Frederick Douglass - Holocaust of an American Right

Brooks, Joshua

Professor Williams        

English 103

5 October 2015

Holocaust of an American Right

        Over the course of American History, the indigenous who once ruled the land such as, the Indians of the Nez Perce, have fallen to some of the most outrageous of ironies. Every Indian tribe throughout the Western front falling victim to the goal of Manifest Destiny and ideologies of the white man, forced to move from their native land and cast away onto a reservation. Some of these cultures, such as the Nez Perce and the great people of the Inca Atawallpa have left major foot prints on history, shedding light on the struggles of every Indian alike to keep their cultures throughout the genocide. Their cultures, false political mythology, and the massacres of their genocide, gleaned incite to the struggles of life and liberty, setting the irony of how the white man who once fought for their liberty is now taking away another’s liberty.

        Throughout the rich historical greatness of the indigenous Indians, many struggles towards independence came about, but through these struggles much advancement were created. The various aspects of modern life we have today, came from the advancements of the Indians in how to utilize the natural abundance of resources we live off of today. Their oneness with the land ultimately declared the earth their mother; furthermore, leading to the mineralogy that we have today. Understanding how things grow, where they grow and how to take care of them, gave us the appreciation of life and the landscape as a whole. The beliefs that Stannard focuses on in American Holocaust, mainly pertains to how the natives believed in the spirits of every living thing from animals to even the weather. They would praise these factors of life as the all-powerful, nevertheless, when they hunted the animals or cut down trees they believed in the preservation of all things. They would use the skins as clothing or utensils, never wasting meat and most of all making sure that their spirits lived on to the next life. Furthermore, their form of organization through water ways and trails led to cities larger than some European cities with advancements in architecture far surpassed of our own at the time, with insulated huts and igloos sometimes housing thousands of members. The early civilizations and even todays tribes are owed much gratitude to the start of how advance the Americas have become in today’s age.

        The barbaric myths and ideologies of the natives were falsified to say the least. Most of all, the Europeans believed that it was God’s plan to tame these beasts and bring them into the civilized world, but little to their knowing, the Natives were far more advanced than anyone ever thought. Many of the indigenous cultures brought the substantial building blocks of modern architecture today. David Stannard touches on the fact that the Indians built complex cities to say the least. They introduced city centers for trade and entertainment, building monuments that could rival the monuments of the Egyptian’s, overall building cities that reached sizes of up to 20,000 people within it, making it bigger than some European cities or even countries of that time. Like in the previous paragraph touched on before, the Native Indians also created their own irrigation and waste routines in which they could keep their cities beautiful and plentiful with natural resources. But, when word spread of the paradise of the people such as the Aztecs had, the European settlers thought of this paradise as some sort of demonic plague, that the Aztecs were demons. This belief then brought in the myth that it was God’s will to slaughter the entire Aztec culture all the way down to the young or taming these foul beasts into something they were not nor wanted to be, and as we know the slaughtering commenced.

Europeans first thought of the Natives as barbaric animals with no respect, dignity or any substantial beliefs of any kind. That believing in the spirits of animals and that the land was their mother was demonic and idiotic in every way imaginable. As for the argument of the Native’s beliefs the priest in The Aztec Priest Speech, said, “Let us not anger the gods; let us not invite their hunger…If you want peace don’t force the people to see we are put aside. Let’s think about this. We don’t mock. We may offend you, for here stand the citizens”. This quote speaks volumes to not only the struggles of how they feel towards the hostile takeover but also to how they still respect the Europeans. How they do not judge how they live and what they believe in, they do not cast any stones towards the Europeans, as the priest says he does not want to anger the gods and invite their hunger. That they should not be forced to believe in anything, that they do not mock any choices the hostiles have, but yet the Europeans throw every stone and more towards the Indians.