Transcript Using Historiography to Evaluate Primary and Secondary Sources

Using Historiography to
Evaluate Primary and
Secondary Sources
Haudenosaunee Studies
Seneca Nation of Indians
September, 2013
Tracing the Historiography of
Native Peoples
The
invaders
anticipated,
History
is thealso
polemics*
of thecorrectly,
victor. that
other Europeans would
question
the
-William
F.
Buckley,
Jr.
Memory says, “I did that.” Pride replies, “I
morality
of their
*a strong verbal written
attack onenterprise.
someone or something They therefore
could not have done that.” Eventually
[prepared]…quantities of propaganda to
memory yields.
overpower
their
own
countrymen’s
-Friedrich Nietzsche
scruples. The propaganda gradually took
standard form as an ideology with
conventional assumptions and semantics.
We live with it still.
-Francis Jennings
Guided
Practice
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: Play
Caliban
Prospero
Miranda
Caliban
This
Thou
island’s
mostslave
lying
mine
slave,
by Sycorax
witch]on’t
my mother
Abhorred
You
taught
me
language,
and [the
my profit
Which
Whom
thou
stripes
takest
[whipping]may
from
me.
move,
thou
not
camest
kindness!
Which
Is,
I know
any
how
print
to
of
curse.
goodness
TheWhen
red
will
plague
not
take,
rid
youfirst, I
Caliban
have
usedme
thee
Thou
strokest
me
and
made
much
of me; wouldst
Bring
For
learning
capable
ofyour
all ill!
language!
I pitied
thee,
O
ho,cell
O ho!
Woud’t
had
In
mine
give
me
own
[room]
thoubeen
didstdone!
seek
violate
Took
pains
to make
theetill
speak,
taught
thee to
each
hour
Thou
didst
prevent
me;and
I had
peopled
else
Water
The
honor
with
berries
of
my
child
in’t
[wine];
[Miranda].
teach
me
how
One thing or another. When thou didst not, savage,
This
isle withlight,
Calibans.
To
name
the own
bigger
the less,
Know
thine
meaning,and
buthow
wouldst
gabble like
That
burn
by
day,
and
night;
and
then
I
loved thee
A thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes
And
theemade
all thethem
qualities
o’ the
Withshowed
words that
known.
Butisle,
thy vile race,
The
fresh
springs,
brine
pits,
barren
places,
and
Could
not
abide
to
be
with.
Therefore
wast
thou
fertile,
Deservedly
confined
to All
thisthe
rock,
who hadst
Cursed
be I that
did so!
charms
Deserved
than
a prison.
Of
Sycorax more
– 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 me
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest o’ the island.
The Tempest
William
Shakespeare,
playwright
Ca. 1610
Primary Source: Document
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.
• New Voyages to North
America
• Baron de Lahontan
(French), author
• England, published
• 1701
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
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.”
• Saints and
Strangers
• George F.
Willison,
author
• Reynal &
Hitchcock,
publisher
• 1945
The Unforgiven
Audrey Hepburn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHUa_svkuU0
1960
SECONDARY SOURCE: MOVIE
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.
Dances With Wolves
Kevin Costner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9ICbZVs9TU
1990
SECONDARY SOURCE: MOVIE
Secondary Source: Document
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.
• 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
Independent
Practice
What Source?
Woodcut
engraving
Theodore de
Bry, artist
1504
What source?
I am as free as
nature first made
man
Ere the base laws
of servitude began
When wild in
woods the noble
savage ran.
• The Conquest of
Granada
• John Dryden, author
• 1670
•
Note: Dryden never went to
Granada, but read about the
people from others’ writings.
What source?
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.
• History of the
United States
• Rev. Charles A.
Goodrich,
author
• Barber &
Robinson
• 1823
The Searchers
John Wayne
http://www.youtube.com/ watch?feature=player_
embedded&v=WI2AZb04HAc
1956
WHAT SOURCE?
What source?
• The American
Way
These Native Americans
[in the southeast] believed
that nature was filled with
spirits. Each form of life,
• Holt, Rhinehart, such as plants and
animals, had a spirit. Earth
and Winston,
and air held spirits too.
publisher
People were never alone.
They shared their lives
with the spirits of nature.
• 1979
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?
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.
• “Cultural, Historical
Diffusion”
•
George F. Carter,
author
• Transfer and
Transformation of
Ideas
• Hugill and Dickson,
eds.
• 1988
Smoke Signals
Chris Eyre
http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=yzWut5-pGmg
1998
WHAT SOURCE?
Homework