One of the most interesting parts of the reading for me, was the part about the Powhatan “Confederacy.” I never knew that there was this one guy, Powhatan, who ruled over other tribes and chiefs. “Powhatan had established himself this out of military might as well as persuasion,” (157). The way this ruling was set up reminded me of other governments, especially ones in Europe. The Europeans thought that the Native Americans were less advanced and barbaric, but here they were ruling their people in really similar ways. (My question is tagged on to this is, were Native Americans doing this before, or was this way of ruling influenced by Europeans?)
Powhatan sounds like many other rulers we have learned about in the past. “Part Solomon and Part Stalin, Powhatan had built a personal kingdom by both persuasion and force” (159). He seemed greedy and scheming, shown by the fact that his people would give him food, and even though he had an abundance of it, he would not redistribute this food to his people during hard times, or the fact that supposedly only he and his priests and advisors could enjoy the afterlife.
I thought it was REALLLY interesting that Powhatan had an ulterior motive regarding John Smith. I thought it was really cool that while the Europeans were establishing their colonies and thinking they were clever and superior to the Native Americans, that a Native American was actually formulating a secret plan to manipulate and use the Europeans.
Another question is, why do you think John Smith decided to live with the Native Americans for a year?
I was really interested by the Indian's manipulation of the Europeans. Powhatan seemed to be the leader of the European manipulation. Although it may only be Jake Page's speculation, he thinks that Powhatan used his daughter (Pochahontus) to win over John Smith.
While the English were trying to spread their empire world wide, Powhatan was attempting a similar feat on a smaller scale. Before the English even arrived Powhatan was the leader, almost demigod of an empire he had built up from many different tribes. Beneath him he had district chiefs, but he was essentially the king of the empire. When the Europeans came they thought they were superior to the Natives, and I had never heard about Powhatan actually trying to befriend, and use the Europeans instead of the other way around. I thought it was very interesting that the thought of killing John Smith was never an option, but instead manipulation tactics were used to either take away his manhood and win over his followers, or give him an important title under the rule of Powhatan.
It seems to me that for a while there, Powhatan had the upper hand because he was providing the Europeans with their food and was able to kill off a significant number of them. Unfortunately his brother was not so good at manipulation and soon the English had the upper hand once again.
My question is: We always feel so bad for the Native Americans who were killed off and manipulated by the Europeans, should the opposite be true as well? I have a lack of pity for the Europeans, but also a dislike for Powhatans tactics, so I'm sort of confused as to how to feel.
Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2010 5:14 am Post subject: Powhatan, the French, the English, and the Iroquois
Well, I didn't find this reading as interesting as the others, mostly because I've learned a little bit about what happened to the Native Americans during this time period before in USO and in middle school. That said, I still found it all very informative.
Powhatan was one powerful Indian, but I feel like exploring the Iroquois and what happened later in the chapter since Rachel and Alex have discussed that significantly.
I was interested when I saw the name sachem used (yeah Emily, Winchester wut wut haha), but also in how vast the Iroquois became and their methods of conquest. The mourning wars seems like such a radical idea to me, since in our culture the loss of a loved one is considered irreplaceable. I guess it made more sense in a time when people died quite often and the tribes were less defined than families, but it's still intriguing.
My question is how do you feel about the general fighting between the Northeastern tribes and did you side with any of them at points? I disliked the Iroquois at first because of their torture of captives, but found myself sympathizing later when they started to disintegrate.
Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2010 5:21 am Post subject: P.S.
I forgot that I also loved the French's take on the Indians as superior (or perhaps just not savages) and willing to cooperate with them.
And I also loved the idea of the Indians being the first snipers. My inner video game nerd came out when I read that. (Did anyone see the Modern Warfare 2 ads during the Final Four? hilarious.)
And in a similar vein as Felipe and District 9, there's going to be an episode of The Mentalist Thursday night at 10 that happens on an Indian reservation, so I'm going to watch that to get a little culture shock, I guess. It may not serve for discussion in class, but it'll be interesting to watch.
Hi again, sorry my post was so repetitive after Rachel's, I thought I was the first to post so she must have started writing after me
If I had posted after her I would have attempted to answer her question and said something along the lines of....
I don't think John Smith decided to live with the Natives for a year, I thought he was forced? Maybe I didn't understand correctly, could someone help out with clarification?...
I think it's always hard to side with those who are the victors in the end, at least in cases where they are overtaking a culture that didn't ask for it or really do anything to deserve it. I can sympathize with the fact that it would be terrifying to be shot at from all sides and not be able to see who was targeting you, but at the same time it was their own technology being used against them. They got a taste of their own medicine, kind of.
