insight into aspects of Native American/European interaction that are often ignored such as: gender relations between European men and Native American women, slavery and captivity of native peoples, trade between Native Americans and European colonists, and the effects of religion on Native American tribes.

“Encounters at The Heart Of The World: A History Of The Mandan People” is a non-fiction history book which is written by Elizabeth Fenn. This book introduces Mandan people, a native American tribe in North Dakota. It is full of information to the point that is it interest to the general ready. Also, it is a valuable window into the lives of the western Indians. How many of people know that the great native tribe the Mandan was the engine of agriculture and commerce at the center of north America?

In this truly innovative study, Elizabeth A. Fenn challenges scholars of Native American history to rethink the ways that we perceive and write such history. From start to finish, Fenn immerses readers in a strictly Native world--specifically, the Mandan peoples of present-day North Dakota--where everything from the names of the seasons to the spaces the Mandans occupied or revered are reconstructed from the Mandan perspective. In particular, Fenn’s attention to detail when it comes to the places that the Mandans inhabited is quite astounding, as the story of the Mandan people unfolds in the towns, settlements, and excavations of Double Ditch, Huff Indian Village, Mih-Tutta-Hang-Kusch, Like-A-Fishhook, On-a-Slant, and the Painted Woods. Further, the Mandans themselves act as the primary voice and the driving force behind Fenn’s work, as she deliberately leaves the Euro-American colonizers to skulk in the shadows as minor actors in the larger story of the Mandan people. For instance, to demonstrate the vital importance of corn--or “koxate”--to the Mandan culture and economy (a theme that resonates throughout the history of the Mandans), Fenn deploys the life of Buffalo Bird Woman to illustrate the ways in which the Mandan peoples’ lives revolved around the female cultivation and trading of koxate, which “fueled the daily life, ceremonial

When the first colonists landed in the territories of the new world, they encountered a people and a culture that no European before them had ever seen. As the first of the settlers attempted to survive in a truly foreign part of the world, their written accounts would soon become popular with those curious of this “new” world, and those who already lived and survived in this seemingly inhospitable environment, Native American Indian. Through these personal accounts, the Native Indian soon became cemented in the American narrative, playing an important role in much of the literature of the era. As one would expect though, the representation of the Native Americans and their relationship with European Americans varies in the written works of the people of the time, with the defining difference in these works being the motives behind the writing. These differences and similarities can be seen in two similar works from two rather different authors, John Smith, and Mary Rowlandson.

"The Colonization of North America." In Modern History Sourcebook. April 1999- [cited 17 September 2002] Available from http://www.fordham.edu/halsall.mod/modsbook.html., http://curry.eduschool.virginia.edu.

The historical literature of First Nations and Peoples’, within North America, have shown inaccuracies and a lack of certain components. This being said, the contents of written history often reflect the points of view of those who have written it; the majority of the historical records composed appear to be homogenized, and