Why does everyone treat Native Americans as if they are saints?

Question

People today tend to portray them as peace loving, almost Zen buddhist like people, smoking the peace pipe, living off the land, living in perfect harmony, until....the white man, the source of all evil came and destroyed their civilization. I'm no expert on Native American cultures, but isn't it reasonable that they were warlike conquerers too among the various native tribes? After all, there were so many different tribes, didn't the Cherokee ever try to conquer the Sioux, etc. etc.?

El Oso, Im not justifying what happened, but if one native group made war on another and took their land, etc. why is that not just as bad? I am just asking why are they both not equally condemnable?

Answer 1

We're no different than any other human beings. Yeah we lived closer to nature and the land, but we still fought our neighbors...stole their women, etc. Let's don't forget the human sacrifices by the Aztecs. The only ones who think us as saints are the old hippies from the 60s (and their modern-day counter parts)..

Answer 2

You have much to learn...

All people world-over have always fought, tribes throughout the world have always had their friends and their enemies. The difference with THAT kind of fighting is that it was largely over protecting resources and the survival of your family and people. Most fights then were not about trying to conquer or kill off each other. Even enemies needed each other because if you kill off your enemies, then new captives never end up among your people and your people can not survive because inbreeding is taboo.

Killing just because we want to destroy or conquer each other is a MODERN concept of today.

P.S. Cherokee ever try to conquer the Sioux? Do you EVEN know what you are talking about at all? They probably couldn't be more different. They were so far apart they probably didn't even know each other existed! The Cherokee were originally around the east coast while the "Sioux" are plains people, who were nomadic but wouldn't have traveled THAT far. (And no talkin' bad about my L/N/Dakota...or "Sioux" in your white man talk. Custer got his @ss killed for the same kind of blind arrogance and assumptions over them...)

Answer 3

Who has this point of view?
You?

Natives were grossly wronged. Most people know this and feel empathy.;and do not feel it necessary to add to the suffering of the Natives by making such claims. (yes suffering is still present)

Where did you learn your history? Because it is a well known fact that text books are very historically incorrect when it comes to the colonization of the whites among Natives. the text's conveniently left out the attempted genocide of these peaceful people.

Natives were a very peaceful people, and had law and order intact BEFORE the euro-invasion. (The US constitution was based on the great law of the Iroquois!)

Tribes did not attack each other for no reason. If a war broke out between two tribes it would be over hunting grounds or one tribe wronging a member of another.

Natives put great importance in the respect of family and community members, they looked out for one and other. If a member of another tribe did wrong to one of my members< i would definitely confront the situation(if i was a part of council, of course).

Natives treated Mother Earth with respect, and everything that was born onto her. If there was war between tribes it was justified and ended with agreement between the tribal heads as a truce.

Violence was very frowned upon, and if you were outright violent for no reason you were usually banished from returning to your tribe.

No text that I know of tells the truth about my ancestors and thier demeanor back then.

Answer 4

Well, read a little more history about white exploitation, introduction of untreatable disease and imposing alien ways, genocide, reservations, which under other circumstances, might be considered penal colonies, leaving Native Americans behind in education, skills training, and dignity which wave after wave of immigrants have been privy to as they have settled into this country.
I have always wondered by Native Americans could not be treated with more respect as humans, not saints.
Woody Guthrey sing your heart out proud. And now that we are battling to remove 'indigenous slurs' from sport team nicknames, all will be rectified and made well.

Answer 5

I had never had anything against any native american until i went to a native american chat room recently and was literally called every name in the book and told to leave for absolutely no reason except that I am white. I still hold nothing against the race as a whole but that was surprising to me and a bad reflection.

Answer 6

They were every bit as bad as the pale faces. Long before the arrival of pale faces Mohawks fought Heron, Sioux fought Crow, etc.They scalped their enemies slaughtered men women and children but none of this makes it into a Hollywood film or PBS mini-series. Except there is no money to be made fostering a guilt treatment on them.
The white man one becuase of devide and conquer. They appealed to the indians desire for scalps and plunder of their enemies.

Answer 7

i agree but here you see another problem you create when asking this question: mistista07 we are NOT extinct as you say which is strange because then you go on to say we got reparations?? that will come as quite a surprise to all the natives in usa. we never got reparations and never have we asked for any. perhaps you have the OTHER side of those treaties the government made with various native nations confused with handouts? you see the agreements went basically like this: usa gets the native's lands and resources on and under them. this will prevent native people from gaining or even providing for themselves as we always have. so the government said this..Natives will get food (since they took away our lands and ability to hunt, as we were forbidden to leave the resevations at that time or be killed) and medical care and clothing (for the same reasons outlined above). they also agreed to give natives the profits from the resources dug out and harvested from the lands that still belonged to the native people. well we know they took the land and resources, in most cases destroying the environment at the same time. they got that half of the agreements down really well. how did they do with the other end of the agreements? well native people on reservations have a life expectancy of about 45 yrs. the food promised comes in the form of potted meat, blocks of cheese, rice and flour with canned vegetables.(remember where many of these reservations are you can't grow anything and the nearest grocery store is hours awayby car, if you have one). diabetes is rampant. cancers are high especially on those reservations the government also uses for toxic waste dumps. poverty and living conditions on many reservations rivals that of third world countries. of course it is ONLY natives on reservations who get these wonderful things from the government. does that sound like reparations to you? does it even sound like the government has kept its end of their agreements? i don't know where people keep getting this crap about us getting ANYTHING free from the government. there are NO checks from the government ffs. it's a lie. i don't care which person you know who claims to get money every month from the government just for being an "indian". its simply untrue, like it or not. so stop asking who had it worse. you do not compare the suffering of people in degrees. people suffering is not a spectator sport. its degrading and shows a total lack of compassion on the one asking.

Answer 8

There was a great deal of war among some tribes, the names of which I don't recall, but there was a great deal of internal peace among the tribes, leading to the belief that they were a peaceful people.

Answer 9

They only talk about them that way. If want to know how they are treated you need to look at the Sioux reservations in the Dakotas, or the Navajo in New Mexico.

Answer 10

Your right, they cry about the white man that took the land from the natives but the natives took it from someone else ... LOL