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Title: The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America by James Wilson ISBN: 0-8021-3680-X Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: June, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.2 (10 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: The Earth Shall Weep for Good Scholarship
Comment: "The Earth Shall Weep" is not a bad survey if one knows little of the history of the American Indians and you are especially interested in how the evil white man crushed the peace loving, non-acquisitive and gentle "children of nature." If this is what you want to learn about you could do worse than Wilson, but ultimately, this kind of one-sided history does a disservice to the reader. Every people has been victim and oppressor at one time or another, yet Wilson makes no attempt to deal with this essential fact of life. Wilson is no scholar, but merely an informed writer with a special interest in the confrontation between the Indian and the white man. His book does not even begin to approach the requirements for good historical writing and the reader is left with the impression that the Indians rarely fought with or dispaced one another. The dynamics of life on the Indian frontier are completely absent from this book as is any semblence of fairness toward white people.
This book cannot rightfully be subtitled "A History of Native America" as it is more a story of the most conspicuous examples of white people doing harm to the Indians. Surely a history of Native American should include facts about Indian life and customs other than "creation mythology." Surely, Wilson could have treated the Shawnee, Ottawas, Ojibwas, Apache, Blackfoot, Utes, and the Comanche to a page or two! But, his agenda does not include most of these peoples who evidently don't fit the profile. The dynamics of tribal life among the various peoples, one would think, are important to a "history of Native America," yet, these are almost completely absent from the work, while ample space is given to the deeds of Indian haters like John Chivington. The lives of great Indian men and women are evidently of little importance to Wilson, but the deaths of Indians at the hands of whites seem central to his narrative. Noteworthy Native Americans like Tecumseh, The Prophet, Little Turtle, Handsome Lake, Quanah Parker, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Joseph Brant Pontiac, and Sequoyah are hardly mentioned in Wilson's book, while Chato, Nana, Victorio and his exceptional sister Lozen, Manuelito, Geronimo, Cochise, Osceola, and Sacajawea are nowhere mentioned. Wilson says virtually nothing about the Hopewell, Adenas, Anazazi people, or the great Mississippi culture and its metropolis of Cahokia. Because they were not slaughtered by white men, I guess, Wilson didn't consider it necessary to include them.
A central feature of Wilson's book is the extensive use of quotation from white men who despised the Indians and thought "the only good Indian is a dead one." Wilson is not balanced or scholarly enough to realize that most Indians who hated whites and spat venom, unlike their white counterparts, did not leave a paper trail. In Wilson's world, all racism seems to flow one way. Nowhere are men like Tom Jeffords mentioned or the fact that Abraham Lincoln personally intervened to save the lives of hundreds of Indians at the conclusion of "Little Crow's War."
If you are looking for a summary of the most terrible treatment the Indian was dealt by the white man, then Wilson's book can provide you with a good start. But, if you want a genuine history of Native America, you had better look elsewhere.
Rating: 5
Summary: Best one-volume overview
Comment: This book offers a readable overview of the major themes in American Indian history. Although there are many things one could find to fault in this book, there is no better overview. I especially like the way the author (a white man from Britain) weaves together orthodox academic opinion with Native voices. Wilson's book deftly combines a chronological approach with organization by regions. In each region he highlights general patterns, but then focuses much of the narrative on a few representative tribal histories. Had he tried to write about all of the more than 500 tribes, nations, villages, and bands of Native North America, he would have produced an unreadable book. Instead, he selects those groups that allow him to give enough detail to keep the narrative flowing, while also emphasizing the interrelations of peoples and places that are central to the best history. Throughout the narrative, he offers long quotes from published versions of Native orature.
This book is an exceptional introduction to the history usually suppressed or misrepresented in schools and colleges. It is accessible to high school and college level readers, but can even add to the store of knowledge of experts in American Indian history. It has become the core text in many of my classes.
Rating: 4
Summary: Columbus to Collier
Comment: Helen Hunt Jackson's "A Century of Dishonor," [1881] initiated a string of books by white writers attempting to impart the disaster imposed on North America's native peoples by invaders from Europe. James Wilson has taken a place in that queue with this sweeping study of how native peoples were displaced, deceived, diseased and nearly destroyed. It isn't pleasant reading, but conquest never is when told from the view of the conquered. Wilson attempts to provide a whisper of that voice with as many native peoples' accounts as he could obtain. The result vividly demonstrates the disparity of outlook between the Europeans and those they overran over the course of five centuries.
Although no attempt is made to preface the arrival of Columbus with some account of the previous life of North American native peoples, the text recounts their legends and mythology as they are encountered. Only a smattering of paleoanthropology is offered, and the "consensus" version of Native American origins is dismissed out of hand. Wilson's regional approach is a refreshing departure from the usual chronological format. However, since the focus is on the 48 contiguous States, region and chronology aren't all that distinct.
The issues are land and culture, with a seasoning of racism. The native American "used" the land while the Europeans "owned" it. Native American culture was disparate, often locked into local conditions. Europeans imported a hierarchical society and imposed it wherever they went. Since they went all across the continent, continual clashes were inevitable - and the Europeans won nearly all of them. By the end of the 19th Century, the "Indian", if not extinct, had lost the continent and nearly all culture. According to Wilson, that was precisely what the invaders intended. Where slaughter failed, assimilation could still force disappearance of the "native" from society.
Attempts to rectify, or at least ameliorate what had occurred over the years, were doomed to failure. The variety of cultures among the Indian nations made consistent policy by the federal government impossible. State government attempts, feeble at best, were worse. The closest to a rational policy for dealing with the remaining Indians in the 20th Century were due to one man - John Collier. Starting in the 1920s, Collier struggled to restore some form of the original culture of Native Americans. His programme, now referred to as the "Native New Deal," was based on his own search for a solution to world problems of the era. Years of effort were rewarded by his appointment as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The onset of the Great Depression gave Collier ample opportunity to propagandize his cause as an alternative to the failure of the dominant culture. His efforts to achieve a form of "home rule" for the Indian population is reflected in many programmes still under consideration today. He has left a long, and generally unrecognized, legacy.
Those bemoaning the "lack of balance" in this book overlook the fact that Europeans were the invaders and despoilers. The spectrum of philosophies regarding the "Noble Savage" uniformly fail to address precisely what Wilson does here. An alien culture displaced another, native one, using whatever means necessary. It's a sad, but true, chronicle. Wilson's depiction of it makes dreary reading, but that's due to events, not his style. A fine introduction to the past relationship of conquerors and conquered, this book concludes with a realistic account of the present situation. With increasing demand for resources by the planet's most avaricious society, sustaining or restoring Indian culture is a remote ambition. The clash of cultures remains an issue, which this book clearly outlines. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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