Rediscovering Original Sins

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The Rediscovery of America: why it’s vital to highlight Native American history | Books | The Guardian

Four centuries after African captives arrived on the shore of Virginia, America’s origin story was recast by the 1619 Project with slavery and the contribution of African Americans at his heart. It was a long overdue corrective to white Eurocentric narratives. But it was the not the last word.

“Scholars have recently come to view African American slavery as central to the making of America, but few have seen Native Americans in a similar light,” writes Ned Blackhawk, a historian at Yale University and member of the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone. “Binary, rather than multiracial, visions dominate studies of the past where slavery represents America’s original sin or the antithesis of the American idea.

“But can we imagine an American Eden that is not cultivated by its original caretakers? Exiled from the American origin story, Indigenous peoples await the telling of a continental history that includes them. It was their garden homelands, after all, that birthed America.”

In his new book, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of US History, Blackhawk attempts to tell that continental history over five centuries, from Spanish colonial exploration to the rise of Indian self-determination. Native Americans played a foundational role in shaping America’s constitutional democracy, he contends, even as they were murdered and dispossessed of their land.

Taken with Nikole Hannah-Jones’s 1619 Project, it is a reminder of the danger of a single story when history is better understood as a multiverse of perspectives.

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40 thoughts on “Rediscovering Original Sins”

  1. perhaps the american gun culture also began here as this drawing from above linked story illustrates:

     

     A 1613 engraving of the July 1609 battle between Samuel de Champlain, his men, their Native allies, and Mohawk soldiers

    A 1613 engraving of the July 1609 battle between Samuel de Champlain, his men, their Native allies, and Mohawk soldiers Photograph: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

  2. short clip of aforementioned capeheart interview with blackhawk

    “I’ve never ultimately felt sufficiently satisfied with not only many commonplace understandings of the subject that pervade the academy that exist in popular culture or are found in other institutional spaces. But also, couldn’t ever sufficiently find a common course book, or a set of materials to make sense of some of the unifying themes that expand across the many centuries of Native American history.” – Ned Blackhawk

    click here for the entire hour of the wapo live interview of ned blackhawk on “The Rediscovery of America”

  3. wanna bet gov. duh saneless has already banned the book as too woke and is contemplating suing FSU ‘Noles for woke-i-ness also, maybe even cancelling their contract with the tribe.

    mickey today

    Chief Osceola tomorrow

  6. Short Story of the Week:
    “The Gold Bug” by Edgar Allen Poe. 
    Takes place on Sullivans Island.   

  7. Speaking of sin. The church I grew up in held its last service a week ago. Closed after 182 years. It was founded 40 years before Birmingham. Attendance had dwindled to 9 folks who were mostly in their 80s. The church building they were having services in was built in 1880. It was literally my next door neighbor the first 7 years I lived in Huffman and my best friend and I cut the grass for the church and the manse for 5 or so years. My dad was a deacon, then elder and mom was the church secretary. I was her “assistant “ and ran the mimeograph machine when she printed the bulletin each week. LP was baptized there 26 years ago and we held my mom’s memorial service there 15 years ago. Sorry to see it’s reached the end of its run.

  9. wow Pat, another book for the GOP ban list

    What do we think of this reparations debate? I haven’t studied the policy issues but I’m seeing the right wing echo chamber turning it into another “defund the police” canard for attacking Democrats whether or not they agree with it.

    A California panel has called for billions in reparations for descendants of slaves — Associated Press

    “The panel approved a section of the draft report saying reparations should include “cash or its equivalent” for eligible residents. … Some estimates from economists have projected that the state could owe upwards of $800 billion, or more than 2.5 times its annual budget, in reparations to Black people.”

  10. craig, did anyone on that panel consider including/expanding the proposed atonement to cover descendants of indigenous californians (such as the aztec) and those who were also considered slave laborers (such as many chinese at some point)? 

  12. there’s also the history of alta california according to Mexican California  |  Early California History: An Overview  |  Articles and Essays  |  California as I Saw It: First-Person Narratives of California’s Early Years, 1849-1900  |  Digital Collections  |  Library of Congress (loc.gov)

