Unit 1: A World of Their Own: The Americas to 1500

Question/Problem 3:Prove that Pre-Columbian Indians had cultures worthy of respect.

Once contact had been made between Indians and people of other cultures, there were many times when the outsiders described Indians as little more than primitive savages.

- A Spanish Franciscan in California in 1769 found Indians to be "...without religion, or government, (having) nothing more than diverse superstitions and a type of democracy similar to that of ants."

- In 1856, Frederick Law Olmsted described Indians he met in South Texas,"We could not find even one man of dignity; the universal expression towards us was either a silly leer or a stupid indifference."

- An Englishman, visiting the United States in 1875, said that, "Their inventive and initiative faculties appear to be a very humble capacity, nor have they the smallest taste for the arts and sciences."

- In 1897, an officer in the United States Army described the Indians as "incapable of even a veneer of civilization.... He was animal in his instincts, and he neither knew nor cares about anything not connected with his material wants.... All Indians are lazy and thievish, work being considered degrading."

Why did people say these things? George Catlin (1832-1839) said, "I am fully convinced, from a long familiarity with these people, that the Indian's misfortune has consisted chiefly in our ignorance of their true native character and disposition, which has always held us at a distrustful distance from them..."

Your assignment is to prove that Pre-Columbian Indians had cultures worthy of respect. To do this you may use evidence from the life grids you filled out on tribes from different culture areas, as well as any other information your teacher provides. Your proof will take the form of an essay; your teacher will provide you with the evaluation criteria for this essay.

All quotations from Jack D. Forbes, The Indian in America's Past (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1964).