It was strange to hear that many Indians believed in 'an eye for an eye' kind of thing: revenge for the wrongs done to them. This doesn't fit in with what I imagined... which up until now has been based solely on stereotypes that we've discussed, but still. It was surprising to read that put in such black and white terms. It was really sad to me how "for the most part, the English were never able to bring themselves to believe that Indian generosity was sincere. It had to conceal some treachery: generosity must precede extortion. Given the requirement in most Indian cultures for revenge for a wrong, the English suspicion of Indian aid became a self-fulfilling prophecy"( 161). This seemed like a typical example of negative human nature getting perpetuated. I don't know, that kind of thing just makes me sad to read about. Silly people.
Why were the Europeans trading guns to the Native Americans at all? It seemed as though they had plenty of other desirable things, so why would they have wanted to put guns into the hands of those they were fighting against?
My post was going to be exactly like Rachel and Alex’s. I was really interested in how both the Native Americans and Europeans manipulated each other. I feel I was always taught how poorly the Europeans treated the Native Americans when they arrived, but they treated them the same way. When I was thinking about why we don’t hear about the Native American manipulating the Europeans as often. I started thinking about stereotypes. The stereotype that Whites were/are better than Native Americans, and if people thought that this was then they wouldn’t want to teach their children that people lesser than them could manipulate them.
To answer Steph’s question, I don’t think they were trading with the people they were fighting with not to mention trading guns. I think they traded with the tribes they had “alliances” with. But now that I think about it, I’m not sure they traded guns, I think they may have just given the guns to the tribes they were fighting with at the time.
Page explained the vicious circle that trading with Europeans made for Native Americans, specifically the Iroquois. The Iroquois became dependant on the tools of the Europeans, but at the same time they were losing things to trade for the tools. So they started to raid to find things to trade for the European’s tools. Because of this I started to feel sorry for the Iroquois.
On a different note, how do you think the Native Americans lives would have been if the English and the Spanish thought of and treated the Native Americans like the French did?
Alex, Page just says "Smith was captured when he blundered into a large hunting party, and for a year he remained with the Indians". I think this means that he was there against his will, but I'm pretty sure they wanted him to be the chief of Jamestown under Powhatan so he couldn't have been treated too badly.
I agree with Rachel that Powhatan's tactics and goals seemed similar to those of Europeans. Not to be repetitive, but I think they key similarity between them was that they gained power by "persuasion and force". Just as Powhatan used manipulation to rule over his people's lives, the Europeans manipulated the Native Americans in many ways too.
Moving on! I thought that some of the culture Page described in this chapter was interesting. For example, that many of the Native American tribes were matrilineal societies. On page 165 Page states that women had "important political roles in tribal affairs, such as appointing new sachems (chiefs) and counseling them". I thought that this was super interesting because most of the other societies at this time period were patriarchal, and women were not really considered as having important roles in society other than motherhood and child-rearing.
Another interesting aspect of Iroquois culture was the importance of gift-giving. They had lots of different physical examples of the need for cooperation and sharing, as Page states "the giving of a gift lent power and credence to one's words". For such a violent group of people, they also had some really interesting and positive aspects of their culture.
My question is just if there are any other aspects of the culture of the tribes mentioned in tonight's reading that people found particularly interesting. I can think of lots, but it would be interesting to hear what other people picked up on.
While reading this, I found myself starting to take note of some of the Native American practices that reminded of certain religious rituals and traditions that you still see today. For example, I found it interesting that some Native Americans believed in reincarnation, but only in very specific cases. In the text Jake Page mentions that "they would age in this good place until they reached an age where they again died, to be reborn as new human beings." This belief of the Native American's was both a belief in an afterlife, and another life on this earth.
One thing that I found really interesting was the many differences between our Disney Pocahontas and what we know of what she really was in history. Why do you think, that with all these other important Indian figures, she is the one that lives today in modern culture?
I thought this reading was not the most entertaining, but it was useful. There was a lot of basic information about the Indians that was a refresher and a lot that was new to me (which is great). Here are some stuff that stuck with me and will continue to hopefully:
I did not know, like many others, that this man Powhatan existed. Its amazing to think that he had so much power and controled so many of the events that played out. I also was a little rusty on the Pocahontas tale and I am amazed as well by her influence, she stopped fighting between Europeans and Indians!! It was also sad to hear she is buried so far from her home, which I preciously did not know (guys make sure that does not happen to me). But the thing that I was intrigued by most (and its not because I am a New Englander) was the Iroquis nation. Maybe I was sick in school when we studied them but they are a very interesting Confederation. They were much more violent than I ever expected, but thats not only it their culture around violence is something I have never heard of to exist now or in the past. They treat pain and death like something minute (thats part scary and part relieving). It is craxy that captives were taken in as a member of their tribe and they went a long with it, or if they were tortured they were to not show pain as an example for young (it is insane to me how this unspoken, unwritten rules developed.) What in our society is similar, were we are asked to ignore emotion or physical pain no matter what?? Anything?? _________________ Melipe Fatho
One of the things I've learned in middle school was that Europeans often traded the natives useless broken objects with a false sincerity in return for genuine gifts from the natives, like jewelry and weapons. Why Europeans would have traded guns is beyond me, more likely (in my opinion) guns and ammunition were originally stolen or found. I can't imagine natives being handed weapons and enough ammunition to fight a battle with upon first encounter with the Euros. Page didn't seem to mention exactly why guns and ammunition were circulating around the natives so freely. He did mention however that in the 1690s the Iroquois felt that they were being cheated of weapons and ammunition by the British, so I'm going to assume they were supplying weapons in order to make things harder for other colonies (maybe?)
