“Native American History,”
or Native American History: Accurate & Comprehensive History, Origins, Culture, Tribes, Legends, Mythology, Wars, Stories & More of The Native Indigenous Americans by the History Brought Alive company
is written by various unnamed authors. It is indeed a “compelling, but difficult read.” For those new to the subject, it's eye-opening and illuminating. If you've been reading books about Native Americans since the 1970s, you may want to look for something more exhaustive and less one-sided.
Spanning thousands of years and almost as many ideas, this is a sweeping, illuminating, and broad history of the people who first found their way to North America. It celebrates the sustainable lifestyle of one vast continent's first human occupants, in stark contrast to the destructive attitudes and practices of invading Europeans who had long occupied another continent on the opposite side of the globe. Public awareness is increasing to the point that "more and more people are showing respect by acknowledging the heritage of the land and of the people who lived on it for thousands of years. This new practice is called Land Acknowledgment. It is now common to hear or read a Land Acknowledgment" at the outset of a public event, "recognizing the historical fact that European colonizers stole Indigenous Peoples' land in North America."
#Multiculturalism and #LandAcknowledgments may be new, but most of the history in this book has been told before, and not just in "dry," academic encyclopedias. Some new material is offered in the opening chapters on how the first humans set foot in North America 15,000 (if not 25,000!) years ago. Scientists keep finding more evidence about humans who lived before the written record and whose fossil record is mostly underwater. If you’ve never heard of the Kelp Highway, this book does offer a swift summary of this new theory of prehistoric maritime travel.
"Whether you're a history enthusiast or a curious reader," the publisher of this book promises, "inside you will discover all you need to know about the true story of Native American History."
I will let slide the assertion that the book offers "all you need to know" (no 139-page book can do that), but I do feel a need to challenge the claim that "In the pages that follow, you’ll find well written, concise and accurate information without bias." I respectfully disagree that there is no bias here. This is not the most "concise" and "accurate" account I've read, nor does it go where books and movies have never dared to go before. This is a sweeping assertion: “It tells the story of Native American History which many have books left out, and the moviemakers wouldn't touch. Reading this book will be an eye opener.”
Yes, this book is "eye opening," but it would be misleading to think there has been a paucity of literature on the horrors of Western Civilization encroaching from the Old World and despoiling the New World. Yes, a lot of the books “tend to be dry and dull like an old-fashioned encyclopedia,” and most Americans seem to be pathetically misinformed, uninformed, and unaware of the history of the great people who lived here first.
Even this book neglects the contributions of free-spirited native tribes who inspired the U.S. Constitution of 1776, as Ian Frazier does in On the Rez . I wonder how many of us know that “Iroquois Indians attended meetings of the colonists in the years before the American Revolution and advised them to unite in a scheme for self-government based on the confederacy that ruled six Iroquois nations.” Frazier’s book is more than 20 years old now but still timely, relevant, compelling, illuminating, and “eye opening” in ways that this 139-page history is not. You can read Chapter One here:
CHAPTER ONE
On the Rez
By IAN FRAZIER
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
"The popular refrain about Indians nowadays is that they and their culture were cruelly destroyed. It's a breast-beatingly comfortable idea, from the destroyers' point of view. In the nineteenth century, with white people firmly established on the continent, common wisdom had it that the Indian must eventually die out. That meant die, literally, and give way in a Darwinian sense to the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon. . . . In the twentieth century, stories of the Indians' destruction, set mostly in the past tense, made a follow-up to this comfortable idea. From one century to the next, the destruction of the Indians was such a common theme that if they did not die out in fact, by the sound of it they might as well have. But beyond the sphere of rhetoric, the Indians as a people did not die out, awful though the suffering was. Killing people is one thing, killing them off is another."
-- from the first chapter of 'On the Rez'
But there's more to the story. As an American, I love this part: In leaving the Old World, U.S. colonists embraced many values they witnessed among inhabitants of the “New” World. Americans didn't inherit their love of freedom from just the Pilgrims and Founding Fathers; their ideals of freedom were modeled after the Native American spirit.
“In colonial times,” Frazier writes, “Indians were known for their disregard of titles and for a deep egalitarianism that made them not necessarily defer even to the leading men of their tribes. The route this trait took as it passed from Indian to white was invisible….However the transfer happened, in a few generations it was complete; the American character had become thoroughly Indian in its outspokenness and all-around skepticism on the subject of who was and was not great.”
Sorry to say, “Native American History” did not include such a quintessential part of the story.
