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49 pages 1 hour read

Ned Blackhawk

The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2023

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Essay Topics

1.

Rediscovery includes illustrations that pair Ned Blackhawk’s historical analysis with relevant imagery. Pick one such image and offer a thorough visual reading through the lens of the book’s content. How does this image contribute to your understanding of Blackhawk’s arguments?

2.

As a revisionist history, Rediscovery aims to challenge preexisting historical narratives about the United States and some of its most revered figures. Identify one preconception about US history that you had before reading the book and explain how Blackhawk’s analysis responded to it. Did you adjust your understanding after reading the book? Why or why not?

3.

The modern field of Indigenous studies owes much to early works such as Custer Died for Your Sins by Vine Deloria Jr. (1969), which Blackhawk addresses in Chapter 12. Read that foundational manifesto and compare its ideas with those put forward in Rediscovery. How do these two texts illustrate the development of Indigenous studies?

4.

Chapter 11 addresses the mythologizing of Indigenous peoples by white supremacists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. How do these problematic mythologies persist in the 21st century, and how do books like Rediscovery work against them?

5.

What do you make of Blackhawk’s use of the term “rediscovery” in the book’s title, given his resistance to popular narratives of “discovery” in US history? What does it mean for America to be rediscovered, rather than discovered?

6.

Identify one form of autonomy exercised by Native people throughout the case studies examined by Blackhawk. What historical challenges have been levied against this autonomy, and how have Indigenous people responded?

7.

Select one of the lesser-known figures described in Rediscovery and analyze primary source material relevant to them. How does this person’s experience, as related in the sources, fit into Blackhawk’s broader historical arguments?

8.

If a 13th chapter were added to the book, what figures and events might be included? Using your own research, assess how the themes of Blackhawk’s analysis, such as Indigenous autonomy and US policy shifts toward Indigenous people, have continued since 1993.

9.

Select one Indigenous American tribe not addressed in Rediscovery and offer an account of how their specific history relates to the events and themes discussed in the book. How has this group affected and/or been affected by the currents of US history?

10.

Through his framework of “encounter,” Blackhawk compares and contrasts Indigenous societies with European ones to explain the aftermath of European arrival in North America. According to him, what are some of the key differences between these societies, and how did those differences influence the course of North American history?

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