Why isn't this in our standard history books?

[kpete]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151575755165658&set=a.10150523921480658.372668.270212045657&type=1&theater

[arcane1]

1. Because they aren't intended to teach history, but civic mythology instead

[kpete]

2. Joseph Campbell re: myths

Campbell would often say that we need a new myth, one relevant to our times and inclusive of our current knowledge of the universe – he thought the famous “Earthrise” photo taken from the moon might be the mythic symbol of our times: a kind of post-tribal sense of our unity.



wish he could be replaced, Joseph Campbell that is...
more:
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/12/the-masterful-joseph-campbell-on-christ-nature-and-eastern-mythology/

[RebelOne]

36. I grew up in Miami, FL, and learned quite a bit

about our Seminoles. The tribe was in our history books.

[Callmecrazy]

78. The Seminoles were never defeated.

After three Seminole Wars they still held Florida.

[markpkessinger]

68. LOVE Joseph Campbell!

I saw the "Power of Myth" series with Bill Moyers and Campbell when it first aired. I was in college and was absolutely transfixed by the discussions from the first episode. I have watched it dozens of times since!

[kpete]

85. on our travels

we have the audio book

great way to pass the time

so much insight

peace, kp

[dballance]

24. +10,0000

See, we have to propagate the myth of the mighty and right white man.

[Orrex]

81. That's a magnificent summation

Consider it stolen!

[sibelian]

98. Perfectly stated.

Thank you. That's the perfect way of putting it.

[Enthusiast]

103. I like your term 'civic mythology'.

It's right on.

[Notafraidtoo]

3. Because it doesn't fit the narrative.

Their is nothing in compulsory School books that doesn't benefit Capitalism in some way, something like this would raise some of the first questions against the propaganda that keeps many Americans thinking we are number #1 and some how a benevolent nation, And that doesn't fit the military complex profit strategy. They say follow the money and you will have your answers, well nothing is truer when it comes to the US Government, To much money to be made by CEO's and business making people think a certain way. Its not a conspiracy its just profit strategy that ends up looking like conspiracy, but it simply ends up being objection to certain truths for the self interest of wealthy individuals.

[socialist_n_TN]

49. "It's not a conspiracy it's just profit strategy..."

Yep that's it exactly. And that's on the system itself. it's not even "bad/greedy actors", it's the same damn thing. It's all about a profit strategy which is ALL that capitalism teaches.

[Recursion]

64. What narrative does it disrupt?

Like I said, I went to a public high school in Mississippi and the major Amerindian linguistic groups was something we learned. I don't think we were tested on it, but it was definitely there.

[RGinNJ]

4. I grew up in Michigan and at least in the late 60's and early 70's

in grade school our teachers made a big point of teaching us about the indigenous tribes of our area.

[Holly_Hobby]

5. Same here, I'm in Toledo, OH

I can't tell you what kids are taught today, though.

On edit, my dad is related to Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. You know, the naval officer that slaughtered all the Indians in my part of the state on Lake Erie. Wow he would get angry when I reminded him of the number of dead Indians.

[RGinNJ]

7. Did you also learn of the Michigan/Ohio war?

Ohio got Port Toledo, Michigan got the Upper Peninsula.

[Holly_Hobby]

9. It's not something I remember learning, no

I'll have to look it up. I admit to not being a history buff. It was my dad who forced it down my throat when I was a kid, like I should be proud and grateful to Commodore Perry. I'm just not that into war, even if that would've meant I was born somewhere else speaking another language.

As far as Toledo, don't get me started

[James48]

17. Yes-

The only casualty in the Toledo War was said to be one pig.

[xfundy]

52. Well, at least it was

a repuglican.

[Bay Boy]

92. Rush Limbaugh's...

... great-great-great grandpappy?

[Rebellious Republican]

27. Thought you were going to say....

Ohio was tossing hand grenades into Michigan, people in Michigan were picking them up, pulling the pins and pitching them back.

[avebury]

62. LOL! Great response! nt

[irisblue]

13. I remember similar maps

I was in Michigan in the early 60s, and I recall maps. I don't know anything about current history or social studies texts. And yeah I learned about the Ohio/Michigan war, Wisconsin got robbed.

