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The conflict between the white settlers and the Native Americans
Conflicts between natives and white settlers
The impact of prejudice on society
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In the book, The Light in the Forest, by Conrad Richter there is an ongoing conflict between the whites and the Indians about who is the most savage. A true savage is a person or people that is regarded as primitive and uncivilized. Though both sides commit atrocious crimes against each other, the white people show to be more cruel toward the Indians in the way they act superior to them. The difference in the ways they express their religion, way of living and teachings is an example of the white people showing their superiority towards the Indians. One pressing issue among the conflicting sides is that there have been so many wrongs made between both sides that it’s impossible for them to see the good in each other. Both sides have no empathy for the other, therefore they make false allegations to prove the other wrong. “Well, once an Indian, always and Indian. You can make an Indian out of a white man but you can never make a white man out of and Indian”(64). By this, Uncle Wilse means there is no way a man can be trusted if they are influenced by the Indians.
Most people, within the colonial era, believe all white people are good beings, but tricking and stealing from the Indians proves otherwise. The white people
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A whole village of Indian families, slaughtered by the hands of the Paxton Boys. True Son’s white uncle makes foul accusations upon the Indians, True son protests, saying, “...you had forty, fifty men. You had horses, knives, tomahawks, and rifles. You blow heads off of Indian men. You kill Indian woman and young ones. Not one is left. You scalp. You chop. You cut off hands and try to cut off feet-”(68). Uncle Wiles’s justification for this behavior is, this was the best thing that could have happened to them, the Indians got what they deserved. These repulsive claims against the Indians prove that the white people are the true
O’Brien argues the multiple Indians who are put forth in histories as being the last of their tribe: Eunice Mahwee of the Pequots, Esther of the Royal Narragansetts. This phenomenon falsely narrates the disappearance of Indian people, being relegated to anonymity except for the “last of their kind.” These stories also discuss the purity of Indians, downplaying their current environment. Indians were only Indians if they had complete pure blood, one drop of anything other than their own tribe meant they were not Indians. The racist contradictions in this logic is pointed out by O’Brien. For whites, any claim to one “drop” of New England Puritan blood meant this person could claim to be a descendant of the Puritan Fathers. The children or grandchildren of the “last” Indians were not truly Indian because they did not grow up in a wigwam, or possess their native
...4). By the 1760s, the whites and the Indians began “…asserting their…group solidarity” (10). This divided the two communities as they identified with each other and were willing to stand and defend their own group if needed. They felt that the boundaries between each other had to be further strengthened in order for them to fully disassociate from each other. The “savage” label was used to describe the Natives, which gave people a scapegoat to attack the Indians unprovoked. For example, there was an attack on a group of Natives by a group Scottish and Irish men called the Paxton Boys, which added to the tensions. Many reasons contributed to ill will between the Indians and whites, but Merritt believes that the main factor was race. This reading showed the hostility between the two groups, which ultimately led to a nasty and bloody breaking apart a few years later.
The film, “In the White Man’s Image” and Sally Jenkins’ narrative, “The Real All Americans” both discussed the controversial issues and historical significance of nineteenth century social policies dealing with cultural integration of Native Americans, yet while “In the White Man’s Image” covered the broad consequences of such policies, it was Jenkins’ narrow focus on the daily lives of students involved that was able to fully convey the complexities of this devastating social policy. Jenkins’ recreated the experiences of students at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, bringing the reader along with her as students were stripped of culture, language, and family to be remade into a crude imitation of white society. “...Now, after having had my hair cut, a new thought came into my head. I felt I was no more Indian…” (Jenkins, pg 75). Richard Henry Pratt, the creator of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School that became the inspiration and model for many similar institutions across the nation, intended to save a people from complete destruction, yet the unforeseen consequences of his ...
One of the hardest realities of being a minority is that the majority has a thousand ways to hurt anyone who is part of a minority, and they have but two or three ways to defend themselves. In Sherman Alexie’s short story The Toughest Indian in the World, Roman Gabriel Fury is a member of the Native American minority that makes up less than two percent of the total United States population (1.2 percent to be exact). This inherent disadvantage of being a minority, along with various cultural factors, influences the conflicted character of Roman Gabriel Fury and his attitudes toward the white majority. Through his use of strong language, demanding tone, and vibrant colors, Roman Gabriel Fury is able to reveal his complex feelings about growing up Indian in a predominately white world.
“Quantie’s weak body shuddered from a blast of cold wind. Still, the proud wife of the Cherokee chief John Ross wrapped a woolen blanket around her shoulders and grabbed the reins.” Leading the final group of Cherokee Indians from their home lands, Chief John Ross thought of an old story that was told by the chiefs before him, of a place where the earth and sky met in the west, this was the place where death awaits. He could not help but fear that this place of death was where his beloved people were being taken after years of persecution and injustice at the hands of white Americans, the proud Indian people were being forced to vacate their lands, leaving behind their homes, businesses and almost everything they owned while traveling to an unknown place and an uncertain future. The Cherokee Indians suffered terrible indignities, sickness and death while being removed to the Indian territories west of the Mississippi, even though they maintained their culture and traditions, rebuilt their numbers and improved their living conditions by developing their own government, economy and social structure, they were never able to return to their previous greatness or escape the injustices of the American people.
The narrator’s father is being freed from slavery after the civil war, leads a quiet life. On his deathbed, the narrator’s grandfather is bitter and feels as a traitor to the blacks’ common goal. He advises the narrator’s father to undermine the white people and “agree’em to death and destruction (Ellison 21)” The old man deemed meekness to be treachery. The narrator’s father brings into the book element of emotional and moral ambiguity. Despite the old man’s warnings, the narrator believes that genuine obedience can win him respect and praise.
