WEBVTT 1 00:00:20.079 --> 00:00:24.399 The Great Plains stretched like a sea of grass from 2 00:00:24.399 --> 00:00:28.719 the valleys of Saskatchewan to the river basins of Texas, 3 00:00:29.640 --> 00:00:32.560 forming the opposite of the plateau that you could find 4 00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:37.560 in Eurasia. It's an endless horizon, broken only by the 5 00:00:37.640 --> 00:00:39.880 rise of the distant buttes, the curve of a river, 6 00:00:41.280 --> 00:00:46.719 occasional thunder of hooves across the prairie. For centuries before 7 00:00:46.799 --> 00:00:50.799 the arrival of Europeans, this region was the heartbeat of 8 00:00:50.840 --> 00:00:57.880 a dozen distinct people's, hunter gatherers, barbarous traders whose lives 9 00:00:58.039 --> 00:01:01.719 rose and fell in rhythm with the seasons, and, above all, 10 00:01:02.320 --> 00:01:07.560 as we'll see, the buffalo, and a long time before memory. 11 00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:12.159 The people of this region lived in woodlands and river 12 00:01:12.239 --> 00:01:15.400 valleys along the banks of the Missouri and the Platts rivers. 13 00:01:16.239 --> 00:01:21.920 The shelters were round earth and conical, typus of buffalo hides. 14 00:01:22.760 --> 00:01:26.519 They planted corn, beans, and squash along the river bottoms, 15 00:01:27.239 --> 00:01:31.319 and the women worked digging sticks with flint hose while 16 00:01:31.319 --> 00:01:36.519 the children sang in the tall grass. Archaeological records suggest 17 00:01:36.560 --> 00:01:40.040 that by one thousand of the Common Era, large semi 18 00:01:40.079 --> 00:01:44.840 sedentary farming communities such as the Mandan, Hidasta and the 19 00:01:44.879 --> 00:01:49.959 Arika were thriving along the Upper Missouri River. These villages 20 00:01:49.959 --> 00:01:53.359 were known for their massive, round earth lodges, some more 21 00:01:53.400 --> 00:01:58.519 than forty feet across, clustered like honey chromes across the prairie. 22 00:01:59.239 --> 00:02:01.920 These were not on the homes, but centers of trade 23 00:02:01.959 --> 00:02:07.200 and ritual. Corn, as elsewhere, were central and sacred here 24 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:10.120 by sensing a theme at this point through these episodes, 25 00:02:11.159 --> 00:02:15.120 grown dried ground and stored in the large catch pits 26 00:02:15.319 --> 00:02:19.199 that dotted the village floor. Ceremonies honoring the corn mother 27 00:02:20.039 --> 00:02:25.560 were central to spiritual life. Considered the following quote. When 28 00:02:25.560 --> 00:02:28.639 I was a girl, an elder Akira woman might have said, 29 00:02:28.800 --> 00:02:32.000 her hands moving rignically over a basket of corn kennels, 30 00:02:32.560 --> 00:02:35.879 we're plant by the stars by the rising of the Pleiades. 31 00:02:36.759 --> 00:02:39.719 The corn was not just food, It was our sister. 32 00:02:40.759 --> 00:02:44.039 We sang to it. We buried the fresh ears and 33 00:02:44.120 --> 00:02:48.159 the ground with prayers for the dead, for from the 34 00:02:48.159 --> 00:02:53.919 earth we come, and to the earth we return. To 35 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:58.319 the west and south. Other groups, the Commanche, the Apache, 36 00:02:58.360 --> 00:03:03.520 the Cheyenne, the Kiowa, began to push out into the 37 00:03:03.560 --> 00:03:07.360 Central Plains during the late prehistoric period. Some came from 38 00:03:07.400 --> 00:03:11.800 the Rockies, others from the far north. The landscape ones 39 00:03:11.840 --> 00:03:15.680 dominated by bison, antelope, and elk called them with its 40 00:03:15.719 --> 00:03:19.800 wide openness and its promise of mobility. Now, of course, 41 00:03:20.120 --> 00:03:23.479 