I.e., this book is not as new as it purports to be, and not nearly as exhaustive and detailed as older books. In 1881, Helen Hunt Jackson published "A Century of Dishonor", a hefty book detailing a sordid history of injustices against Native Americans. She exposed many wrongs perpetrated by her fellow Americans. More than a hundred years ago, she spoke up (using the terminology of her time):
"There are within the limits of the United States between two hundred and fifty and three hundred thousand Indians, exclusive of those in Alaska … There is not among these three hundred bands of Indians one which has not suffered cruelly at the hands either of the Government or of white settlers. The poorer, the more insignificant, the more helpless the band, the more certain the cruelty and outrage to which they have been subjected.”
Sadly, not enough people listened. Helen Hunt Jackson also wrote:
"President after president has appointed commission after commission to inquire into and report upon Indian affairs, and to make suggestions as to the best methods of managing them. The reports are filled with eloquent statements of wrongs done to the Indians, of perfidies on the part of the Government; they counsel, as earnestly as words can, a trial of the simple and unperplexing expedients of telling truth, keeping promises, making fair bargains, dealing justly in all ways and all things. These reports are bound up with the Government’s Annual Reports, and that is the end of them. It would probably be no exaggeration to say that not one American citizen out of ten thousand ever sees them or knows that they exist, and yet any one of them, circulated throughout the country, read by the right-thinking, right-feeling men and women of this land, would be of itself a 'campaign document' that would initiate a revolution which would not subside until the Indians’ wrongs were, so far as is now left possible, righted."
See more (lots more!) here:
A Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government’s Dealings with some of the Indian Tribes by Helen Hunt Jackson
In short, having read a lot of history books since my 1970s childhood, my eyes have long been "open" to the tragic and terrible saga of native North Americans being displaced and even exterminated by invading Europeans. If you've never read much, you might believe this is the most authoritative and definitive book to tell the story of the first inhabitants of North America.
Not a single good deed, accomplishment, or moral value is attributed to Western Civ, and not a single negative trait is associated with Indigenous tribes. It seems disingenuous to portray one culture as entirely evil, rapacious, and destructive, with no redeeming virtues whatsoever, and the other side as entirely good and right, seemingly innocent of doing any kind of harm to their fellow humans.
No bias toward any Indigeneous tribe shows up in these pages, but I saw a lot of generalizations and assertions about Western Civ, e.g.,
"In Western cultures, value and actions often revolve around the idea of capitalism so that each person should try to get as much as possible for themselves, regardless of the outcome it might have on other people or the land and environment. It is generally considred valid, understandable, and even admirable for an individual in Western culture to hoard wealth and resources away from others."
The message gets repeated throughout the book. "Europeans had a long history of property and resource ownership" (true). "In their culture, it was considered morally correct to hoard food and shelter and then to let people die because they could not access those basic necessities, even though the necessities did exist plentifully" (not so true). That is an extraordinary claim to make about the prevailing, defining characteristics of Western Civ. In no way do I mean to diminish the horror of human history, the sins of our fathers, the harm done by one people to another. However, I cannot award five stars to an agenda that presents one side as entirely evil and the other as all good. Yes, the Indigenous people were wise and good stewards of the earth, but to ascribe no moral virtues to Westerners and no human evil to the Indigenous is… disingenuous. Yes, within each tribe, people took care of each other, and they lived sustainably, not destroying and polluting the environment, but slavery, torture, war, pillaging, and conquest were not unique to Westerners. To pick just one tribe depicted in this book, Tthe Haida people of the Pacific Northwest, we see a “complex social structure based on hierarchy groupings, including enslaving people from conflicts with mainland tribes; other tribes knew them to be warriors, with a culture not unlike the Vikings.”
Acquisition, power, property, wealth, status: these are not uniquely Western traits. In some tribes, “Potlatches were used to demonstrate to others how wealthy and powerful a family was,” the authors narrate with apparent admiration vs judgment. “The chief of the family hosting the Potlatch would offer gifts to all who came, including art, tools, boats, food, enslaved laborers, or territory rights for hunting and fishing.”
Wait. What? Gifts of one enslaved human to another? This is ok?
“The guests would be expected to remember and recount this generosity and wealth to continue to build up the host family’s reputation of high social status and history.”
All of this is good and admirable? Because it was practiced on a smaller scale on a vast continent that was sparsely populated and settled, compared to Europe?
Dare I trot out the term “double standards”--?
