The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk (Part Two)

This is a tragic story of greed and betrayal, certainly a black spot and cause for shame in the nation’s history. As I read it, I wondered whether humankind was capable of truly evolving. Sure, we can come up with more and more sophisticated methods of killing each other and of redistributing wealth into the hands of the most avaricious, but where is the ethical and moral progress to go along with the technical achievements? All the toys and gadgets mean nothing if we remain rapacious beasts at heart. Have we learned nothing during our centuries upon centuries of so-called civilization? These questions and others like them assailed me as I read this masterful work. It is slow-going and complex, yes, but the details of what really happened in our nation’s past are crucial if we are to avoid the mistakes of our forebears and create a better world for our progeny.

It’s fun to watch movies about cowboys and master spies and superheroes that stand up for the downtrodden and save the day, but at some point we need to ask ourselves what is really going on. Who are the true heroes and the true villains? To answer questions like this, we need to dissect the past with a view to mitigating the social maladies that have caused us to inherit a dysfunctional, violent, hate-filled world. Only then can we make the changes that will help us alleviate past disasters and avoid future ones. This is the value of The Rediscovery of America. It causes us to confront the truth so that we can use the insights we gain to change things for the better. Allow Blackhawk to guide you step by step through this revised version of American history not with a vision to merely condemn past deeds, but to use what you learn to make the world of today and tomorrow a better place.

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The story Blackhawk tells of America’s indigenous population ends, in the book, inconclusively. There was a time during the Cold War when government policy favored so-called termination. That meant that Indians would be absorbed into the mainstream of American life and would cease to exist as separate nations and cultures. However, in the sixties and seventies an Indian rights movement, Red Power, arose concurrently with the Black Power movement. Activists were at least partially successful in clawing back concessions from the government that were guaranteed in centuries-old treaties. These concessions included hunting and fishing rights, gaming rights, schools, health centers, and language programs. Blackhawk writes that “by the end of the century, the dark days of termination had faded.” However, he adds that “language loss, continued ecological destruction, and innumerable legacies of colonialism endure, making the challenges of Native America among the most enduring.” It would have been nice for the author to be able to wrap up the narrative with a happy ending in which the government has learned its lesson and Native tribes are allowed to coexist with the rest of the American people in peace and dignity, but as proved by centuries of history, the reality is much more complicated than that. The impacts of outside events and shifting governmental priorities and attitudes seem to bring America’s indigenous peoples alternatively extreme trauma and then measures of relief in uneven cycles. Blackhawk concludes with these ominous words: “As the twenty-first century began, continued challenges to those sovereign gains reappeared as congressional law makers, court justices, and other concentrations of power again took aim at Indian lands, jurisdiction, and resources.”

Near the end of my reading of The Rediscovery of America, I made a visit to the Burke Museum on the University of Washington campus to peruse its display of arts and crafts from Northwest American indigenous tribes and other indigenous cultures around the Pacific Rim. I was impressed once again by the emphasis on the importance of attachment to land, community, and ancestry. These core values often go missing in our modern urban culture with its emphasis on the accumulation of money, property, fame, and individual accomplishment. Too often the results of such strivings are stress and alienation instead of serenity and camaraderie. And it is too easy to label Native American tribes and nations as primitive or anachronistic instead of appreciating their complex, multifaceted societies and cultures. Before European explorers “discovered” America, it was already populated with multiple nations that had their own lands, customs, and lifestyles. The violence by which the newcomers subdued the indigenous inhabitants of the land is certainly, as I mentioned above, a dark stain in American history. However, this stain should not be bleached out of our memories. One of the overriding values of a book like The Rediscovery of America is that it reminds us of the truth. Europeans were not the first ones here, and it is a moral imperative to manifest continuing respect for the original Americans that dwelled on the land before us.

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