in those early centuries there were no horses. Horses came 42 00:03:23.520 --> 00:03:28.560 with Europeans. The buffalo was hunted but on foot, using 43 00:03:28.639 --> 00:03:34.560 drives and ambushes, fire and above all skill. Hunters worked 44 00:03:34.599 --> 00:03:39.360 in teams to corral herds into natural traps, box canyons, 45 00:03:39.439 --> 00:03:42.479 river bands, where the animals could be brought down with 46 00:03:42.560 --> 00:03:48.280 spears and arrows. These hunts were more than survival, They 47 00:03:48.360 --> 00:03:54.680 were spiritual endeavors. Consider the following quotation here from the Cherokee. 48 00:03:54.800 --> 00:03:57.919 We ran with the buffalo. We sang too the buffalo. 49 00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:01.639 We died with the buffalo before the horse. We hunted, 50 00:04:01.639 --> 00:04:05.840 as our grandfathers did, on foot, with courage and cunning. 51 00:04:06.800 --> 00:04:10.159 Each animal we took was a gift. We used all 52 00:04:10.199 --> 00:04:13.520 of it. The hide for our lodges, the sinew for 53 00:04:13.599 --> 00:04:18.879 our bows, the bones for our needles, even the hooves 54 00:04:19.360 --> 00:04:23.800 we boiled for glue. End quote. The bison was not 55 00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:31.639 merely food, It was identity. It shaped religious cosmology, art, kinship, 56 00:04:31.680 --> 00:04:36.480 and myth. Among the Pawnee, buffalo dances were held in 57 00:04:36.560 --> 00:04:42.879 sacred lodges, blending celestial observations with seasonal cycles. Among the Blackfoot, 58 00:04:43.680 --> 00:04:49.000 vision quests and sun dances linked individual purification to tribal renewal, 59 00:04:49.680 --> 00:04:53.959 often involving sacrifice and endurance to prove one's devotion to 60 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:58.319 the spirit world. The sky wasn't just something to look 61 00:04:58.360 --> 00:05:04.480 at overhead to all classical peoples. It was alive, and 62 00:05:04.600 --> 00:05:07.639 the Native Americans of North America and the Great Plains 63 00:05:08.399 --> 00:05:13.839 were no different. The Plains tribes lived within a world 64 00:05:14.600 --> 00:05:19.120 combined with spirit wa kan as the Lakota called it, 65 00:05:19.240 --> 00:05:23.480 the sacred power in all things. Hills and rivers, they 66 00:05:23.480 --> 00:05:28.759 had names and personalities. Dreams were portals. Every animal had 67 00:05:28.879 --> 00:05:32.720 lessons to teach. Children were taught not through punishment, but 68 00:05:32.800 --> 00:05:38.000 by story parables about trickster figures like the kiote, of course, 69 00:05:38.720 --> 00:05:43.759 who reflected both human foolishness and divine wisdom. An old 70 00:05:43.839 --> 00:05:47.319 Kioa saying goes as follows quote, My father took me 71 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:50.399 to the hill when I was ten winters old. He said, 72 00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:54.720 you will sleep here alone, and the spirits will find you. Ay. 73 00:05:54.959 --> 00:05:57.839 The boy fasted for two days. On the third a 74 00:05:57.879 --> 00:05:59.800 great bird came to me in a dream that I 75 00:06:00.279 --> 00:06:03.279 with a song in my chest. The song has guided 76 00:06:03.319 --> 00:06:08.040 me ever since and quote. Each tribe had its sacred 77 00:06:08.120 --> 00:06:13.120 rights and bundles, collections of things feathers, bones, stones, and herbs, 78 00:06:13.160 --> 00:06:17.879 bound together with prayer. These were not mere artifacts, but 79 00:06:18.040 --> 00:06:22.000 vessels of cosmic power, kept by medicine men or women 80 00:06:22.399 --> 00:06:26.720 who served as the link between visible world and the 81 00:06:26.759 --> 00:06:32.120 world beyond the world that everybody wonders about whether you're European, 82 00:06:33.319 --> 00:06:35.959 whether you're an indigenous to America, or so on and 83 00:06:35.959 --> 00:06:43.360 so forth. These people were just connected to it. More then, 84 00:06:43.399 --> 00:06:45.759 sometime in the late sixteen hundreds, of the world began 85 00:06:45.879 --> 00:06:49.519 to change. Though Coronado had crossed parts of the Southern 86 00:06:49.519 --> 00:06:53.240 Plains in the fifteen forties, his passage left only a ripple, 87 00:06:53.839 --> 00:06:57.639 but the Spanish left something behind that would transform planes' 88 00:06:57.639 --> 00:07:03.319 lives entirely. The horse. First captured or traded from Spanish 89 00:07:03.319 --> 00:07:07.360 herds in New Mexico, horses spread northward like fire on 90 00:07:07.399 --> 00:07:11.199 the wind. By the late sixteen hundreds, the command she 91 00:07:11.360 --> 00:07:15.240 had not only acquired horses, they had mastered them, becoming 92 00:07:15.279 --> 00:07:18.519 one of the most formidable mounted groups the continent had 93 00:07:18.600 --> 00:07:23.160 ever seen. According to one old Cheyenne quote, when the 94 00:07:23.240 --> 00:07:28.720 horse came, We became lightning. We could hunt farther, fight harder, 95 00:07:29.240 --> 00:07:32.720 ride with the wind. The buffalo fell before us like grass. 96 00:07:33.279 --> 00:07:36.959 We were no longer earth bound. We had become part 97 00:07:37.079 --> 00:07:45.240 of the storm. End quote. The horse redefined everything, mobility, warfare, trade, 98 00:07:45.879 --> 00:07:51.759 even ceremony. It allowed for larger seasonal migrations, increased hunting efficiency, 99 00:07:52.079 --> 00:07:56.600 and transformed the military power balance across the plains. Yet 100 00:07:56.639 --> 00:08:01.000 it also introduced new conflicts over grazing, land, water, and 101 00:08:01.079 --> 00:08:05.800 access to trade networks, increasingly dominated by French and Spanish intermediaries. 102 00:08:07.240 --> 00:08:10.639 By seventeen hundred, the Great Plains were on the brink 103 00:08:10.879 --> 00:08:14.720 of a new era. Some tribes, like the Mandan and 104 00:08:14.759 --> 00:08:18.240 the Hidasta, still held to their old ways in the 105 00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:23.639 river villages, their corn fields swaying beside the Missouri River. Others, 106 00:08:23.759 --> 00:08:27.600 like the command Sheep and Kiowa, had embraced the nomadic 107 00:08:27.639 --> 00:08:31.959 horse culture that would define the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 108 00:08:31.959 --> 00:08:36.080 For them. The bison, for the moment, still roamed in 109 00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:39.200 vast herds, and the sky remained the roof of the 110 00:08:39.240 --> 00:08:43.519 sacred lodge. Of course, as we know, distant forces were 111 00:08:43.559 --> 00:08:48.440 growing near guns, germs, and steel. To say the least, now, 112 00:08:48.440 --> 00:08:50.720 we've got a ways to go before we get there, however, 113 00:08:50.759 --> 00:08:54.879 and before we do, let's turn our attention to the northeast, 114 00:08:55.679 --> 00:09:18.840 to the lands along the Great Lakes. The land of 115 00:09:18.879 --> 00:09:22.559 the Great Lakes is complex, vast, and lind Seas stretch 116 00:09:22.639 --> 00:09:27.279 beyond the horizon the Superior Huron, Michigan, Erie and Ontario. 117 00:09:28.159 --> 00:09:31.879 They link forests, rivers and islands in a watery web 118 00:09:31.919 --> 00:09:36.360 that's far older than the nations of Europe. Here, the 119 00:09:36.399 --> 00:09:41.000 peoples of this region, the Nashanabi, Dominie, Sauk, Fox, and others, 120 00:09:41.720 --> 00:09:45.320 water was not merely a path or a resource, became 121 00:09:45.320 --> 00:09:50.320 a living presence before the first wampum belt was ever woven. 