Land Of The Spotted Eagle Analysis

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Rhetor’s since the days of Aristotle and Isocrates have been using their rhetorical situations to deliver messages with a sense of urgency and persuade others to see their point of view. In 1933, Luther Standing Bear published his book “Land of the Spotted Eagle”. In this book, he talks about the terrible conditions under which his people live and how it needs to change. He speaks specifically to this in the excerpt “What the Indian Means to America”. Here he is referencing the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Standing Bear talks about how the European Americans caused these disasters and how the Native American could be the solution to these problems. He uses his rhetorical situation to try and convince the American government to listen …show more content…

The rhetor for this text is Luther Standing Bear. He was born in 1868 on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He was raised as a Native American until the age on eleven when he was taken to Carlisle Indian Industrial School: an Indian boarding school. After graduating from the boarding school, he returned to his reservation and now realized the terrible conditions under which they were living. Standing Bear was then elected as chief of his tribe and it became his responsibility to induce change (Luther Standing Bear). The boarding schools, like the one he went to, were not a fair place to be. The Native American children were forced to go there and they were not taught how to live as a European American; they were taught low level jobs like how to mop and take out trash. Also, these school were very brutal with punishment and how the kids were treated. In the passage he states, “More than one tragedy has resulted when a young boy or girl has returned home again almost an utter stranger. I have seen these happenings with my own eyes and I know they can cause naught but suffering.” (Standing Bear 276). Standing Bear is fighting for the Indians to be taught by Indians. He does not want their young to lose the culture taught to them from the elders. Standing Bear also states, “The old people do not speak English and never will be English-speaking.” (Standing Bear 276). He is reinforcing the point that he believes that they

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