[JimDandy]

61. Same in Oklahoma.

Ok was basically a huge relocation area ('dumping ground') for disparate tribes from all over the nation who were forced to leave their tribal homelands. I remember seeing maps like this as a child in school (late sixties) that showed where all the native tribes were originally from.

[Brickbat]

6. Because it's a linguistic map?

[yawnmaster]

8. Because it is too much detail, and because its not really a "history" map...

it's made to show languages.
that said, much was taught in history (high school) especially with regard to the eastern nations.

[Spider Jerusalem]

10. Because the native societies of the Americas were not literate and left no recorded history

same reason the pre-Roman societies of Britain and France get a few paragraphs about "human habitation since (whenever)" and notes re some cultural artifacts like Stonehenge but are otherwise largely unknown and unknowable. History begins with literacy and records.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. They left no records

SNORT!!!!!

I guess the Museum of Archeology in Mexico City has all that fiction in it. And the Codices are just fantasy.

Of course the fact that most of them were burned by the Spanish is nothing to sneeze at.

But hey, you are right, they left no records.

SNORT!

[Spider Jerusalem]

30. The Maya and Aztecs were the only known native cultures with any form of writing.

And there are only three indisputably authentic Mayan codices. None of them are a historical record. Cultural, yes, historical, no. And there's no known extant writing for any native culture in what is now the United States.

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. wrong, the writing system for both goes all the way back to at least the Classic Period

and the culture of Teotihuacan, who had good contacts with the cultures of the Mississippi. We suspect the numberic system goes further back with the Olmecs, which is considered the MOTHER culture of Meso America, which includes a fair part of North America. The Toltecs were using the same system later, as well as a few cultures in what is now known as the US.

There is more, we also have evidence of pyramid complexes in the Mississippi. I highly recommend you read on Cahokia, the ancient city in the Mississippi. It is the third largest pyramid complex in North America. I really do not blame you if you have no idea about it, as I said, it is not even HS material, but if I ever teach college, I intend to have a section on the cultures before the English came to these shores, as well as the Spanish.

Oh and we really do not know what was burned by the Dominicans, do we? But historians suspect that among other things burned were historical records of a few cities including Chichen Itza. None can prove it, since well, they became carbon after being put to the flame. And the three that survived the flames, it was more dumb luck than anything since all was seen as demonic in nature and only fit for the cleansing flame. One of them was the Chilam Balam, which is a fun read in translation.

Oh and I forgot, this suspicion is based on recent stela and one is actually a list of Kings

[Spider Jerusalem]

33. And the Mayan is the only one that's been deciphered to any extent

and the only known written records of any sort are still from Mexico and Latin America, not the current USA or Canada. Fragmentary and undeciphered writing doesn't add up to "history"; we don't really know much of anything about the Etruscans, either. (And architectural remains don't constitute "history" either. cf reference to Stonehenge in the European context.)

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. This is the typical attitude of people who really

do not want to admit that history and historic record keeping happened. By your logic, sans roseta stone Egypt had no record keeping either.

And I am personally annoyed by the attitude, since we cannot read it, it's not valid.

By the way, tracing it backwards, they are starting to decipher the glyps of the classic period, and as I said, the numeric system is the same going all the way back to the Olmecs. That is a hell of a continuity of history.

Oh and you have nothing to say about Cahookia, typical.

Have a good day.

[Spider Jerusalem]

39. What does that have to do with the majority of native American cultures that were illiterate?

Literacy as such, and the existence of writing, was geographically limited and what still exists is fragmentary and largely unreadable. This doesn't speak to "validity"; we can't read the writing of the Indus Valley civilisation, or Linear A from ancient Crete, either. And the Mississipians weren't literate. So it's an irrelevancy and red herring. The fact remains that native cultures in what are now the USA and Canada were illiterate; that those pre-Columbian American societies which were literate existed in a geographically limited area and were closely related; and that what few remaining records there are (and what can be deciphered) doesn't constitute a "history" in the sense that word is commonly understood (ie a coherent narrative of events).

