The lecture will deal with the fate of the indigenous peoples of North- and Mesoamerica over the course of nine centuries from the age of the Vikings and their settlement in L'Anse aux Meadows (at about 1000 AD) throught the European invasions of the 17th and 18th centuries to the US and Canadian Indian policies of the 19th century. It will focus on the history of viloence and oppression as well as on questions of American Indian cultural identity and agency in specific spaces of cooperation and confrontation.