"Ancestral Puebloan Civilization Flourishes in American Southwest”

The article “Ancestral Puebloan Civilization Flourishes in American Southwest” a piece by Mary Pat Balkus discussed ancestral puebloan people. Dating back to 200-1250 CE. The ancestors of modern puebloan peoples are believed to be descendants of ancient Archaic people. Archaic People were nomadic people who practiced a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. She discusses how ancestral puebloan people occupied few cave sights and rock shelters along the San Juan River and along the Rio Grande Valley. The villages had few pit houses. Pit houses are circular houses dug into the ground. Stone slabs were used for some houses, while the walls and roofs of dwellings were made of wood and adobe. Mary Pat Blakus also discusses the houses that were being built by the ancestral Puebloans between 1000 and 1250 CE in Chaco Canyon. The pueblo period of the Ancestral Puebloans began around 700 CE. During this time, villages varied in size. The architecture developed in a rectangular building of dry masonry or stone and adobe that lined up with multiroom units. Between 1000 CE, the Ancestral Puebloan people had realized their culture's highest point of development. They attached new rooms to older ones. The lined units turned into L-shapes, a room was added at the end of the row to enclose the shape. When a village grew or became old enough, the space of the plaza was enclosed. The kivas were built in the Chaco plazas in addition to smaller ones. The rooms were organized into two or three units with ladders that led to upper level units. When a decline was placed on the ancestral Puebloans, a twenty-three-year drought occured in the SouthWest. The puebloans had left their former settlement as the drought intensified. Evidence shows a considerable amount had moved to what is now New Mexico around the Rio Grande.

Balkus, Mary Pat. “Ancestral Puebloan Civilization Flourishes in American Southwest.” Salem Press Encyclopedia, 2020. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=89454087&site=eds-live.

"Indian Removal Act"

The article “Indian Removal Act” by Catherine J. Denial discusses the removal of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek and Seminole nations of the American Southeast. The Indian removal act authorized the president of the United States to ease the exchange of native American lands anywhere in the east for land west of the Mississippi River. There was pressure put on the government to institute a national removal policy, coming from sectors of American society. The first was that the United States had the need to expand westward. The second was a fear of Indian attack as the expansion took place. Catherine J. Denial talks about how few Americans believed that American Indians made productive use of their land. There was also confusion over gender roles. To white Americans, a society was best placed upon the actions of men. After the revolutionary war, the Creek and Cherokee, who had battled to protect their land, had engaged in a series of fundamental treaties. For the White Americans, living at the boundaries, remembered the war with the Indians. They demande protection from the threat they perceived. These considerations resulted in the pressure for Indian removal. Catherine J. Denial states “Native American communities must be moved out of the way of white settlement, he argued, in order to give them a real chance to adapt to western ways of life.” White Americans knew that the Cherokee would never give up their land of their own free will. In order to force the removal, the Cherokee would be pointed to splits in the nation between those who have made cultural adaptations to the world around them and those who had not. The Georgian citizens argued that it was vital that all Cherokees be removed for their own survival. The removal act was used to displace Native American communities across the United States, often by force. They were forced to move to present-day Oklahoma without sufficient notice, clothing, and transportation. Thousands of Indian men, women, and children died. The removal was later known as the Trail of Tears.

Denial, Catherine J. “Indian Removal Act.” Expansion and Reform, Third Edition, Facts On File, 2017. American Indian History,

online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=18626&itemid=WE43&articleId=192191. Accessed 7 Oct. 2021.