The “Infinity of Nations” nicely summarizes why the Native American’s played a substantial role in the creation of the “new world” that is so often misconstrued as solely a European creation. However, the “Infinity of Nations” neglects to show the importance of gender in the creation of this world. Through gender we can see how women and men combined to create this “new world” dynamic, how gender was used through religion and politics to demonize Native American tribes, and how European colonists used gender as a political ideal to create an empire. The author of the “Infinity of Nations” Michael Witgen does a good job showing the role Native American men and European men played when shaping the “new world.” He fails though, when comes to …show more content…
To create this new relationship they borrowed a ceremony from the Wyandot, a form of the athataion, or a Feast of the Dead. This Feast of the Dead lasted fourteen days; each filled with dancing, games, gift exchanges, ritual adoption, and arranged marriages between members of the different bands in attendance.” This part of the text describes the delicate process of uniting the tribes who were past enemies, creating a valuable alliance crucial to survival. What this passage fails to tell us more about are these “arranged marriages.” Arranged marriages have been a method for thousands of years of as way of demonstrating unification among different peoples. This practice goes back as far as Alexander the Great. There is no better way of bringing two different peoples together than by making them family and connected through a shared offspring. When looking at the role gender plays in this relationship we see that a man and women from different backgrounds are coming together to form a new cultural identity of the future. Future generations will …show more content…
We learned that throughout history Europeans had promoted false histories to show European exceptionalism and Native savagery, therefore giving the world the imagination of colonization as a just cause. Witgen showed the Natives as equals to the Europeans. He even gave examples of how Europeans were forced to work with the Natives based on Native ground rules throughout many stages of early America. A good example of European justification for conquering the Natives was religion. The Jesuits for example felt it was their mission under God to civilize these inferior natives. As stated in this quote “For the Jesuits the horrors of Native suffering seemed to be matched by their own horror at finding themselves charged with the task of converting such a barbaric people to Christianity, and to a civilized life.” In this case the Jesuits are using religion as a means of justification for colonization. In this case, gender is used through religion to show power over a supposed weaker people. As we know in Christianity God is the father and priests represent God on earth. So, in the name of God the father and creator of all people these Jesuits are civilizing Native Americans, doing them the honorable service of bringing them salvation. At least that was the idea. Gender plays a huge role in religion, because God is said to have taken the form of a male human being. As a result anything that
Pages one to sixty- nine in Indian From The Inside: Native American Philosophy and Cultural Renewal by Dennis McPherson and J. Douglas Rabb, provides the beginning of an in-depth analysis of Native American cultural philosophy. It also states the ways in which western perspective has played a role in our understanding of Native American culture and similarities between Western culture and Native American culture. The section of reading can be divided into three lenses. The first section focus is on the theoretical understanding of self in respect to the space around us. The second section provides a historical background into the relationship between Native Americans and British colonial power. The last section focus is on the affiliation of otherworldliness that exist between
In The White Man’s Indian, Robert Berkhoffer analyzes how Native Americans have maintained a negative stereotype because of Whites. As a matter of fact, this book examines the evolution of Native Americans throughout American history by explaining the origin of the Indian stereotype, the change from religious justification to scientific racism to a modern anthropological viewpoint of Native Americans, the White portrayal of Native Americans through art, and the policies enacted to keep Native Americans as Whites perceive them to be. In the hope that Native Americans will be able to overcome how Whites have portrayed them, Berkhoffer is presenting
This book is complete with some facts, unfounded assumptions, explores Native American gifts to the World and gives that information credence which really happened yet was covered up and even lied about by Euro-centric historians who have never given the Indians credit for any great cultural achievement. From silver and money capitalism to piracy, slavery and the birth of corporations, the food revolution, agricultural technology, the culinary revolution, drugs, architecture and urban planning our debt to the indigenous peoples of America is tremendous. With indigenous populations mining the gold and silver made capitalism possible. Working in the mines and mints and in the plantations with the African slaves, they started the industrial revolution that then spread to Europe and on around the world. They supplied the cotton, rubber, dyes, and related chemicals that fed this new system of production. They domesticated and developed the hundreds of varieties of corn, potatoes, cassava, and peanuts that now feed much of the world. They discovered the curative powers of quinine, the anesthetizing ability of coca, and the potency of a thousand other drugs with made possible modern medicine and pharmacology. The drugs together with their improved agriculture made possible the population explosion of the last several centuries. They developed and refined a form of democracy that has been haphazardly and inadequately adopted in many parts of the world. They were the true colonizers of America who cut the trails through the jungles and deserts, made the roads, and built the cities upon which modern America is based.
De Las Casas admired the natives customs; they were generous and a non-violent people. De Las Casas being a priest might’ve seen the native’s behavior as more Christian-like then the Spaniards. He also described them as being self-sufficient, educated and eloquent; a possible ally to the Kingdom of Castile. They were willing to feed the Spaniards and give them their gold as a gift but because of the Spaniards greed they took advantage of them being defenseless and abused their power. The Spaniards used the native’s customs as a justification to their actions because the natives weren’t Christians. They massacred the population without educating them on the Christian religion or giving them the chance to convert, yet they called them demons for their ignorance of the religion. Those who survived were forced to convert to subjected to slavery where they would eventually die from starvation and harsh labor. The Spaniards defamed their religion and country with their behavior. They treated the massacres as a game and showed little to no mercy to all; including children, babies, women, and the sick and elderly.
