Native American History: A Chronology of a Culture's Vast Achievements and Their Links to World Events
432
Native American History: A Chronology of a Culture's Vast Achievements and Their Links to World Events
432eBook
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Overview
A CHRONOLOGICAL ACCOUNT OF ITS PLACE ON THE WORLD STAGE.
Native American History is a breakthrough reference guide, the first book of its kind to recognize and explore the rich, unfolding experiences of the indigenous American peoples as they evolved against a global backdrop. This fascinating historical narrative, presented in an illuminating and thought-provoking time-line format, sheds light on such events as:
* The construction of pyramids--not only on the banks of the Nile but also on the banks of the Mississippi
* The development of agriculture in both Mesopotamia and Mexico
* The European discovery of a continent already inhabited by some 50 million people
* The Native American influence on the ideas of the European Renaissance
* The unacknowledged advancements in science and medicine created by the civilizations of the new world
* Western Expansion and its impact on Native American land and traditions
* The key contributions Native Americans brought to the Allied victory of World War II
And much more!
This invaluable history takes an important first step toward a true understanding of the depth, breadth, and scope of a long-neglected aspect of our heritage.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780307814050 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Random House Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 03/14/2012 |
| Sold by: | Random House |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 432 |
| Sales rank: | 462,557 |
| File size: | 8 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
INTRODUCTION
History is context. We choose our history by selecting certain events to include in the narrative. Those events take their meaning in relation to other events. And these narratives make up the myths of our culture—myths that are changing all the time. My idea for a chronology of Native American history grew out of the paradigm shift that resulted from the quincentenary celebration of Columbus’s arrival in the western hemisphere in 1492. Like many people expecting a lively celebration of Columbus’s heroism, courage, and mythic vision, my imagination was captured instead by the “view from the shore.” The point of view presented by indigenous peoples was one of great native contributions and great European injustices. Their perspective changed the narrative of time and challenged the conventional myths of the Americas.
In colorful contradiction to centuries of national Columbus holidays and mainstream history texts, indigenous peoples throughout the hemisphere launched demonstrations to publicize the historical reality of the Arawak Indians and Columbus’s genocidal search for gold. At the time Columbus landed on the island he dubbed Hispaniola in 1492 there were an estimated 30 million people in Mexico and the Caribbean Islands (Columbus’s brother counted over one million male inhabitants in the Dominican Republic in the census he conducted to determine how many adult males should be bringing in gold for tribute) and another estimated 50 million in the U.S., Canada, and South America, many of whom lived in highly complex cultures with sophisticated knowledge of astronomy, agriculture, metalworking, weaving, geography, measurement of time.
America has been notably uninterested in the people who lived here before the European invasions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In the year A.D. 750, when London was still historically insignificant, the sixth-largest city in the world (including Constantinople and Alexandria) was Teotihuacán in the Mexico Valley, near what today is Mexico City. In the year 800 the Hohokam were irrigating the land that today is Phoenix and building seven-story apartment buildings at the same time the former barbarian Charlemagne was being crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (which, to quote Voltaire, was neither holy nor Roman). The largest pyramid outside of Egypt was (and can still be seen today) in Cahokia, Illinois, near the confluence of the Missouri, Illinois, and Mississippi Rivers, a remnant of the great Mississippian civilization. The Mississippians left thousands of temple mounds and geometric earthworks along the lands of the Mississippi River valleys in settlement patterns so dense that when the Arkansas Archaeological Society recently put all 21,700 sites on a computerized map it showed a thoroughly settled state by the 1300s. Albert Gallatin, Jefferson’s secretary of the treasury, was the first to write about the great architectural marvels of the Mississippi Valley and the “mound builders.” He was joined by Henry Brackenridge, an early explorer of the Ohio Valley as far south as Louisiana. “An immense population has once been supported in this country,” he observed about the thousands of geometrically arranged mounds that laced the South. But these were colonial Americans intent on land acquisition. Knowledge and exploration were in the service of real estate. American mythology required a virgin continent and “a vanished race.” By 1950 over 90 percent of the archaeological marvels written about by Gallatin and Brackenridge had been declared valueless and lost to highways, railroads, farmlands, real estate development, shopping malls.
By 1992, however, a parallel narrative had been constructed by Native American writers. Their refusal to venerate Columbus’s heroism and “discovery” raised a lot of questions: How can you “discover” a hemisphere that has over 70 million people? Why couldn’t the European Christians “see” the Native peoples as fellow human beings? Is it true that Pilgrims in Plymouth, America’s first permanent colony, survived their first winter only because of the instruction of an English-speaking Indian named Squanto? Did the principles of the Iroquois confederacy influence the drafters of the U.S. Constitution? How did the agricultural products of American Indians—corn, beans, squash—enrich the diet and health of Renaissance Europe? Were there great urban centers in America long before London or Paris were founded? Ultimately, the sputtering of Columbus’s historic flame was best symbolized by the fate of the modern replicas of his boats. Instead of making triumphant entries into dozens of American harbors, the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria ended up marooned and bankrupt in New York, punctuation marks for the questions of America’s new history.
