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>> cox, along with these television companies supports c-span2 as a public service. >> i alice baumgartner an assistant professor of history at university of southern california, and this is my first in-person conference since the pandemic, and after two years where getting a a conference r was basically sitting alone in myrt apartment just gesticulatey laptop, it's really wonderful to guess be able to gesticulate in person to you guys today. so just wanted to give a big thank you to the organization of american historians for putting togetherhi this conference and r accommodating all of the different varieties in which people chose to participate even though i know that came at some great logistical challenges. i also want to thank rail and barge unfortunately can't be here today but who is really the one responsible for bringing us

all together today. she originally conceived of the roundtable as one that would be focused on the civil war in the west but ultimately last year around figure decided to focus it on 1862. this is of the year when the republican party succeeded and some come passing some of its original campaign promises abolishing slavery in the district of columbia, in the western territories as well as passing the homestead act. it achieved legislative victories that would help the union when the war, like the direct tax act of 1862, establishing the first federal income tax. this was the year whenhe the fighting and the civil war took a particularly bloody turn with the battle of shiloh and antietam, among others. when he seemed increasingly likely that france or england might recognize the confederacy, and when the congress and later lincoln recognized what many african-americans free and

insulated known all along, this was ave war over slavery, not jt over union. and, ofdse course, the war in te west is even more complicated and i'm sure will be the subject of much what we will be discussing in today's roundtable. t all of these decisions, events has shaped the world that we live in today. and so it seems particularly apt 160 is later to think about this year together in this roundtable. as you might notice, our ranks are somewhat diminished. unfortunately gwen when wad a family emergency and couldn't come to the conference at all. nf you're wondering what airline it was it was united and wasn't be able to get here in time for this roundtable. they both asked me to say how disappointed they are to not be able to be with us today.

so what we're going to do is ask our two the two members of our roundtable to share some thoughts. i'll introduce each of them before they speak and then we will open the floor up to a broader discussion and i really hope that we'll be able to do that as a conversation. so first up we have manukuruka who is an assistant professor of american studies and affiliated faculty with women's gender and sexuality studies at barnard college. where he has taught since 2014 his work centers a critique of imperialism with a particular focus on anti-racism and indigenous decolonization. he teaches courses on the political economy of racism us imperialism and radical internationalism indigenous critiques of politically economy and liberation. he's the author of empires tracks indigenous nations chinese workers and the transcontinental railroad, which was published in 2019. right i want to echo the thanks

to the organizer of the conference, which i know is a huge amount of work, especially in these conditions and also to ray lane and i feel kind of sheepish because it feels like the from here the big 1862 doesn't feel so big. so i hope we can have a just a a discussion with everyone in the room. thanks so much for making the time to join us. so in my remarks today, i plan to focus on 1862 as a moment of escalation in the destructive power of the us in the world linking the wartime expansion of us military power with the development of us financial institutions, and i'm particularly interested in the relationships between the war or military and financial power in

the west so-called and in the caribbean and the links between these two spaces. in its wars in occupations against the seminals which up until that point where the most expensive wars that the us fought until the civil war and wars at the us was militaryly defeated and also against mexico the us war economy had tied together the production of arms in new england with the stabilization of slavery in texas in the deep south. by the early 1860s the war economy marked a confrontation between northern merchant capital which required a protected national market for its further growth and southern agrarian capital which required international exports to ensure its future. merchant and insurance capital based in new york city and the connecticut river valley began, the war paralyzed and divided undertaking a transition from cotton to a diversified portfolio of investments across

ranching agriculture mining and industry. as you expected rapid us victory over the confederacy was thwarted by a series of battlefield catastrophes the legal tender act passed on february 25th, 1862 authorized 150 million dollars in us treasury notes the so-called greenbacks, which eventually increased the 450 million with an additional half billion dollars in war bonds. raising funds to support military power over land and sea which would be necessary to defeat the confederacy. it provided a windfall for industrial and military contractors launching the careers of robber barons of the coming period in a further effort to raise war funds and in the face of bitter political polarization the revenue act which lincoln signed into law on july 1st, 1862 established both the first federal income tax and the first tax on inherited wealth and the agency, which would eventually become the irs.

