The Enduring Vision, Chapter 1

The Enduring Vision
Chapter 1 Thoughts

     As a student who is considerably older than most of my classmates, I have an opportunity to compare and contrast the way U.S. History was taught in the 1970s/80s and the way it is presented in 2014.
     When I was in in primary and junior high school, U.S. History began with Columbus' "discovery" of America in 1492. I imagined his three ships dropping anchor in a place that was only sparsely inhabited. I recall some talk of Columbus' crew interacting with the local tribes and learning about tobacco from them. From there, we didn't really go into any detail until we got to the Pilgrims coming over from England on the Mayflower in 1620. I distinctly remember in the second grade, participating in a class play about the arrival of the Pilgrims, their meeting with "the Indians", and the first Thanksgiving. In our play the Pilgrims spoke in a "normal" (aka circa 1977 Southern California) accent, while the "Indians" spoke like popular depictions of Tarzan, using only the main words of each sentence, and leaving out the connecting words. Example "Me, Tarzan. You, Jane." At that time, I did not understand that the Native American tribes had fully functional languages of their own. I just figured they spoke broken, unsophisticated English. Of course at that time, I also did  not understand that many different groups of Native Americans lived in the Americas. My 7 year old self (or however old one is in second grade) always figured "the Indians" were one large group of people who were all pretty much the same. Our curriculum in those days moved very quickly from the Pilgrims to the 13 Colonies and the Revolutionary War. We talked quite a lot about The Constitution and The Bill of Rights, and revisited those topics again in U.S. History in junior high school. A small amount of time was spent on the Civil War, and only a short time was spent discussing slavery.
    As an elementary student, and even as a middle-schooler, I did not understand the irony (hypocrisy) of  our forefathers talking about freedom for "all men", while many of them owned slaves and benefited from slave labor. I did not understand that the framers who elegantly crafted the Bill of Rights to protect "all Americans," thought of Native Americans, (indeed all non-white people) and women as less important than white, European men. I did get that the North was anti-slavery and the South was pro-slavery, and absorbed the general message that slavery was bad (though it was not made clear how brutal and dehumanizing it was). If slavery was downplayed, at no time was anything negative ever said about the treatment of Native Americans by the Europeans or the new American government.
     I was immediately struck by the different approach to U.S. History taken in The Enduring Vision (and in our class). One of the most eye-opening facts is found on page 11 of the text: "in 1492 the Western Hemisphere numbered about 75 million people"(The Enduring Vision, p. 11), That number really made me think. I checked the U.S. Census and found that 75 million people is roughly the same as the combined populations of New York State, California and Texas (http://www.census.gov/popclock/). So much for the Americas being sparsely populated in 1492! I don't know how many of those 75 million people died because of clashes with Europeans or from disease, but I know that the number is high.
      I was also fascinated to learn about the "mound building" cultures of the Mississippi Valley. This reading is the first I've heard of them. The description and modern illustration of the "magnificent city of Cahokia, near modern-day St. Louis" (The Enduring Vision, p. 9) surprised and delighted me. How could I never have been taught about this before? I had no idea there had been ancient cities anywhere in what is now the U.S.
     The final point I'll touch on for this chapter is the discussion of farming on page 5 of The Enduring Vision: "According to geneticist Nina Fedoroff, the development of maize 'arguably was the the first, and perhaps man's greatest, feat of genetic engineering" (The Enduring Vision, p.5)'. Of course I knew that the Native Americans grew corn, but I had no idea that they had done anything to genetically modify it or make it better. I always assumed that GMO food was something that came along in the 20th Century. These days, there is so much media hubbub about genetically modified foods, it was humorous for me to learn that we've all been eating GMO corn all of our lives, with no apparent ill effects. I know I'm over simplifying, but nevertheless, this bit of history was completely new to me.
    I am looking forward to learning more about U.S. History from the newer, sharper perspective of 2014. I wonder how many more times I will be surprised by a more objective recounting of history.

**Additional thoughts: I would like to respond to our in-class discussion of the author's use of the term "Indians" to describe Native American/Indigenous peoples. I can see where many people might find this terminology distressing. After all, it is antiquated, and has long since fallen from regular use, except for when referring to people who are from (or whose ancestry is from) India. For me, more than anything, this usage is confusing. I don't understand why the author refers to some people as "Indians" or "Paleo Indians" (The Enduring Vision, p. 2) and others as "Native North Americans" (The Enduring Vision, p.2) and still others as "Archaic Americans" (The Enduring Vision, p.3). I think it would be good for whoever edits the textbook to clarify the usage/terminology so that it is not ambiguous. Personally, I am 1/8 Native American, and while I do not take offense to the word "Indian", I think it is imprecise and old-fashioned.