Were Public Domain History Books "Wrong" In Their Day?

[Tanaqui]

I have definitely seen materials that imply that the plagues experienced by Native Americans were "just bad luck" or "a coincidence."

 

Well, that's just ridiculous. Seriously. Those aren't materials to be set aside lightly, they should be thrown with great force.

 

And seriously, if the early Europeans had *no* concept of the most common method of disease transmission (exposure), there would have been a heck of a lot less of us to go colonizing anywhere! Sheesh.

 

[Pen]

Can you name any books which are that awful?

 

 

I'm also still wondering this same thing.

 

Maybe things like Lies My Teacher Told Me  which I loved, and do not find so negative, but feel that way perhaps to Hunter or others?

 

I'm confused.

[Tanaqui]

I'm also still wondering this same thing.

 

Maybe things like Lies My Teacher Told Me  which I loved, and do not find so negative, but feel that way perhaps to Hunter or others?

 

I'm confused.

 

Yes, it's hard to evaluate if books these days are saying this or that if we don't even know what resources she's using.

 

[hornblower]

Ok tangential but I discovered this twitter account recently & it's fascinating.

A docent who gives presentations about slavery at a museum tweets comments from tourirsts: https://twitter.com/afamhistfail

[Pen]

I know there were groups that did not spend the winter in igloos and only used them for temporary shelter like warmer nations used tents. I'm starting to question all new generalizations as much as the old generalizations. Do we know that NO families of ANY group EVER spent the winter in igloos. I'm not so sure of that anymore.

 

I have the feeling that a family spending a winter in an igloo might be FAR more common that we are now being led to believe. Just like we are being told that tents didn't exist in deciduous forests at any time for any reason.

 

I wonder what people in 100 years will say about our books. The prevailing idea is that the future people will be even more righteous and view us in the same way as we view the recent centuries. Maybe not. Maybe they will focus on our extreme arrogance to our immediate forefathers and limited exposure to mostly modern written books as our greatest sin. And maybe our over-generalizations of over-generalizations.

 

Could you share a source by which we are now being led to believe this?

 

I do not have any particular beliefs about it, one way or the other, and had not given it a lot of thought. I've seen some documentaries showing far northern dwellings but that is about it, and I do not recall any discussion of this.

 

 

 

 

I think part of the problem here may be with terms as well as facts.  

 

Tipis and tents are definitely not synonymous. And maybe igloos and any dwelling made of ice/snow are not.  There is a fancy modern ice hotel that is certainly not an "igloo" and also certainly not a temporary thing erected in half an hour when on the move.

 

I looked it up on Wikipedia, which may or may not itself be accurate, of course, and got this:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igloo

 

 

The Inuit word iglu (plural igluit) can be used for a house or home built of any material,^[1] and is not restricted exclusively to snowhouses (called specifically igluvijaq, plural igluvijait), but includes traditional tents, sod houses, homes constructed of driftwood and modern buildings.^[3][4] Several dialects throughout the CanadianArctic (Siglitun, Inuinnaqtun, Natsilingmiutut, Kivalliq, North Baffin) use iglu for all buildings, including snowhouses, and it is the term used by the Government of Nunavut.^[5][6][1] An exception to this is the dialect used in the Igloolik region. Iglu is used for other buildings, while igluvijaq,^[7] (plural igluvijait, Inuktitut syllabics:áƒá’¡á“—á••á”­á–…) is specifically used for a snowhouse. Outside Inuit society, however, igloo refers exclusively to shelters constructed from blocks of compacted snow, generally in the form of a dome.

Types[edit]

There are three traditional types of igloos, all of different sizes and all used for different purposes.

• The smallest was constructed as a temporary shelter, usually only used for one or two nights. These were built and used during hunting trips, often on open sea ice.
• Intermediate-sized igloos were for semi-permanent, family dwelling. This was usually a single room dwelling that housed one or two families. Often there were several of these in a small area, which formed an Inuit village.
• The largest igloos were normally built in groups of two. One of the buildings was a temporary structure built for special occasions, the other built nearby for living. These might have had up to five rooms and housed up to 20 people. A large igloo might have been constructed from several smaller igloos attached by their tunnels, giving common access to the outside. These were used to hold community feasts and traditional dances.

