Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2010 2:56 am Post subject: Post for 2/24
Howdy there guys.
I thought that this reading was really interesting. I have never heard what the American Revolution was like for the Native Americans. To be honest, i don't know that I ever gave it much thought. But the revolution that gave us such a bright and free future basically terminated any chance for the Natives to have the same thing. As it says in the text “for Indians and others such as blacks (slaves or free), the new world of freedom and independence created by the American Revolution and the brave new Constitution of the United States was instead a world of exclusion” (pg 233-234) I thought that it was particularly interesting that the many of the Native Americans chose to side with the British during this campaign, especially since they were so decidedly against them during the Seven Years War. I never realized how anti-native most of the colonists were. There was a really deep-seated hatred towards the Native Americans. I knew there were tensions, but this was intense. Going off of this, it appeared that the new Federal Government went out of their way to establish policies that went entirely against Native culture. Like that of treating the Natives as savages unless the men settled down to farm (pg 230). By doing this they automatically guaranteed that the majority of the Native Americans would not follow the rule. Then they could say that they “tried” to negotiate with the “savages” but they refused to see reason.
My question is this; most of the Natives sided with the British because they thought they had a chance at a better life with them ruling the colonies. If the British had won, do you think things would have been different for the Native Americans? How would they be different?
In class today we were talking about the differences between the British and the French and how they interacted with the Native Americans. I found it very interesting to see what Page had found in his research about it. In class it seemed like we sorta agreed that the French got along better with the Native Americans. Page wrote that "Pontiac and the Great Lakes tribes desired to get rid of the British so that the French would return. Life with Onontio, the French father, had been fine." That supports the idea that the French and Native Americans for the most part were able to understand each others cultures better and maybe even combine them. But then some Native Americans sided with the British in the war so it is hard to figure out if the British or the French treated the Native Americans better. Maybe it was about equal or it really depended on the time and place. What do you think?
Earlier we were talking in the class about the diseases that were brought over and killed many Native Americans. We were wondering if the Europeans brought over and gave goods to the Native Americans that would kill them but we decided they probably did not do it intentionally. So I was surprised and horrified to see in the reading that a powerful soldier told an officer that "You will Do well to Inoculate the Indians [with smallpox] by means of Blankets, as well as to Try Every other Method, that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race." page 224 Historians are not quite sure if this idea was carried out on a grand scale but they are sure it happened. But in 1763 two Native Americans came into a fort and were given blankets and other things from a smallpox hospital. When they went back to their tribe people started getting sick and it spread quickly to other tribes. Do you think people, in general, will do whatever they want to get what they want, in this case the British for the land,? And to what extent will they go before someone else stops them?
I think with the American Revolution we start to see our first glimpses of anti-native legislature. And we continue to see this up until even now, depending on how one looks at reservations.
One idea/part I found really interesting was the Pan-Indianism part. Well, I guess not part because it kinda showed up throughout the reading, but the idea, seeing as we have not really seen it yet. Often amongst oppressed groups there is the urge to quarrel and hate one another, even amongst people of the same race. Usually though, these groups begin united and end up enemies, I feel as though was a very different situation, where the American Indians started out quarreling or living rather independently to one another and united in a sort of way that I feel like I have not really seen before in other movements, not that this can really be called a movement.
The cultural differences were again weird, and I feel as though I can finally see why the Europeans were inclined to call the Native Americans "savages", based on their war tactics, but I think that the same could be said of the Indians view of the Europeans and their ideas of murder. I think that we encounter the same problems, not necessarily surrounding killing but around simply not understanding another group and thus persecuting them based on the set of ideas.
damnit, forgot a question.
How come there is the need to persecute? and why cant morals thrive independently or one another? we kinda already asked this question in class though....
Zach, I like what you said in your second paragraph. I agree that it's interesting to look at the cultural differences thing. It reminds me of the whole kicking babies thing that Martha's into... weirdo... but yeah. I definitely can see both sides of it, but I think the Europeans thinking the Native Americans were savages is probably easier to see and understand. That's of course a biased answer, but I can't help that!
Also, I got all confused about the whole French vs. British thing. I'm confused as to who the Native Americans "sided" with more during the war. Like Ricka (and/or Gigi) said, I thought we decided in class that the French got along better with and accepted the Native Americans more, but then it seems as if they weren't totally with them during the war. Help! I'm confused. Page confused me.
Another thing! I thought the idea that the Native Americans thought that the Seven Year War and the American Revolution were pretty much the same thing was interesting. It said, "they merely settled which group of imperialists the tribes would have to deal with." I can totally see that happening. And when the Native Americans took a bunch of captives and caused a lot of the remaining British colonists to get scared and leave, I thought it was interesting how Page said, "once the Indians had dispatched the dying and had taken their captives and other trophies... they too went home, satisfied, leaving Fort Duquesne in the hands of some two hundred French troops. Had the British regrouped and attacked they might well have taken the fort." (p. 221) What do you think would've happened if they had?
