abstract: This research explores the various and often conflicting interpretations of the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, an event seemingly lost in the public mind of twenty-first century America. The conflict, which pitted United States forces under the command of Major General Andrew Jackson against a militant offshoot of the Creek Confederacy, known as the Redsticks, ranks as the single most staggering loss of life in annals of American Indian warfare. Today, exactly 200 years after the conflict, the legacy of Horseshoe Bend stands as an obscure and often unheard of event. Drawing upon over two centuries of unpublished archival data, newspapers, and political propaganda this research argues that the dominate narrative of Northern history, the shadowy details of the War of 1812, and the erasure of shameful events from the legacy of westward expansion have all contributed to transform what once was a battle of epic proportions, described by Jackson himself as an "extermination," into a seemingly forgotten affair. Ultimately, the Battle of Horseshoe Bend's elusiveness has allowed for the production of various historical myths and political messages, critiques and hyperboles, facts and theories. Hailed as a triumph during the War of 1812, and a high-water mark by the proponents of Manifest Destiny, Jackson's victory has also experienced its fair share of American derision and disregard. Whereas some have criticized the battle as a "cold blooded massacre," others have glorified it as a touchstone of American masculinity, and excused it as a natural event in the unfolding of human evolution. Despite the battle's controversial nature, on 3 August 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a strong supporter of the National Park Service, approved act HR 11766 establishing Horseshoe Bend National Military Park, the very first national park in the state of Alabama. Hailed and forgotten, silenced and celebrated, exploited and yet largely unknown. This research explores what happened after the smoke cleared at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. It is a story about the production of history, the power of the past, and the malleability of the American mind. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. History 2014

Abstract not available.

