Your impression of Native American History in the USA

[Reba423]

Pardon me, but I am curious and fascinated by the many people represented on the board!

I would love to read others impressions of Native Americans past, and present.

Perhaps share your education reguarding Native Americans in your country.

While "Dr. Quinn" opened some eyes, ave you read more? Learned anything new from the experience?

Random thoughts?

[Geertrui]

As far as I can remember, I've never learned about the indians in school. Yes, we knew that they existed and that the government (the white men) manhandled the native Americans but we never learned the facts. It's a pity. I believe that our history in Europe had priority over the American history.

[Kruemi]

I think the facts we learned about Indians at school were correct but very general. All the things I knew before Dr. Quinn I learned from books by Karl May (a German writer who loved the Indians but had never met one in reality for he never crossed Germany's bounderies ) and James F. Cooper. When I was a child we used to play 'Cowboys and Indians' and when we celebrated carnival kids loved to dress like them (the Indians were always the 'good guys').
When I saw the Cheyenne in the early seasons of DQ, they just fit into the picture I had in my head. But after watching Washita I became more alert. I googled the name and found out that it had actually happened. From then on I did some research and learned more.
I wrote a few DQ fanfiction stories and when I wrote about Indians (back then and today as well) I always did some research first. This way I learned more about the way the Indians had been treated back then and still are.
Actually I haven't written a certain story yet because during my researches about Washita I read several reports which gave me a hard time and I don't know yet how to judge everything. Sigh.

[Jen]

We learnt some things about the Native Americans during our history lessons at school. I remember I was always fascinated about old cultures, so the courses that dealt with, let's say, ancient Egyptian or Roman or Maya or Atztec cultures (sorry I'm not quite sure about the spelling in English) always interested me the most. I suppose we didn't go very much into detail, but we did try to sort of look at the both sides of the conflics. I can still remember some interesting facts from those courses, and every now and then some of them pop out in some Dr. Quinn episode as well (for example the episode where the army gives the infected blankets to the Cheyenne - I remember reading that in some history book).

I also once went to listen to this Native American who has lived in my hometown quite many years now. Somebody said that he comes every year to the school where I used to go to tell about his experiences in a reservation. It was quite sad to hear. I think some of the things that were happening there made him eventually try his luck in some other country. I have no idea how he ended up in Finland, though.

[Amber]

It is interesting how the official story has changed with time regarding the Native Americans. When I was in grade school history (in the US), we were taught basically that the Indians were the bad guys, killing innocent settlers for no reason, breaking their promises to the govt. etc. NOT!!!

As time went on, the real truth started to emerge...that the white race were more of the destroyers and promise breakers...innocent settlers were killed, yes (and I regret that innocent people on either side, white or Indian, had to die), but the Indians were losing the land they had held for centuries, their customs and religion were being taken away from them, and their lives and culture were being destroyed. Much of this is talked about in Dr. Quinn, and there is much more on the internet regarding the true stories of what happened to the Native Americans as the whites began to steadily encroach on their ancestral lands. There are some good books out there too.

As for how the Native Americans are now, that probably depends somewhat on the tribes involved and the individuals themselves. There are some natives who have totally assimilated into the mass culture and given up their native religion and ways, there are some who still follow the old ways, but live quite comfortably in our mass US culture, or on the reservations, and there are some who are on reservations that are somewhat prosperous, some who basically live at poverty level with drug and alcohol problems running rampant. I believe that there still is much healing to be done between the Indian and white cultures in this country. I'm still learning about it myself, and doing what I humanly can do to make things right.

You might want to do some internet searches on the various tribes, Cheyenne, Ojibwe, lakota, Comanche, etc to get a better idea of what they were about historically as well as what they are up to today. I've done some of that, and it is FASCINATING!!

Hope that at least touches on some of your questions!

[Reba423]

You live in the "Once Land" of the Cherokee, Lumbies, etc. I was born on the Cherokee Reservation in Cherokee North Carolina. My father was born to the western band of Cherokee in Oklahoma-forced there after the "Trail Of Tears" which I would hope all people would read about.

My mother was born-and raised on the Northern Reservation.


An intersting fact concerning alcohol and Native Americans-we are only a few generations from when alcohol was "introduced" to us. Other countries-including the those who took America had generation after generation after generation exposed to- and used to alcohol.

Much like TB, measles, chicken pox, etc. alcohol was introduced fairly recently (as far as history) goes...........We had no "built in" immunity to alcohol any more than the illnesses that were new to us.

[Dr. Slicker]

Very interesting topic, Reba!

I raised in Northern Germany and as far as I remember, I just can second Geertrui, that the history of Native Americans wasn´t covered in depth in the lessons unfortunately. History courses were very European-related.

