Indian Country in the American Imagination

Center for Ancient Studies 2017-2018 Lunchtime Seminar Series: "The Abusive Usage of Antiquity in Modern Times: The Manipulation of the Past."

Indian Country in the American Imagination: How Perception of Native American Cultures Shaped Johnson v. M'Intosh
Talk by S. Margaret Spivey-Faulkner

Early Native American public policy was created by men of European descent who themselves were steeped in the Western intellectual tradition. Here, we take a look at the how the late-eighteenth Century, Virginia aristocratic understanding of Native American peoples and cultures continues to reverberate through modern Native American public policy. The scholar George Wythe, and his students John Marshall and Thomas Jefferson, will be examined specifically, with an eye toward how their own intellectual heritage contributed to the 1823 Johnson v. M'Intosh Supreme Court decision.

Thirty minute presentation, followed by discussion. Light refreshments will be provided.

Hosted by Grant Frame, Director of the Center for Ancient Studies, Associate Professor of Assyriology and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and Associate Curator in the Babylonian Section, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

For more information, contact the Center for Ancient Studies.