Intro Blog (Sara Linne)

I’m Sara and I am a senior this year. I’m a history major, but also have an interest in the Chinese language. I am most looking forward to challenging what I was taught and not taught about Native American history in school. I am not that familiar with this topic so I am also looking forward to learning new things. In school, we never really learned about Native Americans beyond the 19th century. Most of what we focused on (in grade school) was Columbus and Thanksgiving, which were both portrayed in a good light. We also talked about Lewis and Clark and Sacagawea. In grade school, I remember that the teacher read a book about a little white girl who was taken captive by Native people (I don’t know the title). I vividly remember that any time moccasins were mentioned in the book, the teacher would point out to me and another girl because we wore those shoes a lot. In middle and high school, I think we went over the Trail of Tears, the mass killing of buffolas, and maybe some laws and policies around Jackson’s time. The only time Native Americans were presented during the 20th century to me was in some movie that we watched in a literature class (I cannot remember the title). Beyond that, we didn’t really discuss Native Americans. In terms of popular culture, one of the only times I encountered Native Americans was in Twilight. I think I’ve seen some movies, years ago, like Dancing With Wolves, but cannot remember what happened in them. In general, my education on this topic is not very good, which is why I decided to take this class.