Indian Givers Chapter Summary
Who really created or discovered the Americas? Many believe Colombus, many believe Lewis and Clark, some believe the Indians or Natives. Whichever the reader does believe is besides the point when The Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World written by the the anthropologist, Jack Weatherford goes in depth about the huge effect Indians have put on our cultural, societal, political practices as well as many agricultural products may not have been produced without the knowledge that Indians put forth into the world. This book also touches on the Indian Givers, who they were and what they did. An Indian Giver is commonly used as an American expression to describe a person who gives a gift and later wants it back, or something equivalent in return. Weatherford's most obvious purpose is to demonstrate that the Native Americans have
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been a misrepresented and forgotten people when the twisted history of North America is discussed.
This quote from the book really touches base with some of the most terrible and treacherous working conditions for the Natives.
“The mines of upper Bolivia, particularly the mines around Pelosi, strain the limits of human endurance. they are so high and the oxygen content inside the labyrinth of small passages drops so low that the work is almost too strenuous even for the Indians already accustomed to hard labor at high altitudes. the conquistadors, however, found that the miners worked much longer and harder if they chewed the coca leaves. Not only could the men work with less oxygen but they could work longer hours with less food” (199). This quote simply displays a disgusting example of the economic cycle that the Americans had begun. The cycle basically began with workers chewing coca leaves, creating demand for higher production of coca leaves with produced higher amounts of workers at coca plantations, making Pelosi the world’s largest consumer of coca. The act of the workers chewing the coca could make them last much longer in the mines to get more work done. This made the rate of death in the mines
skyrocket making less higher job class workers to not want to work as a miner. This created the working hierarchy with the Indians and Native Americans smackdab on the bottom of the foodchain. The quote above is strongly related to a quote from the in class book, A People's History of the United States, written by Howard Zinn. This quote is regarding the terrible racism and brutal work conditions that the Indians and Blacks faced. “The Indians’ attempts to defend themselves failed. And when they ran off into the hills they were found and killed. So, Las Casas reports, ‘they suffered and died in the mines and other labors in desperate silence, knowing not a soul in the world to whom they could turn for help.’ He describes their work in the mines...” (6). This sheds light on what I had previously mentioned about the deaths in the mines from the conditions and long hours. Zinn speaks directly to the Indians and how they wanted to work fair hours and get off work alive. From the silver industry and money capitalism, to piracy, slavery and the birth of big corporations, the food revolution, agricultural technology, the culinary revolution, drugs and architecture, our debt to the indigenous peoples of America is tremendous. The indigenous people mining the gold and copper began capitalism. Working in the mines and in the plantations with the African slaves, they started the industrial revolution that then spread to Europe and on around the world. The Indians supplied the cotton, rubber, dyes, and related chemicals that fed this new system of production. The Indigenous people of America domesticated and developed the hundreds of varieties of corn, potatoes, and peanuts now of which feed a large population of the world. And like what was stated above about the coca, they discovered the curative powers of quinine, the anesthetizing ability of coca, and the potency of a thousand other drugs with made possible modern medicine and pharmacology. The drugs together with their improved agriculture made possible the population explosion of the last several centuries. They developed and refined a form of democracy that has been haphazardly and inadequately adopted in many parts of the world. They were the true colonizers of America who cut the trails through the jungles and deserts, made the roads, and built the cities upon which modern America is based upon. I believe modern America owes a debt to African and Indian slavery that can never be repaid. I am not saying it shouldn’t be. At the very least, it should be somewhat acknowledged, validated, and honored with the respect that it deserves. Weatherford states in this next quote how subjective and one-sided he tries to glorify the Indian nature, Indian government and Indian understanding of control. “Sir Thomas More incorporated into his 1516 book Utopia those characteristics then being reported by the first travelers to America, especially in the much- discussed letters of Amerigo Vespucci. More made his utopia one of equality without money, which is straight from the Indians” (122). At the end of this quote it is very prevalent that he is trying to portray how important the Indians are to this book. It is not that what Weatherford is totally incorrect, but the way he presents the knowledge is rather biased favoring the Indians. Weatherford starts defending his point using Thomas More's 'Utopia' as an example, stating that he was enormously influenced by the Indians, while he was only excited about the new discovery of a new place. In 'Utopia', very contrary to what Weatherford is trying to describe, we see chained slaves. We see a monogamist system without divorce, a rule broken only in the severest cases of perverseness and adultery, however Indians are known to be, most commonly, polygamist, and in some cases adultery is not against Indian morals. Europeans exploited and colonize the vast continents of the Americas, gave the Indians diseases and Christianity and overlooked almost as much as they took from the Indians. This quote from the book looks into how the League of the Iroquois changed