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. You do know that literacy as a wide spread phenomena is a

pretty modern thing right? As to ancient cultures that could not read. My, the local Kumeyaai go back 10,000 years. They have a very rich culture, and yes, a language and a writing system that goes well before the Spaniards got here.

Currently their system uses a Latin dictionary, but it did not at all times. And they have a rich history too, are you willing to listen?

This is not a culture you will see often listed as literate. And to be honest, they don't care if white men are that blind at this point.

As to your definition of history only mattering if we can decipher it, then I was right. Egypt had no history until the Rosetta Stone was deciphered. And why was it deciphered? There was interest. Why are specialists in Mexico and Central America working to decipher those languages? There is interest in learning that history. And we are to the point we have the list of kinds of Tikal, and Chichen Itza. Imagine all that we would have if the Dominicans did not burn those codices.

Myself, I have a lot more respect for the people in the field trying to make heads or tails out of it. And yes, I read their work in Professional Journals. The more we find about it, the richer we humans are for it.

[Spider Jerusalem]

41. I'm not talking about literacy as a widespread phenomenon.

Pre-literate societies are also regarded as prehistoric because they leave no continuity of written record. (For instance, Britain has been inhabited by humans since at least 25K years ago; the period up until Julius Caesar's invasion in 43 BC is "prehistoric" because the indigenous peoples were illiterate.)

[nadinbrzezinski]

43. And I am arguing that there was a lot more historic record keeping

than you are willing to acknowledge, yes, even in the US, pre contact US.

I will recommend again you read into Cahokia, for example. Or for that matter the New Mexico people that lived in cliffs.

Hell, we have now evidence that Columbus was not the first one to make landfall. And not just Eric the Red, but also the Chinese Grand Fleet.

History is becoming far more complex than the junior high teachings would make it seem.

And yes, this field is changing FAST.

[Spider Jerusalem]

45. You're conflating archaeology with history.

They're not the same thing. We have archaeological remains of cultures like the Mississippian; they were illiterate and left no history. Nor did the New Mexicans. And the Chinese didn't come to America before Columbus; the theory that Zheng He sailed the Pacific is not widely accepted by serious scholars.

[nadinbrzezinski]

46. If you say so

and we all know Egypt had no historic records either.

And with that, good bye, Nothing more disheartening than to see that even when we are starting to reconstruct records, as in what Herododotus might consider actual honest to goodness history, you still refuse.

Have a good day.

[Recursion]

65. If you're reconstructing it, it's not a "record"

That's the line between history and archaeology.

and we all know Egypt had no historic records either.

Basically. Until they could be deciphered, they weren't "records" to us. This isn't an indictment of the cultures that left no records, just the sad fact that we can't use historiographic techniques on them. The "dark" in "dark ages" applies to us, not them.

[orpupilofnature57]

77. +1000 !!!!

What we don't know, does hurt us .

[nadinbrzezinski]

94. I figured giving you a link with pictures

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_writing_systems

[kpete]

89. lovely

SNORT!

my degree is in Painting and Printmaking,
I minored in Meso-American studies
I have books, upon books regarding the subject
(don't get me started on my pics)
They were amazing astronomers and architects too!



peace,
kp

[Zorra]

11. Racism, History, and Lies

RACISM, HISTORY AND LIES

[dipsydoodle]

12. Well summed up in four words.

I rec your reponse.

[JackRiddler]

20. Bravo for cutting through the bullshit.

[heaven05]

29. +10000

[Deny and Shred]

105. If he always had Tonto at his side, why was he the LONE Ranger?

I always saw that as a jingoistic slight, even as a kid. Its like an indian doesn't count.

[Igel]

14. So many reasons.

1. Lack of time. Cultures and civilizations have narratives. What's not in the narrative doesn't build cohesion, and if you build cohesion mostly within lot of disparate groups you wind up with what you had in pre-Columbian times--a vast expanse of land with many hundreds of smaller populations struggling with each other.