these laws in turn set the stage for the series of national bank acts past annually between 1863 and 1866 which formed a national banking system giving the us federal government the ability to issue war bonds and authorizing the federal government to regulate and tax the commercial banking system. on april 19th 1861 lincoln had issued a proclamation of blockade against southern ports. the naval blockade was necessary to stop the flow of capital weapons and consumer goods into the confederacy. it was a coercive policy to break the alliance of new york merchants with southern planters, which was running goods by a nassau, bermuda and havana. the us navy began the civil war with 42 ships in active service by the end of 1862. this would increase to 384 ships and by the end of the war the us had the world's largest navy. this navy provided the muscle

for an expanded monroe doctrine in the decades following the war with active us interventions against caribbean and central american nationalist movements in the service of ensuring us returns on investment. in cuba over the coming decades the us would leverage political economic and eventually military pressure to support an alliance of agrarian and finance capital that was based in north america. at the close of the 19th century the cuban revolution would seek to overturn this pressure. two days after the passage of the legal tender act on february 27th, 1862 the us executed nathaniel gordon cyan of a respectable main family. gordon was captain of the slave ship erie, which had been apprehended the previous august at the mouth of the congo river carrying a cargo of 897 african captives. this is the first and only time

the us executed someone for participating in the slave trade. six weeks later on april 7th 1862 the british and us concluded negotiations on the leone's sewer treaty, which effectively ended us sanction for participation in the slave trade to cuba and brazil in dubois's analysis. this ended us participation legal us participation in the atlantics and the atlantic slave trade. 1862 also saw a transitions in us assertions of power over land. on july 1st 1862 the same day as the revenue act lincoln signed the pacific railway act into law the act chartered the union pacific railroad and provided land grants to the union pacific and the central pacific railroad, which is chartered in the state of california. in these corporate land grants the us congress violated treaties at its signed with indigenous nations along the path of the railroad the

railroad companies use these land grants to raise capital to fund the construction and maintenance of the roads. and these real infrastructure that they built. you know raise capital through this finance it moved resources out and it moved troops in. and these real develops took place in a on a global stage the end of the year would see the completion of the first the end of 1862 would see the completion of the first rail line in algeria built by the french and the spread of the rail network and restaurant western india built by the british. on july 2nd the day after he signed the pacific railway act lincoln signed the moral act. establishing the structure of the modern us public university through land grants. the moral act was another aspect of continental imperialism. by opening university education to small property owners the act deep in the class collaboration that has shaped settler colonialism. in the analysis of gerald horn

by organizing higher education around modern disciplines producing graduates and engineering accounting administration and management. the university's produced by the act would train in educate the cadre of corporations and a rapidly modernizing and expanding state. the political economy of our own era of crisis continues to operate within the constraint set in place by land grants to corporations and universities over these two days in 1862. at the end of the year on december 26th the us executed 38 dakota prisoners in what remains the largest official mass execution in us history. in historical context of the railway act in the land-grant act the mass execution was another kind of assertion of land-based power. involve the transition in relating to north america as a space of war to a space of policing a transition which remains unfinished in our own day. read together.

we see the prioritization of the rights of corporations over and against international treaty obligations. the expansion of land and sea-based military power was accomplished through the expansion of finance of finance capital. this in turn set the stage for subsequent developments such as territorialization vigilantism and the abrogation of treaty obligations that provided the context for the sand creek massacre on november 29th. 1864. in the subsequent period following the defeat of the confederacy and the demise of the southern plantocracy the war finance nexus fueled the condensation of us power between the, mississippi and california and in the caribbean. the definitive break in the alliance between northeastern merchant capital and southern slaveholding capital around shared investments in cotton led to the development of finance capital investing in industry. by the end of the 1880s us finance capital had in economic

