North American Native History Today

A town in the state of Quiz-Quiz, pre-European Mississippi.
>From "Native Land: Mississippi 1540-1798", by Mary Ann Wells, Page 25.

Trivializing native history seems to be especially important to the modern myth of "America", in the U.S.A., with the public veneration of Christopher Columbus and other European mass-murderers. If the real truth about these villains was generally known, they would not be celebrated. Learning the whole truth about Columbus, Thanksgiving, the "Pilgrims" or past American betrayals and violence can be a deeply humiliating experience for someone raised to think only the best about their country. In particular, American society seems to have an abiding problem dealing with anything even remotely controversial or unpleasant.

Traditionally, the American settlers were some of the most vicious of all Europeans in the Americas. Texans went on "coon hunts", where Indian woman and children were butchered for sport, and bounties were often offered to the public, much like the Spanish efforts and often worse. In fact, during the period of American expansion, native peoples often fled to Spanish-controlled areas for better treatment. This says little about the good nature of colonial Spanish policies; it says more about how callous and evil-minded the American settler administrations were.

The English colonists on the Atlantic coast were treacherous, lying and violent. They cheated native peoples frequently and used flimsy pretexes to start numerous brutal wars. Recorded stories of native people being invited for seemingly pleasant dinners and being poisoned are common, in a complete defiance of "thanksgiving" traditions. It's not nice to remember how ancestors were so duplicitous, and that the modern United States of America was won through little more than genocide, deceit, war and murderous treachery. Who would want to remember a history like that? It might seem better to invent lies, casually omit the truth when convenient, and forget about the past.

For a long time Americans tossed aside the remains of native civilizations in an almost deliberate attempt to wipe the memory of native peoples from the land. School history texts barely mention native people or their countless contributions to modern American society.

The truth seems just a little to hard to bear. But things are changing; dissident scholars and authors, as well as teachers and leaders across the country, are questioning the traditional interpretation of American history. Already, there's a movement to put some truth back into American history, and present the past in its full terrible and wonderful glory. This way, perhaps, future tragedies can be prevented.

Mexico suffers from massive anti-Native sentiment. Indians in Mexico are treated with traditionally callous disregard and are totally marginalized. The Spanish-speaking elite, and much of the rest of the population, often has little respect for remaining native beliefs, languages, social structures or needs. Since the Catholic church has been controlled by ultra-conservatives for some itme, it hasn't helped Mexico's poorer or native populations much, either. A few radical Catholic groups, such as the Jesuits, maintain a strong support for native rights and are fighting to reverse economic injustice, though the Catholic Church authorities frequently undermine their efforts.

The Mayan Indians of Chiapas state, in southern Mexico, recently staged a mass revolt rather than submit to government policies that impoverished them even more and reduced them below their already desperate state. This was connected to the signing of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which time has accurately shown to have been a "Mega-Corporation Charter of Rights". The Zapatista Guerrillas are currently locked in a standoff with the corrupt, authoritarian and abusive Mexican government and their armies of soldiers and private thugs. The international elite and business interests are once again supporting the Mexican government against the native population. The Jesuits have defied their conservative church and continue to stand up for the rights abused native communities, even under brutal and harsh conditions.

Though the Spanish elite have always tried to downplay the native presence and history of Mexico, and promote European "superiority" (the Spanish were hardly superior when their actions or culture is examined), the hard fact of native life in Mexico is undeniable. Mexico is home to more ruins and native culture than even a tourism minister's dreams can contain. As well, Mexican culture is a unique and largely successful fusion of native and Spanish elements, including local religious practices and beliefs, vocabulary, food (especially) and cultural attitudes. Many modern Mexicans have come far in learning to appreciate their rich Indian heritage.

Canadians smugly point out that Canada has been less violent to its native peoples, but the reality is little different when compared to other nations in the Americas, Asia or Africa. It's true that Canadians were "less" violent compared, say, to the Spanish, but they were still terribly brutal. Many of the treaties that were signed in the 19th century were called "machine gun" treaties; suspicious documents literally signed at the end of a gun barrel.