 

 

I guess, by the general meaning of Igloo as a "house" they did live in them all winter.  By the first definition under "types" by definition that is just for one or two nights.

 

And I guess the other question is what the evidence is for any of this.

 

 

 

 

Over all, I am disturbed by the either or nature of the thinking that seems to see only two possible approaches to history--sort of the Santa Claus (or Grandma  view 1) approach (which I guess goes with what some of you see as "Vintage")  versus the anti-Santa approach (or Grandma view 2), which you seem to see as the current approach...

 

but which I am still not seeing any history books that give the second approach.

 

 

??????

 

 

Isn't there an approach that looks back at the history of Santa Claus perhaps including the Saint he is named for, how the red suit began to be used, and so on? Neither telling the Santa myth as if it were "history," nor trashing the Santa myth seems to me to be "history."

 

Oh well, guess I've got a very different view than you do on this!

[maize]

This conversation makes me curious to know how historians of the future will frame our time period, and in what ways we will appear backwards, barbarous and uncouth, especially in areas where we now think of ourselves as advanced and forward-thinking

[maize]

I could take a good guess :)

Anyone can guess, but how accurately do you think people of Columbus's time could have predicted current interpretations of him and his era? Do you have reason to think your predictions would be more accurate?

[shawthorne44]

This conversation makes me curious to know how historians of the future will frame our time period, and in what ways we will appear backwards, barbarous and uncouth, especially in areas where we now think of ourselves as advanced and forward-thinking

 

I'd lay serious money on psychology.  Not that the field is a bad thing, but I think our knowledge is equivalent to pre-germ medicine at best.  

[Hunter]

National day of mourning ("Thanksgiving"), Plymouth, MA

 

These are the actual people who were entrusted with teaching my boys history, and wrote some of the texts and materials they used. This is what they saw on the way to Grandma's house.

 

My boys were told that is was evil to celebrate Thanksgiving. They were told that Thanksgiving was the celebration of the annihilation of the people.

[maize]

I'd lay serious money on psychology. Not that the field is a bad thing, but I think our knowledge is equivalent to pre-germ medicine at best.

Ya know, I bet you're right on that one. We've made progress, but the field of what we don't know is so vast that I bet we can't even begin to guess how much we really don't understand.

 

ETA thinking a bit more about this, on the social side of things, assuming leaps in psychology and psychiatry --whatever will our practice of incarcerating thousands of mentally ill people in the prison system look like to people of the future?

 

The real challenge with predictions is of course that any we can make must necessarily be based on twenty-first century sensibilities and perceptions. Who knows what, oh, let's say twenty-fifth century sensibilities and perceptions will be? Though it is probably safe to guess those who hold them will consider them far superior to our own...

[Hunter]

Mashantucket Pequot spokesman Buddy Gwin says scalping "was not a practice traditional to first nations peoples" until becoming "a retaliatory act" against colonists.

 

John Brown, who is tribal historical-preservation officer for Rhode Island's Narragansett Indians, said that bodily mutilation was considered "dishonorable" until it was "learned" from Europeans in the mid-17th century.

 

Later, stories started to circulate that the Europeans had invented scalping and that colonists had actually taught it to the Indians. Axtell paid little notice until he started hearing those stories from academics. At that point, he and fellow historian William Sturtevant decided it was time to sort out the record.

 

http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/ScholarsForum/MMD2263.html

[Pen]

National day of mourning ("Thanksgiving"), Plymouth, MA

 

These are the actual people who were entrusted with teaching my boys history, and wrote some of the texts and materials they used. This is what they saw on the way to Grandma's house.

 

My boys were told that is was evil to celebrate Thanksgiving. They were told that Thanksgiving was the celebration of the annihilation of the people.

 

Hunh. I thought it was a celebration of football, alcohol and turkey. Just kidding.

 

I won't be able to see the film until I am next at library with a connection able to get youtube.  Until then I can only speculate.

 

Looking for some clarifying details in the meantime--

 

This would have been before you home schooled?  Your boys would have been in what grades at that time?  And this was a mostly Native American school, which your boys were at as non-Native students? Or a local public school? Or?