terms, nx cuba controlling the production of sugar and mining operations burning down old growth forests to establish massive sugar estates building rail and road networks to transport raw and finish materials and importing thousands of seasonal workers from haiti and jamaica. have spoken about two executions in 1862 as windows into the transitions in place during that year. i'm particularly interested in how the defeat of southern agrarian capital was accomplished not through a revolution in land relations, but instead through a new alliance between finance capital and agrarian capital particularly on the plains of north america and in the islands of the caribbean. i want to end by calling our attention to the saudi execution of 81 prisoners this past march 12th followed by the us shipment of a significant number of patriot missiles to saudi arabia on march 21st as reported in the wall street journal.

while the saudis report that they are unable or unwilling to rapidly increase oil production to offset sanctioned russian oil for consumers in europe. this is taking place as we witness rapidly unfolding experiments between countries seeking to trade in currencies other than the us dollar. in these recent developments we can see we can also see assertions of power over c and land and attempts to stabilize the petrodollar to project a future for us power. the world remains caught in the grip of the war finance nexus the world remains caught in the grip of the war finance nexus. [applause] >> thank you so much. our next panelist is jimmy sweet. who is an assistant professor of american studies at rutgers. his current book project, the next blood moment, race, law, mixed interest during the code

indianses in 19 sintra midwest analyzes the legal andco racial complexities of american indians mixed indian and european ancestry with a focus on kinship, family history, land dispossession and citizenship. he is dedicated to indigenous language revitalization andit preservation and his research is driven by a need to understand the full effects of american colonialism on indigenous americans and how those consequences influenced native peopleo today. doing so without of contributing to the continued fight for indigenous sovereignty and heating of indigenous communities. jimmy. >> that was a formal dakota greeting her i said hello my relatives and thank you for coming to this -- is my mic networking? is it not on? isn't working now? all right. i'll start again.in we have the time obvious he come short a few people. i said -- that's a formal dakota

greeting and it needs hello my relatives, and i shaken hands in a good hearted banter. handshaking is really a big deal in dakota culture. when i was invited this panel i intended to talk about the u.s. dakota war of 1862 which is much closer to my area of expertise but two of the panelists were already going to talk about that which unfortunately neither of them are here today. [laughing] but my thinking lately has been turning a bit more broadly from the u.s. dakota war more broadly in scope and in the time period to think m more about native people in the west particularly during the civil war years. so 1862 and the civil war years is a particularly horrible moment foriv native americans, i

would say. it's in this moment where the u.s. government reallyre goes al out and makes it the full policy to dispossess native people of their land and replace it with white settlers. this really wasn't something new. the u.s. and other colonial powers in north america have been carrying out genocide and dispossession of native american people for hundreds of years. but the civil war acted as cover for a american lawmakers to explicitly make native land dispossession a policy of the federal government.ea and so in 1862 we have heard about the congressional act, the homestead act, the pacific railroad act, the moral act even. all of these were legislation that focused on the dispossession of native people, and not the dispossession of

sovereign indigenous nations, not just individuals but sovereign engineers nations. they long predict the existence of the united states but this was a policy intended to remove them from their homelands and replace them with white settlers. in these same years during the civil war also see the creation of a large number of territorie territories. colorado, nevada and the dakota territorial governments were created in 1861. arizona and idaho in 1863 and then montana in 1864. a huge 1864. a huge swath of the american west and was now government presence and administration was thatnc dramatically increased or this huge swath of native american territory. the native american lands, which all these things couple together this legislation the creation of these territories was really all about using what was going on in the civil war as cover to

dramatically overtake indigenous land. that had always been kind of the practice unfortunately of the american government and other settler colonial nations and their settler colonial powers before then but it really kind of ramp up at this moment. we also see the ramp up in violence in this particular moment in 1862. some of the ones come some of these are better known like image in the u.s.-dakota war of 1862 was a major war that depopulated the state of minnesota and resulted in hundredss of settlers dead, hundreds of native people dead and thousands of native people displaced from their homes and eventually removed from their homeland in minnesota. one of our commenters who wasn't able to make it today is actually a descendent of one of the 38 men, at least one of the 30th man executed on

