The art show “Indian Country” by David Bradly depicts his view of the place that Natives hold in the new American landscape. Every picture seems to be filled to the brim with symbolism, humor, and a healthy dose of criticism of current conditions of the native people. The art show shares several themes from throughout the semester by depicting cultural landscapes, and discourse of ‘civilization’ and ‘development.’
Bradly’s paintings depict the cultural landscape of Santa Fe and he has come to see it. Though not a native to the area and culture, perhaps his outsider view has allowed him to paint the culture from a different perspective. The painting, “End of the Santa Fe Trail,” is perhaps one of Bradly’s more critical paintings. It shows a
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small trading post, advertising the sale of: liquor, Indian arts and crafts, wannabee tribal memberships, Indian child adoptions and land. The entrance and exit of the store have a long line of non-native people eagerly waiting to spend their money inside, or leave with crafts and war bonnets, enjoying their small act of cultural appropriation.
From the service entrance of the store, Native men carry large loads of money to truck with the name ‘The Wannabe Tribe Inc.’ written on the side. Across the road is sign stating the beach is part of sacred land and that grave robbing permits can be purchased there. On the sacred site showed three couples, one set swimming in the water, one set sunbathing in the nude, and other taking advantage of the other couples’ distraction if you know what I mean. Also along the beach shows a dumping ground for garbage and a pipe that is draining waste into the water. And interesting note of the painting is that every single native person depicted in the painting has ball and chain attached their ankle. A symbolic gesture of how these people are stuck in that place and how their very own culture has become the very thing that is holding them captive. The outside world’s fascination is much like how Carl Sauer saw Native Americans when he wrote his paper “About Nature and Indian,” where he depicts a simpler lifestyle and a ‘one’ with nature that could only have been achieved by the Natives. There is also some convenience is …show more content…
experiencing a culture that is so unlike your own, but also so close to home. Tourist are able to drive a short distance, gawk at the locals, buy a souvenir to remember their adventure, and then be back home in time for supper. Non- native saw an opportunity at profit, and quickly morphed the native culture into something that could attract crowds and become a novelty, turning a once proud culture into a roadside attraction. Ironically, in David Corria’s “Properties of Violence: Law and Land Grand Struggle in Northern New Mexico,” he goes into great detail of the plight of people who lost their land after the Mexican- American War, with very little mention of the people whose land was stolen first.
Thousands and thousands of acres were stolen from people who had lived in the area for centuries, with no recompense, because they were seen as ‘uncivilized.’ The Native American tribes that inhabited the southwest, had been there for centuries, had a developed language, farming, trade route, and their own justice system. Yet, despite all this this, they were seen and under developed and uncivilized by Europeans standards. Either, that or there was a deliberate blindness of the Europeans part, so that it was simpler to evict the tribes rather that deal in tedious diplomacy. A similar tactic as that used by the many companies mentioned in Domosh’s book, “American Commodities in an Age of Empire,” in which propaganda was used to belittle and dehumanize the natives in a way that made it seem ethically moral in way to steal from them. A tactic that worked so well, that two of Bradley’s piece depict atrocious acts down to Native Americans by the U.S. Army with little thought or
care. However, despite all this, there are still many pieces in the art show that articulate a resilience of the native people and their culture against outside influence. Despite much of the humiliation that these native people have been forced to endure, they have managed, where many have not, to keep a small portion of their culture alive.
Dr. Daniel K. Richter is the Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History at University of Pennsylvania. His focus on early Native American history has led to his writing several lauded books including Before the Revolution: America’s Ancient Past, and The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization. Richter’s Facing East is perhaps, a culmination of his latter work. It is centered from a Native American perspective, an angle less thought about in general. Through the book, Richter takes this perspective into several different fields of study which includes literary analysis, environmental history, and anthropology. Combining different methodologies, Richter argues Americans can have a fruitful future, by understanding the importance of the American Indian perspective in America’s short history.
To many of the English colonists, any land that was granted to them in a charter by the English Crown was theirs’, with no consideration for the natives that had already owned the land. This belittlement of Indians caused great problems for the English later on, for the natives did not care about what the Crown granted the colonists for it was not theirs’ to grant in the first place. The theory of European superiority over the Native Americans caused for any differences in the way the cultures interacted, as well as amazing social unrest between the two cultures.
Cronon raises the question of the belief or disbelief of the Indian’s rights to the land. The Europeans believed the way Indians used the land was unacceptable seeing as how the Indians wasted the natural resources the land had. However, Indians didn’t waste the natural resources and wealth of the land but instead used it differently, which the Europeans failed to see. The political and economical life of the Indians needed to be known to grasp the use of the land, “Personal good could be replaced, and their accumulation made little sense for ecological reasons of mobility,” (Cronon, 62).
The ideological imagination of Indians being in complete harmony with the nature led to Curtis encouraging subjects to pose in the landscape in order to perpetuate an inseparable bond between the natural world and their surroundings (Jackson, 1992). Photographs of Indians are taken, such as the tribe gaining livelihoods and creating handicrafts from the nature (Jackson, 1992, p. 95), and referring to the subject as part of the landscape itself. Captions accommodating photographs are used to enforce a particular understanding of the image as opposed to other meaning that may be assumed by others,
To understand Jackson’s book and why it was written, however, one must first fully comprehend the context of the time period it was published in and understand what was being done to and about Native Americans in the 19th century. From the Native American point of view, the frontier, which settlers viewed as an economic opportunity, was nothin...
