Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (eBook)

This land

We are here to educate, not forgive.
We are here to enlighten, not accuse.
--Willie Johns, Brighton Seminole Reservation, Florida

Under the crust of that portion of Earth called the United States of America--'from California . . . to the Gulf Stream waters'--are interred the bones, villages, fields, and sacred objects of American Indians. They cry out for their stories to be heard through their descendants who carry the memories of how the country was founded and how it came to be as it is today.

It should not have happened that the great civilizations of the Western Hemisphere, the very evidence of the Western Hemisphere, were wantonly destroyed, the gradual progress of humanity interrupted and set upon a path of greed and destruction. Choices were made that forged that path toward destruction of life itself--the moment in which we now live and die as our planet shrivels, overheated. To learn and know this history is both a necessity and a responsibility to the ancestors and descendants of all parties.

What historian David Chang has written about the land that became Oklahoma applies to the whole United States: 'Nation, race, and class converged in land.' Everything in US history is about the land--who oversaw and cultivated it, fished its waters, maintained its wildlife, who invaded and stole it, how it became a commodity ('real estate') broken into pieces to be bought and sold on the market.

US policies and actions related to Indigenous peoples, though often termed 'racist' or 'discriminatory,' are rarely depicted as what they are: classic cases of imperialism and a particular form of colonialism--settler colonialism. As anthropologist Patrick Wolfe writes, 'The question of genocide is never far from discussions of settler colonialism. Land is life--or, at least, land is necessary for life.'

The history of the United States is a history of settler colonialism-- the founding of a state based on the ideology of white supremacy, the widespread practice of African slavery, and a policy of genocide and land theft. Those who seek history with an upbeat ending, a history of redemption and reconciliation, may look around and observe that such a conclusion is not visible, not even in utopian dreams of a better society.

Writing US history from an Indigenous peoples' perspective requires rethinking the consensual national narrative. That narrative is wrong or deficient, not in its facts, dates, or details but rather in its essence. Inherent in the myth we've been taught is an embrace of settler colonialism and genocide. The myth persists, not for a lack of free speech or poverty of information but rather for an absence of motivation to ask questions that challenge the core of the scripted narrative of the origin story. How might acknowledging the reality of US history work to transform society? That is the central question this book pursues.

Teaching Native American studies, I always begin with a simple exercise. I ask students to quickly draw a rough outline of the United States at the time it gained independence from Britain. Invariably most draw the approximate present shape of the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific--the continental territory not fully appropriated until a century after independence. What became independent in 1783 were the thirteen British colonies hugging the Atlantic shore. When called on this, students are embarrassed because they know better. I assure them that they are not alone. I call this a Rorschach test of unconscious 'manifest destiny,' embedded in the minds of nearly everyone in the United States and around the world. This test reflects the seeming...