december 26, 1862. i wish she was here to really give what i know is going to be kind of a powerful talk about that. that's one of the better-known ones, at least for historians. there's a decent historiography of that. another one is the sand creek massacre in 1864 in 186. most people have t heard about. there is some historical literature on that as well. but there are many, many, many other moments of violence in this particular period in the civil war years particularly in california under what was once known as the california genocide which was going on for a decade or two before the civil war and continued after, but was a particularly bloody time during the civil war. so, for example, ano lot of thee are lesser-known. there was the bear river massacre in idaho where the u.s. army massacred 280 shoshone men, women, and children. there was another massacre around the same time in

california where settlers, it wasn't even the military this time, it was local settlers rose up and murdered probably about 300 indians in california. these are just to name a couple. the more extreme ones. but so many of these massacres andg this kind of violence was going on in the west during the civil war years, and many of them are just completely unknown, like particularly those in california just completely understudied. there's people who are more expert on california that i, but there's the native population of california was greatly reduced, something like 75, 80% i believe come not just in 1860s but on a little bit broader timeline in the 19 century from something i think like 300,000 to like 30 or 50,00000 something like that and it's largely through the settler violence that was going on. but anyway, back to the

u.s.-dakota war, in the aftermath of that, general john pope who was the commander of the new department of the northwest that was greeted as result of the war, he wrote to one of his subordinates henry sibley in september 1862 writing about his thoughts about the dakota people. and he used the word soon. hope he said, quote it is my purpose utterly to exterminate the sioux. if i had the power to do so and if it required a campaign lasting the whole of next year, in fact, it took two years, and so it goes on destroy everything belonging to them and forest them out on to the plains. they are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts and by no means as people with whom treaties or compromises shouldho be made, end quote. of course not every army officer have the same views, but many of them did, like probably most notably colonel john chivington

who masterminded the sand creek massacre two years later. this gets to the thoughts of the military officers of the time and some of the people in the lincoln administration. another aspect of the civil war was that it completely devastated indian territory, what's now oklahoma. this is where the u.s. government had forcibly removed thousands of people just a generation -- just a generation earlier and now the civil war devastated their new homeland. so there were thousands of native people that end up serving on both sides come both for the confederacy and on the american side. that gets us to president lincoln. lincoln is someone who scholars and the public often viewed as one of the greatest american presidents. .. his tenure.

he did nothing to curtail the suffering of native people particularly in indian territory and places like that. lincoln saw native people as a threat to white settler expansion he perceived the future of the us as one in which indigenous people would be swept aside and white settlers would occupy their homelands and that's why farley white we have that legislation mentioned occupied their homeland and that's why we have homestead act and so on. the political appointees at that time called office of affairs, they were largely incompetent and corrupt. w it wasn't just something from his administration, this was administrations before and after this, these were political appointees, people who work at indian agent were in d.c. with office of affairs, they weren't

appointed because of their skills or abilities to work with native people or things like that or even policies the relationships, they were appointed purely for political reasons. they have no experience with ernative people and they were there to make money, without a huge problem, agents regularly have money and they were meant to go to native people and they wereo distributed to native people and lincoln appointed

were off. sometimes only through the the u.s.s one of dakota war people were literally starving to death because local politicians in the state of minnesota who were often worked for the government, some of them werehe traders and an army of related and all of the money and left them starving so this was what was going on during the lincoln administration so we can and appointees were interested concentrating native people on reservation land and take theei land in that expansion.

