“History is the memory of states.” -H. Kissinger

What does the state remember and how? Remembering is intentional Memories must be reinforced/aroused Social institutions (families, schools, religious traditions) are vehicles for reinforcing memory Who do we remember, who do we forget?

“We must not accept the memories of states as our own” – H. Zinn “The historian’s distortion is more than technical, it is ideological…” (7). “Nations are not communities and never have been”(8). “It is the job of thinking people… not to be on the side of the executioner”(8).

Pre-contact Cultural Areas

The Pueblo People

Cahokia (Mississippi River Valley)

Aztec Empire

Haudenosaunee (Iroqouis)

Colonial America

 Colonists did not call themselves Americans until the mid 18 th century.

European contact with the Americas

 With Europeans came slaughter, slavery, and diseases lethal to Native Americans.

How did the Indian nations survive?

Why did they come? The Protestant Reformation  Capitalism  Increased Religious Persecution 1400s-1600s Italian Renaissance and “The Age of Discovery”

Europe was divided

The Transatlantic Slave Trade

The English Colonies

Pilgrims and Puritans

What did they believe?