2. For the same reasons that most Americans haven't heard of Boudicea, the Old Europeans, The Volkswanderung, or worried much about locating the Luwians or Urarteans on a map of Asia. Not just real relevant. Even in my own high school the Goths and Vandals appeared out of nowhere, we heard squat about Sarmatians and Scythians, and in studying Europe the Germanic kingdoms in Iberia weren't all that important. I heard little about the Muslim occupation of Sicily and S. Italy, for instance.

3. When was this? Because when the Spanish showed up the Apaches were busy committing genocide and expanding their range. These groups moved in response to climate change and warfare, sometimes merging with and/or eliminating a competitor, sometimes forming alliances. If you're going to teach history, you do it right. Unfortunately, there's not all that much known about the details.

4. Those large territories--are we expected to think that somehow these are organized groups? Most of them were bands united by language. They might come together for purposes of exogamy, but for the most part that linguistic diversity shows a lot of boundaries and barriers, natural and artificial.

3.

[Scootaloo]

23. Here's the problem with your post

It basically amounts to "because it is" - it's circular reasoning.

1) "There's no time" is a frankly arbitrary argument. Time could easily be made. other things could be so deemed as "there's no time," and places made for other things. Yes, there is a narrative - but that narrative is an intentional construct. There are an infinite number of possible narratives, all as accurate and relevant as the last. The narrative primarily in use is one that for the completely arbitrary reason of "we wrote the books first" focuses around England. Of course the United States is a vastly multiethnic society that cannot be well-represented by the "England" narrative.

2) Again, an arbitrary argument. Relevance is decided not according to actual relevance, but according to whether or not a book writer wishes to include it.

3) Well, when the Spanish showed up they were committing genocide too. But we still learn about the Spanish. Sort of. In fact everything in your paragraph here absolutely applies to every society currently covered in history. But nice try with the "Indians are savages" angle.

4) Funny, that's not how the people themselves tell it. Rather that's how they were assumed to be by Europeans who saw societies different from their own and assumed "not really a society." Know why the English didn't take treaties with the East Coast natives seriously? Because the natives didn't use fences. Really. That's it. Later on as plagues ravaged these people, what was left were indeed bands of survivors, creating the mythology of tiny tribes living in the "untouched wilderness."

[kurtzapril4]

38. The Apaches and other tribes

did indeed commit genocide against other tribes. It wasn't that "Indians are savages," it's that Native Americans are human beings, and when human beings want more land or more game, and the other party doesn't want to give up their land or game, there is going to be a fight. They were just as capable of war, cruelty and murder as we are now. They were just as capable of compassion and empathy as we are now.

One of the biggest myths about Native Americans is that they were some kind of proto-hippies, all living in peace and harmony.

[heaven05]

28. ???

you're still minimizing the slaughter by the white man of the red man in the name of 'manifest destiny'. Forgot that little fact, huh? There is plenty known about the slaughter in the native american tribes/nations. Minimizing culpability and diversionary reasoning, always. Sickening.

[99th_Monkey]

15. Because we don't like "savages"

Last edited Sun Sep 1, 2013, 06:04 PM - Edit history (1)

who have potlatches to give away free stuff, who settle differences fairly and
mostly peaceably, who dress different, who live close to the land and the earth,
who have a different color skin, who place a high value on speaking the truth
(blah, blah ... the list goes on...)

Mostly these "primitive" people are peaceful, resourceful, respectful of nature
and of family ties.. what possible use could they ever be to the rise of mega-
industrialism and the commodification of everything in sight?

[mythology]

86. You do realize that Native American populations killed and conquered like every other right?

If you're going to to chide others for believing that Native Americans were savages, you probably shouldn't just take the polar opposite caricature and believe that is any more accurate.

It denies the Native American population of any legitimate agency if you see them as only peace loving peoples who never committed violence or changed the land they lived on.

[99th_Monkey]

101. I've done my fair share of research on the subject

re: the Rogue River OR natives. They were peaceful & giving initially, until they were
betrayed, murdered, etc. and then they "flipped" into being one of the fiercest fighting
tribes on record. So fierce that settlers simply avoided the area for decades, and the
natives continued to live in relative peace, until ... GOLD!! was discovered, then it was
all over but the shooting. The US Cavalry and many "volunteers" (mercenaries) were
sent into the area, to overwhelm the unruly natives with firepower, and then force what
few survivors there were, to go on a death march for over a hundred miles, which few
survived.

