YouTube Recording – You will be sent a link to a private playlist containing all sessions from Fall 2021 within 48 hours during standard office hours.

This course concludes the sequence of classes on the Indigenous People of the Western Hemisphere and the European Invasion offered by SPARK over the last several years.

We will begin with the last of the “Indian Wars” in the United States at the end of the Nineteenth Century and the commonly held idea – among Euro Americans – that Indian people and cultures were destined to simply fade away. Then we’ll consider what really happened: increasingly conspicuous determination on the part of Indigenous People to survive physically and culturally; citizenship for all (whether they wanted it or not); the gradual disappearance of the boarding schools; and radical changes (back and forth) in Federal policy, beginning with the “Indian New Deal”.

We will also look at the modern history of the Inuit and Aleut in Alaska; the First Nations in Canada, including the Canadian people involved in the 19th Century Métis Rebellions. Who are the Métis? Take the course and find out! We will also watch and discuss the film “Cree Hunters of Mistassini.”

Class Fee: $30

Instructor: Dr. Alan Perry shares with us his knowledge, experience and a life-long enthusiasm for history. Dr. Perry graduated from Washington University in St. Louis and Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand with degrees in history. He served over 15 years as Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and taught history at Park University in Kansas City. He also has served as an Archivist for the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, DC, the Virgin Islands and Kansas City.