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EN220/IN250, American Identity, O'Conner |
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Native Americans: The First Americans
In the discussion of American identity and the American Dream, Native Americans are often missed in the bigger picture.
When Europeans first arrived on the North American continent in the fifteenth century, there were approximately 18 million people living in North America, with 5 million of those living in the land that is today the United States. According to the census conducted in 1910 by the U.S. government-the government that established itself as a ruling power of North America about 28,000 years after the first people migrated there-there were 210,000 native people left in the country. How did it happen that over a mere 400 years, the native population of what we call the United States was reduced by almost 96%? Most concretely, this reduction was due to vast differences in the technologies of war, the introduction of diseases to which the native populations had not developed immunities, and the destruction of native ways of life, including the unprecedented exploitation of the land and the near-elimination of traditional game such as the buffalo and beaver. Ideologically, not so long ago in this country the story would have been told as the triumph of civilized, advanced, Christian society over untamed, primitive, heathen barbarism. Indeed, from the earliest European settlements until about World War II, many Americans would have agreed with that basic narrative, even if many would no doubt have pointed out the tragedy of such a dramatic loss of life. But in recent decades, scholars of culture, history, and literature have seen the story very differently, as a tale of a Europe whose cultural assumptions left no room for acknowledging the humanity, integrity, and sophistication that had existed on the continent long before they arrived. Native cultures were only "primitive" if one assumed that all culture was destined to become more or less like Europe, and particularly only if one assumed that technology was a prime criterion of "civilization." They were only "heathen" if one assumed that Christianity was the one true religion (indeed, an "advanced" religion, in that it was generally seen as the Enlightened correction of ancient pantheism, and even as the true expression of what was only hinted at in the Judaic Old Testament [see module 3 on typological thinking]). With their rich and complex traditions and beliefs, their time-tested and accomplished daily practices of life, it would never occurred to pre-Columbian Native Americans (that is, North Americans who lived before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492) that they needed to be corrected or saved by Europe. And while some did indeed find promise in the newly introduced culture, many experienced its arrival as the beginning of the end-a source of oppression, intimidation, and destruction. However, as beleaguered as Indians and Indian culture have been over the last four centuries, the story should not be thought of solely as one of defeat and despair: not only had the native U.S. population risen to close to 1.5 million by 1980, but the cultures have remained sources of healing, inspiration, and strength for many native people. And the last few decades have seen a profusion of important Native American literature, literature that draws on the old traditions of storytelling and performance even as it revises and rewrites them to apply to the present day. Writers like Luci Tapahonso, Simon Ortiz, and Leslie Marmon Silko make textual the oral tradition, combining traditional elements with European forms of literature, such as the novel and the short story. In this way, they find a voice to tell the story of a people whose voice has been too often silent. - from American Passages, D. Pagano
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