Notice what tipped the scales? Gold.

[druidity33]

16. Any idea where i can get a larger copy of this? nt.

[kpete]

26. i looked around

and could not find original source
let me know,
kp

[Bernardo de La Paz]

31. It's difficult, so let me guide you:

First, note that the map is labelled "Major Linguistic Groups".

Second, it is good to know that the area in the map is the continent called "North America".

So go to http://google.com and click in the text field. Then you can type major linguistic groups in north america.

When the search results come up, it is highly likely the fourth or fifth results will be a link to images. If you click on that, you will find lots of maps.

If the link is not visible, then look at the top of the Google page for the "Images" link. Click on that.

However you get to the images link, you can click on the Search Tools link at the right of the line of control links second from the top. When you do that, additional controls will drop down below it. The left one will be Size. Click on it and a drop down list of sizes will appear. Click on Large.

Sorry it was so involved, but it can be done.

Remember, Google is your friend.

[druidity33]

73. i did all that BEFORE i asked the question...

and could not find the same map as a larger file (i can't read any of the tribal names on the east coast). I found other similar maps, but not that one.



BTW, personally, i have an issue with Google, i use Bing usually, sometimes Scroogle...

[Bernardo de La Paz]

74. Let me google that for you

Last edited Mon Sep 2, 2013, 01:12 PM - Edit history (1)

(edited for sex)

https://www.google.com/search?q=major+linguistic+groups+of+north+america

https://www.google.com/search?q=major+linguistic+groups+of+north+america&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=Lm4kUqnWMOS5sASGxICoAg&ved=0CEIQsAQ&biw=1252&bih=1026

That returns a bunch of images. The 9th one on the search returned for me is kpete's image in her DU post. Click on the "Other sizes" button, and it gets you this search:

https://www.google.com/search?q=major+linguistic+groups+of+north+america&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=Lm4kUqnWMOS5sASGxICoAg&ved=0CEIQsAQ&biw=1252&bih=1026#q=major%20linguistic%20groups%20of%20north%20america&tbm=isch&tbs=simg%3ACAQSEgn0cFQDaz5-_1yEQSxpSiXpzOA&imgdii=_

There are two that are twice the dimensions of the DU image (four times the area).

[kpete]

96. kpete's image in his DU post

"her" DU post

i know it is a small detail

i am a she

peace, kp

[Bernardo de La Paz]

97. Thanks. Sorry about that. The "pete" part fooled me. My carelessness. nt

[druidity33]

104. AH, the more sizes button! Thanks! nt.

[LiberalElite]

18. Because the white man

"discovered" America, remember?

[libdem4life]

19. They who win the wars, write the history.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. I wish I were kidding, but this is GRADUATE level school work

not middle school.

In Mexico there is pride about the pre-hispanic cultures, and all that. In the States, the less we know the better.

[tabasco]

42. Yes, broadbrush people "in the States."

That makes you look so intelligent.

[nadinbrzezinski]

47. Sorry, but that is the truth

and there are good HISTORIC reasons for that by the way.

And as to your cartoon, funny, and idiotic at the same time.

By the way genius I went to an AMERICAN UNIVERSITY and it was at that AMERICAN UNIVERSITY where I learned a lot of this. And it was an AMERICAN instructor, with a PhD, in a class on methods of history who made that statement. His reason was simple, and true, Americans really do not want to teach kids why red skins is wrong. or for that matter that there was culture before Europeans got to the US.

The way that Mesoamerica is taught is using the Spanish Black Legend, not what actually happened.

But I guess he was also stereotyping Americans and broad brushing the American Historical Association where he fought to change this and partially succeeded, as LOCAL cultures are taught in many local districts, but the overall picture, not yet.

[enlightenment]

56. Wow,

Nadine. I'll be sure to tell my undergraduate students that I'm making them do graduate level course work.

