Solidarity Collective

Pout. I wanted to read about 500 years of Indigenous resistance, but what I got instead was another 500 years of Indigenous people having damn good reason to resist-- and finding themselves largely unable to for 480 of them. Most of each chapter is spent outlining the methods and motives of European (and, as history "progresses", European-American and European-Canadian) enslavements, massacres, thieveries, relocation, removal, sterilisation, assimilation, and scorched-earth policy-makings, with only very brief mention of resistance efforts, often single sentences going something like this: "Such-and-Such Nation fought back, but were squashed"; "Such-and-Such Nation, led by So-and-So, resisted for a little while, but were eventually squashed"; "Such-and-Such Nation submitted a petition, so petitions were made illegal"; "Such-and-Such Nation tried to assert their treaty rights, but were completely ignored". Yes, well, as someone instinctively suspicious since childhood of American public school history textbooks, as well as not having spent my life hiding in white suburbia insulated by a pillowy cushion of middle-class ethos, there wasn't much here that was news to me. Am I saying if someone doesn't already know this stuff it's because they haven't cared enough to discover it? Yes, I am. Therefore:

This book has great value as an overview of the treatment of Indigenous people in North and South America from the 15th to the 20th century, should be used in schools to supplement or replace the mythologising chapter or two given by typical American history textbooks to early European and Native American relations, and would make great starter material in educational environments which allow for freer ability to further investigate the subject matter (homeschools, un-schools, etc). It should also be read by anyone who hasn't yet developed a puking response to Columbus Day celebrations and oil paintings of noble explorers/traders/colonisers doing innocent, honest business with exotic, half-naked men with tanned skin, hot, chiseled bods, and a feather in their hair.

I guess I'm just frustrated that this material is still not common knowledge. I wanted more (way more) exposition of Indigenous resistance, and less cataloging of colonialist, capitalist European hegemony-- a subject with which I am already thoroughly (and despairingly) familiar. I do wonder if the lack of information and detail (especially prior to the 1970's) is the result of historical accounts of resistance movements being both unrecorded by those doing the resisting, and obscured, physically destroyed, revised (destroyed), ignored (destroyed) by those--from early conquerers to present-day journalists and authors of school history textbooks-- doing the squashing. If this is the case, I wish the author would have said a little something about that.… (más)