Red, Black, and White Race in 1831

Indians Seen and Not Seen Tocqueville and Beaumont noticed that the Native American population was declining. The proud Native Americans that they knew were now just a group of savages. Even though, the Native Americans were not equal before, Tocqueville and Beaumont respected the Indians because of their culture. However, while traveling, they found that the Indians no longer did what they did years earlier and that disappointed the Frenchmen. They had no more dignity.

TocquevilleBeaumont

continued The Native Americans and their culture were slowly being destroyed. The forests and other places the Native American called home were being destroyed by the Americans.

continued The two explorers who went to Mohawk Valley found Indians. However, they did not think that the Indians were “real” because the Indians didn’t really have a culture. “Here the Frenchmen are assuming that culture makes the Indian-- those that are acculturated lose their authenticity. Yet, when the Cherokees developed their own language, newspapers, printing press, etc., they were hardly accepted as authentic.”

continued They notice that the American frontiersman think of the Indians as being less intelligent than they themselves (frontiersman).

continued Native Americans were forced out of their homes in order to make room for more white men. The Native Americans were manipulated by the white men for their own gain.

continued Tocqueville wrote in his dairy about his first encounter with the Indians who he refers to as “savages.” He comments on their “ugliness, their strange air, their bronzed and oily hide, their long hair black and stiff, their European clothes that they wear like savages…” After a second encounter he admits that they are not as bad as before, but look like peasants from Europe.

Slavery Not Witnessed Slaves in Antebellum America are often portrayed as dehumanized people who were controlled by cruel slave owners. Although this is true to an extent, black slaves in Antebellum America were not robots in the sense that they cooperated with their salve masters by accepting their beliefs and customs. While in slavery, blacks expressed music, oral literature, dance, and folk art and craft that would later resemble the African-American culture. While slavery is typically viewed as entirely wrong with no beneficial qualities, it allowed the African-American culture to form.