Iowa City: U of Iowa Press, 1986. Kinnamon, Kenneth, ed., pp. 113-117 New Essays on Native Sons. New York: Cambridge UP, 1990. Macksey, Richard and Frank E. Moorer, eds.
All in all, the treatment of the American Indian during the expansion westward was cruel and harsh. Thus, A Century of Dishonor conveys the truth about the frontier more so than the frontier thesis. Additionally, the common beliefs about the old west are founded in lies and deception. The despair that comes with knowing that people will continue to believe in these false ideas is epitomized by Terrell’s statement, “Perhaps nothing will ever penetrate the haze of puerile romance with which writers unfaithful to their profession and to themselves have surrounded the westerner who made a living in the saddle” (Terrell 182).
Still, the Germans are neglected and the Irish exploited, language barrier continued to cause strife and distrust. However, when English news was subsequently translated into German, sentiments of exploitation and desertion became a backdrop and they started seeing other in a new way. Democracy was birthed as more power was shared among ethnicities in the “back country”. The increased intensity of the Indian savagery opened the eyes to the whites and they sought to put their previous irreconcilable differences in the shade. To a degree, they consciously realized that they have a common enemy and they could wield their communities to attack the “red race”. There was a significant shift in their belief, the creator created differently so that they could live distinctly. Familiarity does not necessarily arise from living in close proximity with each other, and Silver constantly argued this throughout his book. The idea of White’s middle ground never came into existence at this point in history in Pennsylvania, as racial consciousness emerged and developed. The Irish, Germans and other Europeans saw themselves whites and the Indians as red, they built inter-white middle ground here, not Indian-white. They did not actually forget or bury their differences and ignore its existence, but they, to a certain extent found tolerance and little “accommodation” between their other white
However, it must also be taken into consideration that these modifications allowed for the Indians to work, and subsequently their thoughts and ideas, to be known to the general public. In opposition to those who argue that this assimilation was positive, many people believe that the introduction of Native American Indians into the global economy transformed the once sacred traditions into a product of western culture whose only concern is consumer consumption. While the Indians were at peace with nature, the white man was destroying it, cutting down its forests and exploiting its natural resources. The Indians had no concept of time other than that of the summer and of the season, while the Whites had business deadlines and busy schedules. Because of this vast difference in values, peaceful coexistence is not easy to achieve.
Before the introduction of the “pale face” Native Americans lived a calm and serene life. They lived in big communities and help one another in order to survive. They had a form of religion, poly-theistic, that would be their main form of salvation. They had chiefs and warriors. They had teepees that would allow them to quickly pack up and move. The Native Americans were a nomadic, primitive people that did not live up to the whiter man’s view of “civilization”. However, the white man, pale face, felt the need to change the Native Americans barbaric ways of life. The Americans were smart in their efforts in trying to convert the Indians. They would go after the kids because they were still young and gullible. “Yes, my child, several others besides Judewin are going away with the palefaces. Your brother said the missionaries had inquired about his little sister... “Did he tell them to take me, mother” (40). The children were impressionable. In this first story, the daughter gets hooked on going with the missionaries because they said they had apple trees and being that she has never seen an apple tree, she begged her mother to go not knowing that her mother did not want to send her away. Some Indians enjoyed leaving with the Americans; others did not because of what the Americans had done to the Indians. The mother in this story had told her daughter stories of what the paleface had done and how they had killed most...
Growing up Black Elk and his friends were already playing the games of killing the whites and they waited impatiently to kill and scalp the first Wasichu, and bring the scalp to the village showing how strong and brave they were. One could only imagine what were the reasons that Indians were bloody-minded and brutal to the whites. After seeing their own villages, where...
In Thomas King’s novel, The Inconvenient Indian, the story of North America’s history is discussed from his original viewpoint and perspective. In his first chapter, “Forgetting Columbus,” he voices his opinion about how he feel towards the way white people have told America’s history and portraying it as an adventurous tale of triumph, strength and freedom. King hunts down the evidence needed to reveal more facts on the controversial relationship between the whites and natives and how it has affected the culture of Americans. Mainly untangling the confusion between the idea of Native Americans being savages and whites constantly reigning in glory. He exposes the truth about how Native Americans were treated and how their actual stories were
Author and Indian Activist, Vine Deloria makes compelling statements in chapters 1 and 5 of his Indiana Manifesto, “Custer Died For Your Sins.” Although published in 1969 this work lays important historical ground work for understanding the plight of the Indian. Written during the turbulent civil rights movement, Deloria makes many comparisons to the Black plight in the United States. He condemns the contemporary views toward Indians widely help by Whites. He argues that Indians are wrongly seen through the historical lens of a pipe smoking, bow and arrow wielding savage. Deloria views the oppressors and conquerors of the Indian mainly in the form of the United States federal government and Christian missionaries. The author’s overall thesis is that whites view Indians the way they want to see them which is not based in reality. The behavior of whites towards Indians reflects this false perception in law, culture and public awareness.
While in a park the indians and the white kids were divided amongst themselves, Cheryl was content with playing with her fellow Indians while April wanted to play with the white kids. “There were two different groups of children that went to the park. One group was the brown-skinned children who looked like Cheryl in most ways. But they were dirty-looking and they dressed in real raggedy clothes. I didn't care to play with them at all.”(Culleton 15) The problem with April wanting to play with the white kids was that the white kids did not want to play with the indians, therefore teaching April, who thought the white were the privileged, that being indian was not something to be proud of. “The other group was white-skinned and I used to envy them….To me, I imagined they were very rich and lived in big, beautiful houses and there was so much that I wondered about them. But they didn't care to play with Cheryl and me. They called us names and bullied us.”(Culleton