[nadinbrzezinski]

57. Please do, and keep doing it please

serious.

[Recursion]

66. Huh? We had this in middle school

At least, we learned "Algonquin, Siouxan, Iroquoian" (this was the late 1980s and I think the theory has been refined since then), and that it was unclear which of those families (or something else) the mound builders in our area spoke (though we've since determined it was a Caddo language).

[heaven05]

25. "why isn't this in standard history texts"?

hypocrisy and historical revisionism brooks no truth. It was a slaughter of the first degree and no one wants to know about that. Especially american students. That's why.

[BainsBane]

35. It is

When was the last time you took a college history class?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

37. They teach this instead...

[Lee-Lee]

44. We learned that

In fifth or sixth grade we also spent the whole year learning just NC history. A lot of that was about indigenous peoples of NC. But not all accurate and the teachers were quick to put a lot of stereotypes about native peoples into it.

I am more upset they don't teach the history of the labor movement. I grew up where some some pretty big stuff happened, yet we learned nothing of it.

[mia]

48. Native Americans by Edward Curtis

These photos led me to learn more about Native Americans. I have a large book of his photos.

[GeorgeGist]

50. Because our ancestors holocaust was successful?

[orpupilofnature57]

51. The same reason we never studied ' The great Business Plot ' .

&list=PLA29F12D5812133B9&index=2

[a la izquierda]

53. Well, it's not accurate for starters.

What the hell is Aztec? And Huichol, which I study, is not remotely that large or widespread. There were hundreds of dialects in Mesoamerica. Not 12.

Other than that, I get the point of the post.

Eta: Nahuatl is what "Aztecs" spoke.

[nadinbrzezinski]

58. That map is very dated, that is why it is far from accurate

I have seen it in really old books. Think 1890s era.

[a la izquierda]

82. Jesus.

Well, that might make sense, considering the Huichols were relative unknowns to Americans until circa 1900.

OT: Hope all's well in your neck of the woods. I go back to Mexico for several months next year. I cannot wait.

[nadinbrzezinski]

93. We have the full Banford collection

At sdsu, that is where I think I saw it.

You have fun, and as when I travel to Mexico (or anywhere else) have fun

[XemaSab]

70. The Hupa are shown in the Wintu and Nomlaki territory

[orpupilofnature57]

76. And the word Souix is french for Lakota, and we'd know that if

Crazy Horse was given his due .

[a la izquierda]

80. Ahh, they're all Indian, right?

Who cares if their territory is inaccurate.

[Jenoch]

54. There is something a little interesting about the map.

The map shows the Sioux controlling the Black Hills. They drove the Crow west to take over the Black HIlls region. The Ojibwe later drove much of the Sioux out of northern Minnesota.

[enlightenment]

55. I've seen similar in quite a few history books

but you'd be more likely to see a map of linguistic groups in an anthropology or ethnography text.

[Swede Atlanta]

59. I recently had a Facebook exchange with a distant cousin...

She posted something offensive she had found somewhere about current immigrants, especially those here illegally.

I responded that she was generalizing about a group of people she had never met, never heard and does not understand because I have had much interaction with this community.

Her response was that "our ancestors came here legally" and all the usual right-wing nonsense.

I responded that in fact none of our ancestors came here legally because the Native Americans had not issued them visas or a visa waiver so in fact all of our ancestors are here illegally and so we should be immediately deported back to the countries of our ancestry.

She never responded but she also not un-friended me. I don't know if she was just confused by FACTS or pissed off enough to just ignore me going forward.

[gopiscrap]

60. Because Native People's don't have the money or the power to write the history books

[Recursion]

63. It is.

I remember my high school history book covered the major Amerindian language groups, at least?

[Hekate]

67. 95% population loss due to European microbes not intentionally introduced

I used to subscribe to Discover, and this 1992 article impressed me so much I never forgot it. Like the author, I was also taught that the continent was nearly empty when it was discovered by the Europeans. What is more true is that by the time it was broadly explored, disease had run ahead to empty the continent for real. That made it easy to believe that a whole empty continent was waiting just for European migrants.

