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Topics in Native American History – “Disease, Demography, and Politics in Native America”
NATAMST 178 | CCN: 22828
M, W, F 9:00 - 9:59 am 151 Barrows
4 Units
This course examines the onslaught of European diseases and the subsequent demographic collapse of Native North America during 500 years of colonization. Faced with new diseases, new microbes, and various colonizing entities, Native Americans died in unparalleled numbers. Native Americans who did survive attempted to cure, limit, or treat the new diseases; and their efforts to counteract the colonial forces illuminate the background of the various demographic collapses. The politics of disease that were forced on Native Americans during the U. S. era in North America explain the Imperial Medical Model that was put in place by the U. S. following 1797, and, Contemporary health problems such as FASD, recently limited reproductive rights in Indian Health Service Institutions, the eugenics programs of the mid-20th century, and the effects of the Covid 19 pandemic, solutions, and plans for the future of the Indian Health Service conclude the course.