In school i have had to write a paper on government –Native Americans.
This is a graded paper and I would like to hear what you guys think of it before I turn it in. It is easy to determine fact from fiction, but it is not so simple to separate truth
From popular or accepted belief. In my searching’s I found two movies that support two
views of the truth, these movies are
The Searchers and
The Last of the Mohicans.
The last of the Mohicans is based on true historical fact and is close to the true plight of
Native Americans, in dealing with Europeans.
The Searchers plays the normal Hollywood spin and the average American view of the
role of in American history, the best Indian is a dead Indian or Indians: scum on the
The John Wayne movie, the Searchers plays the more commonly accepted belief
John Wayne’s character has just come home from the civil war and still honors his
of all Indians, and he is the first to volunteer to go and kill them. Returning to his
brother’s ranch he finds Indians have killed the family, but the two daughters are still
alive. John Wayne’s character has no problem killing Indians, his hatred towards them
continues to grow throughout the film, he becomes obsessed with killing Indians, then
after two years have passed they find the youngest girl, John Wayne’s character almost
kills the youngest girl and if not for an adopted young man John Wayne would have shot
the girl, his madness drove him to become bloodthirsty.
But, like many other Hollywood films love triumphs and the boy convinces John Wayne
to accept the girl as his niece and not a savage.
The last of the Mohicans shows how the Native Americans really helped the
settlers and where ready to forgive there white friends. In the French and Indian war
Indian tribes sided with either the French or English, it also shows how loyal native
Americans where to kind settlers that they were willing to die for there English people, as
Uncas demonstrates as he dies to save the English lady Alice.
Hawkeye has a deep love for the natives that is apparent when he speaks with
Chingachgook, likewise the trust the natives show to the lying cheating Europeans then
Americans, how they continue to forgive and care for the settlers.
In the years between 1607 and 1930 more than nine million, 9,000,000 native
Americans were either killed or relocated two or more times. The US government’s racist
actions toward the natives can be compared with Hitler’s actions toward the Jews in
WWII. Wounded knee creek, Horeshoe bend, Tippecanoe the Cherokee wars, the Trail of
Tears the list goes on.
The last of the Mohicans is a true representation of Native Americans; how they actually
helped in times of war and peace. The stories of Jamestown, Plymouth and Pennsylvania
come to mind. When the settlers treated Native Americans like men the natives were
kind, feed the settlers and generally looked out for them. When treated unfairly or looked
upon as a threat or nusience and attacked they fought back, the English settlers came to
despise and mistrust the natives. When in fact, most of the time the settlers brought the
trouble on themselves.
How do these films relate to one another? Well, they don’t, these two ideas, one a
true representation of history, the other a funny cowboy and Indian story, are in fact, very
bluntly, truth and lies and there is no resemblance between the two.
How did we come to believe these popular ideas? Were they true? I hope this paper
answers these questions. I want to state a fact that should be a very important idea to all
reporters newspapers and other medias, tell news, both ancient and recent, tell the true and complete story without tainting it with watered down truth. Unfortunately this is not always the truth.
In the case of the US government, Indian relations, we took their lands, killed them
mercilessly, cheated and bribed them, and then to ease conscience we made the Indians
look like the bad murderers, and gave congressional medals of honor to the real
murderers, made films portraying the natives as savage beasts, these are a few of the
derogatory things we did to ease our conscience at the expense of the Natives. These
notions, (
whites are good, Indians are bad). We buried the truth and only recently are we
giving the truth any thought to natives in American history.
Have we treated them unfairly? You might ask men like John Wayne and you
would probably get a typical Fair is fair They fought us so welel kill all of them. Or you
could ask Gerominoe or Bib Foot or any of the others who where promised great things
and ended up with less than what they started with. Their lives were permently changed
and still we took more from them.
Geed is what drove us to do these inhumane acts and conscience drove us to lie
about them. Finally we did come to our terms with the Native Americans, yes, we
dumped them in reservations hundreds of miles away from their homes. From forest to
desert,
from seaside to sand, we left them with nothing and promised them no taxes.
The years passed peaceably and now the natives have found something to make a living
off of, gambling, their turning a profit, a large profit and now the government wants to
break there tax treaty with them.
Greed, how terrible it is that it would turn us into racial despising, greedy murdering
people. Even When Mr. Cooper wrote
The Last of the Mohicans he had to defend against
others Saying he favored the Indians too much.
“
It has been objected to these books that they give a more favorable picture of the Redman than he deserves” I pray we as a nation find words and actions to repay our fellow citizens the
Native Americans. And treat them like men. If we can humble ourselves and admit we
were wrong and portray truth, of historical events, maybe we can find forgiveness of not
only the Native Americans but of African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino
Americans, European Americans.
We all make mistakes and movies like
The Searchers are mistakes. But it is in the past;
move on to the future not as you and me but rather as us, Americans.
If we could only forgive each other what a wonderful world it would be.