 

I'm also wondering what you told your boys Thanksgiving was about before they saw the film (or if they had had any contrary views from school or popular culture to the one in their history classes). Also I'd like to know also how you then dealt with it afterward, but maybe not until I get a chance to see the film in the first place.

 

To learn about Thanksgiving when my ds was younger we used a book called: 1621, A New Look at Thanksgiving.  I am not sure if it would have been available when your boys were learning about this. My ds also read the Magic Tree House versions of Thanksgiving.

 

 

ETA: If you are familiar with this 1621, A New Look at Thanksgiving, or were able to find it in library, I'd be interested in knowing if you feel its attitude, as well as "facts" seem okay to you, or if it still bothers you as being too "revisionist" or giving a Thanksgiving is evil message, or otherwise how it strikes you.  It certainly did convey the general sense to me that the "vintage" books were wrong in the way they portrayed Thanksgiving. Wrong in their own day, wrong now. Just wrong. At the same time, I did not get a feeling of Thanksgiving as "evil" from it.

 

--------------------

 

The scalping article was interesting.

 

 

I had not heard about the colonists doing scalping, but certainly did have an image of them doing things like putting severed heads on poles (a practice that also exists in my mind as something going back to much earlier times in England as heads were displayed on London Bridge)--including notably Metacom/King Philip's head displayed as a symbol of the suppression of the "Indigenous" people's attempted revolt and the victory of the Colonists.  

 

As I understand it, Metacom's head was on display for many, many years. It is hard for me to imagine going about life as a colonist and feeling happy about a head on display. It is easier for me to imagine being a Native American and feeling upset.

 

The defeat of Metacom was supposed to have represented the lasting defeat of the New England Indians. Now there is an attempt to have a resurgence. 

[Guest]

I am shocked at how different our personal experiences have been, and do not wish to offend by sharing my own.

 

It has not affected ds yet, but I have experienced the opposite extreme of family members disparaging me for not celebrating Thanksgiving because:

 

"Whaddaya mean it's racist? What's racist about Thanksgiving? Unless you happen to be a wild injun, of course, haw haw haw."

 

My biracial son has to grow up with these people. They do love him on some level and considering their backgrounds, it's kind of amazing how much deeply ingrained racism they are trying to overcome in order to accept him as a family member.

 

He's only six, but I'm very grateful that I can pull out their favourite books from their own childhoods so that he can see just how hard they really ARE trying instead of dismissing them as mean, ignorant people who hate him just because they get sunburns and he doesn't.

 

I guess you could call it "history of history". 

 

Public Domain books for an Elementary level history spine may not be appropriate for my child's situation, but I do believe that exposure to them will be immensely valuable when he is older and I have a great deal of respect for you for taking on this project.

 

Carry on--no wish to debate Thanksgiving on my end either.

[Pen]

It has not affected ds yet, but I have experienced the opposite extreme of family members disparaging me for not celebrating Thanksgiving ...

 

 

 

He's only six, but I'm very grateful that I can pull out their favourite books from their own childhoods so that he can see just how hard they really ARE trying instead of dismissing them as mean, ignorant people who hate him just because they get sunburns and he doesn't.

 

 

 

If you are in USA and not celebrating Thanksgiving, do you have it as just a regular day, or do you do something different for it? Do you try to explain Thanksgiving stuff in stores or popular media, or avoid that?

 

What sorts of things does the book say? I don't want to buy it and cannot tell from what I can access on Amazon.

[Pen]

This is a quote from a history book:

 

"[P]resuppositions ... are the great co-ordinates around which a view of the world is built - even when the people holding that view do not know they are there (history is often the discovery of what people did not know about themselves.)"

 

Approximately how old would you expect the book to be?

[Hunter]

My older son was in PS longer than my younger son, but they both started in PS and finished with homeschooling.

 

The Wampanoag nation was invited or allowed to come into many of the public schools across the entire South Shore for an extreme reeducation process. Everything they said was taken as gospel by everyone, except for a few older teachers that closed their doors and did what they wanted despite being called racists and other nasty names.

 

Residents of Plymouth also had free admission to a living museum, and my younger spent a LOT of time there being reeducated, including the parts about scalping.

