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In the 1830's, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which forcibly removed thousands of American Indians from their homelands in the southeastern United States.
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November is Native American Heritage Month.
This presentation takes a close look at the social and political history of Indian Removal in the 1830s and its implications that still resonate today. Native American communities east of the Mississippi River from Illinois to Florida were rounded up by the US Army and forcibly marched to Indian Territory in Oklahoma - despite Supreme Court decisions that supported tribes that wanted to stay in their homelands. The largest tribe, the Cherokee, suffered more than 4000 lost lives along the way. They call this terrible event the Trail Where They Cried - known to most Americans as the Trail of Tears. Dr. Owen will discuss events leading up to the 1830 Indian Removal Act, which barely passed in the Senate, the social resistance of American women and activists, the political and juridical resistance of tribal governments, and the Constitutional crisis that was unable to destroy tribal sovereignty. Using personal letters, newspaper articles, petitions, Congressional debates, artworks, and other primary sources from the time, this talk discusses individuals on both sides of the debate and provides insight on Native American perspectives.
Presenter: Dr. James Owen is Assistant Director, Academic Associate, and Instructor in the Institute of Native American Studies at the University of Georgia. He is a historian and musician from the mountains of Western North Carolina. Dr. Owen has held fellowships with the Newberry Library, the American Musicological Society, and the Moravian Music Foundation, among others. He teaches undergraduate & graduate courses in Native American religious and legal history, as well as Indigenous Studies and Law & Policy courses. Dr. Owen's interdisciplinary work and research in Indigenous Language hymnody bridges the fields of Native American Studies, Appalachian Studies, religious and legal history, and ethnomusicology. Dr. Owen is committed to collaborative research and community engagement. He works closely with distinguished historians and faculty at UGA, as well as Cherokee and Choctaw citizens including, LeAnne Howe, Rebecca Nagle, and Santee Frazier, as well as the Laboratory of Archaeology at UGA, and Western Carolina University's Cherokee Studies and Cherokee Language programs. He is a board member of Georgia's Historic Piedmont Scenic Byways Corporation (HPSBC), a non-profit that manages ancient sites in Georgia. Dr. Owen teaches US History at Georgia correctional facilities for Common Good Atlanta and is also part of the management team for the Garden of the Americas at UGA .
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