authorities are militia groupto do anything for the very outlook policies that would be less effective of native land and

those things that lincoln was the architect of hisis administration, the architect of policies. the question of the historical literature about this. the spirit of native americans in the civil war and looking forward to the conversation, there is a twofold issue here. it's a matter of scale and there's a decentt literature and yet another one of the members who couldn't make it today, a

beautiful and like horrifying, the trauma in their and they have other circumstances. now i lost my train of thought. anyway, finish work but so many sof these extreme violence will, some cases completely not studied att all so we need more work to dig into these, these particular funds going on in the civile war but another issue asa

whole and how these things happen and what was going on. just before this talk i have lunch with the scholar is in the audience today. how fees of assistance relate to the creation of the u.s. coming out of civil war and issues of reconstruction and indigenous people in the west and looking forward to discussions. [applause] a fascinating talk think about. i'm going to exercise his prerogative and after that we

will open up to audience questions in the middle of the room taking theab time out to fx those and it's really fascinating, it makes the case looking more broadly with the american left and they follow up on jimmy's points and they are showing us and the framework of greater preconstruction, think

about this together as a period of debates over federal control. the limitations to that instead of arguing for or speaking of the united states during post war, i am curious to hear if you have comments about how you expand on the comments how we think about what's happening in the southha and the typical textbook detection of the civil war and you have talked about that and talking about financial federal extension in the end. to hear more broadly how we might think the united states as

a whole or whether we should. >> that's a great question and one i would need to think about and obviously what's going on in the west is difficult for what's going on in the civil war directly in the eastern united states and the vast majority during this period and recently about the civil war and thinking about these particular moments

and the civil war in the indian territory which numerous battles over this with the indian padre and the number of troops on the ground and things like that and the ones i had before this, were using right word other than the nomination for the reservation and at the same time, united for

other nations. the one place that needed was the no real interest in people suffering there and we are talking tens of thousands of people were refugees territory as a result of the war and that was really done after and i think professor who is an expert on lincoln in his administration there but that is some of the things we are thinking about. >> i've been interested in in

learning among radicals about the interpretation of the war, a revolutionary. debates about the nature and what revolution and what we know about reconstruction of the most revolutionary, revolutionary moment the proletarian movement are the general strike. there were others at the time, the period in the 30s as a social political crisis and all kinds of experiments and people are reinterpreting as a bush revolution.

actionsab people over, it speaks to the political moment in some ways. hopefully in history the question is a question of land. the revolution comes industrial, i have landed there. they are familiar because there

revolutionary pressures in other parts of the world becoming known as their own form and more protection so the more domestic production and economic intervention the political power.y the reconstruction in america we see a different set of patterns for the strengthening of the agrarian form south. this stand united states and not really on the opposite, the

expansion of industrial capital achieved through of private property claims on land and appropriations of these conditions so valuable that my thinking so much for responding among the issue of land is key for us to think about and this idea of deconstruction, about construction to go alongside these o centers. we will now open to questions from the article you have a question, go to the middle aisle such.

>> use thehe critique, this puss a lot of buttons that need pushed so thank you for your comments. i'm wondering about the comments are observation, it seems to me that implies now we can do it and i want more motivation, more evidence as opposed to coinciding with the civil war and if there is no civil war, counterfactual there would still be policies well taken the role of the civil war in these tepolicies and land grant university uc berkeley, part of this nation of engineers and

financial capital and that is an important observation. and other things that did arise from this development slack you some of the evidence we do have in 1864 when it was usually necessary, 50 or 60000 something usually not counting the usual so they rush through because

they could, a civil war and they didn't have southerners or something and maybe that is one piece of evidence and if we dig deep, we could probably find more but you're probably right, work. to get to your second part, about the moral fact, the first in the united states look at that important because it does raise the institution because d the terms of education of the populace and 170 they would never have had the ability to get that education and agricultural location and things like that so we can look at that

and think, why would that be a negative? so often so many things we look at as common good that these consequences for other people, the recent article by five countries times the high country news about schools and these people so the public university of new jersey so i am in the same boat, this diversity has because new jersey didn't have plans so they didn't have direct