This thesis is the study of the Indigenous peoples of Ghana, Canada and the United States. What links these three groups together is the colonial moment. These peoples are linked together because they have all been affected by the process and legacy of colonization. The "colonial moment" presents an opportunity to analyze the ways in which the Indigenous peoples of these three geopolitical units have experienced the colonization process and its impact as well as to analyze its implications for post-colonial sovereignty. If one goes back to the early days of colonization, Europeans were only a minuscule minority in the territories that would one day become Ghana, Canada and the United States. The evolution from that point forward is totally different. The scene at Ghana's independence celebration eloquently expresses this contrast: At the Black Star Square, as the midnight bell tolled, on March 6, 1957, the Union Jack slipped beneath the floodlights. Rising in its place was the tri-colour flag of red, gold and green, with a black star at its centre, the standard of the new, independent nation of Ghana. On the platform, President Kwarne Nkrumah, his faced streaked with tears, electrified the crowd when he declared: "At long last, the battle has ended. Your beloved country is free forever." What American or Canadian Indigenous leader can boast of his or her country being free on Independence Day? Free from whom and what? That argument begs the question -- why? Why did Ghana, which is much closer and more accessible to Europe, not become the target for mass migration? If the Indigenous peoples of Ghana, who were considered too primitive to engage in treaty as exemplified by the Berlin Conference of 1884, could achieve a form of sovereignty approximately equivalent to that of the other nations of the world, then why should the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, whose international treaty powers were affirmed by the Royal Proclamation of 1763, not employ Ghana's sovereignty as a yardstick? This thesis uses the "Ghanaian lens" to examine the above questions and many more, and anchors them in the evolving nature of sovereignty in the colonial and post-colonial context. The aim is to link the analysis of the "shifting" European definition of statehood with the unconscious forces that shaped the colonial prismatic view of Indigenous sovereignty. What might be useful and unique about the thesis is its invitation to uncouple the train of thought from North America and examine the colonial moment and its implications for American and Canadian jurisprudence from an African perspective. It is hoped that this will provide a useful basis for helping to correct some of the injustices perpetrated against the Indigenous peoples of North America. The "Ghanaian lens" is then directed at the contact period to reveal that, despite the introduction of European goods and the concomitant fruits of so-called "civilization," the Indigenous peoples of the world generally suffered throughout this period and did not benefit from the presence of the Europeans who exploited their friendliness. The struggle for independence is the next phenomenon viewed through the "Ghanaian lens." Part VI then illustrates the manner in which the importation of American jurisprudence into the Canadian context has distorted the traditional British legal notion of Indigenous sovereignty to the detriment of the Indigenous peoples of Canada. Part VIIA explains why the Western world and the "settled" nations should refrain from perpetuating doctrines of international law that define sovereignty as the exclusive preserve of Europe, which subordinated and excluded "uncivilized" indigenes, resulting in the current neo-colonial state of the Indigenous peoples of North America. Finally, Part VIIB develops a set of doctrines that could coherently account for Indigenous personality, in order to more adequately formulate the potential of the concept of sovereignty to remedy the enduring inequities and imbalances resulting from the colonial confrontation. The thesis then takes the reader on the solution path. On September 13, 2007, the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Indigenous peoples of the world share much in common: faith in divine providence, hope in an eternal universe and the aspiration to be free and happy. Indigenous peoples in settled countries are many distinct natives in many countries, but with common concerns and a common voice. One of their prime concerns is to be heard. Indigenous peoples in settled countries cannot effectively express themselves politically. They are politically mute. To claim that they are represented at the United Nations by the countries in which they reside is, therefore, an insult. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Over the decade of 2000, the Mexican government defined maternal health as a political priority and put pressure on key stakeholders to institutionalize pregnancy and childbirth in rural communities with indigenous population, through coercive use of poverty relief programs and surveillance policies involving health staff, community leaders, neighbours and families in close maternal control from pregnancy to newborn care. Safe motherhood campaigns addressed pregnant women and recent mothers, making them responsible for their own health and for the health of their unborns and newborns. As a result, most pregnant women went for prenatal chats and check-ups and a growing proportion turned away from homebirth assisted by traditional birth attendants. However, most also kept combining traditional and biomedical care and many felt safer delivering in their homes. This study was nested within a community-led research effort to narrow the distance between biomedically-oriented government policies and indigenous views and practices of maternal and newborn care, aiming to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity among aboriginal populations, without marginalizing indigenous cultures. I explore the connections and interactions between health risk discourse --the dominant paradigm in contemporary public health communication-, safe motherhood discourse, and indigenous discourses about maternal care in Xochistlahuaca, a rural community in Guerrero State, Mexico. I show how institutions and individuals draw from existing discourses, adopt them, reject them, and reshape them to make meaning according to their own needs, circumstances, and aspirations. I discuss how these interactions explain and affect maternal and perinatal care among the majority Amuzgo population. I also analyze the ideological implications of government and indigenous discourses in a context of unequal power relations. In particular, the study reveals how different sources construe the roles of key stakeholders, such as indigenous women and men, and how indigenous women handle and reshape multiple discursive pressures from government and community sources concerning maternal health and their role in society. I analyze data from government health promotion materials and interviews with health officials, government health staff, and men and women in the communities, using a theoretical and methodological framework based on critical discourse analysis, social semiotics, systemic functional linguistics, and multimodal approaches. The findings reveal "discursive synergies" and contradictions between government safe motherhood discourse and traditional orders of discourse. They also shed light on how people make coherent --and rational- construals of risk blending their own experiences and multiple, often conflicting discourses in an unequal multiethnic environment with competing authority claims. These findings should be of interest to a range of stakeholders working to prevent maternal and perinatal death in intercultural contexts.

