Where the White Man Went Wrong

Chapter 2 of Native Nations states the injustices Native Americans endured with the arrival of Europeans. We've all heard it before - disease, conflict, greed, murder. Native peoples' cultures became completely transformed and assimilated into European society... for the most part. One interesting notion that I remember learning in my Colonial American class last year was that pigs were not readily accepted among native peoples (among other things) because they competed for food resources, such as nuts, berries, and the like of hunter-forager societies. However, the natives eventually accepted these pigs and domesticated them to then be sold at the market. European Christians should have seemingly been please by these actions, but instead, they ridiculed natives because they tagged the ears of the pigs. Natives had to keep track of their pigs somehow, but Europeans decided tagging was unfit; Europeans often haggled natives for their pigs, or simply stole them altogether since the only means the natives had of tracking them was taken away.

One of the saddest consequences that still resonates heavily with Native Americans today is the introduction of guns and liquor. I remember in my own personal experience and travels out west having encountered several drunken Native Americans who looked so weathered and worn by the treacherous ways of society. Interestingly enough, the fact that liquor was given to natives in such high quantity violated European policy since guns and liquor were negatively associated, so these “offerings” were clearly given with maliciously, among other things. This affected the way Native Americans dealt with conflict and unleashed violent potential. Out at field school, we learned that the Cahuilla Indians would sings songs to each other to express anger in a non-violent way that still got the point across. What a non-animalistic and respectful way to deal with these types of situations! And to think, Europeans called Native Americans savages….

Another injustice that Bonvillain states in the chapter is in regard to “land rights”. Native Americans and Europeans held much different concepts of what it meant to own land. For instance, a tribe might own a piece of territory by way of conquering it, but when they give permission for another tribe to live on the property, the land still technically belongs to the conquering tribe, while the other tribe simply resides there. Europeans felt that land was bought and sold entirely, with no further attachments. Therefore, when land sales came about, Native Americans and Europeans weren’t under the same assumptions when these transactions occurred.

Leaving with an uplifting note, I always thought this picture was pretty funny, explaining where the white man went wrong…