access but that's like the legacy of so many things in the united states but i'm going to make comments about the declaration of independence and importing documents but neither have native people in mind and resulted in suffering and it's good to recognize what it did and there are a host of other things like starvation and things like that. but i am trying to say is your

first comment, we need to critique a little bit of these things and it doesn't mean we should not see it important anymore but we have to understand they've impacted people in different ways and those are things that need explored and need address and possibly readdressed. >> use the opportunity for the high country, is good more often and if anyone wants t to make their way to resemble, there's a good job looking at the land lease distribution that did happen in that territory in the ways in which that benefited

african-americans and the complicated story that happened so interested in the complicated storyy so took a look if you haven't already. >> is joe think that likely for me i understand clearly, context and in concrete ways, think about the expansion of the army, the number of divisions and offices and they want to keep these careers will direct the small investors who have been

missing in the growth of the military so the civil war, it is the context, the way that it unfolded is in this and it's interesting to read some accounts of the soldiers themselves who were sent into foreign territory, resignation and they were bitter to fight difficult, scary for them conditions and we sign up to fight confederacy and priority what we are. this is the historical record

and their. i am not a historian of education but i think it would be interesting to look at german higher education modernizing and developing and another state rapidly developing in this economy which looks very different than the united states and there might be lessons in understanding the development, disciplines and the universities in these two countries. >> what a fascinating comparison. our next question. >> thanks for these remarks here.. i want to think about 1862 at the beginning of the decade in which the united states has a

nationtr that understanding and exertion of jurisdiction both in the south and west, just think about all the r things he talked about all the way forward and a decade later. the federal authority over critical matters to be understood nation to nation.

and the end of the period becomes clear and it is forms of capital. and they are related into wage labor including sharecropping. in the west, simply to reduce the acreage and in that, a lot happened and in a way what the southernerss are demanding so there is funny contradictory or attention in the conversation about blandness. so i'd love to hear your

thoughts about that so thanks for those ideas. >> i would love to hear you talk more about that, that's a really great connection. this may be random but hearing you talk draws my mind to the question off culture. this is the era in where it's in the defeat of the radical promise of reconstruction and the development of cropping. we often associate this with the beginnings and with that relationship they eclipsed radical possibly's, i wonder the

patterns you are tracking, what cultural shifts are taking place that we could track and read alongside and they live with us and stay with uski so in thinkig with you with those comments he made, iia really appreciate that and what you laid out for us. >> about theut contradictions tt some things have a particular good butut also these conversations, there are contradictory moments in your mention of citizenship so in my own research writing about citizenship inn minnesota in early states where it was so

contradictory where it became partisan but democrats were using native people to do that. in the legislature and it is franchised native people of white and native ancestry but it enfranchised them and there were a number who served in that legislature. there were so many of them and white legislatures made to native women who were all democrats so they were called

democrats because of their compassion to native people and it fascinating within the constitutional convention and 57 about these issues but it's obvious the democrats were only interested in franchising these because they knew they were on their side and they wouldn't have interest in franchising these so you can see how something that works good and some places was intended only for political purposes and another connection for every section of the state legislature

had at least some native members. the u.s. dakota happened and the local populace turns against native people so they serve in the legislature in the 1930s and they see that moment, we are not going to have native people part of this and the ideas of citizenship, it is fascinating because of the debates at the time racially it's like these are native ancestry, we should consider them white so it is the weird moment but it's short-lived and has this political purpose but came to understand they were only interested in citizenship for those who were perceived as

civilized so that was in legislation and they vote and be american citizens but only if they were civilized and they created as a legal category and it's obvious it was meant to mean c assimilated into american culture and they played as part where they cut their hair and things and i want to go too much on this but you can see in these cases where citizenship means different things to different people and how it could be used in different little circumstances and the notions of contradictory t things so much, other times itn didn't so the other way would be

reconstruction like the 14th amendment granting citizenship and supreme court case and 84 and made the decision where it does not apply so that citizenship of native people is in i limbo and up in the air and they were various ways of until and and they were white or mixed or something so the idea was now we will uphold sovereign people and the can also be a member of u.s. automation you can see contradictory where before they