 

I refuse to get into a debate or over explain my experiences or opinions. I started the thread because I was puzzling out a new thought I had, that I had never heard anyone talk about. I was seeking information, not trying to get people to agree with me. I was linked to the information about chronological snobbery and that answered most of my questions. I also had a very interesting conversation with a human rights worker that I really trust, wanting some perspective on the topic from outside the educational community. I am interested to hear what other think here, even if I felt a little attacked, and clicked "likes" even if feeling a little raw, but when people started being harsh with others with similar thoughts, I had to stop hitting "likes".

 

I don't want to debate. I just wanted to puzzle something out and I have done that. I posted a few links in case someone really did think I and others were making this stuff up out thin air, rather than asking for more details just to use those details to further debate. I believe I posted enough to prove I and others not making this up out of thin air.

[Hunter]

The most vocal of the Wampanoag encourage everyone to fast on Thanksgiving. Some people do. My mother-in-law was the one that talked to my boys about Thanksgiving the most, and I don't remember exactly what she said, but I do know she told them to eat.

[Tanaqui]

My boys were told that is was evil to celebrate Thanksgiving. They were told that Thanksgiving was the celebration of the annihilation of the people.

 

Well, I wouldn't say it's evil to celebrate Thanksgiving. I think people have been having celebrations of having enough food for winter for as long as there have been people.

 

But it's true that the first Thanksgiving observed in Plymouth by the Pilgrims was, in part, a celebration of thankfulness to God for killing the Natives of the area so that the colonists could take over their fields and eat their stored seed corn. We have documents to that effect. That was tacky. Not sure it was evil - those people were already dead, and although Europeans were certainly *the cause of* the plague, again, you can't really put the blame on them in that instance. We're not even sure what the plague *was*. It wouldn't've benefited anybody for the Pilgrims to try to make new farms in uncleared land or to leave the seed corn alone. Those people weren't coming back, they didn't need the lands or seeds anymore.

 

At any rate, the famous "First Thanksgiving" has about as much in common with today's holiday as the Pigrims have in common with us, which is to say, not that much.

[Pen]

My older son was in PS longer than my younger son, but they both started in PS and finished with homeschooling.

 

The Wampanoag nation was invited or allowed to come into many of the public schools across the entire South Shore for an extreme reeducation process. Everything they said was taken as gospel by everyone, except for a few older teachers that closed their doors and did what they wanted despite being called racists and other nasty names.

 

Residents of Plymouth also had free admission to a living museum, and my younger spent a LOT of time there being reeducated, including the parts about scalping.

 

I refuse to get into a debate or over explain my experiences or opinions. I started the thread because I was puzzling out a new thought I had, that I had never heard anyone talk about. I was seeking information, not trying to get people to agree with me. I was linked to the information about chronological snobbery and that answered most of my questions. I also had a very interesting conversation with a human rights worker that I really trust, wanting some perspective on the topic from outside the educational community. I am interested to hear what other think here, even if I felt a little attacked, and clicked "likes" even if feeling a little raw, but when people started being harsh with others with similar thoughts, I had to stop hitting "likes".

 

I don't want to debate. I just wanted to puzzle something out and I have done that. I posted a few links in case someone really did think I and others were making this stuff up out thin air, rather than asking for more details just to use those details to further debate. I believe I posted enough to prove I and others not making this up out of thin air.

 

 

I'm not trying to attack you. I hope you didn't feel that way.

 

But yes, truly, what you were writing about seems so different than what I have encountered that I did wonder if you were just making it up to get an exciting thread going.

 

 

I think that since, as I gather, you are currently developing a curriculum it would be good to be aware that while where you are and in your and your sons' experience the Wampanoag voice may seem very loud and overpowering compared to other views; however, on the other hand, that may not be the case everywhere in the USA.

 

My ds, from whatever was conveyed in three different bricks and mortar schools in two Western states, from pre-school to 1st grade, had had the idea that American Indians no longer existed.  We did not have any Native Americans coming into my or my son's schools to give a Native American perspective, nor even to demonstrate that Native Americans exist nowadays. A ps-er we knew from a sports activity in 5th grade was learning about Native Americans in school and had an assignment to choose one tribe/nation and write a report on them...he was using the internet in the gym while I was there, and expressed surprised to discover that the tribe/nation he had chosen still existed. I guess it is/was very different where/when your sons were being educated.

