Microlecture 3 on There There

 From the third microlecture about Tommy Orange’s novel, There There, I learned about the difference between colonialism and settler colonialism.  Colonialism could mean colonists setting up settlements like how they did in the Americas, but settler colonialism is different from colonialism because the colonists never leave.  The microlecture also showed me the two different maps of the United States of America.  One of the maps showed that Indigenous tribes inhabited all of the country pre-contact, and the other map showed that the Native American Reservations in the country have been reduced to only some small spots on the map.  It is pretty sad and unfair that the natives owned so much land and now only have a few areas today.  

This third microlecture also refreshed my memory on a little bit of the history around Native Americans as well as on some of the different acts regarding Native Americans, such as the Indian Removal Act of 1830 which forced indigenous people west and resulted in deaths, homelessness, and disease spreading.  The Dawes Act of 1887 redistributed land to individuals instead of tribes, which made it an act against collectivism.  I also learned about the Indian Termination Act of 1953 in which the government stopped recognizing many tribes, disbanded the tribes, and sold the land.  The Indian Relocation Act of 1956 relocated natives to urban areas to assimilate them.  

In Tommy Orange’s novel, There There, I think that alcoholism is an effect of settler colonialism, and a lot of the characters have problems with alcohol.