“History is the memory of states.”

-H. Kissinger

What does the state What does the state remember and how?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-Pre-contact contact Cultural Cultural AreasAreas

The The Pueblo Pueblo PeoplePeople

Cahokia Cahokia (Mississippi River (Mississippi River

Valley)Valley)

Aztec EmpireAztec Empire

Haudenosaunee (Iroqouis)

Colonial AmericaColonial America

Colonists did Colonists did not call not call themselves themselves Americans Americans until the mid until the mid 1818thth century. century.

European contact with European contact with the Americasthe Americas

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

How did the Indian How did the Indian nations survive?nations survive?

Why did they come?Why did they come?

The Protestant Reformation

Capitalism

Increased Religious Persecution

1400s-1600s

Italian Renaissance

and

“The Age of Discovery”

Europe was divided -- Europe was divided -- 15601560

The The Transatlantic Transatlantic Slave TradeSlave Trade

The English ColoniesThe English Colonies

Pilgrims and Pilgrims and PuritansPuritans

What did they believe?What did they believe?