122 00:09:50.759 --> 00:09:55.320 Before the French fur traders paddled into these waters, there 123 00:09:55.320 --> 00:09:58.600 were stories that were still told in bark lodges all 124 00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:01.399 across the region. The stories bound the people to a 125 00:10:01.480 --> 00:10:03.759 land and to one another. Told how the earth was 126 00:10:03.799 --> 00:10:06.320 formed on the back of a great turtle, how the 127 00:10:06.360 --> 00:10:08.919 great Spirit breathed fire into the wind, and how the 128 00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:11.919 lakes were carved by the footsteps of a giant. By 129 00:10:11.960 --> 00:10:15.279 one thousand CEE, the Great Lakes region was a mosaic 130 00:10:15.320 --> 00:10:19.639 of linguistic cultural groups, largely Algonquins speaking to the north 131 00:10:19.679 --> 00:10:24.879 and east as the Ajibue, the Potawatamie, the Adatoa, Menominee, 132 00:10:24.879 --> 00:10:28.799 Sauk and Fox and an Iroquois speaking peoples to the 133 00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:33.759 south and east, the Huron and the powerful hodi Ashone Confederacy. 134 00:10:34.720 --> 00:10:38.200 Many of these communities lived in villages built near rivers 135 00:10:38.240 --> 00:10:41.600 and lakes. Their dwellings made of elm bark, stretched over 136 00:10:41.639 --> 00:10:46.519 bent saplings, long houses for the Iroquois people, dome shaped 137 00:10:46.519 --> 00:10:52.039 wigwams for the Algonquins. They practiced agriculture, particularly even this 138 00:10:52.200 --> 00:10:55.000 far north. The planting of the Three Sisters, corn, beans, 139 00:10:55.039 --> 00:10:59.639 and squash intercropped in mounds that nurtured both the soil 140 00:10:59.720 --> 00:11:04.399 and the themselves. Hunting and fishing balanced the rhythm of 141 00:11:04.440 --> 00:11:08.399 the seasons. Deer, moose, and beaver were common in the 142 00:11:08.440 --> 00:11:12.519 north Woods. Birch bark canoes, light enough to portage but 143 00:11:12.559 --> 00:11:16.039 sturdy enough for the lakes, were crafted with painstaking care 144 00:11:16.639 --> 00:11:22.000 and spiritual attention. Every part of the canoe, birch, cedar, spruce, gum, 145 00:11:22.279 --> 00:11:27.440 and root lashings was taken with respect. The political world 146 00:11:27.519 --> 00:11:30.639 of the Great Lakes was just as dynamic as its ecology. 147 00:11:31.279 --> 00:11:35.440 Warfare alliances and diplomacy shaped the landscape as surely as 148 00:11:35.440 --> 00:11:40.200 the retreat as the glaciers had centuries before, the Iroquoisan peoples, 149 00:11:40.279 --> 00:11:44.639 especially the Hodi Nashone also called the Iroquois Confederacy, formed 150 00:11:44.639 --> 00:11:47.879 one of the most sophisticated political systems in North America. 151 00:11:48.080 --> 00:11:52.679 Before the year seventeen hundred, Hodian Shonee, who called themselves 152 00:11:52.679 --> 00:12:00.919 the People of the Longhouse, bound together five nations Mohawk, Oneida, Onangada, Cayuga, 153 00:12:00.960 --> 00:12:03.720 and Seneca under the Great Law of Peace. If you 154 00:12:03.720 --> 00:12:05.399 go to upstate New York. By the way, right now, 155 00:12:05.559 --> 00:12:08.600 those are still the names of the Finger Lakes. This 156 00:12:08.840 --> 00:12:12.600 wasn't actually a military alliance, has been somewhat misunderstood as that, 157 00:12:12.679 --> 00:12:16.759 but it was a spiritual covenant told through the story 158 00:12:16.759 --> 00:12:21.399 of the Peacemaker and Hyawaka, who persuaded warring nations to 159 00:12:21.480 --> 00:12:25.279 bury their weapons beneath the tree of Peace. Each nation 160 00:12:25.600 --> 00:12:30.240 remained autonomous, but met in a grand council where clan 161 00:12:30.360 --> 00:12:34.480 mothers held the power to select and depose male leaders. 