That’s only one part of the story. I know, I know. Please don’t think I’m dismissing this book as not worth your time reading. It’s just that so many, many great books are already out there, but largely forgotten. E.g., John Upton Terrell, in the 1970s, wrote a great series which included Indian Women of the Western Morning: Their Life in Early America, The Navajos: The Past and Present of a Great People, “Apache Chronicle,” and more. In his Author’s Note in “The Navajos,” he hammers home the not-so-new-after-all message of the book I'm reviewing:
“Of all the pernicious pressures upon the Navajos (indeed, upon all Indians) the most difficult to combat is a product of American society that is as old as American sovereignty itself, yet is seldom publicly acknowledged and never officially specified. It is a conglomerate of greed, bias, religious humbug, intellectual snobbishness, and self-righteousness held together by the morar of racial prejudice.”
So, the things I read and agree with in “Native American History” are not news to me. If this book is eye-opening, it is not for lack of 50 to 100 years of other books telling the same sad story. The problem is not that such books are movies aren’t made; it’s that they’re not widely read. I believe the faces of Geronimo, Pontiac, Red Cloud, Black Hawk, and countless others should be as familiar to American school kids as the faces of our Founding Fathers. Their exploits, too, should be well known to us. The trueu story of Sequoyah writing the first alphabet of the Cherokee is neglected while the urban legend of Washington chopping down the cherry tree ("Father, I cannot tell a lie") lives on.
The way Indigenous children were taken from their families and “schooled” by white Americans is a blight in our history, horrific and unconscionable, with repercussions that keep going from generation to generation. (Facebook groups are filled with historical photos showing these children in stiff button-up shirts and pants, seated at desks, when they should be with their parents in the great outdoors, learning life skills and living free.) The trauma of stripping children of their loving families, their language, their traditions, their lifestyles, and imposing on them the white man’s language and values, is certainly addressed here, and sadly, this may be the most accurate and true part of the book. Again, see Helen Hunt Jackson for a great deal more detail. This book offers only a swift summation. You can also google it and find a gazillion good articles and photos, which would be much quicker than reading the Jackson book. E.g.,
The U.S. history of Native American Boarding Schools
Written By Melissa Mejia for National Geographic:
Native American Boarding Schools (also known as Indian Boarding Schools) were established by the U.S. government in the late 19th century as an effort to assimilate Indigenous youth into mainstream American culture through education. This era was part of the United States’ overall attempt to kill, annihilate, or assimilate Indigenous peoples and eradicate Indigenous culture.
Attendance to the boarding schools was made mandatory by the U.S. Government regardless of whether or not Indigenous families gave their consent. Upon arrival, Native children were given Anglo-American names, bathed in kerosene, given military-style clothing in exchange for their traditional clothing, and their hair would be shaved off for the boys and cut into short bob styles for girls.
Native students were not allowed to speak in their Native languages. They were only allowed to speak English regardless of their fluency and would face punishment if they didn’t. The discipline enforced at these boarding schools was severe. Punishments varied and included privilege restrictions, diet restrictions, threats of corporal punishment, and even confinement. Additionally, Native students were neglected and faced many forms of abuse including physical, sexual, cultural, and spiritual. They were beaten, coerced into performing heavy labor. Their daily regimen consisted of several hours of marching and recreational time consisted of watching disturbing movies such as Cowboys and Indians.
There's more, soooo much more, at the site linked above, including this: Richard Henry Pratt, Headmaster of the Carlisle Indian School for 25 years, famously stated,
“A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”
Beyond Horrible! Haunting, Horrific!
The book barely even touches on it. You can find more more more all over the internet, more than what this 139-page book can offer.
And now to step into murky waters of daring to challenge the overall tone or theme of this book:
It is right to acknowledge validity to the Indigenous “ways of knowing”
and the outrage of trying to replace them with entirely Western ways. However, the authors continue to make sweeping generalizations that insinuate nothing good can be said for the West. E.g., “Unlike the Western view that knowledge must be tested and ‘proven’ to be validated, Indigenous ways of knowing encompass a broader affirmation and validity of knowledge from many sources.” Each Indigenous nation has its own creation story, their ways of knowing “should be regarded as sacred and an equally valid way of learning and sharing information.”
Replacing their stories with Judeo-Christian-Islam versions of how the world came to be is not defensible. I take a more scientific (Western) view of earth history and the mystery of humanity, and all the creation stories strike me as charming but inaccurate and incomplete, mostly conjecture or someone else’s personal vision of how things work, not to be confused with “knowledge.” I also respect the beliefs of other cultures and what they consider “sacred.” Ironically, the religious freedom on which America was founded failed to include freedom of Indigenous tribes to practice their own beliefs. Again, this is unconscionable.
