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Film, Video Skulls, Scalps and Seminoles: Science and Violence in Florida, 1800-1842

Event video

Transcript: TEXT

About this Item

Title

  • Skulls, Scalps and Seminoles: Science and Violence in Florida, 1800-1842

Summary

  • Exploration of the history of science in Florida during the decades before and after the beginning of U.S. governance in 1821. The lecture emphasizes the context of violence in Florida shaped scientific practices in the region as well as knowledge circulating throughout the United States of Florida's native peoples and natural history. The overlap between science and violence reached its climax during the Second Seminole War, when U.S. Army surgeons and other amateur naturalists were both the targets of Seminole attacks and the perpetrators of brutalities against Florida's Indians. Most notably, white naturalists in Florida collected, analyzed, mutilated, and exported the remains of Florida's Indian dead, particularly the skulls of both long-buried and recently killed Seminoles. Although they carried out their grisly work in an isolated region, the practices, specimens, and ideas of these skull collectors had a lasting influence on scientific approaches to Indian remains throughout the United States.

Names

  • Library of Congress
  • John W. Kluge Center (Library of Congress), sponsoring body

Created / Published

  • Washington, D.C. : Library of Congress, 2011-07-14.

Headings

  • -  Biography, History
  • -  Science, Technology
  • -  Culture, Folklife
  • -  Native American History

Notes

  • -  Classification: History: America.
  • -  Classification: Science.
  • -  Cameron B. Strang.
  • -  Recorded on 2011-07-14.
  • -  Kids, Families.
  • -  Researchers.
  • -  Teachers.

Medium

  • 1 online resource

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • 2021688709

Online Format

  • video
  • image
  • online text

Additional Metadata Formats

Rights & Access

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Credit Line: Library of Congress

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Library Of Congress, and Sponsoring Body John W. Kluge Center. Skulls, Scalps and Seminoles: Science and Violence in Florida, -1842. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, -07-14, 2011. Video. https://www.loc.gov/item/2021688709/.

APA citation style:

Library Of Congress & John W. Kluge Center, S. B. (2011) Skulls, Scalps and Seminoles: Science and Violence in Florida, -1842. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, -07-14. [Video] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2021688709/.

MLA citation style:

Library Of Congress, and Sponsoring Body John W. Kluge Center. Skulls, Scalps and Seminoles: Science and Violence in Florida, -1842. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, -07-14, 2011. Video. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2021688709/>.