WEEK 4 · INQUIRY MODULE
Week 4: Removal, Sovereignty, and the Mexican North
How did treaties and removals remake western space without eliminating Indigenous sovereignty?
Dates: September 14–18, 2026
Focus
- Removal and Indian Territory
- Treaties as negotiated and coercive texts
- Mexico’s northern borderlands and Indigenous diplomacy
Before class
- Read: American Yawp, chapters 10 and 11 selected sections.
- Open and inspect the linked primary-source collection(s). Record one source, one context question, and one limitation.
- Scholarship lens: Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America (2023), selected excerpt.
Primary-source portals
Tuesday/Thursday meeting plan
| Date | Status | Plan |
|---|
| Tuesday, September 15 | Class | Removal, treaty vocabulary, parties, translation, coercion, and sovereignty. |
| Thursday, September 17 | Class | Mexican North, jurisdiction, Indigenous diplomacy, and Source Reasoning Lab 1 annotation. |
Mapping the West due Friday, September 18; Source Lab 1 due Friday, September 25.
After class
Deliverable: Mapping the West due Friday; Source Reasoning Lab 1 annotation in class.
- I can answer the weekly inquiry with a contestable claim.
- I can name at least two pieces of evidence and explain their limits.
- I can identify an interpretation that my evidence supports, complicates, or challenges.