The authors make many valid points but not with total accuracy and lack of bias.E.g.,
“The colonizers lacked an understanding of the relationship between the Indigenous Nations and the land. This lack of knowledge led colonizers to make poor and arrogant choices regarding the treatment of the humans and the land they encountered in the Americas, decisions which have led to the extinction of countless species of plants and animals, and ultimately even to climate change.”
Am I wrong to withhold the coveted five stars in reviewing this book? I’ve read more comprehensive books, half a century before this one, so it’s not (for me) the long awaited, much needed “eye opener” it may be for others. Also, I’m not an advocate of demonizing all things Western Civ and idealizing all things Indigenous. (They had slaves too! They raided and pillaged too! Colonialism and slavery are universal evils – not uniquely limited to Westerners.) In the 15,000+ years that Indigenous people occupied North America, they created many great things, and we would do well to emulate their lifestyle of sustainability and ecology, without giving up the technological wonders that made the writing, publication, and reading of this book possible. North America’s hunters, gatherers and warriors left no lasting harm to the landscape (aside from the extinction of large mammals such as mastodons herded over cliff edges), but on the other side of the globe, tremendous upheavals (which, yes, impacted the environment) gave us libraries, paved roads, the wheel, forged steel weapons, rifles, glass, silverware, musical instruments, orchestral compositions. Mozart, Michaelangelo, mathematicians, architecture, running water, bridges, mills, merchants, stores, and large-scale production of food, clothing, shelter, and all basic needs. Westerners are not ALL bad, all evil, all rapacious, greedy, conquering, self-serving, and detrimental to the planet.
I would caution readers that this is not so much a “history” book as it is a political statement, accurate in many ways, but not entirely so. I wouldn't use it as the sole text in any classroom. If the authors think I'm being harsh, I'm holding them to a standard modeled by others. E.g., the aforementioned John Upton Terrell:
John U. Terrell, 87; Ex-Cowboy Wrote Acclaimed Histories of the Old West BY MICHAEL J. YBARRA DEC. 4, 1988, the LA Times
John Upton Terrell, who ran away from home in his teens to become a cowboy and later gained critical acclaim as a historian of the Old West, died Thursday. He was 87.... The author of more than 40 books, Terrell’s work included war reportage, novels and children’s stories. But the silver-maned writer was best known for his histories of the Old West, a region for which he had a particular affinity. The late Times book critic Robert Kirsch called Terrell’s “Life Among the Apaches” “one of a small number of indispensable works in Western Americana.”
His other books include: “The Arrow and the Cross: A History of the American Indian and the Missionaries,” “Furs by Astor,” “Journey Into Darkness” and “Faint the Trumpet Sounds” (with George Walton). A novel, “Plume Rouge,” briefly made the New York Times best seller list before World War II.
Born in Chicago in 1900, Terrell spent time on an uncle’s ranch in Montana, engendering a love for the receding American frontier. In the eighth grade, he once told an interviewer, he grew bored, ran away from home and headed west, where he worked as a ranch hand.
He later wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle, was a West Coast editor for the old United Press and covered Gen. George Patton’s 3rd Army in World War II for Newsweek.
Restless in spirit and curious by nature, Terrell traveled to more than 30 countries and moved about the Southland for almost 30 years.... Many of his histories explored the rich Indian culture that early settlers tried to destroy and urbanization eventually subsumed. But his ken was wide-ranging.
“His eye and ear are remarkably responsive,” one reviewer said upon publication of a two-volume set documenting the fight over water rights, “War for the Colorado River.”
Again, the book I'm reviewing is not treading new ground, but it it does offer a swift (and painful!) read. My own judgment as a book critic is formed by having read many other books that offer a broader and more detailed perspective.
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Thank you for reading!
And never hesitate to comment if you disagree with me. :)
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When I read the words "land acknowledgement" my stomach went topsy turvy and I knew this book was loaded with leftist ideology. Glad you withheld 5 stars. I'm going to pass on this one, although you have piqued my interest in the subject. Great review!!!
Thank you for reading and commenting - and no, I wouldn't suggest buying the book, when so many other books do a BETTER job of delivering great stories and bios from our native Am. history!
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Thank you so much, ecency!
Interesting detailed writing about history can be understood by the readers. Thank you.
Thank you, @hsidik!