Revised 3/2025

HIS 125 - History of the American Indian (3 CR.)

Course Description

Examines the history and cultures of the Native peoples of the Americas. Lecture 3 hours per week.

General Course Purpose

This course can be taken for any program at the College requiring an elective from the Social Sciences and background for transfer students pursuing degrees in history, anthropology, sociology, or American studies. Additionally, there will be non-degree students, including American Indians, in communities served by the College, who are interested in a greater understanding of this subject.

Course Prerequisites/Corequisites

No course prerequisites. Average reading ability.

Course Objectives

  • Discuss the points of view of the original inhabitants of America. (Addresses General
  • Education Objective C and D under Information Literacy)
  • Challenge and correct prevalent misconceptions of American Indians. (Addresses General
  • Education Objective A and E under Cultural and Social Understanding)
  • Analyze and understand alternative models of social, spiritual, political, and economic organization. (Addresses General Education Objective A and E under Cultural and Social Understanding)
  • Have a supplement to the study of United States and world history. (Addresses General Education Objective A and B under Communication)
  • Discuss insights into the origins of the United States by viewing its history of conquest from the vantage point of those displaced. (Addresses General Education Objective D under Critical Thinking)
  • View the present status of an American minority from the perspective of history. (Addresses General Education Objective D under Critical Thinking)
  • Compare and contrast their knowledge of American Indian and general American and world history (Addresses General Education Objective C and D under Information Literacy)

Major Topics to Be Included

  • History and cultures of a variety of tribal nations of the Eastern Woodlands, Southeast, Arctic,
  • Northwest Coast, Basin, California, Southwest, and Plains.
  • Contributions of American Indians to American and world civilizations.
  • Competing theories within anthropology, archeology, and the accounts of American Indians
  • on the origins and migrations of human life in the Americas.
  • Advanced civilizations of North, Central, and South America.
  • Civil rights and sovereignty struggles of past, present, and future American Indians.