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Inaccurate or skewed Native American-Colonist relationship…discussion
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In preparation for our history studies next year, I’ve been doing some research on my own in the form of documentaries to refresh my memory. We will be studying American History: Exploration-Revolution and using TruthQuest as the back bone of our studies and resources. Something I didn’t realize as a child that I think I understand now is that *most* history books and movies portray the relationship between the Native Americans and early settlers/colonists inaccurately.
These books and movies portray the colonists as the persecuted heroes that ultimately win the victory over their foes, the Native Americans. I remember being taught through this perspective when I was in school. The Indians were always the enemy; the early settlers were the heroes.
In my opinion (and while I am thankful that we ultimately were able to settle this land), it seems like that is a skewed way to teach about the relationship between the Native Americans and colonists. I mean, they were here first! Even from the first time Columbus landed and even took Native Americans back to Spain with him several times, and subsequently sent missionaries over to evangelize the natives. Of course, these natives needed to hear the Good News of Christ, but they didn’t really receive the truth, did they? And then when the first English settlers arrived in Jamestown, there are stories of Indian massacres and the helpless Englishmen who were left defenseless in this foreign land. But why do we not ever teach from the Native American perspective? That they were here first, this was their land and they weren’t hunting the settlers, but were trying to defend their own land and people.
Of course, as the relationship between Native Americans and the settlers, pioneers, and ultimately the American government, the white man continues to be seen as the “hero” while the natives are seen as savages who are out to destroy us. How do we reconcile the two perspectives and teach our children the truth of both sides? That white men and explorers really did see themselves as superior to the natives and did their fair share of massacres, persecution, enslaving, and hunting the Native Americans? How do we teach our children that the early settlers weren’t really the heroes traditional history books and documentaries have made them out to be?
This is just to engage in discussion on a topic that I don’t find is talked about much. I’d love to hear from those of you who have taught from both perspectives. What resources did you find that accurately portrayed the relationship for what it truly was? Do these resources exist?
Thanks,
Lindsey
Hi Lindsey, in Canada this topic actually is talked about and taught a lot! Native/English relations is one of our issues, culturally speaking. I have taught my kids (or tried to) from both perspectives right from the beginning when we very first started to study Native Americans in Canadian History. We study this topic first because, chronologically speaking, you’re right, they were here first. I have several resources that I use as discussion points for this however I am not sure if you would be interested in them because they are considered Canadian. I basically teach it with the basic goal being that I want my kids to come to the understanding that many times in history there are not necessarily “good guys” vs. “bad guys” as people tend to want to simplify it to. A lot of times it is just people, and people do good things AND bad things. In EVERY culture, race and country. It can be difficult, but it is very important to try to see history from as non-biased of a perspective as possible. This is great training in empathy.
Your comment on Christopher Columbus was interesting to me. He is considered and taught about as though he was such a great man and that he was God fearing, etc. Yet what is seldom discussed are the HORRIBLLY cruel and disgusting methods he used to accomplish his goals, however good intentioned he may have been. Unfortunately, many European explorers and missionaries who came with the intent to witness and share the gospel with the Natives did so with an air of superiority and by using much brutality. In many cases it made it harder for future generations of Native Americans to accept God as their saviour and in many cases gave them an impression of Christianity that is totally the opposite of what Christ Himself would have given.
In my opinion this is one of the reasons that history is such an important topic to teach!
-Miranda
Lindsey, I love this discussion. My boys are 6 and 8. A couple of years ago, they watched the old Disney Davy Crockett, and were happy to play cowboys and Indians…where the Indians were the bad guys. I will never forget my younger’s face when I sat him down and explained to him that we are part Native American….Cherokee and others. He was astounded that our (very white looking) family could be that way. It has opened up a lot of natural discussions about people and how, at the time, they truly believe they are doing something helpful, though time often reveals tragic consequences.