 

I do not know whether what you ran into in Plymouth area is typical and our situation unusual, or the other way around, or perhaps both are unusual in opposite directions.

[Pen]

Post-script:

 

The sense conveyed in my ds's schools that Native Americans were something from the past, no longer in existence (though I am sure no one said that in so many words and that at least most of his teachers knew otherwise) was strong enough that he got that impression even though he himself was being checked out in court at the time to determine if he had enough Native American "blood" for Native American adoption rules and oversight to apply to him.

[Alessandra]

I don't know much about Columbus at all not being in the US. But was he considered horrid by his contempories and equals or is it you filter that makes that judgement? As far as I know he was the typical adventurer come pirate who considered he had a right to what and who he found and to hell with the natives.

Yes, he was considered horrid by at least one man, Barthome de las Casas, whose writings and lfe are a defense of Indian rights. He was features prominently in ds's 8th grade U.S. History book. For an easy, if disturbing, to learn more, check out the video series, 500 Nations. Lots of libraries have it.

 

When I was in the DR, people told me that the Taino died out naturally soon after Columbus's arrival.... There is also a massive memorial to Columbus in the DR. Slums were torn down to build it, and, despite promises, the people were not provided with new homes. The myths persist....

[Hunter]

Pen, I would never lie to get an exciting thread going. I am aware that there are children who think Native Americans are from the past.

 

I start threads to gain information, to create bonding among forum members, and to start minimalist puzzles to solve, and other helpful things. I try to do good, not to cause harm.

 

I am trying to create a resource for people, but it's going to be something that belongs to the people not me. I wouldn't intentionally do something harmful to get it completed. That wouldn't be in my bigger plan. This isn't about me or anything I can gain.

 

I'm going to put a list together of what I think is the best of what is available for free. It will be what it will be. I'm not a miracle worker. I can only accomplish so much within such tight limitations.

 

I don't have personal agenda. I'm not out to cause trouble. I'm spending 8-16 hours a day reading books, and when you read so many new books, questions are going to arise. Sometimes pretty deep questions. So I ask them. Because I am curious, and also because they affect my ability to make good choices for the lists.

 

There are people better qualified to do this project, but they aren't doing it. I'm going to stand in the gap and do the best I can. If after I finish it, someone comes along and does a better job, I'll be the first one to say their list is better, and encourage people to use it instead of my lesser attempt. I really do hope someone does the work and come up with something better.

[Pen]

I neither did nor do now think you were/are trying to cause harm.

 

I do think that living right in the Plymouth area you must have had a very different exposure to the Wampanoag view than I have had, and probably very different than most of us. I don't think it is the way most modern, recently written textbooks are presenting history, nor that most recently written textbooks tell students that Thanksgiving is evil, at least none I have seen do so. Though maybe the Wampanoags speaking out about their side is helping to get a bit more of the Native American side into the books now.

 

If the Living History museum in Plymouth your son visited is the same one, called "Plimoth Plantation" I think, that had to do with the book 1621, which I got for my son, it had a more balanced view, IMO, than you are describing as what your son got. 

[Pen]

To the extent that you are interested in a more general approach to history, not specifics about tipis or Thanksgiving, and not a personal issue as between the old books and whatever it was the Wampanoag told you, you might be interested in looking up Historiography and Historical Revisionism.

 

A couple of links you or other people reading this might find interesting, the first b/c I think it's well done, the 2nd b/c it sheds some light on problems that can come up with Wikipedia, though they do tend to get fixed up as people discover and report them.

 

 

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

 

Here is a quote taken from the first quote in the wiki linked above. I like so much I think I may change out one of my sig quotes for it: 

 

"The unending quest of historians for understanding the past—that is, "revisionism"—is what makes history vital and meaningful.

Without revisionism, we might be stuck with the images of Reconstruction after the American Civil War that were conveyed by D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation and Claude Bowers's The Tragic Era. Were the Gilded Age entrepreneurs "Captains of Industry" or "Robber Barons"?

Without revisionist historians who have done research in new sources and asked new and nuanced questions, we would remain mired in one or another of these stereotypes. "

                          James McPherson

 

And I suppose that is why I think that on the whole the newer history books tend to be better than the old ones. But not always. Each has to be looked at as an individual for its own strengths and weaknesses.