abstract: This dissertation seeks to understand two universal experiences that have pervaded human society since man first climbed out of the trees: violence and trauma. Using theories gleaned from the Holocaust and other twentieth century atrocities, this work explores narratives of violent action and traumatic reaction as they occurred among peoples of the nineteenth-century American Southwest. By examining the stories of individuals and groups of Apaches, Ethnic Mexicans, Euro-Americans, and other diverse peoples within the lens of trauma studies, a new narrative emerges within US-Mexico borderlands history. This narrative reveals inter-generational legacies of violence among cultural groups that have lived through trauma and caused trauma within others. For both victims and perpetrators alike, trauma and violence can transform into tools of cultural construction and adaptation. Part I of this work establishes the concept of ethnotrauma-- a layered experience of collective trauma among minority populations under racial persecution. By following stories of Mescalero, Chiricahua, and Warm Springs Apaches in the nineteenth-century Southwest, this dissertation reveals how Apaches grappled with ethnotrauma through generations during times of war, imprisonment, and exile. These narratives also reveal how Apaches overcame these legacies of pain through communal solidarity and cultural continuity. Part II explores the concept of perpetrator trauma. By following stories of Mexican norteños, Mexican-Americans on the US-Mexico border, and American settlers, the impact of trauma on violators also comes to light. The concept perpetrator trauma in this context denotes the long-term cultural impacts of committing violence among perpetrating communities. For perpetrating groups, violence became a method of affirming and, in some cases, reconstructing group identity through opposition to other groups. Finally, at the heart of this work stands two critical symbols-- Geronimo, victim and villain, and the land itself, hostile and healing-- that reveal how cycles of violence entangled ethnotrauma and perpetrator trauma within individuals struggling to survive and thrive in a savage land. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation History 2020

abstract: The overarching aim of this dissertation is to evaluate Geodesign as a planning approach for American Indian communities in the American Southwest. There has been a call amongst indigenous planners for a planning approach that prioritizes indigenous and community values and traditions while incorporating Western planning techniques. Case studies from communities in the Navajo Nation and the Tohono O’odham Nation are used to evaluate Geodesign because they possess sovereign powers of self-government within their reservation boundaries and have historical and technical barriers that have limited land use planning efforts. This research aimed to increase the knowledge base of indigenous planning, participatory Geographic information systems (GIS), resiliency, and Geodesign in three ways. First, the research examines how Geodesign can incorporate indigenous values within a community-based land use plan. Results showed overwhelmingly that indigenous participants felt that the resulting plan reflected their traditions and values, that the community voice was heard, and that Geodesign would be a recommended planning approach for other indigenous communities. Second, the research examined the degree in which Geodesign could incorporate local knowledge in planning and build resiliency against natural hazards such as flooding. Participants identified local hazards, actively engaged in developing strategies to mitigate flood risk, and utilized spatial assessments to plan for a more flood resilient region. Finally, the research examined the role of the planner in conducting Geodesign planning efforts and how Geodesign can empower marginalized communities to engage in the planning process using Arnstein’s ladder as an evaluation tool. Results demonstrated that outside professional planners, scientists, and geospatial analysts needed to assume the role of a facilitator, decision making resource, and a capacity builder over traditional roles of being the plan maker. This research also showed that Geodesign came much closer to meeting American Indian community expectations for public participation in decision making than previous planning efforts. This research demonstrated that Geodesign planning approaches could be utilized by American Indian communities to assume control of the planning process according to local values, traditions, and culture while meeting rigorous Western planning standards. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Geography 2020

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In A Science of Literature, I examine how and why US ethnologists and popular authors of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries collected, read, and interpreted Indigenous oral traditions as works of literature. “Oral traditions” in this case refers to the narratives and songs that Indigenous peoples maintained mostly orally, and which variously served religious, historical, philosophical, educational, and entertainment purposes within Indigenous communities. I track how, through the collection process, Euro-American authors transformed oral traditions into “Indian oral literature,” (re)writing versions of oral traditions that aligned with Western literary categories and attitudes toward the “primitive.” For the most part, this reconceptualization, I argue, worked to discredit oral traditions as bodies of knowledge—as works of fiction and poetry, oral traditions became, in effect, untrue—and it supported removal and assimilation efforts in so far as it was used to shed light on a primitive Indian psychology, one that was naturally poetic, but not rational, not scientific. And yet many Indigenous writers, like George Copway and Zitkala-Ša, took advantage of the popularity of Indian oral literature to produce their own print collections of oral traditions. I analyze these collections as works of Indigenous “counter science.” I show how Indigenous writers, for example, moved from informant to ethnologist as they cited, summarized, and transcribed oral traditions as tribal records (histories, maps, deeds) and later as works of moral philosophy, thus explicitly contesting their interpretation as merely works of the imagination. Oral traditions, as I argue, have functioned as important resources to which Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers alike turned to validate scientific and literary practices, to contest the history of colonization, and to debate US-Indian relations. / English

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