162 00:12:34.600 --> 00:12:38.480 Consider the following quotation quote, I saw the womp of 163 00:12:38.519 --> 00:12:41.600 belt with my own eyes. Each bead tells the story 164 00:12:41.639 --> 00:12:44.240 of peace when we speak in the council. We do 165 00:12:44.320 --> 00:12:48.320 not shout. We listen, we wait. We speak only when 166 00:12:48.320 --> 00:12:53.200 the words are true and the heart is still end quote. Meanwhile, 167 00:12:53.519 --> 00:12:57.879 the ojibwe, A, Dahwa, and Potawatami, known collectively as the 168 00:12:57.919 --> 00:13:03.039 Three Fires Confederacy, their own cultural and political alliance, rooted 169 00:13:03.080 --> 00:13:08.120 in shared languages, traditions, and migration stories. They traded wildly, 170 00:13:08.639 --> 00:13:12.519 beaver pelts for copper, wild rice for corn, tools for 171 00:13:12.600 --> 00:13:18.320 sacred stories, linking villages through complex webs of kinship and ceremony. 172 00:13:19.480 --> 00:13:25.799 Spirituality permeated every act of daily life. The world was animate, alive, 173 00:13:25.840 --> 00:13:28.679 with beings who walked in both this world and the next. 174 00:13:29.480 --> 00:13:33.840 The Midiwin or Grand Medicine society of the Anashabi taught 175 00:13:33.879 --> 00:13:38.200 sacred songs, symbols, and healing practices through generations of initiates. 176 00:13:39.360 --> 00:13:43.000 Dreams were never through these societies considered to be idle fantasies. 177 00:13:43.320 --> 00:13:47.080 They were considered to be spiritual guides. Ceremonies like the 178 00:13:47.159 --> 00:13:51.279 drum dance and fasting visions helped young people discover their 179 00:13:51.279 --> 00:13:55.759 own spiritual path. Animals were relatives. Stone could speak if 180 00:13:55.759 --> 00:13:59.600 you only knew how to listen. Tobacco was offered before hunts, 181 00:13:59.799 --> 00:14:03.840 at graves and during council meetings as a sign of respect. 182 00:14:05.919 --> 00:14:08.960 The first sustained European contact with this region of the 183 00:14:09.039 --> 00:14:13.360 United States didn't come with soldiers, but with canoes. In 184 00:14:13.399 --> 00:14:15.919 the early sixteen hundreds, it was the French this time, 185 00:14:15.960 --> 00:14:20.240 not the Spanish. French voyagers and Jesuit missionaries began to 186 00:14:20.279 --> 00:14:23.320 move into the Saint Lawrence and Great Lakes regions, drawn 187 00:14:23.360 --> 00:14:25.600 by the riches of fur trade and of course, the 188 00:14:25.639 --> 00:14:30.720 promise of spreading Christianity. The Huron, when not residing near 189 00:14:30.799 --> 00:14:35.360 Georgian Bay, became key intermediaries in this trade, exchanging furs 190 00:14:35.360 --> 00:14:41.120 for European goods, iron tools, glass beads, and muskets. In return, 191 00:14:41.440 --> 00:14:45.320 they provided access to inland territories carried on their shoulders 192 00:14:45.360 --> 00:14:49.960 and canoes, and for a time the relationship was fruitful. 193 00:14:50.159 --> 00:14:54.480 But new goods brought new dangers. As we know European 194 00:14:54.519 --> 00:14:59.080 diseases like smallpox swept through native villages with devastating speed. 195 00:15:00.039 --> 00:15:04.000 Were fair intensified, particularly between the Hody and Shone and 196 00:15:04.039 --> 00:15:07.480 the Huron, as each group now vied for access to 197 00:15:07.559 --> 00:15:12.639 trade networks and European alliances. By the sixteen forties, the 198 00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:17.039 Huron Confederacy had collapsed under pressure from the Iroquois attacks, 199 00:15:17.480 --> 00:15:23.200 their villages burned, their survivors scattered. By the turn of 200 00:15:23.200 --> 00:15:26.879 the eighteenth century, the Great Lakes world had been transformed. 