Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 1:32 am Post subject: Due 4/5 -- Charles Mann Reading
Please post a response to this weekend's reading (1491 by Charles C. Mann) Please write a minimum of 100-200 words and try to respond to your peers as well as the reading. Include at least one question for your peers.
Here is one to get you started: How did this reading complicate, contradict or build on the Jake Page readings about Pre-Columbian North and South America?
Hello there! Soooo being the first to respond (unless anyone responds before I finish this grrr) I shall bring up a few different topics.
This reading seemed much more violent, or not so much violent as shocking. Jake Page has obviously addressed the destruction that Europeans caused by invading (or whatever you want to call it) the Americas, but he had not brought my attention to the absolute massacre that ensued purposefully but also accidentally. I knew that diseases wiped out tons and tons of American Natives but I didn't realize the extent of it. I'd heard or Europeans using diseases on purpose as a weapon, but only briefly and only ever smallpox. Although there is a large debate about numbers or people that were wiped out, I agree with Elizabeth FENN (UMMM YESSS!) that it doesn't really matter how many people were killed because it is clear that it was way too many.
I was just wondering if I'm alone here in not realizing how many people were actually wiped out... This is kind of a crappy question but I'm genuinely wondering... Did you guys realize that hundreds of millions of people could have been killed?
Another very interesting part of this reading was his discussion of the questions "would you rather have been a European or an Indian?" I think at the beginning of this class I would have answered European, simply because of my knowledge that many Indians died at the hands of Europeans. My answer is still the same but for a very different reason. I now realize that Europeans (in America and in Europe) were also subjected to disease and death. In the reading it said that at a point England's infant death rate was 88%. If I had not read this reading but had had the knowledge of the Europeans "issues" I would immediately choose to have been Indian. Having read this I would still choose to be European because if simple numbers are compared, it is possible that millions more Indians died than Europeans, so my chance of living would have been better during the black plaque than during the invasion of the Americas.
What would you guys answer to that?
One other questions, kind of aimed towards Emily and Eric because they live in Winchester. I know that the Sachems had a large territory but Winchester kind of prides itself on being the center of it. I thought that Winchester was swamp land and basically under water until Europeans came and filled it in and built a town.... Did the Sachems actually live there? Did they live in swamp land? Did they fill it in? It just doesn't make sense to me.... you may not know. hahaha
I think this reading builds on what we have read by Jake Page. This reading is mostly about the Europeans coming to the Americas, and what the consequences of that were. So far in Jake Page we haven’t read too much about what happened when Europeans came, so it was interesting to get a more detailed view on what happened.
I think one of the most interesting parts of this reading was when it talked about how the Native Americans could have changed the original state of America more than the Europeans changed it. I was really surprised when the reading discussed how the Amazon rainforest, a place we think of as this vast mysterious piece of land, could have been majorly changed by the Native Americans. The reading said that they “…transformed large swathes of the river basin into something more pleasing to human beings.” Then the reading went on to talk about how Environmentalists don’t like this theory. This reminded me of when we talked about stereotypes in class, and how the Native Americans are viewed by a lot of people as nature loving and in harmony with the wilderness. But if it’s true that Native Americans changed a lot of the environment around them, then this goes against their nature loving stereotype, and I think some people have a hard time with this idea.
My question is also based off of the question about being a typical Indian or typical European. Why do you think more people answered that they rather be a typical Indian?
I agree that Jake Pages readings are different from the one that we did this weekend but they are having the same effect on me. I used to see the Indians as far different from me almost godly!!! But so far because of these readings I am opening my eyes and making connections to their culture....realizing they are not too different from you and I. They burn the Beni forest!!! I wouldnt do that, its cool to think I am more in tume with nature than Indians are (too mean?). Another intriguing thing that crossed my mind is the fact that we keep trying to make our environment like it was in the pre colombian era as if it was better. Since we know they were heading a bad direction as well....are humans made to destroy our surroundings??
PS i did not revise this ...very sleepy _________________ Melipe Fatho
I thought this reading was a very technical twist on everything Jake Page included in his book, but minus the diseases (since we haven't read about European arrival yet). Mann added a lot of positive volume to the early western hemisphere, mentioning that there was a lot of sophistication in natives during the time. He also provided an example of early agriculture where it was disputed whether natives were able to control infertile Amazonian soil in two ways: Population control (keeping villages small, so less produce was needed) and utilizing fertile soils (the 'black earth' stuff). Suggesting that large areas of the forest floor are actually made by natives was the most surprising bit to me, considering how Jake Page seems to think that agriculture started off slow and simple, and progressed into efficient farming rather than there being cases of people manipulating the ground and species population, which Clement argues as true.
Personally I would rather be an Indian than a European. There are bad people anywhere in the world, but it seems like the natives weren't as violent or controlling as the Europeans, with the exception of the Incas.
edit: I think people are choosing to be Indians probably because they're split into hundreds of different tribes each with different qualities that may or may not appeal to us, rather than Europe which was controlled by one government with one main goal etc.
also Europeans supposedly didn't take baths then.
This reading definitely helped explain why Europeans had such false views of natives. It’s hard to imagine millions of people dying off within several hundred years but explains why all of the larger more sophisticated civilizations had disappeared by the time Europeans went deeper into America. The Spanish explorer who took all the pigs (his name escapes me) did really get a rare glimpse at what some of the more sophisticated societies looked like besides the Inca’s and Aztecs. My beliefs until recently were that the only real native societies in America were the ones found in south America. Many people still to this day are uneducated about the native societies that existed in what is now our country, and this reading showed how that was possible. Jake pages reading gives great examples of the cultures that existed here, and Mann’s shows why until recent this was unknown.