 

Note too the distinction between historical revisionism and historical denialism (such as holocaust denial, for example).

 

 

If you have access to Britannica, it may have wonderful things, perhaps far better than Wikipedia does. It used to be my encyclopedia of choice, but I don't currently have access to it. Not only can I get wikipedia, even with my slow dial up only connection, but I assume that others reading on here also can. 

 

 

Also of possible interest:

 

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism

 

 

 

 

[LibraryLover]

There is quite a lot of collaborative research and education going on at the living museum in Plimouth between native and non-native peoples. There are folks who fast and protest Thanksgiving, and have for at least 40 years (I will look that up). The education and literature offered at the museum is pretty compelling. Native voices are heard and members of two Wampanoag tribes (as well as other natives) are employed to educate at  the museum. They are not actors, and speak as modern natives. (And within the confines of a job, so sure, there is a built-in 'softening', but stereotypes and  barriers to understanding are addressed)

 

We celebrate T'giving as a harvest time. We've used many of the books written by native people to educate ourselves about what happened.  This divide is often more nuanced than it looks. I have known folks who will not celebrate T'giving in their homes, take part in protests, but will respect some traditional dinners of friends and family, with the understanding they are not celebrating death and conquest, but thanks for the harvest.  Of course, many others do no such thing on that Thursday. That is their right. 

 

I see these protests as opportunity to educate. Members of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe continue to speak at the school my children once attended. It is always educational, and we did not experience such harsh words spoken to children as the OP has. We were told about co-opting such things as Dream Catchers, the inappropriateness of wearing feathers etc. My children know food was stolen by colonists (this is in the literature of the time) , the wars,  the fate of Metacomet etc. This is necessary, imo.  Accepting the reality can't change the way the US looks today, but facts make us stronger, and we can change what/how we celebrate thankfulness.  There is always going to be a bit of fallacy in with fact, no matter who writes what.  I accept that. 

 

It's true that sometimes colonists and the Wampanoag lived in an unsettled peace, short-lived as it was. Factually, many of those who arrived in Plimouth did so for religious reasons, and not conquering ones.  Those who were here to make money, employees for The Virginia Company, for instance, were more interested in wiping out anyone who stood in their way. The Mayflower colonists were plenty afraid of the native people, and were not soldiers or business people. There were times of peace and sharing.  It's complicated, absolutely, and humans migrate, migrate, migrate. (and war.)  Messy stuff.

 

 I also accept that the history surrounding the US T'giving  is harsh. I've told my children what we celebrate and why. Our particular past doesn't change the fact that humans everywhere have always celebrated the harvest/thankfulness to the Divine etc. ( I'm even OK with changing the day we celebrate if that helps with healing.)  I would like to see people everywhere stop with dressing little kids as 'indians' in schools at T'giving.  

[Pen]

I am at the library now and got to see the video, though it was hard to hear. I thought it possibly conflated a bunch of topics, and am not clear, for example, if they are calling the American continent "Palestine" or talking about Palestine in the Middle East, when asking for Palestine to be freed--if I heard that right at all. It seems to be a political march in the street to bring attention to a cause. I guess I was expecting something different--somehow thinking your sons were in a car watching the linked video on the way to Grandma's. But now am guessing that they saw the actual demonstration (or one like it) on the way. I can see how that would certainly be something that would give one pause. But then, so would a lot of things. What about homeless people without food or shelter seen on the way to "Thanksgiving"? What about lonely people without anyone to share Thanksgiving with? I am not sure that stopping and thinking is a bad thing, whether it comes from a history book or something seen in the street.

 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21333.htm has  an interesting speech IMO with regard to the Wampanoag viewpoint. It seems more clear and easy to understand to me than the video.  "This is the Suppressed speech of Wamsutta (Frank B.) James, Wampanoag. that was to be delivered at Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1970".

 

Hunter, you wrote that the people who  appear in the video wrote the textbooks your children had in school. I would be interested in reading those, since this is a very different pov than I, out here on the opposite coast, have tended to see, and I think my ds might appreciate some of it too. Our more common history sources deal with Native Americans more like the Britannica entry on the history of The New England Colonies does (namely leaves them out altogether), and he has really gotten too old for the 1621 sort of book. Can you link anything or provide titles?

