This reading did not give me the feeling of satisfaction at how far we have come as a country and as a state in the last 143 years since we purchased Alaska, I would say I have more of a disgraceful feeling when it comes to this country. We had already officially been the U.S. for 91 years when we bought the Alaskan territory, and we still were handling the Native people the same way we always had by showing up, claiming their land, and telling them they need to become "civilized". Alaska was and still is a huge area with lots of natural resources, and I think today we have only moved from being less forceful and openly cruel to understanding and dealing with people such as the Alaska Natives better so that we can still use their resources for the same profitable reasons while not looking like the bad guys.
Failing to recognize the simple fact that we all just happen to be different was a huge complication for Alaska and it's early policies of dealing with the Natives because we treated them the same throughout the whole territory causing the destruction of some ways of life. Although things have been worked out in Alaska regarding citizenship for Natives and some reparations, there are still problems here from what we have done in the past and I think dealing with these problems should be more of a concern than they currently are. Obviously things can't go back to the way they were but I don't think we should forget how we changed them and what we can do to really do help to Alaskan communities.
Let's say the average person lives to be 70 yrs. old. Generally humans off-spring by the time they are 20 yrs old. So if Alaska has been American for 143 years, that is approximately 7 Generations of Natives that have been "Alaskan-Native-American."
ReplyDeleteHey... I knew there was a connection:
http://www.forthenext7generations.com/home.php
The above link is for the homepage of an award winning documentary that came out in late 2009 early 2010. I know you are all very busy, but I recommend you check it out.
Kai- I agree with your comments about how people have been treated in this country. It has always saddened me when I think about how the "white man" has expanded through the country and what he has done to the aboriginal people he comes across. Somewhere people got the notion that it was ok to think that there are levels of humans and that based on the levels you could treat them in certain ways.
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading ANCSA law and thinking that the Alaskan people faired significantly better than the Lower 48 Indians it made me wonder if any of those tribes have stood up and said "hey wait a minute- where's the money for the land you took from us?"
Well I can see both sides of the argument.
ReplyDeleteWhite men, I guess get bored sitting around in their own lands, so they kick back a few beers and go explore the world.
You have indigenous cultures around the world who stay put, with duties to fulfill.
Then you have explores meet indigenous. I mean can you imagine what it would be like to see strangers on your doorstep.
In that respect lower 48 Indians are different from Alaska Natives, I think because Indians had exposure to other worlds from the earliest centuries.
Thanks for the fresh perspective, Kalesha.
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to sound insensitive or cold-hearted, so please don't take offense at my opinions.
I must say, however, that the story about how white man selfishly conquered the New World and exploited its indigenous inhabitants---though it is completely true---grates on me a little bit. Of course, I sympathize with the Native Americans who were exploited by the conquerors. But I feel that things would not have been much different if the tables were turned, that is, if the indigenous American peoples were the explorers and the Europeans were sedentary.
People everywhere, especially in the millennia before globalization, tend to be egocentric and self-interested. Even nowadays, when we are taught to be accepting of all cultures and ways of life, Barack Obama recently incurred the wrath of some zealous patriots when, in a news conference in Europe, he stated that the reason he considers America the greatest country on Earth is that he is an American citizen. Obama said that he fully understands if foreigners disagree with him, and consider their country the greatest in the world.
The rabid patriots maintain that he should have stated, without qualification, that America is the supreme nation on high.
The conquistadors, settlers, and politicians who expelled Native Americans from their traditional lands, gave them smallpox-infested blankets, and betrayed their treaties embraced a similar mindset. They considered Native Americans to be uncivilized at best, inhuman at worst. They judged the indigenous peoples based on a narrow-minded set of criteria circumscribed by their own society. Their conduct in the New World was shameful and reprehensible.
Because I don't have a crystal ball, I don't know if things would have been any different if Native Americans had colonized Europe, and not the other way around. But I feel that the attributes that gave rise to the actions of the conquistadors are probably general across the human race, and are not confined exclusively to the European settlers.
Of course, simply the fact that human nature is self-serving would not excuse the atrocities perpetrated by the conquerors. I think that our perspective on the history of the Alaska and other parts of the Americas, however, is sharpened if we view these actions as a byproduct of human nature, rather than some bloodthirsty drive for treasure and land peculiar to the white settlers.
A close study of Benedict Anderson’s
ReplyDeleteImagined Communities explains a lot towards the
understanding of exploration and beer drinking
with the guys. I am not a beer drinker but the
picture Kalesha painted is a clear depiction of
the decisions that have been made regarding the
expansion of ideals. As I see it the western
expansion everyone is sharply attacking is only
a matter of time. Expansions of culture and
ideals have been recorded in the history of all
human population. A clear and appropriate
description of this would be the archeological
proof of the clovis technique of point making
for projectiles. I can’t imagine this
population of people kept up with a herd of
animals for subsistence. Nomadic people
definitely but curiosity is a cognizant human
trait that has marked exploration. Or not who
knows.
I am trying to join into the conversation and have lost about three comments so far. Google account is messing me up. This is a test.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI changed my name to Rosebud. This is my uptinth time of making comments.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to say that Native people have changed since the Russians sold Alaska from under their noses. The Natives have almost been assimulated to the Westerners way of life as had been planned from the beginning. They have almost lost all their culture, languages, lands ability to hewn tools, hunt, and fish. Subsistance living is not the same as it used to be a hundred years ago.