Blankets used for smallpox victims were traded to native people in British Columbia in the 1850's and 1860's; a huge population of highly cultured native people was decimated. By some accounts, up to 95 percent of the population was wiped out in a few years, because of the deliberate acts of the British crown. People were often prohibited from giving aid to Indians when they grew ill. This is one of the first recorded instances of deliberate biological warfare, and its results were horrifying. We should also remember Machiavellian trickery and deceit, casual disregard for the rights of native peoples, and merciless abuse at the hands of racist police, armies, courts and governments, some of which continues today.

In Canada, native history and people are treated with disdain and carelessness. If you only read school textbooks, you'd think native people magically appeared on the scene only when Europeans arrived. Native cultures are usually only discussed where they directly affected European settler society.

Native children were abducted from their families and sent to abusive, cruel residential schools until very recently. These children were forbidden to speak their own languages or practice their own cultures or religions in an attempt at cultural genocide. Christianity was force-fed to them, and they were often converted by compulsion. Cases of sexual and physical abuse seem to have been the norm.

The first response to native protests in Canada is still to use force: calling out the army or, more often, masses of police, with orders to do whatever is necessary. An excellent example of this is the Oka standoff, when Mohawks at Akwesasne attempted to stop the development of a golf course on land they claimed was sacred. The Quebec and Canadian governments called out the Army, in what would have been a minor incident for negotiators had it involved non-natives. The fact that the government even tried to protect a proposed golf-course when a sacred site was at issue is outrageously insulting.

There are constant conflicts in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta and force is often used where it wouldn't be if the participants were not Native Canadians. Only in the last generation have native people recovered sufficiently to say that enough is enough and they want their rights, freedom and independence back, and compensation for the vicious crimes of the Canadian crown.

In the constant and ongoing debate over Quebec separation, French-Canadian nationalists and political leaders have been crassly hypocritical when it comes to native peoples. They see the French as having first rights to the land, and so often de-emphasize any references to non-French history in the public sphere. While seeking sovereignty for their own model of an ethnically pure French state in North America, they ignore the even more justified claims of Quebec's native peoples for self-determination, on their own terms.

Federalists and English-Canadians often use natives and their history as little more than pawns in their fight with French-Canadian ethnic nationalists, which does no credit to them and can't really help native Canadians.

With the growth of a culture of public compassion and intense guilt over the conditions native people are forced to endure, things in Canada have been changing for a generation. There is now a large amount of public support in non-Native society for radical change. Disseminating knowledge about native achievements and history should only help the ultimate goal of justice and fairness.

Despite these strains and hampered by low funding, archaeologists have managed to do a lot of vital work on archaeological sites throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Our knowledge of ancient North America has greatly expanded, even if this information is not part of public discourse and understanding.

By learning about the history of our nations before the arrival of Europeans, we can better learn how to constructively and honestly cope with our own past. We can finally take lessons from the pains our ancestors suffered and inflicted on each other. If we want to understand ourselves, our society and where we've come from, we have to keep open minds. We must honestly approach our own past by stripping it of the illusions that we so carefully maintain.

Native peoples are still with us today, shunted to the side and abused. We should learn more about the remarkable pre-European history of our countries, dispell false assumptions and illusions and understand how greatly native societies have contributed to our own. If we do this, then perhaps we can finally come to terms with the problems that our collective history has created. Perhaps we can introduce a novel concept to modern North American societies: Justice and fairness.

Our ancestors and our history may not be pretty, but neither were utterly evil. They were, in the final analysis, like all things human: a great mix of the good, the bad, the mediocre, the savage, the admirable, the noble and the revolting, all things possible in the human spirit. An honest and open evaluation of our past can only increase our understanding of our present and the world our human ancestors helped to create. Perhaps we may learn something, and avoid making these same mistakes in the future. Without honesty and clarity, we risk making the same mistakes and enduring the same tragedies.