[Hunter]

I haven't written about ALL of my experiences, or to an audience that might be reading this thread, but not posting. I don't want people to think that what I wrote about was ALL of my experiences with Wampanoags, or that I think that those interactions represent ALL Wampanoags. There is a lot of good that goes on at the Plantation, but there HAVE been problems there, too.

 

When I don't talk specifics of my life and say vague things that leave people thinking I am exaggerating or making things up, I am often attempting to protect OTHERS, not me. I hope I haven't hurt anyone by giving the example I gave. I got defensive and didn't properly protect others that could be hurt by my hasty comments. If you all see me being vague in the future, it's because I don't want to do what I've done. I singled out a group of people, and said things about them at a public forum.

 

This wasn't one of my finest moments. I apologize to anyone that I might have offended.

[Hunter]

Pen, I'm not saying anything more about the Wampanoag. I've said too much already. I let my pride lead me into saying things I shouldn't have said. This is a very public forum that comes straight up in Google. These are people we are talking about.

[Pen]

 

These are the actual people who were entrusted with teaching my boys history, and wrote some of the texts and materials they used. This is what they saw on the way to Grandma's house.

 

My boys were told that is was evil to celebrate Thanksgiving. They were told that Thanksgiving was the celebration of the annihilation of the people.

 

 

Pen, I'm not saying anything more about the Wampanoag. I've said too much already. I let my pride lead me into saying things I shouldn't have said. This is a very public forum that comes straight up in Google. These are people we are talking about.

 

 

Oh my goodness, of course, certainly, they are people!!!!! I've never thought they were not people, nor intended anything to suggest it. How on earth did you get that idea? 

 

I was just hoping to find the textbooks that they wrote that your son's school used... in a totally positive way! 

 

 

(ETA I don't mean that it was positive for your sons, but I think it would be positive for our homeschool.)

[Hunter]

Pen, I didn't say you did anything wrong. I'm saying *I* was wrong. I spoke what I did, because of pride.

 

As for texts and resources, we are talking about the 1990's. I'm sorry, I don't know what is still in print, and I don't think much of it was published by a major publisher. Some of it was written by the schools, from notes taken from the lectures, some directly given to them. It was a long time ago.

 

I remember this book being sold at the plantation, but am not sure who wrote it.

http://www.amazon.com/Tapenums-Day-Wampanoag-Indian-Pilgrim/dp/0590202375/ref=sr_1_cc_3?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1414903094&sr=1-3-catcorr&keywords=wampanoag+plantation

[happybeachbum]

Many older historical accounts relied on second and third hand narratives. Somebody telling the author something he heard from somebody... yeah, that's not terribly accurate.

Some historical accounts are excellent because they have been written by eyewitnesses and scholars who critically examined the information and tried to be as objective as possible. Others are horrible, since the authors relied on third hand testimony and /or tried to further a particular agenda with their writing.

The same can be said about studies TODAY.

Also, the idea of what constitutes a historical analysis is not static, but evolving. The techniques of historians are changing. The attitudes towards preservation of evidence are changing (in the 19th century, they'd excavate everything and distribute the artifacts - now in some cases they are closing up digs to preserve them for future exploration with more sophisticated tools. Very different perspectives.)

 

ETA: And even for first hand eyewitness accounts: those are written with a specific audience in mind. When you are writing about your life, what's your motive? Do you write  a very personal diary, letters to your mother, a report to a government agency? Do you write with an eye on posterity? Not even a personal account form the period is unbiased and "truthful". The content of your personal diary may be very different from what you write to your mom or what you put on a resume.

Geoffrey of Monmouth everyone!  People are still trying to figure out if King Arthur was a real live human being, if his name was even Arthur, if Geoffrey's account is just a composite of different people, and if he really was a king even if he was real.  And for goodness sakes why did Arthur kill his son Amhar, what happened to the stories of his other son Llacheu (He was just as popular as Arthur, if these people existed)?  Interesting that Geoffrey never said he was a king nor anything about Camelot, but anyway.

Edited September 5, 2016 by happybeachbum

[Bluegoat]

I guess my simple answer would be, NO.

 

No, all modern books are not more accurate than older ones.  And - it is a dangerous fallacy to assume they will be.  We should always be a little skeptical.

