History 3010

Facing East from Indian Country - Reading Guide

This image depicts a treaty council between Indians and Europeans on the Pennsylvania frontier. An Indian orator speaks over the council fire while using a wampum belt to make his point. One of his compatriots smokes from a pipe tomahawk. British officers listen with rapt attention (one places his hand over his heart), while a secretary records the proceedings.Credit: Library of Congress

In this 1766 engraving, Benjamin West depicted the October 1764 meeting between British representatives led by Colonel Bouquet and a delegation of Shawnee, Delaware, and Ohio Indians. At a council fire, near Bouquet's camp on the Banks of Muskingum the two sides negotiated the return of English hostages taken on the Virginia and Pennsylvania frontier. At the conclusion of the council, the Indians handed over 206 captives, who, like Simon Girty, had been adopted and raised by Indian families. Preferring their Indian lives, some of the former hostages escaped from Fort Pitt and returned to their Indian families.

The purpose of this reading guide is to support your understanding of key ideas presented in the text and to draw your attention to core knowledge needed to make meaning from the information. 

   
  1. Before you begin reading Facing East From Indian Country , look at the cover and consider the subtitle.  What is the author’s purpose?  Whose perspective is Richter constructing for us?  What are the unique challenges of presenting this time period from this perspective?
  2. Chapter 1:  Imagining a Distant New World.
     In this chapter the author guides readers to reframe the way we think about the historical term “New World.”  This shift of perspective affects how we experience the learning. Consider details that helped you make this shift. Why did Richter choose to write from this perspective?
  3. Chapter 2: Confronting a Material New World.  Richter tells us that a “trio of economic, ecological, and epidemiological forces remade Indian country into ‘a world every bit as new as that confronting transplanted Africans or Europeans’ in the same period.” P. 41  Provide expository detail about each of those three forces using evidence form the text. 

    1. Explain the relationship between deaths from epidemic diseases and mourning raids.  How are these two details from the chapter interdependent?  What was the outcome for some groups in the 17th century?

  4. In Chapter 3: Living with Europeans, the author revisits three stories form this period that have made their way into popular culture: Pocahontas, Kateri Tekakwitha, Metacom (King Philip.  Use evidence from the text to contrast popular images with information presented by the author.
  5.  Chapter 4: Native Voices in a Colonial World. Why does Richter focus on the sachems? Whom did you find compelling? 
  6. Chapter 5: Native Peoples in an Imperial World. What accommodations did native groups make in order to survive in the Imperial World?  Use examples from the text. How were alliances both a necessity and a liability for native groups in this period?   

  7. Chapter 6: Separate Creations. What is the significance of the title?