    In 1808, Spain’s American colonies, one by one, began to fight for independence. Even before this spirit spread to Mexico, California felt the effects of the rebellions, for Spain’s hard-pressed navy could not spare ships to bring supplies to the missions, presidios, and pueblos north of San Diego. Thus, in the dozen years that followed, local authorities relaxed restrictions on trading with non-Spanish merchants so that the colony could survive, and Californians became accustomed to contact with sailors, traders, hunters, and trappers from England, France, Russia, and, of course, the United States.
    In 1821, Mexico achieved her independence, and word of this event reached Alta California the following year. The colonial policies of the republic were to be quite different from those of the Spanish monarchy. Not only were Californians allowed to trade with foreigners, but foreigners could also now hold land in the province once they had been naturalized and converted to Catholicism. Under Spain, land grants to individuals were few in number, and title to these lands remained in the hands of the crown. Under Mexican rule, however, governors were encouraged to make more grants for individual ranchos, and these grants were to be outright. Most important, the new Mexican republic was determined to move to “secularize” the missions, to remove the natives and the mission property from the control of the Franciscan missionaries.
    […]
    Mexico always had trouble ruling her distant province. The last governor sent to California from Mexico City was Manuel Micheltorena who came in 1842. His appearance triggered a local revolt, and he withdrew in 1845. Pío Pico, a local ranchero of part African heritage, became governor. Unofficially, California had achieved home rule. A year later, Mexico faced a still greater challenge. By then, California was home to a native population now reduced to less than 100,000 and to some 14,000 other permanent residents. Of these, perhaps 2,500 were “foreigners,” whites of non-Hispanic descent, and of these, probably 2,000 had immigrated from the United States since 1840.

  13. I deserve reparations for the yankees stealing our plantation in Merriwether County, Ga.  Small bills, pkease.

    Is it too late to collaborate?

  14. Pogo – the last few years have been rough on the churches of Northeast Virginia.  Several have been sold to others hoping for better income than the last.  Yeah, maybe. Others have been sold to private businesses, and a couple are just closed for business. 

    During Easter Sunday, as I drove from home to my boat, I checked out the parking lots, a good indicator of religious health.  Only about four of them had full parking lots.  A few were like your church, a couple of cars.  Also, I think many of the older folk have sold the farm and moved to a retirement somewhere else, again leaving the congregation behind.  Young folk are not interested in farming and they are gone almost as soon as they leave high school.

    The county where my big boat is had just under twelve thousand residents at the last census.  There has a count made last year and the population was just over ten thousand.  Part of the loss is it is a forever sfb idiot area and they did not do COVID protection, instead they held many gatherings.  Usually with the loss of a few members each month.  The local grocery store had to close for a week due to no help available to stock the shelves and run the price totaling machines.

  15. Sturgeone

    Some slave holders were the only ones to receive “reparations” for the loss of their “property”

    On April 16, 1862, President Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act. This law prohibited slavery in the District, forcing its 900-odd slaveholders to free their slaves, with the federal government paying owners an average of about $300 (equivalent to $8,000) for each
    Of course those states that seceded received nothing.

  17. america as portrayed in the history books of my school years seemed to be like athena born from the head of zeus, fully formed.  however, unlike the goddess, it was mostly white, male and english — oh a chapter or two about the spanish explorers and maybe a bow to the french — but nothing of substance about who and what was here prior to their arrival.  

  18. How many of you remember celebrating VE and VJ days?  I doubt my grandchildren would even know enough about WWII, let alone WWI, to write more than a two sentence paragraph.

  20. Former slaves were promised reparations but Andrew Johnson nixed it. He “returned to Confederate owners 400,000 acres of land — a strip of coastline stretching from Charleston, South Carolina to the St. John’s River in Florida, including Georgia’s Sea Islands and the mainland 30 miles in from the coast.”

    The Short-Lived Promise of 40 Acres and a Mule — The History Channel

  21. Blue, personal history is the most meaningful to me. When I was growing up, a neighbor of my grandmother in Maryland kept all his war memorabilia in cases lining his living room. Going there to visit was like a museum tour. His war was the Spanish-American War. 
     

  22. Craig

    Due to some WordPress changes, my blog has a slightly different address.  It is now Jamiesplace.blog.

    If you could change the link here, I would appreciate it. 

     

     

  23. Opening Arguments now underway in Trump rape trial…

    Access Hollywood tape played: Grab them by the p*ssy.

    Carroll Counsel: You heard Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff say he did just that to them. With Ms Carroll he, in his words, grabbed her by the p*ssy.

    [Now deposition about history of a star can do anything played…

    Counsel: He said it was fortunate that stars like him can get away with it. We had 11 witnesses. On the other side? Only Donald Trump. He didn’t even bother to show up here in person. It’s not he said, she said. It’s what Trump said versus all other witnesses

  25. SENTENCE: Hatchet Speed, a former Navy Reservist from Virginia, ordered to serve 4 years in prison for obstructing the joint session of Congress. Sentence will run consecutive to 3 years he received in illegal silencers case.

    https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/national/capitol-riots/doj-asks-for-3-years-in-prison-for-navy-reservist-who-praised-hitler-studied-unabomber-hatchet-speed-antisemite-nazy-chantilly/65-872d01b7-7010-4028-8f7c-4c415c61ec7d?s=01

    The Trump-appointed judge who sentenced him said “It seems to me you’ve gone down a rabbit hole of darkness and extremism over the past several years”

  26. UK, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Uruguay now warn their citizens about the danger of being gunned down if they travel to the United States. — Miami Herald

  27. Sturge, I think the market is pretty limited.  I understand it’s being put in a trust and will become the property of the Presbytery over by the airport.  The original sanctuary had pretty bouncy floors.
     