Why did Washington and the British officers find the Indians "unreliable allies"?
Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2010 6:21 am Post subject: pooop.
I found this reading so unbelievable boring and hard to stay focused to. Perhaps these two a re connected some how
The only part that could keep my attention at all was when they were talking about the American Revolution. I think what zach restated or asked was an interesting way to put it. It does seem like the Europeans have trouble with the idea of coexistence or even the crazy idea of a symbiotic relationship. (probably is the wrong use of the word) In there Declaration of independence from the British they just have to mention that they are also going to destroy all the god damn savages in this holy land that is rightfully theirs. It’s really annoying that in their heads they believe it is theirs because god has given it to them. Anyway It also surprises me how quickly the English forget about the fact that without the native Americans they all would have died. And yet they will definitely remember the first time the native Americans rebelled against them. This is completely off topic but having this class makes me really appreciate the first thanksgiving and hate essentially all the ones after that, but it also makes me want to celebrate thanksgiving with my new knowledge.
Why did I find this so boring? And Why didn’t the native Americans join together politically and geographically?
So, it looks like "civilized" is coming up a lot so far, and I found the Europeans' definition was really interesting. "Until men settled down to till the earth on normal-sized plots of ground, they were still hunters- savages, uncivilized... [People] had every confidence that Indian men could be civilized, turned into yeomen, and then they would simply not need so much territory and would happily cede to the US." [pg 230] It looks like the Europeans thought that civilized=farming. (But from the earlier readings, it sounded like many had already started doing that, or something very close to it. I'm confused.) I wonder, if the Native Americans practiced this in a way that more closely resembled the European style, would a lot of the slaughter/negativity not have happened? Or been reduced? Or did they just need something to complain about? And the second part of the quote eerily resembled the religious conversion that came up before. They might have well have been saying "they shall convert to farming and through this we shall gain." And one more thing! In the part about happily giving up land, it think those involved forgot that if the Natives were going to change their lifestyle, then they'd need land too, on top of however much the Europeans demanded. They must have thought the Native Americans to be very simple minded if they honestly expected/believed they would blindly give up a ton of land (or completely change their minds because of this.)
To answer Ricka's question, I don't really think anything would've changed/ been different for Native Americans had the British (or anyone else) won. The primary reason for European presence in America was to expand the homeland. Land plays a crucial role in expansion and success/prosperity, and the Native Americans' methods vs the European methods were too different to reach a compromise.
this wasnt by any means my favourite chapter, i dont think i got nearly as much out of it as i have in past chapters. i had never really thought about how the indians participated or viewed these wars but i guess when it comes down to it aside from the people near montreal who preffered the french cause they were nicer, most native americans realized towards the end of the war that it didnt matter who won, they were screwed either way.
the bit about the declaration of indipendance made me sad, i never heard of the clause about the british sending "savages" after the revolutionists but it is sad evidence that the native americans were truely used and disliked by both sides.
i really wish there was more like rebellion and stuff to read about but i guess that knowing the endpoint (the way the world is today) it is hard to imagine that the native americans really could do a whole lot back then about the invading forces.
on page 230 jefferson is quoted as saying that he believes that indians are equal to white people, why then were the colonists so selfish in their later coexistance?
So while reading this text and many of the other ones that we have done I am often confused as to what the dynamic is like between the Natives and the Colonists. I always hear one bad extreme about how we treated them or something along those lines, and then i hear about the treaties trade and peace between the two sides. Perhaps this is due to the fact that we are moving through the history so quickly that their relationships change or it could be that things are exaggerated in my education or perhaps it was just that the Natives were forgiving or desperate and the colonists did not stick to their course out of need as well. Along the same lines as things being exaggerated one part of the book that stuck out to me was page 224. "You will do well to try to Inoculate the Indians {with smallpox} by means of Blankets as well as to try every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race." I am getting a lot of mixed messages about this subject. If this is true it seems very aggressive and unnecessary. It seems that often times (although it can be a stretch) the colonists would screw over the Natives to somehow directly benefit themselves not out of misplaced prejudice of hate which perhaps came later. I guess this is my answer to Max that even though they could be seen as equals it was beneficial not to. Similar to us saying that all men are created equal then having slavery.
I want to know why it seems that the colonists were able to screw the Natives over so many times without them lashing back too much. It seems that the Natives could be violent when they wanted to so it was not completely foreign to their culture. But they seemed so reluctant to fight us even when they had the upper hand.
I enjoyed the first snippet because it was a great summary of the two wars, the French and Indian war (which I knew nothing about) and the Revolutionary war. I had also not even really considered the Native Americans role or even just their presence in these events so it gave me something to mull over for the rest of reading. Again the Native American’s strategy of “playing one group of against the other” (which I talked about last night) came up and the new developing wars made it hard to them, yet another step toward the fading away of the Natives. A related quote, “the Iroquois, which had dealt with the imperial powers as an equal for more than a century, would become largely irrelevant.” I really considered their influence over trade and such with this strategy was important for them so I thought this was a great blow to them.
