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Mfischhoff · Joined: 14 Sep 2009 Posts: 51

Please post in response to today's "big paper" activity. If you are the member of your group with the written conversation, please summarize it on the forum. Otherwise, please respond to the summaries.

semmet · Joined: 05 Jan 2010 Posts: 41

I assume the big paper activity was the silent conversation thing. So... that's what I'll respond to. If it was something after Sean and I left then sorry. Everyone else respond to the correct thing.

I really liked this exercise actually, because I could look back and forth between what people had said, rather than just hearing what they said once and trying to remember it to connect it to what someone else responds with. Instead, the links and responses are all right there just waiting to be read and appreciated and loved and pondered and all that good stuff.

Anyways, the thesis I read besides the one Abby and I wrote together said something along the lines of "Native Americans should have focused less on violence and more on staying united as a people in their resistance." This was a nice thought, but realistically I couldn't picture anything besides a faster massacre of the American Indians if they hadn't retaliated.

OH! ha. big paper. like the big pieces of paper. okay i did respond to the correct thing. i thought you meant "big paper" like a "substantial essay." oh yay.

asteward · Joined: 14 Oct 2009 Posts: 27

I worked with Steph today on the big paper activity, and the thesis that we came up with was that the tribes that were willing to adopt some European ways of life were left alone and more able to retain aspects of their own culture.

Some ideas that were brought up by the thesis were themes of culture and identity, such as the idea that by adopting these European ways, the Native Americans were sacrificing too much of their own culture, and whether it was worth it to give up their culture in order to survive. We were also wondering if it was possible to have both, like the Iroquois who followed the American lifestyle while still being able to save some of their culture.

afenn · Joined: 31 Mar 2010 Posts: 17

Felipe and my thesis was:
If Native American culture had allowed natives to fight more aggressively earlier, America's fate may have been very different.

Some of the responses basically said:
- I agree, the earlier the natives fought the more successful it would have been because there were less Europeans to fight.
- The Natives didn't ever have enough weapons or technology to compete with the Europeans.
- ^ yes but they trading and began to have equal weapons very quickly.
- I don't think their culture kept them from being violent.
- It also would have been different if the Europeans were peaceful.
-Do you think conflict was inevitable?
- Aggressive is too broad of a term.
- I think they were as aggressive as they could be.

So those were some of the responses and I have a response to two of those:

1. I think their culture did keep them from fighting the Europeans because of perceived peace offerings. For the natives any sort or trading was a sign of peace but for the Europeans it was simply a business transaction.

2. By aggressively fighting I basically meant fighting at all with the first settlers in Virginia. I was mainly trying to address the fact that Powhatan made a decision that would affect the fate of America.

rbennett · Joined: 14 Oct 2009 Posts: 39

My and Patrick’s thesis is: “The Native Americans used their political skills and military tactics as an effective resistance against the Europeans.

A few people agreed with our thesis, and gave some examples of Native Americans who were successful in using these two ways. Someone gave the Seminoles as an example, and said that the Seminoles effectively used military tactics. Someone else gave Tecumseh as an example; they talked about how he united different tribes and successfully used political tactics.

A lot of other people did not agree with our thesis. Some people talked about how they did not think our thesis was true because there were many times when political skills and military tactics were not effective means of resistance. They said that Tecumseh didn’t actually accomplish anything, and that the Seminoles were eventually beaten.

A couple people also mentioned how our thesis was not really about the long term effects of using these tactics, but more about the immediate outcome.

mholmes · Joined: 01 Apr 2010 Posts: 15

Our thesis was "No matter what methods the Native Americans used to resist the Americans, the Americans won."

The responses were split. Some people agreed, even though with the smaller Native wins taken into account. Others thought agreed and saw clearly that the natives were too overpowered to have a chance at saving their homelands. While there were some examples of Natives resisting Americans, at the end of the day, it was the Natives who were sleeping in fear, not the Americans.

mmcgowan18 · Joined: 20 Nov 2009 Posts: 27

I felt a lot of the theses were very similar. I don’t remember exactly what they all were but I’m pretty sure they were all related to whether or not the Native Americans used too much or too little violence. And the groups seemed all most split in half. And on one of the big pieces of papers I said I thought this was because known of the Native American’s forms of resistance were effective because the Americans were too powerful.

scrookes · Joined: 30 Mar 2010 Posts: 11

I worked with Malcolm, and we came up with the thesis that Steph referred to: "Native Americans put too much emphasis on violence in their resistance efforts, and had they focused on tribal unity and diplomatic approaches, they would have been more successful."
Now that I look back at it, it seems a little awkward, which we were afraid of to begin with, since it was combining our two theses.
While I agree with what Steph said about a faster massacre if they had not retaliated, our thesis wasn't that they shouldn't have retaliated, it was that they should have tried harder in the non-violent retaliations.
I'm sad that I wasn't able to read the conversations on our paper, but maybe I can see them tomorrow.
On the activity in general, I really liked the concept, but I found myself being very confused a lot of the time. When I would read what was written by other people, I had so many questions about what they meant and [I lost my train of thought]. I also really liked writing and discussing the question on truth beforehand, because I feel like that came into play during the big paper activity.

esimpson · Joined: 31 Mar 2010 Posts: 10

[haha, our initials are Emily's initials)

The thesis we threw together was "The Native Americans didn’t stand much of a chance against the white people due to their technological inferiority and lack of unity." It wasn't worded very well, and most people wrote about the use of the word "inferiority." I was a little disappointed with the lack of conversation on the poster. I was glad that someone brought up Tecumseh as an exception though, I wanted him to come up.

This was a good activity. Ditto what Steph said.

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