The Relationship between Colonists and Native Americans - Assignment Example

?The Relationship Between Colonists and Native Americans through History History is not written by dead hands (Hollitz, p. 8). By virtue of interpretation, facts can be subtly altered to present a certain record of events to the student. Textbook accounts of history are often widely accepted as the basis of non-analytical truth, especially when we assume that, as the main instrument of study in schools, they will be free of bias. This is sadly untrue, and the budding historian must work hard to attempt to get at the underlying reality of any historical situation. This essay will chart how different historians, over time, develop different interpretations of the past, by looking at changes in the overall perception of the Native American people in the textbook entries from 1877 to 2000. It will show that history can reflect the time it is written in, and that word choice and grammar can influence the reader's attitude to the subject. The overwhelming attitude towards Native Americans is, in the earliest extract (1877), one of hatred and violence. Words like savage and hostile abound, amongst descriptions of the Native American attack on Jamestown and other settlements as massacre, murder and exterminate (in-class exercise). The author writes that his contemporaries are fighting against Native Americans in Arizona and Montana (the Apache Attacks and Nez Perce War), which is almost something the reader does not need to be told, given how intense and hateful this piece seems. There is no mention of Native American culture, although the author does (begrudgingly) admit that the tribes could build shelters, grow crops, and hunt. Any reference to exchange between European and Native American culture is hidden in whining laments that Native Americans appear to be innately hostile to European culture, called here 'civilization'. By contrast, the 1885 piece comes across as slightly less impassioned. Whereas the 1877 text ends by saying that it is certain that Native Americans will have disappeared from the American continent within a few years, the 1885 text expresses hopes that the Native Americans will be 'Christianized' rather than dying out. The 1885 piece attempts to be fairer to the indigenous tribes, but still makes incorrect assumptions, such as the 'fact' that Native Americans lived very simplistic and uncivilized lifestyles. Non-neutral language is used to claim that the Native Americans were inferior to the settlers in the fields of arts and inventions, progress and education, disposition, and religion, and had been since their collision with European culture two hundred years before. The only area in which Native Americans are not lesser is 'endurance,' yet this achievement is still couched in terminology which makes these people seem not quite human. It is easy to suspect that the writers of the textbook 'knew' this through experience. The two extracts from nineteenth-century textbooks neither mention individuals, whether European or Native American, nor refer to any sort of cultural exchange. Admittedly, this would be hard given that neither text admits the existence of a Native American culture. Nor does either piece suggest any possible explanation for the failure of the Jamestown settlement other than Native American savagery. Therefore these earliest passages reflect the real-life hostilities occurring at the time between Europeans and Native Americans. The Apache Attacks lasted until 1900, when the last fighting tribe surrendered, so it is understandable – if despicable – that the textbooks adhered to the image of Native Americans as an enemy which must be destroyed. It is more difficult to completely exterminate an enemy if there is evidence of the enemy's humanity, or that a valuable part of human cultural history might be lost in their destruction, so it makes sense that contemporary textbooks were unconcerned with these subjects. The 1927 text is the first to recognize that at least some of the Native American tribes were fairly advanced and cultured. It does, however, insist that other tribes were bestial savages, and hence it was for European settlers to introduce civilization to the North American continent, regardless of the acknowledgement just a few sentences before that some tribes had achieved a European ideal of progress. This argument moves into a discussion of cultural exchange, which appears to be entirely one-sided: the Europeans gave the Native Americans tools for harnessing nature and expanding the mind, whereas the Native Americans contributed almost nothing to the making of America. This passage is also the first to properly discuss the Jamestown settlement. The 1877 text mentions it briefly, but it is absent from the 1885 extract. Muzzey credits John Smith with the survival of the colony, claiming that it was his ability to keep the 'Indians' in awe of him which kept the European settlers alive – the framing of the sentence suggests that Smith's power was such that he saved some of the settlers from disease and lack of fresh water. The text says that supplies and food were obtained from the Native Americans, not that the Native Americans gave food to the settlers. The passive construction of this sentence, combined with the declaration that John Smith's energy and resourcefulness were the real saviors, specifically ignores the contribution of the Native Americans to the survival of the colony. The text goes on to mention a Native American massacre of three hundred and forty seven settlers in 1622, without indicating any possible reason for that massacre. Juxtaposed against the heroic descriptions of John Smith, the reader is led to believe that the Native Americans were unfair and bloodthirsty. Although there has been some development of the ideas about Native Americans since the nineteenth century, the late nineteen-twenties was still a time of anti-Native American prejudice. Textbook writers reflect the national desire to not examine