 

There are plenty of examples of people in the past, with newer "better" methods than the people they thought were old fashioned being wrong, to take the possibility that we are in the same boat lightly.

 

Look at the way the 19th century looked back on the medieval period, for example.  Or many in the Renaissance dismissed everything that wasn't classical - because they thought certain things were meant to be seen a particular way, they became deaf to what was in fact being said.  Or look at the way people for many years said that the Trojan War was simply entirely made up, there was no such place as Troy.  There were similar views related to the Minoans.  In the first half of the 20th century people who studied mythology wanted to reduce it all to hidden historical narratives.

 

There is also an issue I think of how to use popular history books, or children's history books, which are far more likely to want to present a particular view.  In the case of those for kids, it is also that some material may not be really appropriate.  Sorting these things out can be tricky, and I suspect it's never perfect.  As an example, in contrast to the older books which often present a biased view of First Nations peoples as savages, there is something of a tendency in some modern history books to take a Noble Savage approach, even if it isn't presented as such.  I've read some modern texts, especially for kids, that declare that native peoples always used every part of the animals they killed and lived in harmony with nature.  They also tend to skip over the inter-tribal rivalries and the real desire (and success in some cases) of driving out and utterly destroying other tribal groups, and some of the cruelties involved.  In the former case, it's myth-creation really and just not true across the board, in the latter it might be defensible in a text for kids though it limits understanding of how Europeans came to fit into things. 

 

But - there is absolutlt POV creeping into that kind of presentation, and I don't know that it is ever possible to erase that completely.  We need to try and be self-conscious about it.

 

To me that is a good reason not to simply throw away older history texts as a matter of course.  It's by seeing other's POV, which seems so clear to us, that we can come to understand that we too are locked in our place and time, just as those people were.  That's an important historical lesson IMO.

 

 

[Bluegoat]

 

Mashantucket Pequot spokesman Buddy Gwin says scalping "was not a practice traditional to first nations peoples" until becoming "a retaliatory act" against colonists.

 

John Brown, who is tribal historical-preservation officer for Rhode Island's Narragansett Indians, said that bodily mutilation was considered "dishonorable" until it was "learned" from Europeans in the mid-17th century.

 

Later, stories started to circulate that the Europeans had invented scalping and that colonists had actually taught it to the Indians. Axtell paid little notice until he started hearing those stories from academics. At that point, he and fellow historian William Sturtevant decided it was time to sort out the record.

 

http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/ScholarsForum/MMD2263.html

 

 

 

There are false histories that came to exist in reaction to earlier histories.  I think they are actually a little less popular than they were, say in the late 70s and early 80s.

 

My area had, and still has, a spot on the school board for a black community member.  When I was in school there was a fellow who for many years was in that job, as well as being important at the Black Cultural Center which is a sort of museum of the local black community.  He was big on teaching black history, but he was, unfortunately, a purveyor of a lot of misinformation that came out of some pop stuff, and his own lack of historical understanding.

 

It was too bad - even as a high school student who had a basic knowledge of history I picked up on some of his errors, and I think it probably diluted his message to some extent.  And even with the kids that had no doubts about what he was saying, that isn't really a positive thing. 

 

I don't see books and such quite along the same lines these days though.

[Bluegoat]

Post-script:

 

The sense conveyed in my ds's schools that Native Americans were something from the past, no longer in existence (though I am sure no one said that in so many words and that at least most of his teachers knew otherwise) was strong enough that he got that impression even though he himself was being checked out in court at the time to determine if he had enough Native American "blood" for Native American adoption rules and oversight to apply to him.

 

I think this kind of gap is common in kids, especially when they are studing history.

 

If you asked kids if there are still Vikings, or if the people in Egypt today are still the same as those in the ancient world, I think we'd see some confused answers.  Even if they had learned about, say, modern Egypt and its history, I wonder how well they would link them or see missing parts.

[Tanaqui]

Zombie thread, everybody.

[Dmmetler]

My DD, in her first World Education games, (I believe she was 6 at the time) was very excited when she had a child from Egypt in a spelling round-because she assumed he was spelling in heiroglyphics. She very definitely still believed the Egypt of SoTW was still around. That definitely changed how we did history!