Page 218 was the most interesting part of the reading for me because of the “Shot heard around the world”-esque reasoning for “war triggers”. Franz Ferdinand’s death, George Washington’s lethal attack with a hatchet, etc. are all single events which have such weight and changing impact and that is just fascinating to me.
Finally Sir Jeffery Amherst is another fresh, inexperienced, and unknowledgeable jerk who pushing his countries movement in the most aggressive and bull-headed way possible. If it isn’t clear already, I am not a fan of this frustrating cycle created by the British. Important treaties, spoken agreements, and events happen but then it seems like no one decides to inform the newcomers so they act like jerks with no regard for the delicate situation. The last paragraph talks about this a little, “The British, and of course the French before them, had imagined a New World that included Indians living among the colonists. The young United States, as historian Calloway has written, ‘looked forward to a future without Indians.’”
Was this cycle of jerks necessary to make progress in the colonies, whether it was morally/rightfully good or bad?
Like other people, I was interested to learn about the Native American perspective on the American Revolution, previously when thinking of the American Revolution, I never once put the Native Americans in the situation. There were a few parts I had questions about. For example when Page said “the Indians took huge numbers of captives (which is what they always wanted from such engagements)”. This made me curious about Native American motives for captives. Did they hold them hostage for ransom, or use them for slavery or what? Did they ever start wars just for the sake of gaining captives (I can’t remember if this was discussed earlier on in the book, I don’t think so). I found it kind of shocking that Thomas Jefferson said “I believe the Indian to be body in mind equal to the white man” and then “These evidently irreconcilable views were shared by most of the founding fathers” If the Founding Fathers felt this way, then why did they allow the Native Americans to constantly be treated like shit? I also found it interesting that the only willful from Christianity that we have learned of so far is Neolin who was influenced to become even more rooted in the old ways.
A lot of this reading kind of went in one eye and out the other. I was wondering if we should be remembering details or names or anything for the future.
-The kind of "hit-and-run" kind of war it talked about at the beginning seemed like it would be really shitty for whoever was being attacked at random. "...skulking sort of hit-and-run forest ambushes that Indians tended to practice and that the British tended to look askance at." I looked up what askance meant and it means "with distrust or doubt." It seems like they would be a little more angry and scared then distrusting. Sorry to get so technical but it seemed like a very mild word to use there.
-Sorry I have to ask, but does fort ticonderoga have anything to do with the pencils?
-On page 222 I was a little confused about the little sentence on small pox. It says that the Indians brought it back to le pays en haut from fort william henry, and that was the "makings" of the epidemic. In other chapters I feel like it said they got it from a lot of other places.
-I just wanted to mention that there's a picture of the painting they talk about on 227 in the middle of the book, so people should check that out.
-I was wondering how much of a role looks had to do with Native American/European/French encounters. Do you think if they all were white for instance, it would have turned out different, or do you think most of their quarrels would have been the same?
I am not sure that much would hav been different for the Natives if the British had won, just because the colonists had that deep hatred does not rule out that
the british would have the same feelings. the policies that had been created to remove native american culture or competely contradict it were not simply because
they felt as though that had reason to negotiate because of the revolution. However, i feel that the Natives sides with the British because it may not have been clear that their culture and land was quite threatened no matter who won. I don't know a lot about the revolution other than what i just learned, but my thoughts are that the Natives only sides with the British because they had such hatred for the Americans after the poor negotiations and the broken treaty from them. The british would take it upon themselves to move into the land if the Americans had lost. (please correct me if i am wrong, as i said i dont know much about the revolution besides this reading)
Ok so like some others, I found this reading to be a little boring, maybe not as much as Cooper, but still a little boring. I thought Cooper’s question was really interesting though.
“And Why didn’t the native Americans join together politically and geographically?”
I thought that this was mainly because they were not in any real danger until the Europeans came. They were all pretty much doing their own thing and it was working for them. I also think that there was some genuine bad blood between some of the tribes, just like in any other society or culture. I think that by the time that banding together would have benefited them, it was already too late, the Europeans had already begun to take over and there was little to no hope for the Native Americans. Im not trying to put words in your mouth, but I also believe that most people looking back at this, myself included, tend to think, “oh, why didn’t they all band together because they were all native Americans soo they were kinda all the same” I don’t think that’s the case at all anymore.
The whole American revolution and the native Americans got me thinking about how crazy it would feel to have people basically invade your home and then start a war there. I just think thatd be crazy and really hard to get used to if I were a Native American.
Anyways here is my question: Why don’t we think about Native Americans more? I know that’s like a huge question but this reading really got me thinking why we don’t think of them more and how Europeans basically came in and took over then the American revolution made “America” and the country ceased to be theirs.
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