Suggested Age of Exploration Resources

Native Americans

Books:

Here are some of the most useful recent general studies of the impact of the “discovery” of European culture and peoples on the indigenous nations of the Americas:

Fitzhugh, William W., ed. Cultures In Contact: The Impact of European Contacts on Native American Cultural Institutions, A.D. 1000-1800. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985.

Forbes, Jack D. The American Discovery of Europe. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007.

King, J. C. H. First Peoples, First Contacts: Native Peoples of North America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

Lewis, G. Malcolm, ed. Cartographic Encounters: Perspectives on Native American Mapmaking and Map Use. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. If your students are already interested in maps (or learn to love them through the maps in the Interactive segment of this issue) this is fascinating.

Mancall, Peter C., and James H. Merrell, eds. American Encounters: Natives and Newcomers From European Contact To Indian Removal, 1500-1850. (Second edition) New York: Routledge, 2007.

Nobles, Gregory H. American Frontiers: Cultural Encounters and Continental Conquest. New York: Hill and Wang, 1997.

Richter, Daniel K. Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. An influential book by the author of the essay you’ve just read.

For students in the United States, these books on native peoples’ encounters with English-speaking explorers and settlers by Karen Ordahl Kupperman will be useful:

Settling With the Indians: The Meeting of English and Indian Cultures in America, 1580-1640 . Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1980.

(With John Smith) Indians And English: Facing Off In Early America . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000.

This collection of papers presented at a 1998 conference at the University of Mississippi presents wide-ranging essays on cultural, religious, medical transformation of tribal societies in a specific region:

Ethridge, Robbie, and Charles Hudson, eds. The Transformation of the Southeastern Indians, 1540-1760. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002.

For the discovery experience of one of the most influential confederations of native tribes, see this wonderful collection of essays:

Richter, Daniel, and Merrell, James. Beyond The Covenant Chain: The Iroquois and their Neighbors in Indian North America, 1600-1800 . University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003.

Another excellent collection of scholarly essays on an essential part of the native “discovery” of Europeans is:

Vaughan, Alden T. Roots of American Racism: Essays on the Colonial Experience. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

I’m a sucker for the history of technology. If you and your students share my passion, you’ll like this study of the level of technological development native peoples had achieved when they “discovered” what the Europeans had to offer:

Cobb, Charles R., ed. Stone Tool Traditions in the Contact Era. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2003.

I should also note that I’m married to a military historian, so I can’t ignore a book that analyses the ways that native tribes and Europeans discovered each other on the battlefield:

Steele, Ian Kenneth. Warpaths: Invasions of North America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Websites:

I think you’ll find Christine Elmore’s “The Indians’ Discovery of Columbus” – essays, lesson plans, and suggestions for classroom activities – at the Yale Teachers’ Institute site useful:

http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1992/2/92.02.01.x.html

Our old friends at “Digital History” have come through for us here. Sections 1 and 2 of “Native American Voices” ( especially Part I, “First Contacts”) provide excellent excerpts from primary sources with explanatory annotation:

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/native_voices/native_voices.cfm

Let me also remind you to use their “Interactive Timeline” feature, which allows you to see documents they have for a given area at a given period.

If you and your students would like to give closer attention to the Jesuit Paul LeJeune and the Innu people whom he visited, start with this sketch of Paul LeJeune from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography:

http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBioPrintable.asp?BioId=34488

LeJeune’s account of the Innus was published as part of the Jesuit Order’s “Relations” of their missionaries. An English translation of LeJeune’s reports for 1633 and 1634 can be found on the Web at Early Canadiana Online:

http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView?id=de4fc201e24cce64&display=07540+0005

If you’d like to explore more materials on the Innus, go to the Innu Nation’s own website:

http://www.innu.ca/culture.html

For more material on Powhatan and his people and for the Roanoke colony, see my suggestions for the “ Jamestown” essay in this issue.

If you are looking for more resources on early interactions between Native Americans and European explorers, check out the resource page for Albert Crosby's wonderful essay on the Columbian Exchange here.