Hi there! My name is Daphne and my pronouns are she/her. I am a computer science major but I have a deep love for all of the humanities! I also like playing piano, reading, and getting second place in any and all card games that I play.
I am looking forward to learning more about a part of history that I feel is in a major blind spot for me, especially on the national scale—the knowledge that I have on Native and Indigenous history and culture is extremely focused on the Pacific Northwest and Coast Salish peoples. I’m specifically looking forward to learning more about the Indian Removal Act and what happened to Indigenous peoples during manifest destiny. My knowledge of Native American peoples during that period of history is pretty confined to talking about the Trail of Tears maybe once in a history class, and revisiting the Little House on the Prairie books recently. (The Wilder family illegally moves onto “Indian” land—the Osage Diminished Reserve—knowing that it will be turned over to white people who want to move out west soon enough. The Osage people leave their land at the end of the book, but the Wilder family isn’t able to stay, either, as US soldiers are coming to remove settlers who have moved onto the territory preemptively.)
In general, I have to admit that I find most of American history, especially early American history, pretty boring the way I was taught in middle school, with a focus on the founding of the country and only the most important wars. In high school, though, I took fewer history classes because I focused more on English classes which, in a way, allowed me to learn about American history in a more interesting manner because of the focus on rhetoric—specifically, I got to do a paper about rhetoric surrounding Native American and Indigenous representation in history textbooks and some of the most prominent representation in media of Native Americans (a very small amount, in film, portrayed by actual Indigenous peoples, by the way). However, the focus on rhetoric also meant not a focus on events, times, and places, which means my timelines are very shaky, so I will be glad to hopefully get some of my history ducks in a row. (I’m not sure I could tell you when the Civil War started or ended. That’s bad.)
I’m excited for this class to begin! See you all on Monday!
Welcome to the class, Daphne! We’re happy to have you here! Interestingly, this year is the 50th anniversary of the Little House TV series that came out in the 1970s (I think it was an improvement upon the books, at least a little, in terms of representation). The whole cast spent a few days at the ranch in California where the series was filmed back in March!
As a 19th century historian, I also have a hard time with the “early” history. Personally, I just never found it as interesting. Native American history has certainly changed my perspective on this and helped my interest in the early period quite a bit!