Everyone who’s born in the Western Hemisphere is a Native American. The one thing I’ve always maintained is that I’m an American Indian…
— Russell Means, Oglala Lakota, American Indian Movement Co-Founder
Beginning in the late 1960s Hollywood sought to make up for the way it had unflatteringly portrayed American Indians in films. No more bloodthirsty savages surrounding settler wagon trains. Indians became the peaceful, noble stewards of a pristine paradise, unspoiled by white European contamination.
Emerging research is showing that new and improved image of the Indians is no more accurate than the one it was meant to replace.
In his book, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, author Charles Mann compiles disparate research from various scientific disciplines about pre-Columbian Indian culture, and the environment, that disrupts two narratives about the impact of white Europeans. Widespread alterations of the natural landscape, and genocide. Both existed in the Americas before Columbus got here.
For example, environmentalists who proclaim the Amazon River basin to be the last great primordial rain forest, and that it’s in danger of destruction from human development. But the rain forest that exists there today is actually re-growth resulting from widespread pre-Columbian “slash and burn” agriculture by the indigenous population.
Then there is the ugly side of human nature. Pre-Columbian Indians fought each other for the same reasons people did in ancient Greece, Rome, and Medieval Europe. Constant warfare erupted between cultures competing for resources, resulting in genocide and enslavement of the losers by the victors. Wars were fought because one chieftain coveted the riches of another, or because one sibling usurped the throne of the other. Human sacrifice as part of religious ritual disappeared in Europe with the emergence of Christianity. Such sacrifices were still common in South American Indian cultures when Europeans arrived.
I mention all this because the ‘politically correct’ version of history being espoused today is that all the ills of our society can be laid at the feet of the white Europeans who colonized North America. But what is not taught, for instance, is that in his autobiography Apache war chief Geronimo said this about the white people he met while attending the St Louis Exposition,
“I saw many interesting things and learned much of the white people. They are a very kind and peaceful people. During all the time I was at the Fair no one tried to harm me in any way. Had this been among the Mexicans I am sure I should have been compelled to defend myself often.”
There had been warfare for centuries between the Apache, and Mexicans who raided into historic Apache lands in what is today Arizona. Geronimo’s wife and children had been murdered by Mexicans in one of those raids.
This is not to excuse what happened to American Indians after the arrival of white Europeans. It only illustrates similar things had been going on amongst the Indians themselves long before that arrival. The Europeans were no worse than those already here. But saying so invokes the censure of those who condemn white America.
A central narrative of that condemnation is the conduct of white Americans towards American Indians. But if the American Indians were equally capable of the same conduct long before the arrival of “the white man”, and if (as in the case of Geronimo) Mexicans treated Indians worse than did white Americans, that narrative loses its moral authority.
Slavery was also a common practice in pre-Columbian American Indian cultures, and it lasted into the 19th century. A factor contributing to the Second Seminole War in Florida (1835-1842) was the conflict between white and American Indian slave owners.
Another part of the anti-white narrative is that white Americans deliberately committed genocide by infecting Indians with smallpox. Whether that ever actually happened is questionable. But even if true, how is that any different than the practice of contaminating your enemy’s water source with animal carcasses, which South American Indians did.
What’s not in doubt is the devastating effect European infectious diseases had on American Indian populations. But the fact Indians had no natural immunity to European diseases is hardly evidence of white malevolence. It could just as easily have gone the other way.
Those who want to taint 21st century white Americans with the conduct (some real, some imagined) of our predecessors toward the Indians are saying that conduct was unique. That is a false narrative. White Europeans were no better, or worse, than the Indians. Human misconduct is ubiquitous.
Gary Beatty lives between Florida and Pagosa Springs. He retired after 30 years as a prosecutor for the State of Florida, has a doctorate in law, is Board Certified in Criminal Trial law by the Florida Supreme Court, and is now a law professor.