Native Americans – U.S. to 1877

November 11, 2013

The Adventures of Andrew Jackson and the Invisible Hand

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We find much of WIllentz’s commentary on Andrew Jackson and the American economic system within his description of the battle between Andrew Jackson and the Bank of the United States (BUS) and the following aftermath. Generally, this chapter describes Andrew Jackson as a man of contradiction, especially in his populist stance. WIllentz tells us that Jackson fought for the liberation of the people and the government from the national bank, so that citizens could have the most direct access to a monetary system which funded a domestic economic system that was held accountable by the people. However, to reach these goals which are almost indicative of classical liberalism, Jackson engaged in major political manipulation which even led him to a censure. For someone who calls himself populist, this was a very realist maneuver.

Willentx goes on to state all of the problems which came about after the national bank was slain, which the changeover to coin currency from paper money and the massive levels of speculation which swept over the country before any benefit from the new system could take effect. Using the town of Woodberry, where ‘economic trauma’ took place due to land speculations and the new currency, many of Jackson’s supporters during the war on the bank began to criticize him for his ‘economic experiments’ but this whole debawkle just raises the question of just how much control does the president have over the economy? In most cases one could argue that the president has almost no control. In Jackson’s case, one could argue that the combination of taking land from the Native Americans and screwing with the currency was a perfect storm caused by Jackson himself. Some could argue that there was no way that speculation could get s out of control and there was no way for Jackson to know that. Magilland makes a good point in that this type of history tends to repeat itself, and by extension of parties fighting all the time always the misconception that the president is solely responsible for the state of the economy has arisen because the issue is almost constantly being politicized.

November 4, 2013

Settler Colonialism vs Genocide

I definitely liked Patrick Wolfe’s topic on “Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native”. He enters academic debate very well in his article, and I think I agree with him after reading the article. Although almost all of the native peoples ended up dying because of European colonization, they Europeans did not actively practice killing the race (in a loosely used form of the word), so they did not practice genocide. He brought in outside examples to explain the difference between genocide, and taking land.

I definitely liked his conjecture of land being life, and how the settlers were taking land, and the byproduct of taking land was taking the lives of the Natives. He even explains how the views of the Europeans towards the American Indians included a nomadic, landless view of the native peoples. Therefore, they did not have a homeland, and if they did not have a homeland, the land was not theirs to be taken from. Although the native peoples actually did have a homeland, the interpretation of the settlers was different from that which was actually accurate, so their mindset did not actually involve killing people in order to take their land; it involved moving people from one place to another (worst case scenario being by force), so that they could settle the land and start the process of modernity. The settlers were killing the natives so passively, that, in the minds of the settlers, they were only taking land that no one owned and not taking lives of the native peoples.

August 29, 2013

Week One Reading

The introduction put some of my worries to rest, since many historical resources from previous classes I have taken have bordered on ethnocentrism. Taylor notes that the text will explore perspectives that have often gone unacknowledged in mainstream historical narratives such as those of women (“inconsequential helpmates,”) Natives (“unchanging objects of colonists’ fears and aggressions,”) and African slaves (“unfortunate aberrations in a fundamentally upbeat story”) (x). By acknowledging the faults in historiography in the earlier part of the twentieth century, Taylor shows that he will be offering a more inclusive and complete narrative of the story of colonial America.

I found chapter 1 to offer a wealth of information regarding Natives that was never presented to me in previous history courses. A notable fact that the reading shed light upon was the disparity between myth (that Native Americans were passionate conservationists) and reality (that their motives for minimizing ecological destruction came from animism) (19).

The topic of development also opened my eyes to the real reason behind the natives’ lack of mechanistic development. I had never thought to attribute the lack of societal development as seen in the “Old World” to animism. While I never subscribed to the idea that they were a “primitive people,” I was not aware that it was animism that “discouraged the sort of mechanistic development practiced by Europeans” (19-20). From the reading I came to see the Native Americans’ lack of technological development as a sign of restraint rather than one of inferiority. If they had desired to develop in ways the Old World did, they surely would have had the intellectual capacity to do so. Unfortunately, colonists chose to see the difference in technological development as an indicator of inferiority as opposed to one simply due to a stark difference of cultures.