The women of the tribes, with the approval of the elders, coupled physically with many young braves before selecting one and mating for life. There were some impressive native ceremonies, and remarkable skills, but it was, despite much subsequent romanticization, a very primitive form of society. The life expectancy was twenty-five to thirty years, about the same as for Europeans at the time, and the North American natives proved very susceptible to contagious European diseases such as smallpox. The main groups quarrelled with one another and almost all considered war a natural and desirable state. Prisoners, including women, were almost always tortured to death, and then scalped... There remains the issue of the moral and legal justification for the occupation of the Americas by the Europeans. It was a rich and underpopulated area and the occupants were, from the standpoint of the potential of the human species, underutilizing it. Despite the sentimentality of Longfellow, James Fenimore Cooper, Chateaubriand (with his bunk about (le beau sauvage), Indian society was not in itself worth of integral conservation, nor was its dilution a suitable subject for great lamentations. To the extent that the Americas were underdeveloped, the arrival of the Europeans was a positive thing. (Keep in mind that Black is not a fringe figure in Canada. He writes regular columns in national newspapers, often appears on national television, and has an enthusiastic readership despite being a convicted felon.) Using Blacks narrative as a starting point, discuss and analyze settler narratives about Indigenous peoples in Western Canada in the last 300 years. Base your analysis on relevant class readings, discussions, films and/or presentations. (750 words or less | 15 points) This is one of the questions for my history class on Western Canada. Now I agree Conrad Black is an arrogant sod but I have to say that to inclde the reference that he is a convicted felon leans a bit toward bias.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 11:40:22 +0000
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