Like many books, this chronology began as part of another project, a book on the contemporary strip-mining of Hopi and Navajo lands on Black Mesa in northern Arizona, and the U.S. government’s removal of some 12,000 Navajo in what has become the largest Indian removal since the 1800s. To frame the political sequence of events, I constructed a chronology of the land dispute between the Hopi and Navajo along with a parallel chronology of the multinational energy companies’ requests for coal-mining leases. I intended to include it as an appendix. But history is yesterday’s politics. Soon I found myself researching the nineteenth century, when America’s first Indian agents were renegotiating agreements the Navajo and Hopi had made with the Spanish in the seventeenth century; these in turn were based on dates of settlement, such as the year 1150 when the Hopi settled their first village on the Hopi mesas. Although the modern-day conflict has been structured in the language of the American legal system, certain larger questions presented themselves. Who are the Hopi? Where did they come from? And what about the Navajo? When did they migrate from Alaska to the American Southwest? How do we conceive of an America that didn’t begin in 1620? The great Anasazi sites like Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon testify to sophisticated agriculture, extensive trade routes, complicated architecture, urban planning, and complex religious and political systems. Their centralized population is estimated at somewhere around 200,000; yet they still have not been included in the narrative of American history. Although there were only five Native American entries—Apache, Geronimo, Navajo, Chief Joseph, and Indian Summer—in the 5,000 names, dates, and concepts included in the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, which purported to define all that a culturally literate American should know, most of us want to know more.
This chronology attempts to take Indian history out of the setting of anthropology and put it in the context of cultural history. I hope the reader might take from this a new sense of historical pattern, a larger framework in which to connect the jigsaw-puzzle pieces of history. It is meant for the general reader whose curiosity has been piqued by some of the new books about Native American history, as well as for the student, educator, or researcher looking for larger historical perspectives on the American experience. A chronology of Native American history offers the opportunity to bring together in a lively, exciting way material that has not been given historical or cultural connection before.
Because language reflects changing concepts, I have used a variety of terms interchangeably to refer to America’s indigenous populations—“Indians,” “Native Americans,” “American Indians,” “Native peoples,” “indigenous peoples.” The problem of clarity of terminology began with Columbus. He was lost. The people he met were not Indians because he was not in India. But for five centuries since Columbus the indigenous peoples of this hemisphere have been called “Indians.” They are, in fact, many different peoples and many different nations with many different languages. Today the U.S. government recognizes more than 370 separate tribes or Indian peoples. Consequently, terminology is in flux. History, usage, and tradition have made “Indian” a widely used term. Indian peoples themselves often use the term “Indian,” as in the Museum of the American Indian, the American Indian Movement (AIM), and the American Indian Quarterly. In the 1980s, “Native American” came into popular usage as a more historically appropriate term, but has recently fallen into disuse, since technically anyone born in North or South America is a “native” American. Alternatively, Indian people also use “Native,” “Native Peoples,” or “First Peoples.” I have used different terms in different contexts, depending on how Indian writers use the same term on the page. (Oral use is somewhat different.) The important element to remember is that there is no single ethnic group called Indians; there are hundreds of peoples with distinct languages, religious beliefs, ceremonies, and cultural traditions. Using the term “Indian” is no more precise than using “European” to denote an Englishman.
For purposes of this book I have defined North America as Mexico and the United States up to the Canadian border, although in historical reality the borders were artificial. The organizing principle on the ground seems to have been watersheds and river systems. Population estimates for this area fluctuate wildly. Indian populations were dynamic and in constant motion, migrating from Mexico into the Southwest and up the Mississippi River system to Canada and back again; or from Alaska along the California coast and across the Southwest to the Atlantic coast. Shells from the Florida Keys have been found with the Cree in Canada; turquoise from the Southwest has been found in Natchez graves in Louisiana. Trade routes laced the entire continent as far north as Hudson Bay, and a map of known Indian trade routes of the continental United States shows that no region was unsettled. Indian artifacts and archaeological ruins have been found throughout the United States. Sites of great architectural sophistication were located all along the river systems of Ohio, Kansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Illinois, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin, as well as the Colorado Plateau region of the Southwest.
Population figures have been greatly revised over the past 10 years. Although all sites were not simultaneously occupied, population estimates at the time of Columbus range from 7 to 45 million people in South America; 7 to 30 million people in Mexico and the Caribbean islands; and one to 18 million people in the U.S. and Canada. Some revised estimates go as high as 110 million people in the entire western hemisphere. The variations are based on the interpretation of the numbers of settlements, the duration of settlement, the areas of land cultivated multiplied by the numbers of people they might have supported. I have used the more conservative of the revised estimates. About the only fact everyone agrees on is that there were far more people living in the Americas than was formerly believed or that our history books have told us.
In developing the two columns that make up the contextualized chronology, I have placed in the right-hand column Native American historical events as well as events that greatly affected Native America. In the left-hand column I have put world events or American governmental events that were outside Indian control but which framed the larger political and cultural environment in which Native peoples had to respond. Actions by the rulers of Spain, England, France, and Russia were distant but had particular impact on Native Americans. To use a recent example from the American political system, Indians were not allowed to vote until 1924, but they were expected to register for the draft for World War I. The problems of Indian veterans returning to their reservations after the war caused great dislocations and hardships while at the same time Indian tribes were without means to give political voice to their grievances. The Indians’ belated right to vote is in the right-hand column; the war in the left.
Occasionally, certain events fall between the two columns. The first celebrity Indians in Europe were four Mohawk chiefs who agreed to accompany the English Indian agent to London in 1710. Although their historical visibility occurred in England, their historical impact stemmed from their later influence on Iroquois loyalty to England against the colonial Americans. I have placed the Mohawk visit of 1710 in the right-hand column.
Viewing global events with a focus on land issues, technology, population, and religion in conjunction with Native American history reveals the complex fabric of indigenous knowledge of agriculture, medicine, and astronomy that enriched Europe. It provides a unique perspective with which to explore America, an exploration we are still undertaking. In fact, some might say we are approaching the millennium by beginning the exploration of America’s deeper history.