Understanding Indigenous enslavement expands our conception of slavery in what is now the United States. It spread across the entire continent and affected millions of people of different backgrounds. If we define slavery too narrowly, we can fail to see its persistence over time and even its modern-day permutations. Historian Christina Snyder examines the Civil War, Lincoln and emancipation with Indigenous people in mind.

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And you can find a complete transcript on our website, along with resources to help you teach the hard history explored in this episode. Resources like these... 

Resources and Readings

• Teaching Hard History, K-5 Framework: Essential Knowledge #18
• Teaching Hard History, 6-12 Framework: Objective #8
• Teaching Hard History, 6-12 Framework: Objective #16
• National Museum of the American Indian, Native Knowledge 360°
• Minnesota Historical Society, Dakota War of 1862

Christina Snyder McCabe Greer Professor of History, Penn State University

• Slavery in Indian Country: The Changing Face of Captivity in Early America
• Great Crossings; Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson

References:

• Teaching Tolerance, The Underground Railroad
• U.S. Supreme Court, Worcester v. Georgia
• Smithsonian film, The “Indian Problem”
• Malinda Maynor Lowery, The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle
• University of Minnesota, Holocaust and Genocide Studies
• Teaching Tolerance, Emancipation Proclamation
• Time, How a Court Answered a Forgotten Question of Slavery’s Legacy
• WNET, Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)
• Crooked Media podcast, This Land

And you'll find a full episode transcript on our site.