The Native Peoples of North America [2 volumes]: A History

by Bruce Elliott Johansen

From the earliest traces of first arrivals to the present, the Native peoples of North America represent a diverse and colorful array of cultures. From Central America to Canada, from recent archaeological discoveries to accounts of current controversies, this comprehensive study uses both traditional story telling and a powerful narrative to bring history to life. Johansen provides a critical narrative of European-American westward expansion through use of Native American voices, including compelling personal sketches of key figures such Tecumseh, alliance builder in the Ohio Valley; Chief Joseph the Younger, leader of the Nez Perce long march; and Susette LaFlesche, an Omaha Indian who reported on the Wounded Knee massacre for the Omaha-Herald . This account provides an uncommonly rich description of the material and intellectual ways in which Native American cultures have influenced the life and institutions of people across the globe, from medicine such as aspirin to foods like corn and squash to democratic ideas. It utilizes portrayals of select incidents, such as the Wounded Knee massacre and the impact of small pox, to reveal deep layers of meaning about the frontier experience in American history. A wide array of contemporary controversies, such as gambling interests, sports mascots, and sovereignty issues, are also included.

Genres: Native Americans

536 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[J.D. Steens · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is about the impact of Euro-Americans on natives in North America (primarily, the continental U.S. and with some discussion of natives in Mexico and Canada; there was no discussion of natives in Alaska).

The account in this book about the brutality and genocidal practices of Euro-Americans was hard to take. For example:

“The Spanish invented all manner of exotic methods to inflict pain and death - the more excruciating the better. They built a long gibbet, low enough for the toes to touch the ground and prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen Natives at a time in honor of Christ and the twelve Apostles. The Spaniards then tested their blades against the dangling Indios, ripping open with one blow and exposing entrails. Straw was wrapped around their torn bodies, and they were burned alive. One man caught two children about two years old, pierced their throats with a dagger, and threw them down a precipice.”

Less known are the views and practices of the founders of what came to be the U.S.A.

“John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, admired abandoned native cornfields and declared that God had provided the epidemics that killed the people who had tended them as an act of divine providence, clearing the land for the Puritans.”

“By 1703, Massachusetts was paying 12 [pounds] sterling for an Indian scalp, an amount worth about $500 today. In 1722, the bounty rose to 100 [pounds], about $4,000 today, adjusted for inflation…..In 1643, the Dutch governor of Manhattan (who was drunk at the time) ordered the massacre of several Wappingers who had flex to the Dutch settlements for protection from the Mohawks. The Dutch lulled the Wappingers with kind treatment for a few days, then slaughtered eighty men, women, and children in their beds. Their heads were severed and taken to Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, where a Dutch dowager stirred considerable attention by playing kickball with them in the street. A Hackensack Indian was tortured in front of a crowd, stripped of his skin piece by piece, then forced to eat it. The Native man tried to sing his death song as he was castrated and dragged through the streets, his raw flesh peeled from head to knees. Still alive, he was trussed to a millstone and beaten to death by Dutch soldiers.”

Much of this account was new for me, at least the details. The author was obviously invested in the non-white man account, so it pays to be cautious. He acknowledges, for example, that the Aztecs themselves did a good amount of bad stuff but it’s oddly worded, suggesting that they were not as bad as the conquistadors. That is a problematic thesis I think.

The U.S. condemns the Armenian genocide, but says nothing much about our own vis-a-vis the populations that were here when the Euro-Americans arrived. Given the brutalizing history of Euro-Americans, I don’t know why there has not been a movement to change the nomenclature for the indigenous populations, to something other than natives of “North America” and “Indian.”

The author notes the full, and mostly forgotten, title of Darwin’s initial edition: “The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.” Darwin ties human origins to the then budding science of biological evolution, but he extends evolution’s logic to explain the Spencerian “survival of the fittest” and “might is right” thesis that reached its epitome in the U.S. with Manifest Destiny and the white settlement push at the expense of the native populations.

This book ought to be required reading in U.S. schools. Without it, it’s a whitewashed history. We don’t know who we’ve been and who we are capable of being. Instead, we’re left with American exceptionalism.

[jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simple easy and straightforward account of 100,000 years of American Indian history.

[lita]

satu dari sekoper buku yang belum sempat disentuh :D