Like
many Americans, I’ve always known of the hardships and suffering of the Indian
people at the hands of the European invaders; and like many Americans, I had
not bothered to look into the depths of this suffering, instead favoring the homogenized
versions created in a Hollywood movie studio and projected on the big screen. Having read many pages of Indian testimony
during the first weeks of the course, I realized that much of what was being
conveyed had been left out of the history classes I had sat through in school. I was curious to find out how PBS, an “educational”
studio, would portray these historical events in their documentary, The West.
The
documentary is described as “a story of conquest, of competing promises and
competing visions of the land.” It
is presented from both native and non-native perspectives and attempts to offer
an unbiased view of events. PBS did not give the Indian side of the story or
the white side; instead it told “a” story of events that took place during that
time. I say “a story of
events” because all stories are subject to the voice of the storyteller. The stories
told are first-hand testimonials, spoken documentaries, letters written by individuals,
and narrations by subject matter experts, all attempting to offer a glance from
differing positions.
Portrayals were not restricted to events depicting brutality
against Indians by whites or against whites by Indians. There is the story of
the Cheyenne Chief, Black Kettle, who in seeking peace and to show good faith, returned
four white captives they had rescued from other Indian bands. He returned to his
reservation with a promise from the Army that his people would be safe. That
very evening, the reservation was raided and men, women and children were
brutally murdered. When questioned about his pledge to provide safety to the
Cheyenne, Army commander John Chivington replied “Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians… kill and scalp all, big and
little, nits make lice…”
But in another episode PBS tells the story of Red Cloud,
a Lakota who had spent much of his early life at war with neighboring Pawnee
and Crow. The Lakota warrior organized
the most successful war any Indian nation has ever fought against the United
States. There are also stories of young Cheyenne warriors attacking stage coaches
and destroying white ranches located on the outer regions of settlements near
Denver. As described on June 15, 1864 by the Denver Commonwealth: “The bodies… were brought in to town this
morning… It was a most solemn sight indeed, to see the mutilated corpses,
stretched in the stiffness of death…the general remark of the hundreds of
spectators… was that those that perpetrate such unnatural, brutal butchery as
this, ought to be hunted to the farthest bounds of these broad plains and burned
at the stake alive…”
I thought this resource went to great lengths to present
a balanced view of the historical events and yet am left to wonder why we have
not made any real effort to rectify the misrepresentations that continue to
plague our grade school textbooks.
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