201 00:15:27.559 --> 00:15:32.679 The fur trade reshaped economies and alliances. Guns became tools 202 00:15:32.720 --> 00:15:37.399 of both hunting and war. The Ojibwe, having moved westward 203 00:15:37.440 --> 00:15:41.600 into the forests of present day Minnesota and Wisconsin, were 204 00:15:41.639 --> 00:15:44.759 expanding their territory in part due to new military strength. 205 00:15:45.480 --> 00:15:50.039 The French were building forts Detroit, and the Jesuits continued 206 00:15:50.039 --> 00:15:54.519 to press Christianity into Native life, sometimes embraced, often blended 207 00:15:54.559 --> 00:15:58.960 with older beliefs, and occasionally resisted outright. Yet despite all 208 00:15:59.039 --> 00:16:02.639 of this, the spiritual heart of the Great Lakes peoples endured. 209 00:16:03.279 --> 00:16:06.919 The ceremonies continued, the stories still flowed across the water, 210 00:16:07.240 --> 00:16:10.440 passed down with elders. When we think about the Native 211 00:16:10.480 --> 00:16:14.679 American cultures of North America First Nations, if you prefer, 212 00:16:15.279 --> 00:16:18.320 I think we have to remember just the incredible transformation 213 00:16:18.960 --> 00:16:23.120 and change that had taken place in barely two hundred years, 214 00:16:23.759 --> 00:16:28.120 when this sort of change hadn't occurred over the previous thousands. 215 00:16:28.840 --> 00:16:31.919 When the ships of Columbus first touched Caribbean shores in 216 00:16:31.960 --> 00:16:35.559 fourteen ninety two. They set in motion a cascade of 217 00:16:35.639 --> 00:16:39.720 transformation that would ripple across the entire North American continent. 218 00:16:40.399 --> 00:16:43.399 For indigenous peoples, the arrival of Europeans was not a 219 00:16:43.440 --> 00:16:48.120 single moment, but a series of evolving encounters. Some were gradual, 220 00:16:48.200 --> 00:16:52.320 others were explosive. In the early decades, many Native American 221 00:16:52.360 --> 00:16:56.679 communities had little or no direct contact with Europeans, Yet 222 00:16:57.080 --> 00:17:01.960 diseases like smallpox, measles, and influenza spread far in advance 223 00:17:02.039 --> 00:17:07.559 of European explorers, devastating populations. In some regions, up to 224 00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:11.960 ninety percent of inhabitants perished within a generation of first contact, 225 00:17:12.519 --> 00:17:17.240 shattering kinship networks, religious traditions, and oral histories before a 226 00:17:17.279 --> 00:17:22.759 single missionary or fur trader ever arrived. Consider how devastating 227 00:17:23.119 --> 00:17:27.720 we think about the Black Death and losses of European life, 228 00:17:27.960 --> 00:17:30.119 depending upon where you were, could have been as low 229 00:17:30.160 --> 00:17:33.119 as twenty five percent, maybe as high as sixty six percent. 230 00:17:33.759 --> 00:17:38.039 With Native American cultures, we're talking about ninety percent losses 231 00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:43.039 literally across the board. It's a magnitude of difference that 232 00:17:43.119 --> 00:17:47.640 I don't think we talk enough about. But even As 233 00:17:47.720 --> 00:17:53.119 depopulation and displacement took their toll, native nations adapted with 234 00:17:53.160 --> 00:17:57.160 resilience and ingenuity. Trade became one of the earliest and 235 00:17:57.200 --> 00:18:01.799 most consequential points of contact, as peoples quickly understood the 236 00:18:01.880 --> 00:18:07.480 value of European goods iron tools, cloth, beads, and especially firearms. 