To answer your question with a question: Why are a whole LOT of things not in our children's history books? I would have loved to have seen that map and been taught about it.

Hekate

The Arrow of Disease by Jared Diamond
>snip< (5th paragraph in)
The grimmest example of the role of germs in history is much on our minds this month, as we recall the European conquest of the Americas that began with Columbus’s voyage of 1492. Numerous as the Indian victims of the murderous Spanish conquistadores were, they were dwarfed in number by the victims of murderous Spanish microbes. These formidable conquerors killed an estimated 95 percent of the New World’s pre-Columbian Indian population.
>snip<
(many paragraphs later)
When we in the United States think of the most populous New World societies existing in 1492, only the Aztecs and Incas come to mind. We forget that North America also supported populous Indian societies in the Mississippi Valley. Sadly, these societies too would disappear. But in this case conquistadores contributed nothing directly to the societies’ destruction; the conquistadores’ germs, spreading in advance, did everything. When De Soto marched through the Southeast in 1540, he came across Indian towns abandoned two years previously because nearly all the inhabitants had died in epidemics. However, he was still able to see some of the densely populated towns lining the lower Mississippi. By a century and a half later, though, when French settlers returned to the lower Mississippi, almost all those towns had vanished. Their relics are the great mound sites of the Mississippi Valley. Only recently have we come to realize that the mound-building societies were still largely intact when Columbus arrived, and that they collapsed between 1492 and the systematic European exploration of the Mississippi.

When I was a child in school, we were taught that North America had originally been occupied by about one million Indians. That low number helped justify the white conquest of what could then be viewed as an almost empty continent. However, archeological excavations and descriptions left by the first European explorers on our coasts now suggest an initial number of around 20 million. In the century or two following Columbus’s arrival in the New World, the Indian population is estimated to have declined by about 95 percent.

The main killers were European germs, to which the Indians had never been exposed and against which they therefore had neither immunologic nor genetic resistance. Smallpox, measles, influenza, and typhus competed for top rank among the killers. As if those were not enough, pertussis, plague, tuberculosis, diphtheria, mumps, malaria, and yellow fever came close behind. In countless cases Europeans were actually there to witness the decimation that occurred when the germs arrived. For example, in 1837 the Mandan Indian tribe, with one of the most elaborate cultures in the Great Plains, contracted smallpox thanks to a steamboat traveling up the Missouri River from St. Louis. The population of one Mandan village crashed from 2,000 to less than 40 within a few weeks.

The one-sided exchange of lethal germs between the Old and New worlds is among the most striking and consequence-laden facts of recent history. Whereas over a dozen major infectious diseases of Old World origins became established in the New World, not a single major killer reached Europe from the Americas. The sole possible exception is syphilis, whose area of origin still remains controversial.

That one-sidedness is more striking with the knowledge that large, dense human populations are a prerequisite for the evolution of crowd diseases. If recent reappraisals of the pre-Columbian New World population are correct, that population was not far below the contemporaneous population of Eurasia. Some New World cities, like Tenochtitlán, were among the world’s most populous cities at the time. Yet Tenochtitlán didn’t have awful germs waiting in store for the Spaniards. Why not?
>snip<
http://discovermagazine.com/1992/oct/thearrowofdiseas137#.UiQN9YX5Hzs

[ThirdWayCowplop]

72. If the Euro Microbes did not kill almost all the native peoples of N America our guns and greed

would have.

[Hekate]

100. All other things being equal, the point of the article is that the natives would have stood...

... an even chance. The lack of guns and horses was soon rectified, but lack of immunity to diseases that had traveled the trade routes from Asia to Europe to Africa and back again for centuries and and centuries was a devastating blow from which they could not recover.

The article is well worth reading in full. It's really eye-opening.

[suffragette]

102. Hekate, Here's more information on the epidemics from a northwest perspective

http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=5100

During the 1770s, smallpox (variola major) eradicates at least 30 percent of the native population on the Northwest coast of North America, including numerous members of Puget Sound tribes. This apparent first smallpox epidemic on the northwest coast coincides with the first direct European contact, and is the most virulent of the deadly European diseases that swept over the region during the next 80 to 100 years. In his seminal work, The Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence, historian Robert Boyd estimates that the 1770s smallpox epidemic killed more than 11,000 Western Washington Indians, reducing the population from about 37,000 to 26,000.