would find it and they uphold the butt the contradictory nature of things our ongoing, you might getet lucky and they work in another way. >> take you so much, that up to the center aisle, thank you. thank you, i learned a lot and enjoyed the presentation. when we think about historiography, but think about writing, work and we seen the last few years words like freedom seekers and they can shift the way we think about things.th

i get stuck on the work massacre because one hand massacre implies innocence being killed for no reason but indigenous women and children too old to bear arm apparently pose a terrible threat to the united states and we don't think of the question from that angle so my question is, if you have other ways to think about the word massacre, when i write it, i'm not satisfied but other words are worth rethinking if we write historiography and we want the narrative to travel beyond oah, what are some words you might be rethinking and what other words could we be thinking?

>> i want to say we share the aversion but massacre doesn't feel like the right term for the reasons you brought up but another way of looking at this military strategy is how the u.s. fights for and you write about this, there iss ample evidence in north america t also history and elsewhere the u.s. attacked civilian homes and water sources so so i don't know if strategy is a good word to replace massacre but that is perspective, this is purposeful even in the case of the

investigation and it wasn't supposed to happen but it's part of this pattern that goes back centuries. >> there are other conversations genocide and are not going to go into that but thinking of massacre, i understand if that is the right word and it doesn't always fit in every case but i think the reason in native american history so important because of the term battle where so many people would turn a battle or a wounded knee a bottle and massacre like no, this is not a battle between military and the battlefield,

this was a massacre in the sense that the u.s. army is like there policy, they weren't attacking armies of native americans, they are attacking people with majority noncombatant on purpose to kill them, drive them away or destroy food supplies. and women and children and you're right, there's probably a better term, i don't have, we drive the terminology, it needs more examination.

>> i want to say in 1848 similar to mexico city as an example total war for what you want to call it, the targeting of homes and villages and so on, i was interested in talking about capitalism and different forms and i feel one of the themes of the conference has been rethinking 60s onward as a moment of generalization of the kinds of hours realization

policies and colonialism there's something about what you are talking about is cap no probably thinking about broader project so i wonder if you talk about moment for what we see "afterwards" because there's something particular about this moment, how we think about colonialism and the way in which it changes over time. >> i appreciate the question, both of the questions and they are related.

i agree if we look at the development of capitalism overtime, it can help us understand contradictions and these forces who underwrite these struggles and i think this is really the civil war era, a huge expansion of military power accompanied by huge expansion of not just financial power but finance capital investment in the institution, securities market and requires rationality people with money have to make these decisions and the financial literacy of that time, people had to develop that, not -- these are some of the most

wealthyth empowered people tried to the university that requires new techniques of keeping accounts measuring probability, fishing future so this extension of finance investment in institutions alongside expansion of military to me explains a lot. one thing to me that's interesting, imperialism they argue imperialism have a sense, a stage in capitalist and explaining why the war broke out

and we are much more familiar with the wages thantr black reconstruction but he writes about dividends, financial sector so it suggests a return on investment. in the last quarter we see patterns much earlier than assessing them in other parts of

the world. in some ways, america anticipates patterns taking place elsewherehe. the one in north america built prior to the scramble for africa and the took place in the construction of railroads so one thing interesting to me studying u.s. history is how in many ways it anticipates what we think of as modern materialism so histories and historical changes and colonialism overtime. the roads, they were still being worked out in the rhodesian

regime, arguably they are still being worked out with people who made their wealth and now at the heart of silicon valley in the united states. those are some ways to think about thosee patterns. this work on finance is the core. >> i would say in this particulart moment was a modification of native land. what's going on through the homestead act to make native land a s commodity that is bougt and sold, so many treaties between the federal government

in these indigenous nations, a majority course for fraudulent in some way forcing them to accept cash payments or other goods in exchange for the government and that was part of the colonial project in indigenous land of the most part, we can modify the land for resources of land like humans have done all over the world. the region is 30 in the midwest and great plains, their economies were based on kinship obligation.

they've had obligations to help you out and you had obligation to them and it is different in those systemsri that were not commodities but that's what the relationship was between the iaunited states and any tribe trying to modify native lands that the u.s. could expand on. >> we have a little bit more than ten minutes so those with remaining russians, come up and share your questions all at once in the last few minutes the panelists can reflect on those questions.

