Lead:
There is now a rather unusual, even somewhat inconceivable phenomenon, which is that the ——— we call "Indians" may be biased——— those indigenous or tribal peoples who were originally unknown after the Indian Wars around 1890 have become a major concern for white Americans in the past 20 years. The "Indians" managed to earn themselves a new title——— "Native Americans" because they lived here long before whites invaded the continent where "they" were.
Today, white invaders are often referred to as "European Americans," presumably to emphasize that those people (whites) were invaders and conquerors to these primitive, real Americans. According to this logic, it seems that the United States later all pretended to be American identities, and they were all fake Americans. An important reason for the sudden importance of the Indians is undoubtedly related to the revival of "environmental moral consciousness", that is, an advocacy for the love of the homeland. We recognize that the Indians are our role models in this regard: because they have an intimate relationship with the natural world, we should strive to emulate them. And this exaltation of the Indians is undoubtedly driven by a modern shangguism: they are tired of a world full of technological wonders, and they are eager to retreat into the naïve swaddling civilization and relive the authentic life of the "natural" man.
Native American
In the early years of the Indians, Lawson used the words "communication" and "communication" to refer to cohabitation, including gender relations, in the foreign relations of the Indians. The proof that there is a wonderful relationship between Indian women and white men is also introduced through many very small pieces of circumstantial evidence. Obviously, the most attractive aspect of Indian life to white men is Indian women. The factors contributing to this outcome are partly due to the fact that Indian women are easily accessible and that the relationship is simple and natural.
Not only that, but the Indian women were assertive and independent, but gentle and lovely, and very loyal to their white "husbands". For Indian women, white men meant power. Deep and unpredictable and exotic, these things, no matter what race or age of women seem to be the embodiment of masculine charm. The most poignant of the relationships between settlers and Indians is the apparent connection between white men and Indian women, which often saves a settlement on both front lines from extinction.
If some members of an Indian tribe were friendly with a colony, they would naturally visit its inhabitants or become guests of honor in the colony. In Pennsylvania, for example, their parliament had several apartments that were prepared for a visit by the Indian chiefs. In Virginia, the tradition of entertaining Indians from the past was maintained until the very end of the day.
Pennsylvania
Characteristics of the Indians
Unfortunately, if you become friends with an Indian tribe, you have to become a sworn enemy of their enemies. There is no room for compromise in the moral and ethical concepts of the Indians in this regard. If you become a friend of an Indian tribe, you are their ally against the enemy. As long as you deviate from this one, it is the most shameful betrayal. Weak or vassal tribes always wanted to establish alliances with the settlers in the hope of defeating the tribes they were vassals of. The French in Canada allied themselves with the Huron and became enemies of the Iroquis, the most powerful and warlike Iroquis in the northeast of the North American continent.
Later, when the European powers extended their war to the American continent, this group of Huron's natural enemies became allies of the English. In Connecticut, settlers were invited to build homes on Indian land, apparently the tribe's hope to grow in strength and defeat the enemy together. The effort by Connecticut settlers, led by John Mason and John Enderhill, to wipe out the Pequots was coordinated by the most powerful tribes in the region, the Narragansetts and the Mohicans. The settlers succeeded in maintaining overall peaceful and friendly relations with them. When the colony in Massachusetts Bay was established, John Eliot translated the Bible into Indian languages. But Eliot was only one of the more famous of the many missionaries who worked hard to change the fate of the Indians and convert them to Christianity. Harvard University has built a special building to teach Indian students.
Harvard University
Caleb Cheeshateaumuck was the first Indian to receive a bachelor's degree here. When the College of William and Mary was founded in Williamsburg in 1693, there was an Indian College and, of course, Dartmouth. Indian College in Dartmouth produced a distinguished Indian priest and scholar, Samson Occom. However, all the efforts were ultimately in vain. White people's views of indians were too narrow.
They tried their best to convert the Indians into "white Protestants," but the Indians were very resistant to this plan. And the fact that the Indians were not a whole complicated the issue. The language, customs and habits of the Indians of different tribes varied, and they all had tribal consciousness. They did not and could not exist completely apart from the tribe to which they belonged. The behavior and culture of the whites seemed unthinkable to these so-called Indians, and the way they behaved was the same for the whites. In either case, although the enlightened men on both sides would have tried to avoid a constant state of bitter war between the white settlers and the Indians.
Dartmouth University
Except in the early years, the war was invariably detrimental to the Indians. Because the war gave whites the opportunity to seize Indian land and then sign a contract that could not be easily broken to ensure their vested interests. There is an interesting two-sidedness and ambiguity in all the contacts between whites and Indians. For those who embraced the Protestant ethic, there were many attractions to the life of the Indians. White society was built around the idea of contractual relationships and the way people behaved according to the rules. The Indians seemed to understand the medieval warriors better than the Puritans, while the whites did the opposite.
The Reformation, on the other hand, made the faithful "individuals," and they became a group of isolated outsiders in the face of a people who still had tribal consciousness. Not only that, but white settlers have psychological baggage, the most fundamental of which is that they have always tied a string and always only behave in accordance with the expectations of others. And the Indians did have some loose life in their freedom, and sometimes it was really an irresistible temptation for them.
