Reading from American Indians and the Problem of History

If the “task for scholars is to come to terms with Naïve American history in its entirety”, this reading inspired me to make it my task as well to challenge my own thinking about and understanding of the Native American experience in America.

            There were many points that struck me, but one of the most impacting was the idea that the “discovery” of the New World was in reality an expansion of the Old. It surprises and embarrasses me that I went to what is considered an excellent high school and my U.S. History class of not that long ago was sorely lacking much perspective, particularly historical perspective of the Indian experience. It is shocking, really, to begin to view Native Americans as “egalitarian bands” quite successfully skilled at being adaptive to technology and changing environments and living in complex organizations. There ability to see the value of maintaining their traditional and regional norms while establishing exchange networks shows a wisdom that escapes many Americans in our country today. What a different country we would be living in today is we could be “ simultaneously many people and one.”

            I learned a lot from the discussion of the European phase and found it revealing to learn that the Indians had customarily approached strangers with offers of hospitality and exchange and so approached the arriving Europeans in the same way. On the other side of this complexity, to try and imagine that many early colonizers shared parallels to the North American experience was nothing I had ever considered before. Looking at the European experience in historical context juxtaposed with the Native American experience is important to do.  I am really looking forward to learning more about the true ethnic history of  America – I had no idea how complex and interesting it is.