    Ivy, thanks – I was never particularly religious and am not at all for the past 50 years or so, but two of my best friends still today were in my Sunday school class through high school, and I loved the chicken barbeque scene that the deacons/elders held each year to raise money for maintenance and improvements – us kids (boys) would stay up all night while the men cooked chicken over a makeshift firepit behind the church (the new sanctuary, not the old one).
     
    BB, yeah, and there’s been a movement away from traditional protestant churches to more fundy ones from what I can tell.  5 Mile was a very traditional Presbyterian church – middle of the road socially, supportive of missionary work that focused on helping people who lived in far flung places of the earth – I remember missionaries from Africa and South Korea who gave pretty good presentations about building wells, helping make livable spaces and generally improving living conditions for people who were desperately poor and  on the edge of starvation and don’t remember any talk about saving souls and all that jazz.  
     
    I’d love to hear Taco’s closing argument – he’s been deprived of being able to guide his client through testimony he could cite in his closing.  I have no idea whether he made any headway against the 11 witnesses for Ms. Carroll, but I think he’s stuck with an inherently incredible client who mistook the plaintiff for his 2nd wife in a photo from years ago after contending that she wasn’t his type.  I think his biggest challenge is trying to make it seem like he’s not standing there with his proverbial dick in his hand and nothing more to offer.

  28. https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/08/us/phoenix-homeless-encampment-the-zone/index.html

    “In the latest chapter of America’s increasingly polarized approach to homelessness, Phoenix must permanently clear the area that’s become known as the Zone after a judge ruled in favor of neighbors who sued the city, calling the encampment – next to a non-profit social services hub and blocks from the state Capitol and the city’s Major League Baseball stadium – an illegal “public nuisance.”

    ~But, let’s work on getting to Mars.~

  30. sturge, the korean war never ended so no V-K day until then.

    same thing i think with the 3rd seminole war for some folk and according to wiki:

    Taken together, the Seminole Wars were the longest, most expensive, and most deadly of all American Indian Wars.

  31. craig, that “…the danger of being gunned down if they travel to the United States” could be used in ads to sell touristy tee shirts to travelers with “i survived shopping/sightseeing/traveling in the U.S.” printed on them or something like these:

    Attribution: Second Amendment Blues by Bob Englehart, PoliticalCartoons.com

  32. speaking of deaths relevant perhaps to thread subject and according to wiki’s american indian wars piece:

    Contemporary estimates range from 2.1 million to 18 million people living on the North American continent prior to European colonization.

    The number of Indians dropped to below half a million in the 19th century because of Eurasian diseases such as influenza, pneumonic plagues, and smallpox, in combination with conflict, forced removal, enslavement, imprisonment, and outright warfare with European newcomers reduced populations and disrupted traditional societies.

    The United States Census Bureau (1894) provided their estimate of deaths due specifically to war during the 102 years between 1789 and 1891, including 8,500 Indians and 5,000 whites killed in “individual affairs”:

    The Indian wars under the government of the United States have been more than 40 in number. They have cost the lives of about 19,000 white men, women and children, including those killed in individual combats, and the lives of about 30,000 Indians. The actual number of killed and wounded Indians must be very much higher than the number given … Fifty percent additional would be a safe estimate.

  33. in re Seminole wars……if you come across a bunch of people who can live outdoors in southern Florida…….you’d best be leavin’ those people the fuck alone.

  34. just saw a couple of the Coronation pics.  Da queen looks better den da king.  In fact da king looks a lot like a queen.  And, donna no lot about makeup.

  35. John Archibald, Ashley Remkus, Ramsey Archibald and Challen Stephens won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting for an investigation of predatory policing in Brookside, an investigation that led to removal of police officers, changes in state law, dismissal of court cases and people freed from jail.

    Columnist Kyle Whitmire won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Commentary for the series State of Denial. Throughout 2022, Whitmire explored larger questions: What made Alabama the way it is and why can’t the state snap out of it? State of Denial seeks to show how 150 years of whitewashed history and a rigged political system have left the state stunted.

    https://www.al.com/news/2023/05/alcom-wins-two-pulitzer-prizes-one-for-local-reporting-one-for-commentary.html?e=87003e1eb754f9d40574ce526134d300&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=AL.com%20wins%20two%20Pulitzer%20Prizes%2C%20one%20for%20local%20reporting%2C%20one%20for%20commentary&utm_term=Newsletter_breaking_news

  36. IMHO, Charles got a bum rap from everyone, including his parents. He’s held up okay under it all. 

  37. Mrs. P thought Charles looked a bit sickly – she’s betting he doesn’t have the longevity gene QEII had. I think he’s just got the English version of a tan. I’ve got a 94 year old uncle who has extended conversations with himself and seems to be running pretty strong. Charles was just talking with plants, but I think he was just encouraging them to be better. (I had a GF on’st who liked to talk with her plants – I guess they were better conversationalists than I was).

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