Jane Tompkins Indians Analysis

Jane Tompkins, in the “Indians: Textualism, Morality, and the problem of History” evaluates the responses from another period about what occurred between Europeans and Indians in the 17th century. Understanding what occurred and how did it occur are difficult to get while many different versions are. During the manner of collecting solid information, she confirms that although the fact could see in many other ways, the content of fact remains the same. As an individual, reading Tompkins’ provided examples of bias give me an insight into the power of social ethos that rules our real opinions and beliefs. As a student, reading Tompkins’ method of comparing and contrasting another response teach me that learning the facts without evaluating other perspectives can never give one a full description of the event. I believe we all have a tendency to build our opinions based

For example, Vaughan’s hatred of Indians’ cultural backwardness indicated the white action of the Europeans in the 17th century. Furthermore, Rowlandson’s complaint about smoking in Indian culture also underlines the Puritan values. The writer in 70s, Jennings, who brutally attacks the Europeans for exploiting Indians contradicts the accounts of those which criticized Indians’ savage nature centuries ago. Likewise, isn’t Tompkins also a biased one meanwhile she cannot determine which account is valid and tries to turn down certain biased second-handed accounts for the primary sources? Is it reasonable that her romantic fascination with the nomadic life of Indian people pre-determines the way she evaluates these various accounts? Consider other angles regarding one event can help us trace back the cultural or social values from an another era, and the purpose of looking back upon history is not to repeat the mistake in