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Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

How Expansive Is Oregon Trail History? with Professor Margaret Huettl

Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

Sony Music

Science, Self-improvement, Comedy, Education, Society & Culture

4.921.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2021

⏱️ 60 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Can you map out the Oregon Trail? If you just flashed back to playing The Oregon Trail video game in your sixth grade computer lab, get ready for a journey. Jonathan and Professor Margaret Huettl explore how Native knowledge systems established the Oregon Trail; how Native peoples experienced non-Native settlers moving West; and how Indigenous communities today are reckoning with this past to build a better future. Margaret Huettl, a descendant of Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibweg, Assyrian refugees, and European settlers, is Assistant Professor in History and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is a scholar of Native American history and North American Wests, and her research examines the continuities of Ojibwe sovereignty in the context of settler colonialism in both the United States and Canada, centering Ojibwe ways of knowing. You can follow her on Twitter @historianhuettl. Want to learn more about the Oregon Trail? See whose land you’re living on, or learn more about the Native nations whose land was crossed by the Oregon Trail: Native-Land.ca Visit the only Oregon Trail museum run by Indigenous people: TAMÁSTSLIKT CULTURAL INSTITUTE Explore the Fort Laramie Treaty through an interactive case study: Fort Laramie Treaty Case Study Read Margaret’s work: “Treaty Stories: Reclaiming the Unbroken History of Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Sovereignty” Learn more about Indigenous representations: IllumiNative. Check out some Indigenous-centered games: When Rivers Were Trails Invaders Growing Up Ojibwe Never Alone Find out what today’s guest and former guests are up to by following us on Instagram and Twitter @CuriousWithJVN. Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Check out Getting Curious merch at PodSwag.com. Listen to more music from Quiñ by heading over to TheQuinCat.com. Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to Getting Curious, I'm Jonathan Vaness, and every week I sit down for a gorgeous

0:04.3

conversation with a brilliant expert to learn all about something that makes me curious.

0:09.3

On today's episode, I'm joined by Professor Margaret Hiddl, where I ask her, what's the

0:13.6

real story of the Oregon Trail?

0:15.9

Welcome to Getting Curious as Jonathan Vaness, I'm so excited for today's episode, it is

0:22.3

major, I've been curious at this for a really long time, but like everything else that I've

0:27.0

been curious how since the 90s I've learned a lot more of like a full intersectional picture of it.

0:31.4

So without any further ado, welcome to the show Margaret Hiddl, who is a scholar of Native American

0:37.0

history in North American West's at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, her research examines Indigenous

0:42.6

sovereignty and settler colonization in a transnational context. Welcome Margaret, how are you?

0:50.2

I am doing just fine, I'm excited to be here.

0:54.3

I came on to the idea of the Oregon Trail through the seminal computer game in the 90s,

1:02.0

playing it with my little brothers when I was like six and seven, and really not understanding

1:08.4

like the full complexity of, and obviously not at six, but at no point did I learn the complexity

1:13.2

of that through school. So didn't realize until I was about like 24 or 25 that I didn't fully

1:19.4

maybe have the entire story. So can you just define for us what was the Oregon Trail? Like is it a

1:26.8

literal trail? Where did it start? Where did it end? Just so we can all get on the same page.

1:33.0

Yeah, so the Oregon Trail is a literal trail, and it's one of a couple of major travel routes

1:40.2

that went from east to west and that helped the United States achieve its goals of colonizing

1:45.4

North America. The others, the other big ones are the California Trail and the Santa Fe Trail,

1:52.4

and they all actually started out originally as networks of indigenous roads and trails that are

1:58.5

hundreds of years old and that the United States, Britain, France, Spain, they became familiar with

...

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