Jamestown, Virginia, is a crucial source of legends about the United States. Pocahontas, a daughter of an Indian werowance married an Englishman named John Rolfe and changed her name to Rebecca. In her article, “Gender Frontier”, Kathleen Brown underscores gender role and responsibility in both Native American and English settlers. Gender frontier is the meeting of two or more culturally specific system of knowledge about gender and nature. She also stresses the duties that they played in their societies prior to the arrival of the English people in the early colony in Virginia. Brown describes the difference values between Europeans and Native Americans in regards to what women and men should and should not do and the complex progression of
Did you know that in the Native American culture there are different types of marriage? Being because their husband/wife died, or if the man has three wives. Sometimes within the tribe they got married and probably exchanged wives, sometimes they even shared or exchanged them! If you didn’t know just keep reading, because i’m going to explain it all to you. Enjoy!
The nineteenth-century, a period of expansion in the eyes of the Americans; fostered an increase in preexisting feelings of superiority over the indigenous peoples of America. They were referred to as “Indians” or “savages.” The Euro-American belief of distinction between the “civilized” and “savages” were accentuated in the universal law of progress, and law of vices and virtues, leading to the emergence of the famed myth, the “vanishing” Indian, which enforced the Euro-American notion of the Native American population dwindling into nothingness (Ferdinando). The eighteen-hundreds marked the rise in naturalistic literature integrating the myth of the vanishing Indian into popular culture.
Prior to 15th century colonization, indigenous peoples of North America enjoyed a gender system that included not only women and men, but also a third gender known as Two-Spirit. In Native American culture, individuals who identified as Two-Spirit were revered by society and held important roles among tribes. In their article “The Way of the Two-Spirited Pe...
Taking a historical approach in the review, Martinez uses his knowledge of the Comanche to focus on the arguments of the text. While praising Hamalainen’s research, Martinez critically analyzes the text’s sources. Concluding the monograph’s use of secondary and printed sources, Martinez suggests the use of actual Comanche memoirs might have provided more legitimacy to the author’s claims. Gerald Betty engages his review of the monograph in a similar scholarly tone that Flores takes. Betty structures his review through the interest of academics in colonialism. Betty identifies that thesis’ claims that the Comanche created an empire, which enforced reversed colonialism upon European powers, will captivate scholars. Focusing on the thesis, Betty questions Hamalainen’s classification of the Comanches as a nomadic empire. Replying to his question, Betty writes that to consider a culture as an empire, they must influence aspects of society such as politics, economics, and religion. Concluding his review, Betty relates the Comanches to the Mongol and Turkish Empires to show how, though nomadic, influenced the Roman word. Also, the showing of the Comanches’ cultural influence on Colonial European powers identifies the Native American tribe as an
Early American history began in the collision of European, West African, and Native American peoples in North America. Europeans “discovered” America by accident, then created empires out of the conquest of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of Africans. Yet conquest and enslavement were accompanied by centuries of cultural interaction—interaction that spelled disaster for Africans and Native Americans and triumph for Europeans, to be sure, but interaction that transformed all three peoples in the process.
“They (Native Americans) were America's first settlers, and the world they inhabited was anything but new.” (CITE) Europeans were not the defining factor of America, other civilizations lived there before their arrival. However Europeans did change the way of life in the Americas, in a negative way. In “Of Plymouth Plantation” by William Bradford the viewpoint that Europeans significantly changed the Americas is seen, with accounts from Bradford that stated the uncivilized nature of the Indians and how the Natives were savages towards the migrants. Opposing views are shown in “Coming of Age in the Dawnland” by Charles C. Mann, where it is stated that Natives had large impressive civilizations. These two different excepts discuss how Europeans
In today’s society people often view European exploration and colonization of the Americas as a great achievement. For instance, on Monday, October ninth people all over the nation celebrate Christopher Columbus and his brave accomplishments. Most even have breaks from school or work on this “special” day. Even though European exploration of the late fourteen hundreds expanded the world, population, and global empire, no one ever reflects on the negative aspects of colonization. In Colonial America: A Very Short Introduction, the author, Alan Taylor educates readers on the effects colonization left on the Indians. One example is, the explorers introduced “horrifying and unprecedented epidemics among the native peoples” (Taylor 18.) The Indians
Starn establishes a curious connection between the Na’vi and Native Americans in American Westerns. Starn claims the Na’vi are, in essence, a repudiation of the outdated Americanized view of native peoples. Starn maintains that the traditional roles have been reversed and native people are now the sympathetic victim of the American West. Certainly, the colonizers view the Na'vi people through the lens of their differences, instead of their similarities. The Na’vi people are marginalized, hurt, and even killed due to the crippling nature of colonialism’s prejudiced nature.
From ancient hunter gatherers to the modern-day woman, gender roles have changed drastically over time and they continue to evolve today. Across the world women have had to fight for rights, but it wasn’t always this way. In ancient cultures women had more freedoms than in western societies, furthermore, as history progresses western influence crushes the native way of thinking resulting in male dominated societies. Eventually women suffrage movements would finally appear after industrialization in the 1800-1900’s. Key events throughout history would shift the gender constructions namely war, industrialization, and time. Struggling to understand native cultures western influence would commit genocide on native cultures, leading to cultural
A very specific difference between mainstream feminism and the feminism of Native American Women, was the difference between social structure in tribal groups as opposed to social structure in America as a whole. Native Americans take a collectivist view toward issues, meaning that if any gains were to be made for women. In their own words, through their own newsletter, the Wisconsin Tribal Women’s News: Najinakwe, native American feminists’ main goal was, “to promote a better future for all Indian people” (1974). Their concerns were often similar to those of mainstream feminism, such as the pay gap between men and women, domestic abuse, and reproductive rights but their viewpoint was that any gains for women would have to be for the greater good of the tribe, not to be “liberated.” As Native American women already played a large role in their own communities, we see that the sentiment of the feminist movement of Native American Women was different from that of mainstream feminism. This would be seen also, with African American