Living in Alaska, there are a lot of Native Alaskan/European /American interactions….political, relational, emotional, spiritual. God is doing mighty things among the Native communities here, but there are still many hard aspects of life that linger as a result of European influence.
Historically speaking, history is always taught from the winner’s perspective even in ancient times or pre-European Americas. Think about the results of the US Civil War. We studied Plymouth and Pilgrims vs. Jamestown when I was a child in the early 70s because of its location in the North. In fact most Americans today still believe Plymouth was the first English colony, although that is slowly changing. Historically, the winner of any conflict has all rights to paint the picture to his liking, this was true in the Old World (Egypt, Alexander the Great, Khan, Charlemagne, Norman conquest, etc.) and in the Americas – think of the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas (since most US Americans are more familiar with these native nations than they are with those in their own country) and usually portrayed the victory as divinely given. If you think about it, no one ever tries to get the Normans to apologize or pay retribution for invading England or the French for taking the northern Papal states or Germany for annexing all the smaller German states or (until recently, talking about historically) the Russians from annexing the Crimea once the takeover was complete. One of the big differences with the Americans was the duplicity – sign this treaty and the US will abide by it as long as you don’t break it and it doesn’t inconvenience us. Studying history from varying sides is a relatively modern concept.
Honestly, I haven’t read any of the books we’ll be using next year, except for a few picture books. I’ve chosen carefully, I believe, but I still don’t know if the books we’re going to read are written from a biased perspective of the explorers/settlers/colonists being the white, hard-working, persevering, overcoming Christian heroes and the Natives being the brutal, stealthy, killing, pagan savages.
I started thinking about this for the first time last year when we reading the Heroes of Faith biography about Christopher Columbus. He was portrayed as this God-fearing, missionary Christ-bearer, and I’m just not sure that’s totally accurate. There was A LOT of “convert or die” business going on. No matter how well-intentioned the explorers, missionaries, and colonists were, they basically stole an entire culture and belief system away from these native peoples in the name of Christ and country, enslaving, torturing, and even killing those who would not convert. On the other hand, there was an entire culture and belief system that had never heard the name of Jesus or experienced the love of a real God. Unfortunately, I don’t think the white men went into their “missions” with love as their primary motivation. The motivation was to claim and conquer, and Christianity/Catholicism was but one means to the end goal of total domination over this new land.
I feel like I’m kind of rambling now, but I’d love to hear from more of you who have had these discussions with your children and/or taught history from an unbiased perspective.
I’ve actually felt that we have gotten a pretty balanced view. If anything I get annoyed when the white Europeans are portrayed as always aggressive and in the wrong when there were periods of peace. Overall though the French seem to have done much better than the English. I wish I could remember off the top of my head which books were best on this. Two we used a lot were This Country of Ours and Sweet Land of Liberty and I think both were good. I did blog posts on the books we used. If you go to my blog http://www.lettersfromnebby.wordpress.com and search on “settlement” you should find them.
Nebby
Lindsey, have you yet read the TQ commentary about all of this? I think you might find it helpful. Also, you really aren’t going to find a “balanced” book here. You will find older books, which have varying degrees of the weaknesses you have noticed, and then modern books, which portray the Indians as wonderful enlightened peaceful environmentalists ruined by bad greedy white people. The best approach is probably to weed out the nastiest on either side, choose a few from the middle, and then discuss this. Talk to your kids about the bias you see; talk about how fear can cause people to behave so badly; talk about what legitimate tools we have to share and spread the Gospel, and where the Europeans went wrong. Talk about the mistakes on both sides.
I agree with Bookworm that TQ has some good commentary on the issue. I think it also depends on the ages of your kids. I have discussed this with my eleven year olds, but not to the degree that we may in high school. I don’t know of any resources that would be completely balanced. Most texts will slant perhaps to one degree or the other. However, please stay away from Howard Zinn. His revisionist history creates a shame about even being an American. I love our country and I want to pass that love on to my children. I will not do this by sugar coating tough issues by any means. We as a country have made plenty of mistakes and have done some very ugly things to people, but there are likewise many reasons to be proud of being Americans. (Can you tell I have just seen American by Dinesh DeSouza…highly recommend!)
