In working on the sample questions, you are encouraged to make use of all the material presented during the quarter (lectures, readings, guests, films, visual materials, and discussion) when you think about the questions and your answers..

Rough periods to think about:

Creating and Peopling the Reservations.  (c. 1860s-1890) 

Strategies of Assimilation and of Survivance.  (1880s-1920s) 

The Indian New Deal and its Critics.  (1920s-1945 )

Termination and Urbanization.  (1945-1970)

From Self-determination to Sovereignty (1970s-present).

Part I:  Questions  (1 on the midterm, from at least 2 choices):

Sample Questions  (1 on the final from at least 2 choices):

Identify “sea changes” (major changes in direction) in the history of Native Americans from 1870 to the present.  Explain each of these critical periods or events in terms of how you view the sweep of Native American History. 

Note:  you can use the “Rough periods” above to prepare an answer or you can define periods as you see them.

Compare and contrast the various different types of assimilationist policies applied to Native Americans by the US government. How to tribes survive the onslaught? Use at least 3 examples from different periods.

Note:  you can use 1870-2004 in answering this question, so you want to work on examples that 1)  are representative, 2) are broad enough to deal with the question, and 3)  that you can explain and compare clearly.

How has the formation of US policy towards Native Americans related to the history of other ethnic and racial groups?   How does it relate to the cycles of development of the US national economy?  You may discuss the period from 1890 to the present.

Describe the Indian Reorganization Act or “Indian New Deal”?  In what ways was it a departure from previous policy?  How did it change thinking about the place of Indians in American society?  How did it influence subsequent policies towards Native Americans?

Part II:  Identifications  (2 on the midtern, from at least 4 choices).

Sample Identification:  2 components — definition & significance:

Navajo soldiers who fought with the Marines during World War II.  These men received special training in using a code in spoken Navajo developed for battle.

The story of the Navajo Codetalkers exemplify the honor and valor that Indian service people achieved in general during WWII.  Experiences in the military serving throughout Europe and Asia changed the perspective of many when they returned to the US after the war.  The beginnings of the activism on and off of  reservations that led to the Red Power movement in the late 1960s began in part a a response to these wartime experiences.

A ceremony performed by the Algonkian bands and Huron refugees in summer villages that involved inter-band marriages and the mixing of ancestral bones.

Through rituals such as the Feast of the Dead, autonomous bands of Algonkian-speaking Indians and other allies were incorporated into a new tribal structure which became the Anishinabeg (or Ojibwa). Show the importance of Native American religion as a cultural system.