237 00:18:07.519 --> 00:18:10.599 In places like the Great Lakes, the Mississippi Valley, and 238 00:18:10.680 --> 00:18:14.240 the south West, tribes re aligned their economies and political 239 00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:18.240 alliances to gain access to these materials. The fur trade, 240 00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:21.599 in particular, reshaped native life from the northeast to the 241 00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:27.200 Rocky Mountains. Long established rivalries intensified as tribes such as 242 00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:31.319 the Hodi and Shone, Ottawa, Huron, and Dakota positioned themselves 243 00:18:31.359 --> 00:18:35.799 with emerging colonial markets, sometimes gaining significant power in the process. 244 00:18:36.799 --> 00:18:40.400 At the same time, patterns of movements and settlement began 245 00:18:40.440 --> 00:18:45.039 to shift dramatically. Some indigenous groups migrated to avoid conflict 246 00:18:45.440 --> 00:18:48.359 or seek new trade opportunities, such as the command Shee's 247 00:18:48.440 --> 00:18:51.759 rapid expansion into the southern Plains following their adoption of 248 00:18:51.799 --> 00:18:57.400 the horse. Others were forcibly removed from ancestral homelands through war, diplomacy, 249 00:18:57.599 --> 00:19:02.960 or missionary pressures. Spanish in the Southwest, French and the 250 00:19:02.960 --> 00:19:06.400 Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence, and English along the Atlantic 251 00:19:06.440 --> 00:19:11.319 coast sought to convert Native peoples and reshaped their social structures. 252 00:19:11.960 --> 00:19:17.119 While some individuals embraced these changes, others resisted through open conflict, 253 00:19:17.480 --> 00:19:23.160 cultural persistence, or strategic alliance. Making Native identity didn't vanish, 254 00:19:23.200 --> 00:19:27.839 it transformed, blending old practices with new tools, beliefs, and 255 00:19:27.880 --> 00:19:35.440 political realities. By seventeen hundred, North America had been profoundly changed, 256 00:19:36.599 --> 00:19:41.240 but it hadn't been conquered. Indigenous peoples remained the majority 257 00:19:41.279 --> 00:19:44.119 across most of the continent and continued to shape its 258 00:19:44.160 --> 00:19:49.839 history in ways colonial powers could not fully control. They negotiated, resisted, 259 00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:53.119 and endured. The world they had known in fourteen ninety 260 00:19:53.160 --> 00:19:57.640 two one, defined by deeply rooted traditions, expansive trade routes, 261 00:19:57.720 --> 00:20:02.240 and independent nations, had been altered by disease, warfare, migration, 262 00:20:02.359 --> 00:20:07.559 and colonialism. Yet even amid these upheavals, native communities reasserted 263 00:20:07.559 --> 00:20:11.759 their presence in new forms, preserving their language, rituals, and 264 00:20:11.880 --> 00:20:17.240 sovereignty in the centuries that came after them. Now next 265 00:20:17.240 --> 00:20:21.160 week we're going to shift back to the Eastern seaboard, 266 00:20:21.240 --> 00:20:24.880 and catch up with affairs in Virginia, which at this 267 00:20:24.960 --> 00:20:28.359 point still remains the most populous and most important of 268 00:20:28.400 --> 00:20:31.680 the English colonies, but not, as we'll discover next week, 269 00:20:31.960 --> 00:20:37.559 without its problems. Land distribution in the Americas has always 270 00:20:37.559 --> 00:20:42.440 been fraught with conflict, and Bacon's rebellion drives that message 271 00:20:42.440 --> 00:20:42.720 home