In order to feel we are creating a complete picture of history when we conduct research, historians must rely on any primary documents they can find to piece together the puzzle of a person’s life or the events surrounding a person or point in time. As I read Facing East, Richter provided constant reminders that Early American history is constructed from only one perspective – from those who possess the power of the pen. There may be artifacts that survive from the various indigenous cultures of North America dating back before non-native people arrived, but those artifacts cannot tell us a complete story of the lives of the people who used these objects, because they left no written history; no primary documents. It solidifies the point Richter wants us to think about in regards to who is writing history, and the fact that the group of people who dominate or command language and technology at the time will dictate how generations will perceive the way in which events occurred.
Early American History is not necessarily in my comfort zone in regards to the amount of knowledge I can share off the top of my head. Facing East was the best book for me to start with, I feel, because it affected my ideas about the ways in which Historians have written about conflict between Native Americans and European settlers. The only perspective I have ever read has been a westward-facing perspective. I was almost ashamed at how surprised I was that I had not considered the fact that conflict and distrust existed in North America long before non-natives arrived, rather than what I believe is often portrayed as this harmonious network of Native American tribes who slowly succumbed to encroachment by settlers. The rivalries and wars that exi...
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...te races in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century? I think it is problematic to argue certain choices or events are inevitable in history. We have the unfair advantage of looking at things in a much larger scope than people may have at the time, because we can see the consequences of the actions with the help of hindsight. But I think that we, as Historians, do future readers a disservice to create logical fallacies that a + b automatically equals c because certain events happen.
Overall, Facing East was an original work that gave me a fresh perspective of how the history of a nation has been taught, and how we may look at what may have been the perspective of a people who could not leave enough evidence to argue their case for fighting to the death for something they felt so passionately about – land, their families, and their heritage.
In Our savage neighbors written by Peter Silver, violence and terror characterized the relationship between the Indians and the Pennsylvanian colonists. The conspectus of Silver’s book resides on the notion that fear was the prime motivator that led to the rebirth
Not many know about Dragging Canoe and the battle he fought during the American Revolutionary War. The Native American’s role in the Revolutionary War was very important, but not well known. As a result, the Revolutionary War can come across as one-sided. Dragging Canoe fought for the Native American’s existence in the colonies. First, he was strongly opposed to Henderson’s Purchase or also called the Transylvania Purchase. Secondly, Dragging Canoe’s raid at “Battle of the Bluffs” became an issue for the colonists. And lastly, there was negotiating done between the British and Colonists would somehow effect Dragging Canoe, his warriors, and the future for the Native Americans.
There are many ways in which we can view the history of the American West. One view is the popular story of Cowboys and Indians. It is a grand story filled with adventure, excitement and gold. Another perspective is one of the Native Plains Indians and the rich histories that spanned thousands of years before white discovery and settlement. Elliot West’s book, Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado, offers a view into both of these worlds. West shows how the histories of both nations intertwine, relate and clash all while dealing with complex geological and environmental challenges. West argues that an understanding of the settling of the Great Plains must come from a deeper understanding, a more thorough knowledge of what came before the white settlers; “I came to believe that the dramatic, amusing, appalling, wondrous, despicable and heroic years of the mid-nineteenth century have to be seen to some degree in the context of the 120 centuries before them” .
Some of the problems when studying history are the texts and documents that have been discovered are only from perspective. Furthermore, on occasion that one perspective is all there may be for historians to study. A good example of this textual imbalance can be found from the texts about the discovery of the New World; more specifically, the letters of Christopher Columbus and Pêro Vaz de Caminha during their voyages to the New World. Plenty of the text from this time is written from the perspective of the Europeans, as the Indigenous population did not have any written text. What this means is that it provided only one perspective, which can drastically hinder how history is interpreted. Columbus’s letter of his first voyage to the Caribbean
...h and the French and Indians, but shows some of the ironic nature of this conflict: that due to kidnapping and tribal adoption, some Abenaki Indians were likely to have almost as many English ancestors as the frontiersmen they opposed. The English frontiersmen could be as "savage" as the Indians. Brumwell does very well dispelling the clichés and stereotypes that many have become accustomed to. He uses records of the Abenaki Indian oral tradition to give a voice to both sides. It is a great book from start to finish. This is a true history buffs companion and a great addition to any library. The book is as complex in its knowledge as it is simplistic and detailed in its imagery. As a result, this book can be read by both specialists and general readers alike and can be pared with almost any text giving light to the French and Indian War or the aftermath thereof.
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
In a lively account filled that is with personal accounts and the voices of people that were in the past left out of the historical armament, Ronald Takaki proffers us a new perspective of America’s envisioned past. Mr. Takaki confronts and disputes the Anglo-centric historical point of view. This dispute and confrontation is started in the within the seventeenth-century arrival of the colonists from England as witnessed by the Powhatan Indians of Virginia and the Wamapanoag Indians from the Massachusetts area. From there, Mr. Takaki turns our attention to several different cultures and how they had been affected by North America. The English colonists had brought the African people with force to the Atlantic coasts of America. The Irish women that sought to facilitate their need to work in factory settings and maids for our towns. The Chinese who migrated with ideas of a golden mountain and the Japanese who came and labored in the cane fields of Hawaii and on the farms of California. The Jewish people that fled from shtetls of Russia and created new urban communities here. The Latinos who crossed the border had come in search of the mythic and fabulous life El Norte.
Axtell, James. “Native Reactions to the Invasion of North America.” Beyond 1492: Encounters in Colonial North America. New York: Oxford UP, 1992. 97-121. Print.