I hope I didn't completely miss the part where Page explains the weapons.
anyone else think the Susquehannocks were awesome? CANNON!?
edit: ditto what Maggie said about the guns.
When I read the part where Page explained the Iroquoui's ritual eating of already killed captives, I noticed ritual was italicized in order to emphasize that they weren't everyday cannibals. It seemed like Page wanted to defend them by doing that, but why? Personally I don't have any problems with occasional cannibalism in history, and I feel like it comes with a lot of negativity in the context of Indians. I thought for a while about that and tried my best to form it into a question. What's so bad about it (back then)?
So first I am just going to apologize for being super-uninvolved with the forum so far. It's just been very hard for me to get everything done, being as busy as I have been lately, tonight being no exception, except I am vastly trying to get a post in. I haven't yet finished the reading, I have been slowly getting through it over the past hours, while also packing and writing my post, so I apologize if I am being very repetitive, but most likely a lot of people will post before I put this up. Anyways, on to actual things:
I remember when the class first started, and Page kept mentioning how Native Indians were thought of as not human by many people, and I thought that it was completely ridiculous that anyone could think that. Then, in the first section of the reading I found myself realizing that Native Americans at that point in time were more "human" than I had thought before. I just never thought Native Americans would have a "class system" outside of just people and some chiefs before this class, and now everything with Powhatan, and his demigod, ultimate power in the society throws me off. The structure of the overall "monarch" ruling the "larger" chiefs ruling the "smaller" chiefs seemed so European to me, which made me feel bad about the whole realization of them being more human being directly related to them seeming more European.
I know I had some other stuff to say, but it's been like, half an hour since that last sentence, and I can't remember, sorry. I also really can't think of a question at all, which really upsets me.
Have fun the rest of the week in class, I won't be there, but I'll definitely be posting here, especially since I have loads of travel time to get the readings done.
The reading before this gave us a good idea as to how many people were killed, but this reading told many of those tribe’s stories. The Mohawks for example have an especially sad story. Even when the Europeans meant no harm they were brutally destroying thousands of people’s lives. Even people they had never met, people who they were thousands of miles away from meeting died of their disease. Or, in the Mohawks case, as a result of brutal violence caused by the shell shocked remaining members of the tribes. The way life had been for thousands of years was ending.
In response to Pat’s question, I can see how some people would feel satisfied eating the people that disagreed with them, and see how some could argue that they are leaving no waste, but it’s still a crazy concept to consume a being so similar to yourself. I think most of the people who did eat their captives would want a proper burial once they themselves died. I think they should have respected those same wishes for the people they killed. Once you have killed a person you can no longer humiliate them personally, so really they were doing it either for themselves or to intimidate other tribes.
Is there a justifiable argument for eating someone of the same species? Or is it simply to uncivilized to be excused.
I focussed my attention on the story of Hiwatha on page 163. What I found particularly captivating were the similarities between it and aspects of Christianity, Europe's predominant religion. The grieving and hopeless Hiwatha is cured and his grief "assuaged" after being "uttered by a litany of Words of Condolence" spoken by the figure Deganawidah, "the peace maker, who had been born of a virgin" not unlike our other favorite messiah, Jesus H. Christ himself. "Deganawidah explained that true power came from being at peace with others, thinking good thoughts about those who might otherwise be enemies. He sent Hiwatha back to teach this gospel of condolence, peace, and power to his own people and the others." Hiwatha then cures the evil sorcerer, Tadadaho's mind with these same Words of Condolence muttered by Deganawidah. The theme of a virgin-birthed peace-maker saving and cleaning the souls and minds of the sick seems specific enough that one can make the assumption that only one religion has these aspects. But no. Both Indian and European religions have this theme. The fact that Europeans could view themselves as superior over the Natives in every way, and in addition, also follow a religion with a ridiculously similar story, fascinates and frustrates me. This proves that there always isn't a difference between societies. This is really going out on the limb, I know, but, if the Europeans had known of this Hiwatha story and made the connection to Christianity, might they have been able to view themselves and the Natives as equal, and in turn, reduced the number of relentless slaughterings?
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