Nevertheless, from my times of being a kid I was fascinated by all impressions of the Indians I had access to. As Kruemi pointed out - we were playing Cowboy and Indian too and I always preferred to be an Indian.
I read books by Karl May too (the German author Kruemi mentioned) and highly liked the stories about the friendship of an Apache-chief named Winnetou and a young white trapper from Germany named Old Shatterhand.

I loved to see the ancient Hollywood-movies about Western- and Indian-themes, although the main Indian roles were incorporated by white actors for a long time - weird for me. And the picture of the Indians, which those movies transported, was many times a cruel one. They seemed to be the undomesticated "dark force", always prepared for causing unwished trouble. Maybe I had a premonition of the prejudices in those movies, I don´t know. I loved the series "High Chaparral" too and this is a prominent example for the anonymous portrayal of the Indians as a hostile power.

Anyway, I think I wasn´t corrupted by those distorted accounts - I happened to read "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee" as a young boy in the early seventies and was highly touched and moved by this description of the true history. And regarding Hollywood one early and big counterpart-example for me is the movie "Soldier Blue" from 1970. The disgusting cruelties of the white people shown here were superficial anyway, I guess.

I am convinced, that if it´d be possible to preserve at least some of the Indian approaches to life and nature within our "white" culture, the development of the world would be on a better way. That is not political correct for me, but just true IMO. And I´d love to learn more about the culture of Native Americans.

[Amber]

Reba, that is so fascinating that you were born on the Cherokee reservation in NC!! I love the Native American history that this region has, and I'm proud to know a couple of Cherokee/Creek native Americans...don't know them terribly well, but I do consider them friendly acquaintances, and very special people.

A Native american friend of mine up north has told me much the same about alcohol and its affects on the native American population. She currently counsels Native American (and other) youth on the issues of alcohol and drug addiction.

I've never heard of the Lumbie Indians...I'll have to look them up! I do know a very little about the Cherokees and Creek Indians that lived here, but I obviously have some more reading to do!

Thanks for sharing your information and background!!

[Lizzie]

I've always been interested to learn about other cultures of humanity, and as I was growing up read almost all the books in the library about people and places around the world, including native peoples of the US and Canada. One of the most memorable books was Women and Warriors of the Plains, the photography of Julia E. Tuell. She was a white woman who lived on the Rosebud Reservation in the early 1900s and documented the rapidly changing lives of people she came to know there through photographs.

I grew up in England and Scotland and unfortunately didn't learn much at school either, although some other years did a brief history project including the history of white settlement in the USA and the effects on Native Americans.
Oh, actually, I did do one project based on Native American art (which I generally like actually, especially the geometric-type patterns).

As a child I'd vaguely heard of the battle of Little Bighorn, 'Custer's Last Stand' (I since learned that it should actually be called Custer's last attack), and I knew the name of Chief Sitting Bull. I'd heard of Geronimo, that (if I remember correctly) he was the last leader to be forced onto a reservation?

Dr. Quinn gave me a little bit of insight into the culture of the Cheyenne, especially some of the beliefs and customs. After seeing Washita I was upset and disgusted by what happened and felt I had to look it up, find out more. I then also read about the Trail of Tears.

My general perception of Native Americans is that the 'savage' stereotypes of the past are absolutely not true; in fact as far as I know most Native Americans have a great respect for nature and life, and an unwasteful philosophy I admire. And I know there are many very distinct cultures within the umbrella term.

Oh, my other random related thing is: someone I know, who loves to visit Hopi and Navajo lands in the southwest USA, introduced me to the books by Tony Hillerman - crime novels set on the Navajo reservation in the 1980s. Great crime fiction intertwined with a really interesting insight into Navajo culture.

[Amber]

"Women and Warriors of the Plains" looks like a very good book; I'm going to have to check it out...thanks Lizzie!

[Dr. Slicker]

Thank you much for these very interesting hints, Lizzie!

[cooperkids]

Gosh, school was such a long time ago. LOL! We studied Native Americans, but only on the surface. For my 6th Grade Science Fair I did a project on Native Americans, but for the life of me I can't tell you what it was about.

Our children actually study Native Americans for the first portion of the year in middle school--or they did when my son started there 8 years ago. Our town was purchased from Native Americans in 1636, so we have some history here.

[Maria]

Wow, another interesting book to read about "Women, Indians, and the Plaines". I found in this forum the pointer to Lucia St. Clair Robson and her "Ride The Wind". I bought this book, - it's really a gem!!!

I echo Kruemi and Doc Slicker: I also "learned" about Native Americans through these German novels of Karl May. But later on I read other books, more true to reality. I also read "Bury my heart at wounded knee" and learned a lot about the cruel fate of the American Indians.

In former times I got the impression American set high value on history! But why didn't they keep their real history in value? Like other nations do with their ancient times.

I got to speak with people of Ohio (sister-city to my town), living in a town named with an Indian name. They never talk about their Indian past, like they
were ashamed about it. Why?