by James W. Loewen. Simon & Schuster, 1995
"Historically, American Indians have been the most lied-about subset of our population" (99).
Did
Europeans "civilize" the Americas? Actually, anthropologists tell us
that "hunters and gatherers were relatively peaceful, compared to
agriculturalists, and that modern societies were more warlike still.
Thus violence increases with civilization" (101-2).
"..textbooks cannot resist contrasting "primitive" Americans with modern Europeans" (102).
"In
what ways do we prefer the civilized Third Reich to the more primitive
Arawak nation that Columbus encountered? If we refuse to label the Third
Reich civilized, are we not using the term to imply a certain comity?
If so, we must consider the Arawaks civilized, and we must also consider
Columbus and his Spaniards primitive is not savage" (102).
"Europeans
persuaded Natives to specialize in the fur and slave trades. Native
Americans were better hunters and trappers than Europeans, and with the
guns the Europeans sold them, they became better still. Other Native
skills began to atrophy" (103).
"..because whites
"demanded institutions reflective of their own with which to relate,"
many Native groups strengthened their tribal governments... New
confederations and nations developed.. The tribes also became more male-
dominated, in imitation of Europeans.. [there was] an escalation of
Indian warfare... [the slave trade helped] to deagriculturize Native
Americans. To avoid being targets for capture, Indians abandoned their
cornfields and their villages" (105-6).
"Europeans did not "civilize" or "settle" roaming Indians, but had the opposite impact" (107).
"…from
the start in Virginia.. settlers fled to Indian villages rather than
endure the rigors of life among the autocratic English. Indeed, many
white and black newcomers chose to live an Indian lifestyle... some
Natives chose to live among whites.. The migration was mostly the other
way, however.. Europeans were always trying to stop the outflow.
Hernando De Soto had to post guards to keep his men and women from
defecting to Native societies... right up to the end of independent
Indian nationhood in 1890, whites continued to defect, and whites who
lived an Indian lifestyle, such as Daniel Boone, became cultural heroes
in white society" (109).
"Not one American history
textbook mentions the attraction of Native societies to European
Americans and African Americans" (109).
"According to
Benjamin Franklin, "All their government is by Counsel of the Sages.
There is no Force; there are no Prisons, no officers to compel
Obedience, or inflict Punishment." Probably foremost, the lack of
hierarchy in the Native socieites in the eastern United States attracted
the admiration of European observers. Frontiersmen were taken with the
extent to which Native Americans enjoyed freedom as individuals. Women
were also accorded more status and power.. than in white societies of
the time" (109-110).
Lt. Gov. Cadwallader Colden of New
York in 1727 said, "Here we see the natural Origin of all Power and
Authority among a free People" (110).
"Indeed, Native
American ideas may be partly responsible for our democratic
institutions. We have seen how Native ideas of liberty, fraternity, and
equality found their way to Europe to influence social philosophers such
as Thomas More, Locke, Montaigne, Montesquieu, and Rousseau... Through
150 years of colonial contact, the Iroquois League stood before the
colonies as an object lesson in how to govern a large domain
democratically" (111).
"Both the Continental Congress
and the Constitutional Convention referred openly to Iroquois ideas and
imagery... As a symbol of the new United States, Americans chose the
eagle clutching a bundle of arrows. They knew that both the eagle and
the arrows were symbols of the Iroquois League... John Mohawk has argued
that American Indians are directly or indirectly responsible for the
public-meeting tradition, free speech, democracy, and "all those things
which got attached to the Bill of Rights." Without the Native example,
"do you really believe that all those ideas would have found birth among
a people who had spent a millennium butchering other people because of
intolerance of questions of religion?"" (111-112).
"For
a hundred years after our Revolution, Americans credited Native
Americans as a source of their democratic institutions... When colonists
took action to oppose unjust authority, as in the Boston Tea Party..
they chose to dress as Indians, not to blame Indians for the
demonstrations but to appropriate a symbol identified with liberty"
(112).
"Indian warfare absorbed 80 percent of the
entire federal budget during George Washington's administration and
dogged his successors for a century as a major issue and expense... [in
many cases] the settlers were Native American, the scalpers white"
(116).
"All the textbooks tell how Jefferson "doubled
the size of the United States by buying Louisiana from France." Not one
points out that it was not France's land to sell--it was Indian land...
Indeed, France did not really sell Louisiana for $15,000,000. France
merely sold its claim to the territory... Equally Eurocentric are the
maps textbooks use to show the Lewis and Clark expedition. They make
Native American invisible, implying that the United States bought vacant
land from the French... [Textbooks imply that the Indians were naive
about land ownership, but] the problem lay in whites' not abiding by
accepted concepts of land ownership" (123).
"The most
important cause of the War of 1812.. was land-- Indian land... The
United States fought five of the seven major land battles of the War of
1812 primarily against Native Americans... [a] result of the War of 1812
was the loss of part of our history. A century of learning [from Native
Americans] was coming to a close... until 1815 the word Americans had
generally been used to refer to Native Americans; after 1815 it meant
European Americans... Carleton Beals has written that "our acquiescence
in Indian dispossession has molded the American character." ...
destroyed our national idealism. From 1815 on, instead of spreading
democracy, we exported the ideology of white supremacy. Gradually we
sought American hegemony over Mexico, the Philippines, much of the
Caribbean basin, and, indirectly, over other nations... We also have to
admit that Adolf Hitler displayed more knowledge of how we treated
Native Americans than American high schoolers who rely on their
textbooks. Hitler admired our concentration camps for Indians in the
west "and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's
extermination--by starvation and uneven combat" as the model for his
extermination of Jews and Gypsies" (123-126).
Yet we "still stereotype Native Americans as roaming primitive hunting folk, unfortunate victims of progress" (132).
For more on this topic, read Helen Hunt Jackson's famous indictment of Native American policies, A Century of Dishonor.
Also, see her fictional account of the racism Mexicans and Indians both endured at the hands of White and Mexican settlers, Ramona.
More quotes from the book are here: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/History/First_Thanksgiving_LMTTM.html
Thanksgiving quotes from the book are here: http://nativeamericanresources.blogspot.com/2007/11/lies-my-teacher-told-me-everything-your.html
GREAT LESSON PLANS FOR THE BOOK HERE: http://liesmyteachertoldme.wikispaces.com/home
Photo Gallery: 20 Memorials to Native Americans
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/gallery/photo/photo-gallery-20-memorials-native-americans-155013