What I think William L. Hensley was trying to bring across was that he along with many many other native people have lost so much by way of culture, language, lands etc. He goes on to say that not every Alaskan and North American Native is alike. We may all come from the same place, but we differ in many ways when he said, "each aboriginal group had a past and a culture reaching hundreds and thousands of years beyond the point of contact. These Native cultures each had their patterns of civilization and their concepts of property both material and non-material."
Native people were and are not stupid. They were not able to stand up for thier rights because they couldn't read or write or understand the strange ways of the Westerners. Therefore they were taken advantaged of. They made the mistake of taking care of the strangers who were sick and in need of care and were repaid with strange diseases, and sickness they new nothing about. The greed for their lands were the next thing to plague them and it continues to this day. Many people think "Those poor dejected Natives all they know is how to drink and steal. Why do they think they should have lands they did not pay for like eveyone else. Why do they want to go back to a way of life of hardship and sickness. They always romantacize the old ways."
We know it was not romantic when we talk about our old way of life. There were hardships all around. Being able to survive in this vast land of winter and wilderness was not an easy task. Living together in dirt floored huts was a norm and it was also clean. There was no sickness until the White man came that a Shaman couldn't handle because it was mostly just colds or natural illnesses.
Nevertheless, that should give you something to think about and regurgitate
Wow! Everyone has made some great points! I'm feeling like I'm being repetitive and running out of things to say, so bear with me please.
ReplyDeleteKai- It makes me so sad to think that you feel disgraced when you think about the US. I hope eventually that changes for you.
Kalesha- As always, you make me laugh! I loved the picture you gave us of the beer drinking white men, getting bored and exploring.
I think curiosity is natural for humans, it's who we are. If people had never gone out and explored so many great things never would have happened or been invented. I know there have been a lot of bad things through out history; man kind has gone through some serious dark times. However, I think MOST people have good intentions. Everyone is just trying to survive and do the best we can. What's done is done, and we all need to move on. I'm not saying forget about the past and history, I'm saying we need to learn from it and move forward. Right, wrong, or otherwise, there is no going back.
Though many try, the past cannot be revised. Can you imagine having to sit at the back of the bus, eating fast food from the rear entrance, drinking from a water fountain labeled "COLORED ONLY" having to sit in the "Colored Section" (balcony) of the movie theatre and being called the derogatory N word. Just think, all of this happened because White men got drunk and explored. Go fiqure!
ReplyDeleteOk so here is a true response:
ReplyDeleteSocial Inequalities: Unequal Status and Prejudice
As a few of you may know I am also taking Social Psychology this summer and here are some things I am learning that pair with this class.
1.) Those who are in power do what they can to remain in power. This means looking at different people who have a different way of living and live in a different part of the world as "inferior, requiring protection, and a burden to be borne. (Myers pg.319)" By projecting an image of lower status onto all others, it maintains that the onlooker, in this case the "Boston Men", is of higher status and that their opinion is right.
2.) The reason that the "Boston Men's" opinions about this land and the Alaskan Natives were perceived as right was because the "Boston Men's" peers accepted it as right, and their peers are the ones the "Boston Men" checked with to see if their actions and opinions were correct.
3.) Those who are in a high status will support the policies, and policy makers, that will maintain the current power held.
4.) Ethnocentric attitudes have flourished in the nineteenth century and are on a decline. I cant remember who to quote right now for that but it is a fact.
The past is the past, it was not pretty. It was ugly and wrong, deceiving and immoral, but that was than. What matters is today.
We see it all around us, and we all have our own prejudices whether we will admit it or not. The difference is that now we know better, and we can make the conscious decision to not discriminate.
MJ, you're right that we can make the conscious decision not to discriminate against other people. But I'm afraid that a large part of discrimination is unconscious.
ReplyDeleteMy viewpoint is supported by a song from one of my favorite Broadway musical:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc5ztwJvfUA
It's cheesy, but Avenue Q has a point. People who assure themselves that they are spotlessly unprejudiced not only delude themselves, they also run the risk of committing racist acts without recognizing them as such.
I believe in Manifest Destiny and I think America has a similar view on their lands as Walt Disney did on his theme parks: Never stop building! I think Americans take the same stance on all lands they enter. They come in, take a look around and say "well now, this just won't do!" So they do everything they can to make it a little more like home.
ReplyDeleteKai, you are not along. I feel the same way you do about what happen to the Native people and by just calling them uncivilized made it okay to do what they over the course f history. The "ANCSA" did make them provide some sorts of reparations to restore back some sense of right. The Blacks after the Civil War who were forced in slaves ships to work the land in this country, fought in its wars, and die for freedom never received the reparation promised by the white. This country has a bad history tearony.
ReplyDeleteANCSA provisions was at least an attempt at providing some compensation for the Alaska Native lands. There are also provisions that make it difficult to take away unlike what happened to those black people in the south after slavery. The short version of the story is that the land grants were open to all forms of trickery and in many cases the land was soon taken with no compensation to the former owners by those in power.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your concern for Alaskan Native, but really, now we have most of the control we can have. Maybe i'm just speaking from one of the people from the North Slope, but being part of America has helped us if you believe it or not. Maybe it helped us from a huge war that we could not have handled. But the control that America has given us is as much control as we need. The majority of Alaskan native that want to have a say in things, and make decisions for their region have the right and responsibly to do so. Those who do not have much of the education and interest as the others, might be confused on the whole topic of politics and land management. They even might get mad, but some of the Alaskan natives do not have the education on topics such as ANCSA. I know it took me awhile to learn about why we do have control over our land, and why the way i live is the way i live.
ReplyDelete