College of William and Mary
Food for the Indians
The Food of the Indians is corn, also known as "Indian grains", and there are many ways to process it: sometimes the corn is roasted in the ash pile; sometimes the corn kernels are beaten down and boiled in water, which they call polenta (hominy); they also make corn into a cake that is not very tasty. Similarly, they also eat several soy and pea foods, which are nutrient-rich. The woods and the river are their big granaries... They must be very good at hiding their inner dissatisfaction, and I think I can draw this conclusion because I saw their revenge on each other. Whether it is cover-up or revenge, even the Italians are inferior to them.
Ever since Europeans came to these places, Indians have also become fond of spirits, especially rum. Once they had drunk the liquor, they would keep fighting until they were drunk and fell asleep. They always shouted like this, let me drink some more, and I drank and went to sleep. The way the Indians were drunk was simply the most terrifying sight in the world. The Indians regarded money as justice: no matter how wrong or evil anything was, in the case of murder, they would feast or take out their own possessions to atone for their sins, and this scale was proportional to the scale of the violation of others or the identity of the victim, or even the gender of the victim.
If they kill a woman, then they pay double the money, and their reason is "because she is going to reproduce, which men can't do". Payne's Indian consultation method is also simple. The words "yours" and "mine," "ours," "his," and "hers" did not have the so-called defining meaning of what whites saw as indians. If a white man insists that a piece of land is "his" property, and the Indian does not think that the land has the possibility of being owned by him.
The Indians were unheard of all the ideas of buying and selling land, for on the one hand they knew how to drive the enemy away from their hunting areas and possessions, and on the other hand they did not have the consciousness to specifically mark the areas that had long belonged to a particular tribe, let alone to which Indian individual. As a result, the Indians often "sold" the same land to several English buyers, so even if there was no bloodshed, it led to many incomprehensions and misunderstandings. Franklin's classic account of how he worked to get Indians interested in white education also revealed the difficulties of reconciling the two cultures.
corn
The conflict between indians and caucasians
Much of the conflict between whites and Indians revolved around settlers——— especially New England——— their Protestant "work ethic." Countless meetings with the Indians were always varied and dramatic. In negotiations, the Indians always brought out their noblest and most dazzling side. Compared with the ruthlessness and cruelty they showed in the war, they appeared magnanimous in peacetime. The Indians' speeches were very long and mouthy, interspersed with a wealth of metaphorical images and perspectives. Everyone smoked Kalume cigarettes——— and there was a name called Peace Pipe, so the agreement was finalized.
Colonists were clearly more interested in the Indians' ability to speak, and some historians believe that the "stem-winding" and "spread-eagle" oratory that American politicians liked in the 19th century may have originated from the speeches of Indian chiefs at negotiating meetings. Negotiating meetings are often accompanied by staggered and feasting, especially when agreements have been reached. Because a barrel of rum is often indispensable when the agreement is signed, and the Indians celebrate for many days in a row.
In 1754, a typical negotiating meeting was held in Albany between the Colonial Governor of New York and the Onondagos and cayojas. No foreign government can sympathize, let alone understand, the plight of the Race that the Indians, as an organizational style, cannot find in the white bureaucracy.
The ongoing negotiation between the whites and the Indians, of course, was that John Smith grabbed Powhatan by the hair and grabbed him, really "hanging" and snatched pieces of land from him. There is a famous story about white people haggling hard and finally making Indians pay the bill, which is exactly what is called the Pennsylvania Walking Purchase of Indian Lands. The Indians sold a piece of land at a reasonable price, a distance that a person could walk for a day and a half from sunrise to sunset. This brings us to see that a person who walks relatively fast can get about 20 square miles.
However, the whites arranged for people to run relays, thus carving out a large piece of land, so that they received many times the area of land that the Indians were going to sell. To the Indians this was naked trickery and fraud. For whites, it's a clever strategy. Not surprisingly, Pocahontas was not surprised by the "lies" of the Englishmen. Or rather, after so many generations, it is not strange that Indians have spoken half-truths to white people.
Indians vs. Whites
But the irony of this is that the society in the embryonic stages of capitalism developed from Protestant religious feelings, which were based on contractual relations and, above all, that "what a man says must be as reliable as his bonds." As a result, "England Honour" has also become synonymous with fair trade.
However, over time, the burden of personal integrity gradually shifted to the contract. As long as it can be compromised in the contract (or in the contract) it is already fair enough. And the trick is only part of the whole compromise. If people live in an environment completely free of ordinary bureaucracies or are outside the system, they can only rely on the character of the other side, and they will always show their naïve ignorance in the face of scheming negotiators.
Whether they were "despicable barbarians" or mountain aristocrats, settlers in England, whether they were ruthless plunderers or devout Christians eager to save the souls of pagans, it was hard to imagine that these two civilizations coexisted on the same continent and left no painful memory of conflict at the time of their historic encounters.
epilogue:
These so-called Indian colonists grew corn and tobacco, peas, soybeans, big pumpkins, small pumpkins, melons, and cucumbers; taught them how to beat maple sugar; how to use fish as fertilizer; how to hunt and set traps; how to make canoes. The Indians gave the colonists countless place names and later barbecues that could be seen everywhere. But in a more profound sense of importance, they stirred up the deepest layers of white thinking.
Did the Indians represent a freer and more natural life? Are they the frontiers of humanity's future possibilities? Or did their cruelty and violence awaken the wildness that "civilized" people tried so hard to suppress? No matter how one considers this unanswerable question, the truth is that the White and Red are caught in a strange and terrible head-on pattern, which both weakens the whites' dominant position and ultimately destroys the tribal life of the Indians.