>> i'm curious one thing in the emancipation proclamation, i would love to hear about the ways in which the proclamation ties in with the union army and the slave owners, what role does thisis play in the stories we ae hearing? >> any other questions? with got a lot. [laughter] will get to them all. if there's time. >> in the current environment we see in addressing complex controversial history on the national and statewide level, the professional background and secondary education, if anyone

would comment on how to address this within that content -- >> thank you. anyone else? >> the conversation we had earlier, incredibly fascinating and i would love to be able to expand about indigenous men on both sides in those armies, i think that would be a great thing to reflect on. >> viewing indigenous people as a threat, i was wondering what we might think about a threat to the effort especially if we out of everything and treaties and indian territory close to cold

war even though it's brief but requires thet material. to whatin extent does there need to be an extinction between indigenous sovereignty in the 1860s in the fight against alternative american sovereignty the confederacy represents? >> i'm just wondering, the event in the s west we still have to much to learn about, did not have any direct way in the way they played out? >> a very interesting question. >> that's a lot. [laughter]

>> i can quickly jump in. i'll quickly say, i think it is very interesting, corporations are people and corporations of people in the way you and i, obviously they have more rights as people than most of us and that person is directly traced to the 14th amendment. he comes back to land, addressing the question off lan, slavery in terms of property is real estate so you are making slavery illegal but real estate relations and it was about

taxation on the railroad company offers land to the question what taxes the corporation is liable for so there is a land question is and that is the two radical promise of reconstruction and it is profound and a beautiful one. one who doesn't have experience in teaching but it comes back to the question of massacre, what

language we are using, what is the purpose of studying these histories? i once had a colleague who changes european history, the u.s. survey critically like the purpose of shared identity. this would m have preferred me teaching of the questions, these are questions of language and perspective and i'll stop there. >> an important question we need to understand these things but more broadly, of course we still need a lot more work onry

intersections native american history and alayna roberts and indian territory. just general comment, there's a lot of work to be done making those connections between these communities and i think we would learn a lot in so many ways with that study. k-12 question is one i've heard quite a bit, last year i worked with the historical commission on this. we have a number of questions from a lot of educators who showed up and had many questions

like how do we teach this? at least for me, i can't speak for anybody elseit but i'm not trying to not either but i felt horrible because i didn't know how to answer that question and something as academic we should probably be at least adding to that conversation how to do that and don't have those bills and make the things we are talking about accessible to a younger audience, something i think we all need to work on. the question about native men on both sides, yes, there were a lot of native men who joined the army and served as militia groups and indian territory, thousands who joined the split is in the last general

surrender, that's an issue in during the u.s. work there were men who fought on the side of the u.s. army joint measurements against those people and some of them fight against this, those kinds of things happened and i think there is a lot more work to be done in terms of native service but also native civil war indian territory native civil war there. the question of native people being a y threat, of course they diverted thousands and they had to create new military

department for leadership and they sent people and i think it's a great question, i don't know how to answer that and made people were but they didn't need to be. i think it is an important question but the civil war was going on, troops are all over the place and i probably shouldn't have been because they were under this but that's another thing. that was the important question.

the was how they impact but it's question, irtant don't know the answer but certainly there were native people who observed the war, the galvanized yankees were captured when they were the great plains and the east-west connection and it's another great question i don't have an answer to but certainly something to think about. >> thank you for fascinating comments and everyone in the audience for participating in this really fascinating discussion. i don't think we have answer all the questions but i think we've made a lot of progress and if you'd like to stay with us to talk about this more, say around for the next part of this

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