their previous biases too closely, and continue to depict the history of white people as superior and (mostly) benevolent. The 1966 article makes a more concerted effort at recognizing the independent advanced state of the Native American tribes, although its first paragraph is problematic as it emphasizes that the population of North America, upon European discovery, was so small that the country was basically uninhabited. Given that recent estimates put the 1492 North and Central American population between seventeen (Hollitz, p. 9) and seventy two million (The Brief American Pageant, in Hollitz, p. 15), this highlights the assumption that Native Americans were so uncivilized as to be unable to support a large number of people. The culture exchange discussed in the 1966 article is limited to the Europeans' conversion of Native Americans to Christianity, and an acknowledgement of Native American culture is conspicuously absent. Larger forces, such as disease and the settlers' lack of knowledge regarding hunting, are briefly mentioned as contributing to the high level of deaths in Jamestown, along with the Native American attack on the settlement in 1622. No explanation, again, is provided for the Native American massacre, and it is significant that the choice of word is the same choice as made by the author of the 1877 and 1927 texts. In almost ninety years, the common conception of Native American attacks on European settlements was that they were horrendous and uncalled for. Conversely, European attacks on Native American settlements show leadership and resourcefulness. In this passage, as in the 1927 extract, John Smith is lauded as an incredible hero who single-handedly saved the settlers from death by enlisting the aid of the Native Americans, as opposed to negotiating with them, or the Native Americans offering the supplies. This slight semantic difference maintains the reader's opinion of the Native Americans as a monolith to be subdued, rather than a people who chose to provide food for newcomers for reasons of generosity or politics. This is the first extract which mentions a Native American individual, Pocahontas, although the reference is inherently sexist (and therefore dated) as it talks about her appearance, youth and marital state rather than her strength of mind and, no doubt, powerful persuasive abilities. The 1995 text shows, perhaps, the most recognizable attitudes towards Native Americans to current historians. It reveals that the Native American culture was far more diverse and deep than the original settlers assumed, and discusses in some detail the spiritual beliefs of some tribes. There are still some issues regarding the insidious belief that Native Americans were inherently violent: the author says that war, or the exaction of personal revenge, was a ritualized way of restoring order for Native Americans, as if the same could not be said of European nations and cultures. The passage does not refer to Jamestown, or indeed any particular settlement or individual, so its use in this timeline of historiography is to show that between 1966 and 1995, some widespread beliefs about the one-dimensional, uncivilized nature of Native Americans had been challenged and found to be lacking in truth. Others had not. Cultural movements, such as feminism amongst other examples of minority groups demanding to have their voices heard and their histories examined, had spurred historians to think more critically about what they had learned and whether typical historical accounts chimed with primary sources. As these cultural movements developed, and people became interested in fairly recording cultures and peoples other than their own, more history was written. The most recent extract, from 2000, is also the most detailed. It attributes cultural, technological and mathematical achievements to the Native Americans, and recognizes that tension between the Native Americans and Jamestown settlers was partly due to the Europeans stealing food from the Native Americans, amongst other atrocities. It also includes the only reference, across all the textbooks, to Lord De La Warr who arrived in Jamestown in 1610 and effectively declared war on the local Native Americans. The 1614 peace settlement included the marriage of Pocahontas to John Rolfe. This was mentioned in the 1966 article, which, interestingly, left out the fact that the marriage was arranged to end a war initiated by the settlers. This is the only article in which the tribes are named and in which the leader Powhatan is believed to have considered allying with the British against Native American rivals. It discusses the fate of the local Native Americans, which is conspicuously absent from the other passages. The 2000 extract seems to be the only one which honestly treats Native Americans as a people who deserve consideration. It does, however, fail to talk about the cultural exchange which must have happened between two such different cultures living side by side. More upsettingly, it engages in 'blaming the victim,' by blaming disease, disorganization and disposability for the Native Americans' misfortunes, rather than the settlers who tried to make them extinct. The passive phrasing of this sentence is reminiscent of a similar one in the 1927 article. From 1877 to 2000, historians changed their beliefs about Native Americans from murderous savages to a friendly and intelligent people. This change, however, was very slow, and the 1966 article bears more resemblance to the 1877 text than the one from 2000. This reflects the social atmosphere at the time: particularly contemporary feelings regarding the enemy, one's own might and goodness, and attempts to understand cultures different to one's own. However, pride is an eternal force, and its ugly face is visible in all the extracts. Works Cited “H101 U.S. History: In-Class Exercise in Perspective, Context and Judgment.” Hollitz, John. Thinking Through The Past. Chicago: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997. Read More