Borneman, Walter. The French and Indian War: Deciding the Fate of North America. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006.
Daniel Richter's Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America, turns many heads as Richter changes the traditional outlook of the Westward expansion all the way to the American Revolution by viewing certain events through the eyes of the Native Americans who were settled in this land years before the new colonizations started. It was not easy to try and make a complete work about the different perspectives that the Natives had, due to the fact that many sources are works from Europeans or they were filtered by them. Richter explains that Native people sketch out elaborative paintings in their house or on barks of living trees, many of these sources obviously have not lasted long enough for us to examine. This book, however gives great detail and fully analyzes the "aggressively expansionist Euro-American United States" (p. 8-7) that rose from what belonged to Indian Country. Richter challenges you to compose a new framework of the Indian and European encounters reforming the "master narrative" of early American colonization from the Native point of view.
In 1850, Native Americans inhabited areas from Kansas to some parts of Oregon, and almost all the land between. Once the Americans were swayed with the philosophy of Manifest Destiny, they rushed to the West seeking land, money, or salvation. Land issues arose when the Americans and Indians met. Whether it was solved with conflict or compromise, it still ended up in hostility. Battles such as The Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 had no sign of negotiation at all, just warfare. When treaties were “passed”, or forced, they would be insignificant because it always tended to be one-sided by the Americans, and it was common for them to not uphold the treaty. After enraging the Indians, more fights would break out. Americans showed no mercy for the Natives at all. They force Indians to give away land and then restrict them into small reservations, where they would have to give up all their customs and traditions and follow the lifesty...
One of the critical tasks that faced the new nation of the United States was establishing a healthy relationship with the Native Americans (Indians). “The most serious obstacle to peaceful relations between the United States and the Indians was the steady encroachment of white settlers on the Indian lands. The Continental Congress, following [George] Washington’s suggestion, issued a proclamation prohibiting unauthorized settlement or purchase of Indian land.” (Prucha, 3) Many of the Indian tribes had entered into treaties with the French and British and still posed a military threat to the new nation.
...storians must learn what these authors all teach by their consensus novels, that teaching history through a sided story is the only way to determine all perspectives of history. We must understand that the voices of the outsiders matter just as much as the powerful. Richter and Johnson shed light on how difficult live can be as the low-class through the suffrage of Indians and slaves. Ambinder and Holton show that the outsiders still had the ability to change their destiny. Both of these details are misplaced in history text books because history is taught on a factual basis. We teach history in facts that the white powerful leaders wrote for us, therefore the losers are left out. History is a two sided story, which means we must teach both sides of the losers and the winners. This is the only way to understand the lives of the world’s lost voices of the outsiders.
America began in 1607 with the colonial settlement Jamestown, founded by John Smith. Further north, the Puritans settled in the New England area, survived the first winter, and befriended the Indians. Afterwards, they celebrated the First Thanksgiving with the Indians, starting their friendship (Campbell, 2007, Pre – 1650, para. 14). The more and more Puritans immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony around the 1630s seeking religious freedom. From 1636 – 1637 tension rose between the Indians and settlers, which caused the Pequot War (Campbell, 2007, Pre – 1650s, para. 18). The Americans prevailed by teaming up to defeat a common threat. The Puritans encountered a new enemy: The Quakers. The Puritans disliked them, and harmed them in many ways. But that all stopped when Parliament ordered them to. Another Indian war came into play from 1675 – 1678, King Philip’s War. It happened because the pilgrims executed three Wampanoag Indians (Campbell, 2007, 1650, para. 11). Events in colonial America simmered down until 1692. When killing Indians wasn’t enough, the settlers started killing each other. The Salem With Trials be...
The Native Americans or American Indians, once occupied all of the entire region of the United States. They were composed of many different groups, who speaked hundreds of languages and dialects. The Indians from the Southwest used to live in large built terraced communities and their way of sustain was from the agriculture where they planted squash, pumpkins, beans and corn crops. Trades between neighboring tribes were common, this brought in additional goods and also some raw materials such as gems, cooper. seashells and soapstone.To this day, movies and television continue the stereotype of Indians wearing feathered headdresses killing innocent white settlers. As they encountered the Europeans, automatically their material world was changed. The American Indians were amazed by the physical looks of the white settlers, their way of dressing and also by their language. The first Indian-White encounter was very peaceful and trade was their principal interaction. Tension and disputes were sometimes resolved by force but more often by negotiation or treaties. On the other hand, the Natives were described as strong and very innocent creatures awaiting for the first opportunity to be christianized. The Indians were called the “Noble Savages” by the settlers because they were cooperative people but sometimes, after having a few conflicts with them, they seem to behaved like animals. We should apprehend that the encounter with the settlers really amazed the natives, they were only used to interact with people from their own race and surroundings and all of this was like a new discovery for them as well as for the white immigrants. The relations between the English and the Virginian Indians was somewhat strong in a few ways. They were having marriages among them. For example, when Pocahontas married John Rolfe, many said it has a political implication to unite more settlers with the Indians to have a better relation between both groups. As for the Indians, their attitude was always friendly and full of curiosity when they saw the strange and light-skinned creatures from beyond the ocean. The colonists only survived with the help of the Indians when they first settler in Jamestown and Plymouth. In this areas, the Indians showed the colonists how to cultivate crops and gather seafood.The Indians changed their attitude from welcome to hostility when the strangers increased and encroached more and more on hunting and planting in the Natives’ grounds.