By the 1850s, when the first EuroAmerican settlers arrived at Alki Point and along the Duwamish River, diseases had already taken a devastating toll on native peoples and their cultures. During the 80 year period from the 1770s to 1850, smallpox, measles, influenza, and other diseases had killed an estimated 28,000 Native Americans in Western Washington, leaving about 9,000 survivors. The Indian population continued to decline, although at a slower rate, till the beginning of the twentieth century when it reached its low point. Since then the Native American population has been slowly increasing.


Much more info at link.

[Jasana]

69. Sadly, that is the first time I've ever seen that map.

Thanks for the link. I always enjoy learning something new. When I was growing up I don't remember learning anything much about the Native Americans but somehow they always seemed to be portrayed badly.

Lots of kids in my school would play "cowboys and indians" and no one ever wanted to be an indian. Looking back on it now, it was almost as if we were somehow psychologically programmed to dislike or look down on Native Americans. The worst part? You didn't even realize it was happening to you.

It wasn't until I was older and started reading the Trail of Tears by Gloria Jahoda just because I was bored one day that I began to realize just how prejudiced I was. I was horrified and embarrassed.

[Blue_In_AK]

71. In Anchorage we have at least one charter school that teaches Yup'ik,

which i think is great. The Alaska Native cultures really permeate the state because a large percentage of our population is Native or part Native. Everyone knows the five main groups ... Yup'ik, Inupiat, Athabascan, Tlingit, and Haida. Each culture is separate and distinct and there is a rich oral history of how the groups interacted with each other before the arrival of the Russians.

I have tremendous respect for the people who could survive and thrive for thousands of years in Alaska's harsh environment. I'm glad they've remembered the old ways. I'm not so sure I could subsist if I had to.

[cascadiance]

75. Probably a similar reason why this book isn't found in high school libraries...

... or the topic of it isn't found in our history textbooks, even though if the outcome of this gentleman's actions had come out differently, we'd be living in a completely different fascist state without the New Deal, and a very different recent history behind us... Perhaps we might not even have "history" books as most would think of them today...

[d_r]

79. a book everyone should read

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen


a good companion to a peoples history of us by Zinn.

[kpete]

84. thanks d_r

sounds worth while...
thanks

peace, kp

[1-Old-Man]

83. Simple, because they weren't Christian Tribes.

[The Midway Rebel]

87. It was in my standard history book.

The map is instructive and useful but like all maps, it tells a lot of lies, some of which have been pointed out above. What is interesting to me in this thread is to observe Americans penchant for angry self loathing. This history ain't your fault, get over it. There were indigenous "tribes" in Europe once too. Shall we lament there passing too?

[kpete]

91. never lamenting

Understanding and celebrating our heritage (at least my own) has been part of my life's work.


peace to you,
kp

[TBF]

88. I had classes on the Indian Tribes in Wisconsin -

but it wasn't really detailed until I took a college course (at the University of Wisconsin - Madison).

Yes, it should be widely taught.

[foo_bar]

90. "Do you have a flag?"

[treestar]

95. I'm sure there is plenty of material about

Native Americans in modern history books.

[valerief]

99. The cowboys are the good guys, Indians (Native Americans) are the bad guys.

The ruling class needs the average Joe to fight their wars and beat down any uprising 99%ers. They need imagery to do this and use the victorious macho cowboy, not the savage loser Indian.

Besides, history has nothing to do with truth. It's just another prop to keep the ruling class at the top.

But you knew all this anyway. The phallic-proxy-pistol-packing "cowboys" don't.

[Royal777]

106. Casinos

That is why I call casinos the Indians revenge. I am glad they have them.

[FarCenter]

107. What is needed are comprehensive ancient DNA studies of Native Americans

These are now being done in Europe and Asia, and they are shedding a lot of light on migrations and population movements since the end of the last ice age.