Fondement De La Nation Américaine (document en anglais)

FONDEMENT NATION

FONDEMENT DE LA NATION

PAGE 3: NATIVE AMERICANS,

Differences between text 1 « The American pageant » and the text 2 « The Free and the Unfree ».

LAND:

1) Vast and virgin continent (l4)

2) Not a vacant Wasteland (l13)

PEOPLE:

1) Peopled by indians (l5), relatively inhabited (l10)

2) People varied enormously from poor to opulent (l3-4), they consituted somewhere between 50 to 100 millions people (…) (l9-10) = crowed country.

EVENTS :

1) Indeed in text one, to describe the poeple he uses « indians », and consider them as a whole, do not make difference between them.

They were to be eliminated or shouldered aside: it means that they had no chance to avoid the situation as if it was there destiny.

Using « shoudered aside » is soft about Indians because some historians considers it as a genocide or a decimation. What the european did for the text 1 is just set up a political system : it is a justification to the decimation; « this rare opportunity » (l7), « uniquely favored » (l3), as if the American people were the choosen one.

For the timelab of the text, the history of America strats with the « columbus's discovery ».

= a very european vision.

1)

2) By contrast, text 2 considers America as a « not vacant wasteland », showing this with numbers. This people living in America had their proper names which gives them existence.

3) « complex cultures »: means that those people were organised, civilized and not savage: positive.

4) (l3) « varied enormously »: he used « these » people, which means they were different society: nomadic VS settled.

5) The quotation for « civilized » means that European were not THAT civilized.

The text 2 is a more complex explaination about what happen in America.

TEXT 3:

selection is inevitable

selection is ideological (not in a naughty meaning) : when you're a historian you have to have a world view, you can't fight against it.

This vision of the motor of history is WAR.

The cartoon in the front page shows « ethnocentrism » like only the european had discovered something while the native did as well.

The meeting of « old » world and « new ».

I. NATIVE AMERICANS

This « new » world was new only from a european perspective. It is believed that the first inhabitant of the american continent were in fact people who came from Asia across the Bering Strait (detroit) at least 50 to 20 thousands years ago. Columbus wanted to go to India but he never realised that he discovered a new continent: this is why he called them indians. The word « native americans » was first used in 1970's: Indian in America claim for their right like the balck ones in the 60's. They fight for more equality and insisted that they should be called Native. Native because they were the first to be in America and Native suggests dispossession. For them Columbus is the beginning of the end.

I. A. Virgin wilderness VS widowed land

they were probably 10M indians in NA spreading from East to West (see map page 4). It was indedd not a virgin land.

B. Cultural diversity

1- Economy

As text 2, economic organisation varied greatly from poor nomadic hunters to rich sedentary formers with all sort of combination. The land was not just the same evrywhere: great diversity. Where you had rich sail there were agriculture, farmers. But in the desert or semi desert: native tended to be nomadic practising gatherers (cueillette).

The Hopi and the Zoni depite the dry sail created a developped system of irrigation. Their neighbours, the Apache never, they survived thanks to hunting, gathering or stealing from the Hapi and Zapi.

= GREAT VARIETY OF THE ECONOMIC ORGANISATION.

2- Culture

Indian cultutre was an oral culture. They don't have alphabet or written culture. They spoke over 1000 different languages . But one common point: their religion: polytheistic (several gods) and their deep respect for nature. (the great spirit could be found in all plants, the animals and even in the phenomon/an (plurial).

3- Politics

Independance: Indians were divided into many tribal, each of them divided into villages, bounds which were independant from one another. In the conquest of the european it was easier for them to conquier. Tribs were ennemies of each others + you had various indians. Some of them became allies with the European, using each others to fights other europeans.

The hostility was the product of that difference and independance.

C. First contacts

1- Help

The first contacts were not that hostile. Cf Thanksgiving: first recolt made with the help of the Indians (1621)

2- Massacre

But as more as the European came and wanted more land, the relation deteriorated. Massacres started, sometimes historians used the word « genocide ». Millions of Indians were killed or died beacuse of war and diseases. Indians were vulnerable. The Widowed land suggests death because it lost its early inhabitants.

3- Exchanges

The meeting of both worlds: exchange of plants = the colons enrich themselves. European brought to America horses, animals, pigs. Before horses came, Indians were moving with dogs, with that they became formidable (redoutable) hunters. On the other hand,

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