In his essay, “The Indians’ Old World,” Neal Salisbury examined a recent shift in the telling of Native American history in North America. Until recently, much of American history, as it pertains to Native Americans; either focused on the decimation of their societies or excluded them completely from the discussion (Salisbury 25). Salisbury also contends that American history did not simply begin with the arrival of Europeans. This event was an episode of a long path towards America’s development (Salisbury 25). In pre-colonial America, Native Americans were not primitive savages, rather a developing people that possessed extraordinary skill in agriculture, hunting, and building and exhibited elaborate cultural and religious structures.
American Indians shaped their critique of modern America through their exposure to and experience with “civilized,” non-Indian American people. Because these Euro-Americans considered traditional Indian lifestyle savage, they sought to assimilate the Indians into their civilized culture. With the increase in industrialization, transportation systems, and the desire for valuable resources (such as coal, gold, etc.) on Indian-occupied land, modern Americans had an excuse for “the advancement of the human race” (9). Euro-Americans moved Indians onto reservations, controlled their education and practice of religion, depleted their land, and erased many of their freedoms. The national result of this “conquest of Indian communities” was a steady decrease of Indian populations and drastic increase in non-Indian populations during the nineteenth century (9). It is natural that many American Indians felt fearful that their culture and people were slowly vanishing. Modern America to American Indians meant the destruction of their cultural pride and demise of their way of life.
The removal of Indian tribes was one of the tragic times in America’s history. Native Americans endured hard times when immigrants came to the New World. Their land was stolen, people were treated poorly, tricked, harassed, bullied, and much more. The mistreatment was caused mostly by the white settlers, who wanted the Indians land. The Indians removal was pushed to benefit the settlers, which in turn, caused the Indians to be treated as less than a person and pushed off of their lands. MOREEE
Imagine living in a place where you feel free, and safe all of your life, and then one day it’s all taken away from you. Native Americans have always depended on the land to take care of them. Had the Great Spirit forsaken them? These are the thoughts that pondered the mind of Seattle as he answered to the Governor of Washington, in the essay titled “Address”. What was the purpose or message behind Albert Bierstadt’s painting titled “Among the Sierra Nevada”? How are these two separate works associated? To understand the relationship that these two works share we must look at them from today’s perspective. The Address is a Political Science/ History piece that addresses problems, and states facts about the way of life for Native Americans the beauty of the land and how Americans were to take that away from them, while Bierstadt’s painting is able to show us the piece and serenity to the earth and within ourselves.
In order to understand the lack of morality on the part of the United States, the actions taken by the group in favor of removing the Indians and their opponents needs examining. The seeds of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 are rooted in colonial times and continued to grow during the early years of the American republic. To comprehend this momentous tragedy we must first examine the historical background of the Indian '"'problem'"' and seek rationale for the American government"'"s actions. This includes looking at the men who politically justified the expulsion of the Cherokee nation and those who argued against it.
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).
Native American literature from the Southeastern United States is deeply rooted in the oral traditions of the various tribes that have historically called that region home. While the tribes most integrally associated with the Southeastern U.S. in the American popular mind--the FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole)--were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) from their ancestral territories in the American South, descendents of those tribes have created compelling literary works that have kept alive their tribal identities and histories by incorporating traditional themes and narrative elements. While reflecting profound awareness of the value of the Native American past, these literary works have also revealed knowing perspectives on the meaning of the modern world in the lives of contemporary Native Americans.
The movement westward during the late 1800’s created new tensions among already strained relations with current Native American inhabitants. Their lands, which were guaranteed to them via treaty with the United States, were now beginning to be intruded upon by the massive influx of people migrating from the east. This intrusion was not taken too kindly, as Native American lands had already been significantly reduced due to previous westward conquest. Growing resentment for the federal government’s Reservation movement could be felt among the native population. One Kiowa chief’s thoughts on this matter summarize the general feeling of the native populace. “All the land south of the Arkansas belongs to the Kiowas and Comanches, and I don’t want to give away any of it” (Edwards, 203). His words, “I don’t want to give away any of it”, seemed to a mantra among the Native Americans, and this thought would resound among them as the mounting tensions reached breaking point.
In the article review “ How the West was Lost” the author, William T. Hagan explains that in a brief thirty-eight year period between 1848 and 1886, the Indians of the Western United States lost their fight with the United States to keep their lands. While nothing in the article tells us who Hagan is, or when the article was written, his central theme of the article is to inform us of how the Indians lost their lands to the white settlers. I found three main ideas in the article that I feel that Hagan was trying to get across to us. Hagan put these events geographically and chronologically in order first by Plains Indians, then by the Western Indians.
In this text Mohanty argues that contemporary western feminist writing on Third World women contributes to the reproduction of colonial discourses where women in the South are represented as an undifferentiated “other”. Mohanty examines how liberal and socialist feminist scholarship use analytics strategies that creates an essentialist construction of the category woman, universalist assumptions of sexist oppression and how this contributes to the perpetuation of colonialist relations between the north and south(Mohanty 1991:55). She criticises Western feminist discourse for constructing “the third world woman” as a homogeneous “powerless” and vulnerable group, while women in the North still represent the modern and liberated woman (Mohanty 1991:56).