Using Historiography to Evaluate Primary and Secondary Sources Haudenosaunee Studies Seneca Nation of Indians September, 2013

Tracing the Historiography of Native Peoples History is the polemics* of the victor. -William F. Buckley, Jr. *a strong verbal written attack on someone or something The invaders also anticipated, correctly, that other Europeans would question the morality of their enterprise. They therefore [prepared]…quantities of propaganda to overpower their own countrymen’s scruples. The propaganda gradually took standard form as an ideology with conventional assumptions and semantics. We live with it still. -Francis Jennings Memory says, “I did that.” Pride replies, “I could not have done that.” Eventually memory yields. -Friedrich Nietzsche

Guided Practice

Secondary Source: Painting Adoration of the Magi Vasco Fernandez, artist Viseu, Portugal, created 1505

Primary Source: Document “On Cannibals” Essays Michel de Montaigne, author 1562 I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we can call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits….These people are wild in the same way as we say that fruits are wild, when nature has produced them by herself and in her ordinary way.

Primary Source: Play Caliban This island’s mine by Sycorax [the witch] my mother Which thou takest from me. When thou camest first, Thou strokest me and made much of me; wouldst give me Water with berries in’t [wine]; and teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day, and night; and then I loved thee And showed thee all the qualities o’ the isle, The fresh springs, brine pits, barren places, and fertile, Cursed be I that did so! All the charms Of Sycorax – toads, beetles, bats light on you! For I am all the subjects that you have, Which first was mine own king; and here you sty me In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me The rest o’ the island. Prospero Thou most lying slave, Whom stripes [whipping]may move, not kindness! I have used thee In mine own cell [room] till thou didst seek to violate The honor of my child [Miranda]. Caliban O ho, O ho! Woud’t had been done! Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else This isle with Calibans. Miranda Abhorred slave Which any print of goodness will not take, Bring capable of all ill! I pitied thee, Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour One thing or another. When thou didst not, savage, Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like A thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes With words that made them known. But thy vile race, Could not abide to be with. Therefore wast thou Deservedly confined to this rock, who hadst Deserved more than a prison. Caliban You taught me language, and my profit on’t Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you For learning me your language! The Tempest William Shakespeare, playwright Ca. 1610

Primary Source: Document New Voyages to North America Baron de Lahontan (French), author England, published 1701 Lahontan wrote, “…in alleging I am a Savage myself, and that that makes me speak so favorably of my Fellow Savages. These Observators do me a great deal of Honour, as long as they do not explain themselves, so as to make me directly if the same Character with that thinking: For in saying that I am of the same temper with the Savages, they give me without design, the Character of the honestest Man in the World.

Secondary Source: Document History of the United States Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, author Barber & Robinson, Publisher 1823 There was little among them that could be called society. Except when roused by some strong excitement, the men were generally indolent, taciturn, and unsocial. The women were too degraded and oppressed to think of much beside their toils….Their language, also, though energetic, was too barren to serve the purposes of familiar conversation. In order to be understood and felt, it required the aid of strong and animated gesticulation, which could take place only when great occasions excited them.

Secondary Source: Painting Landing of Columbus John Vanderlyn, artist Commissioned for the Capitol Rotunda 1836

Secondary Source: Document Saints and Strangers George F. Willison, author Reynal & Hitchcock, publisher 1945 Indian summer came soon in a blaze of glory, and it was time to bring in the crops. All in all, their first harvest was a disappointment. Their twenty acres of corn, thanks to Squanto, had done well enough. But the Pilgrims failed miserably with more familiar crops. Their six or seven acres of English wheat, barley, and peas came to nothing, and Bradford was certainly on safe ground in attributing this either to “ye badness of ye seed, or lateness of ye season, or both, or some other defecte.” Still, it was possible to make a substantial increase in the individual weekly food ration which for months had consisted merely a peck of meal from the stores brought on the Mayflower. This was now doubled by adding a peck of maize a week, and the company decreed a holiday so that all might, “after a more special manner, rejoice together.”

SECONDARY SOURCE: MOVIE The Unforgiven Audrey Hepburn

Secondary Source: Textbook A People’s History of the United States Howard Zinn, author Harper and Row, publisher 1980 One fact disturbed: whites would run off to join Indian tribes, or would be captured in battle and brought up among the Indians, and when this happened the whites, given the chance to leave, chose to stay in the Indian culture. Indians, having the choice, almost never decided to join the whites.

SECONDARY SOURCE: MOVIE Dances With Wolves Kevin Costner

Secondary Source: Document Exiled in the Land of the Free: Democracy, Indian Nations, and the US Constitution John C. Mohawk Oren Lyons, authors Clear Light Publishers Santa Fe, NM 1992 One of the arguments against Indian influence on the thinking of the American colonists has been that the colonists feared and hated Indians, referring to them as “savages,” and therefore would never have adopted or been influenced by Indian thinking. To accept this reasoning would be to conclude that people never get ideas from a different culture which they dislike, a proposition which is both overly simplistic and historically inaccurate. All cultures have borrowed from other cultures, and whether they liked or disliked those cultures is irrelevant.

Independent Practice

What Source? Woodcut engraving Theodore de Bry, artist 1504

What source? The Conquest of Granada John Dryden, author 1670 Note: Dryden never went to Granada, but read about the people from others’ writings. I am as free as nature first made man Ere the base laws of servitude began When wild in woods the noble savage ran.

What source? History of the United States Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, author Barber & Robinson 1823 Their treatment of females was cruel and oppressive. They were considered by the men as slaves, and treated as such. Those forms of decorum between the sexes, which lay the foundation for the respectful and gallant courtesy, with which women are treated in civilized society, were unknown among them. Of course, females were not only required to perform severe labour, but often felt the full weight of the passions and caprices of men.

WHAT SOURCE? The Searchers John Wayne watch?featurehttp:// watch?feature=player_ embedded&v=WI2AZb04HAc 1956

What source? The American Way Holt, Rhinehart, and Winston, publisher 1979 These Native Americans [in the southeast] believed that nature was filled with spirits. Each form of life, such as plants and animals, had a spirit. Earth and air held spirits too. People were never alone. They shared their lives with the spirits of nature.

What source? The American Tradition Merrill Publishing 1984 After some exploring, the Pilgrims chose the land around Plymouth Harbor for their settlement. Unfortunately, they had arrived in December and were not prepared for the New England winter. However, they were aided by friendly Indians, who gave them food and showed them how to grow corn. When warm weather came, the colonists planted, fished, hunted, and prepared themselves for the next winter. After harvesting their first crop, they and their Indian friends celebrated the first Thanksgiving.

What source? “Cultural, Historical Diffusion” George F. Carter, author Transfer and Transformation of Ideas Hugill and Dickson, eds No civilization arose in isolation, as the flowing genius of a single people. Great civilizations illustrate that genius lies in the ability of a group of persons to assemble ideas borrowed from far and wide into some new pattern suited to their needs, tastes, and opportunities.

WHAT SOURCE? Smoke Signals Chris Eyre watch?v=yzWut5-pGmg 1998

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