Actually, for a mature student, Zinn can be quite interesting. My oldest once read it, coupled with the William Bennett books, to get an idea of slant both ways. Zinn is completely off base economically, but he has a lot of value to say about things I’d never been taught—like, for instance, how we treated Filipinos who wanted their own country. I want my children to be proud to be Americans, but unfortunately it is difficult to always be proud of our GOVERNMENT which has done some pretty toe-curling things. There is a very distinct difference between being proud to be American and being proud of all the government has done. (Yes, I know, I’m probably on the NSA watch list–but I probably already was because I read libertarian blogs and have read the Linux Journal. 🙂 )
I plan to discuss just this same thing with my kids as we study this topic. It should be eye opening to see that each story does in fact have 2 sides and both can be factual, similar, and different; just like when they each give their own version of an event here at the house and I must figure out the truth using both their versions. LOL Sometimes I am spot on and sometimes, not so much…. I am going to be studying the new testament as well and will also point out that the bible gives us different versions of same events and we use these different version to know the truth of the events. Police and newspaper reporters also use similar descriptions from eye witnesses to determine what really happened. One person’s version usually isn’t enough…
I just finished reading a book called “Bury my Heart at WoundedKnee” by Dee Brown and it gives the history of the winning of the west from the point of view of those who lost it. It was very eye opening to me,and made me realize all of the injustice that went on. Very good book to read. I intend to read through it all again and map out the history and geography of it. Well worth the time to read it.
Growing up in Oklahoma very close to two of the five civilized tribes, I have had privy to so much information regarding this topic. I will say that for me, it was very eye opening to see the perspective of those who lost their land and way of life rather than what I’d always been taught in school. I am Native American, so we will study this in a very balanced way.
As a Canadian, looking at Canadian history through adult eyes (and just what I’ve learned so far – not my good subject when I was a student) maybe we have it a little easier as we had natives on the French side… and Natives on the English Side…. so we learn even with biased history that some natives were ‘good guys’, and some were ‘bad guys’. Of course, at some point one needs to come to a realization that mostly people were people….
There is a book called ‘Who Killed Canadian History’ that (from memory) discusses how Canadian History has been taught for the last several decades has killed most interest in Canadian history. Disjointed bits and pieces – mostly on minority topics, and an emphasis on almost putting Canada down. There was no suggestions on resources to help one fix it…. the main recommendation I can remember was teaching it Chronologically… which I intended to do anyway.
All that just to say… yes, try to get more than one side of the story…. including some of the bsd that the ‘good guys’ did…. but don’t go to the other extreme either.
I love this discussion because I love history. I had a passionate teacher in school, went on to major in history and then teach in a public school for many years. I wish that I could say that you could totally teach in an unbiased way, but because we are errant human beings, it is a bit more difficult. I do believe there are books that lend themselves more towards bias and that is why I cautioned against Zinn. I do think going to extremes as suzukimom noted is a bit dangerous…in terms of teaching history. Each family must make there own decisions about this so I’m not berating those who choose to read him or other more biased text. I think there is a trend in the past years to make America out to be a monster and I believe we must be careful to not teach from shame.
Believe me, I don’t overlook the negative parts of our history. There are plenty and my kiddos are aware. I don’t think there is a nation in history that has a spotless shiny record because we are all sinners…from the dawn of time. I think that is why history is so great to teach our kids in conjunction with God’s Word. We can study history and realize it is a story of people just like ourselves. I often wonder how this century will be judged in the future. There are many great people that I want my kids to know about who were leaders in this country…people who weren’t perfect…people who made bad decisions and many good ones as well. I will keep putting the good and bad in front of them to the best of my ability…
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