Stereotypes Of The Mohican Ironworkers

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Mohican Indians who were ironworkers were called sky walkers. They built large steel structures such as buildings and bridges. The reason they were called sky walkers is because they would balance on steel beams in order to lay the foundation of buildings (mostly skyscrapers) which were high up in the air. While later on they worked in large cities like New York the ironworkers are from the Caughnawaga tribe. The Mohican ironworkers have been around for a very long time and ironworking has had a large impact on their community that lasts today.
Before the construction boom that helped to provide jobs for Native Americans, the Mohican Indians had a connection to ironworking through the collapse of a bridge. Thirty three men died working on a …show more content…

Oftentimes when people think of Indians they think of animal skins, hunting on reservations, and being very close to nature. This movie and the ironworkers portrayed a very different image of what Indians are really like. They live in urban areas (such as the apartments in Brooklyn), they used modern technology (in order to build the buildings), they dressed in western clothes (such as the jeans and vest seen in both videos), and they had a Christian church (which was a very typical church in appearance and what was taught, the only change was the language they used). All of these things portrayed in the movie took this defining stereotype that Indians are close with nature and do not use modern technology and completely defies …show more content…

This idea that Indians are “uncivilized” comes from many different things, how their culture and lifestyle did not coincide with western values and the idea of the “Noble Savage” particularly the “savage” part. In the video one of the Brooklyn residents said that the people “thought [Indians] were scalpers and not very nice people” which helps to show that Indians were seen as less moral and were not seen to have a set of rules like most “civilized” societies (To Brooklyn and Back). The fact that Native Americans were helping to build steel buildings in an urban area negates this idea that Native Americans are less “civilized” because they have a hand in making something that western culture approves of and see as something highly

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