So first off I want to address something that's been bothering me/ making me think the past few days, and Rachel brought it up too, so this is a perfect opportunity! woot. Many people are saying that because the American Indians altered the land around them and had a major impact on it that it means they didn't 'love' nature as much as stereotypes may have lead people to believe. BUT! Why does altering nature mean that you don't love and/or respect it? In the case of the amazon, they supposedly put in these super awesome micro-organisms that make it like indestructible dirt or something. So if that's true, then they actually improved the soil for plants (and consequently life for the animals) living there.
Also, harnessing the power (streams, rivers, sand pits) of one's surroundings demonstrates an understanding of the land that I think few could have today. So in altering or using the land for their advantage it seemed to me that the Indians were actually proving their connection to the nature surrounding them, not going against the nature-loving idea many have of them today.
I thought it was fascinating how without the corn from the Americas ending up in Africa and providing nutrition, there might not have been enough Africans to have the whole slavery thing. Those kinds of unexpected connections that have HUGE implications in history are super exciting to me. Like if slavery hadn't happened in our country can you IMAGINE how different things would be???? It's crazy. If someone hadn't gotten a seed stuck in their sandal or whatever and then discovered agriculture and corn, then entire WORLD history would have been drastically different. It's almost scary.
On the second page some smart person was quoted as having said "'you can make the meager evidence from the ethnohistorical record tell you anything you want... it's really easy to kid yourself.'" If this is true, how can anything be taken from evidence we've found? How can anything be interpreted and learned from if it's all up to what you're trying to see from it?
Oh, side note: did anyone else find there was a lot of random vocabulary you didn't know in this reading, and an unusual number of typos/ errors??
Although I can't really compare this reading to previous readings from Page's book, I can say that for me, this reading shed a new light on just how wrong some of the information about Native Americans really is. On the second page, the author discusses some of the misconceptions about Native Americans that he was taught. One of the misconceptions that he discusses is that Native Americans had no real impact on the environment or the landscape around them. Something I thought was interesting that was used as evidence of these misconceptions was “the pristine myth” –a belief that in 1491 the Americas were unmarked by civilization and “untrammeled by man”. This reminded me of the many misconceptions that people have about Native Americans, in particular the “noble savage” stereotype.
It is interesting that not only did the Native Americans take advantage of the land and use it to their benefit but also, they were also able to find ways of adapting the way they used the land after being invaded my white settlers. The Native Americans did basically what the Europeans did although on a much larger scale. They reshaped landscapes to suit their agricultural needs, and used tools such as burning to create large open areas that were necessary for hunting. They had distinct, and effective ways of using the land to their benefit, whether that meant using the landscape as it was, or altering it to suit their needs. It is interesting that even though there is so much evidence proving that these people had a very deep understanding of how to use the land to their benefit, this was discredited when the Europeans invaded and was used as a stereotype against Native Americans rather than recognized as a very impressive skill.
I completely agree with steph in her whole harnessing nature theory. I think what made these people so unique was in how they were able to use, not destoy, but use nature . I really only see this as impressive, not a negative misconception.
One (of the many) things that really struck me in this reading was the pigs that Soto brought over. (I think Mac touched on this a bit..) At first when I read “He came to Florida with 200 horses, 600 soldiers, and 300 pigs” (Mann 6), I thought it was a little funny. To have half as many pigs as humans seemed strange considering the cargo space and time that would be spent maintaining. However, as I read further I got so aggravated by Soto’s intent with the pigs. I feel like I might have misunderstood Soto’s motives. I guess my question is did he intend to infect the forests and wildlife? If so, then I am partly impressed by his genius methods and partly incredibly angry at how insensitive he was being to the environment.
I also just want to agree with what Mac said: “Jake pages reading gives great examples of the cultures that existed here, and Mann’s shows why until recent this was unknown.” (All of my re-phrases of this just sound wordy and strange)
The question regarding the love and respect for nature is something we pondered in Environmental History. I think there is a large difference between the ideas of nature and the environment. Nature, in my opinion, refers to, simply, the way things are (which are definitely not perfect), while the environment refers to surroundings, which people happen to take advantage of. As we read, the Natives changed their environment to suit their many needs (contrary to what the previous ‘pristine myths’ had told us). So, clearly, the Natives did not give one ear of corn about whether or not they were letting things stay the way they were, or rather, changing what was natural. The Natives were not ‘nature-loving’ but rather ‘environment-loving,’ managing their surroundings for their benefit, a logical technique to survive and thrive. And on a side note, many tribes worshipped the environment not for the natural beauty of what inhabited it, but rather for the resources and aide that came from their surroundings and provided life for them. Even environmentalists today “want to preserve as much of the world’s land as possible in a putatively intact state. But ‘intact’…means ‘run by human beings for human purposes.’…It seems to mean that anything goes” as long as you can survive. Can you imagine if everybody only respected nature? We could never change any one aspect about our environments? We’d all be dead from disease a long time ago.
Can people give me more insight on as to why everyone would want to be a Native in the ‘Native versus European debate?’ Europeans prevailed in the end, and definitely died less than the Natives. Why wouldn’t you want to live as a European? And don’t tell me it’s because that they were all greedy and whatnot, or that they seldom bathed.
So this reading caught my attention immediately. In my opinion Jake Page, seems to keep on the safe side when it comes to talking about Native Americans. From what I can he recall he doesn’t expand on the destruction the Europeans caused to the Native Americans, while Charles Mann does. Or maybe once we read further into Jake Page’s book we’ll see more violence.
To respond to Steve’s question: I mean it might sound mean but I’d prefer to live as a European during this time period. It’s human nature to be selfish and make sure you survive. So, if I could pick between being a Native American or a European – I’d want to be a European because they’re the ones who survived.
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Soooo being the first to respond (unless anyone responds before I finish this grrr) I shall bring up a few different topics.
