John Daly's response

NOVEMBER 15 BLOG ASSIGNMENT

1. A brief summary of the seminar. Include any highlights for you – new information, a particularly useful exercise, a favorite moment. Be sure to identify the main historical themes and the core documents presented in the seminar.

The overview of the way in which Massachusetts Indians were de-tribalized and enfranchised was most interesting to me. I was unaware that this covered only the “Plantation Indians” who had entered into treaties with the Commonwealth during the Colonial period. The Briggs and Earle reports left me a bit confused when I read them because they seemed as if they were works in progress with lots of contradictions about Indian character and identity (though the overall theme that the Indians—as “Indians” had pretty much disappeared was clear). It helped to learn how the reports were constructed—mostly from letters to and from town officials. This helped explain why they had major inconsistencies.

2. What questions did the seminar raise for you and how will you follow-up on those questions? Will you need to do further research – and if so, how will you approach that research and what sources are available to you?

In spite of the racist undertones of the Briggs and Earle reports (perhaps unavoidable given the times) they were basically liberal documents that aimed to “improve” and assimilate the people they were concerned about. The connection to Reconstruction ideals and to national policies for a good part of the next century is clearer to me now. Yet, I always find myself coming back to the question of who controls the narrative. Usually it is the government and academic communities; they set the standard for the interpretation—and I think this remains true today. Even when we hear the voices of the people they are dealing with it is through the filter of the “official” line. I suspect that this is inescapable, but it makes me suspicious of all interpretations—the currently favored ones as well as the obviously flawed ones of the past. I guess this is a matter of historiography and may ultimately be an insurmountable problem. My solution is to remain true to my own character and apply the hermeneutic of suspicion to every document and interpretation I read!

3. How would you use this material in the classroom? If you do not currently teach this material, pretend that you do (you may be teaching it at some point in your career!).

In an AP or HL IB classroom I would have the students read the primary source documents, including large sections of the Briggs and Earle reports and work on their own interpretations and identifications of the issues at hand. In a CP class I would use shorter selections but still ask them to apply themselves to the problem of interpretation. If I were to do this it would be as part of a special project on historiography and points of view (bias)

4. How does the material presented in the seminar deepen your understanding of the relationship between representation and reality in the history of New England natives?

Again—the people who have control of the pen(or the press)—and especially the people who represent themselves as the “experts” basically get to do the representation. The reality is much more difficult to find and requires painstaking and brutally honest questions about our own agendas for investigating.
Interestingly, images often seen to speak more clearly than texts.