Using Historiography to Evaluate Primary and Secondary Sources

Haudenosaunee StudiesSeneca 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 Practic

e

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: PlayCalibanThis island’s mine by Sycorax [the witch] my motherWhich thou takest from me. When thou camest

first,Thou strokest me and made much of me; wouldst

give meWater with berries in’t [wine]; and teach me howTo name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day, and night; and then I loved theeAnd 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 charmsOf 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 meIn this hard rock, whiles you do keep from meThe rest o’ the island.

ProsperoThou 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].

CalibanO ho, O ho! Woud’t had been done!Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled elseThis isle with Calibans.

MirandaAbhorred slaveWhich any print of goodness will not take,Bring capable of all ill! I pitied thee,Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hourOne thing or another. When thou didst not, savage,Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble likeA thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposesWith words that made them known. But thy vile race,Could not abide to be with. Therefore wast thouDeservedly confined to this rock, who hadstDeserved more than a prison.

CalibanYou taught me language, and my profit on’tIs, I know how to curse. The red plague rid youFor 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 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHUa_svkuU0 1960

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 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9ICbZVs9TU 1990

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 manEre the base laws of servitude beganWhen 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 http://www.youtube.com/ 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.

• 1988

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 http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=yzWut5-pGmg 1998

Homework