our constitution and what they put their influence on. “In the two centuries since the Constitution went into effect, some aspects of the system have changed. the voters rather than the state legislatures now elect both the electoral college and the senators through popular vote, but the system preserves the general features of the League of the Iroquois” (140). This basically means that within two centuries of the creation of the constitution the Indians have influenced our democratic practiced and how they came to be included in our American creation of democracy. The Iroquois Confederation is the oldest association of its kind in North America. Although some scholars believe that the Five Nations (Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Mohawk, and Seneca) formed their Iroquois League in the 12th century, the most popular theory holds that the confederation was created around 1450, before Columbus’ “discovery” of America. These five nations bore common linguistic and cultural characteristics, and they formed the alliance to protect themselves from invasion and to deliberate on common causes. In the 18th century, the Tuscarora joined the league to increase the membership to six nations. This all ties back into how the book speaks to how the Indians created the world and how the Indians of the Americas transformed the world. This informative book is written in a strong biased favoring the Indians and the disregard toward the settlers about how the Indians affected our world today. Jack Weatherford explains how the Indians changed many things in our society for the better in most cases. After reading this book I can now see rather clearly who really discovered the americas, and also on the other hand who stole it. Americans now being to attempt to repay the Natives by giving reservations back, but the reservations only cover 10% of the land that the Natives had originally lived on. I chose this book because Joseph always tells me about his family and his ancestors and where he lived and his strong feelings toward his Native descendants. This book opened my eyes to who really found America, and then thereafter transformed it.
been a misrepresented and forgotten people when the twisted history of North America is discussed.
This quote from the book really touches base with some of the most terrible and treacherous working conditions for the Natives.
“The mines of upper Bolivia, particularly the mines around Pelosi, strain the limits of human endurance. they are so high and the oxygen content inside the labyrinth of small passages drops so low that the work is almost too strenuous even for the Indians already accustomed to hard labor at high altitudes. the conquistadors, however, found that the miners worked much longer and harder if they chewed the coca leaves. Not only could the men work with less oxygen but they could work longer hours with less food” (199). This quote simply displays a disgusting example of the economic cycle that the Americans had begun. The cycle basically began with workers chewing coca leaves, creating demand for higher production of coca leaves with produced higher amounts of workers at coca plantations, making Pelosi the world’s largest consumer of coca. The act of the workers chewing the coca could make them last much longer in the mines to get more work done. This made the rate of death in the mines
skyrocket making less higher job class workers to not want to work as a miner. This created the working hierarchy with the Indians and Native Americans smackdab on the bottom of the foodchain. The quote above is strongly related to a quote from the in class book, A People's History of the United States, written by Howard Zinn. This quote is regarding the terrible racism and brutal work conditions that the Indians and Blacks faced. “The Indians’ attempts to defend themselves failed. And when they ran off into the hills they were found and killed. So, Las Casas reports, ‘they suffered and died in the mines and other labors in desperate silence, knowing not a soul in the world to whom they could turn for help.’ He describes their work in the mines...” (6). This sheds light on what I had previously mentioned about the deaths in the mines from the conditions and long hours. Zinn speaks directly to the Indians and how they wanted to work fair hours and get off work alive. From the silver industry and money capitalism, to piracy, slavery and the birth of big corporations, the food revolution, agricultural technology, the culinary revolution, drugs and architecture, our debt to the indigenous peoples of America is tremendous. The indigenous people mining the gold and copper began capitalism. Working in the mines and in the plantations with the African slaves, they started the industrial revolution that then spread to Europe and on around the world. The Indians supplied the cotton, rubber, dyes, and related chemicals that fed this new system of production. The Indigenous people of America domesticated and developed the hundreds of varieties of corn, potatoes, and peanuts now of which feed a large population of the world. And like what was stated above about the coca, they discovered the curative powers of quinine, the anesthetizing ability of coca, and the potency of a thousand other drugs with made possible modern medicine and pharmacology. The drugs together with their improved agriculture made possible the population explosion of the last several centuries. They developed and refined a form of democracy that has been haphazardly and inadequately adopted in many parts of the world. They were the true colonizers of America who cut the trails through the jungles and deserts, made the roads, and built the cities upon which modern America is based upon. I believe modern America owes a debt to African and Indian slavery that can never be repaid. I am not saying it shouldn’t be. At the very least, it should be somewhat acknowledged, validated, and honored with the respect that it deserves. Weatherford states in this next quote how subjective and one-sided he tries to glorify the Indian nature, Indian government and Indian understanding of control. “Sir Thomas More incorporated into his 1516 book Utopia those characteristics then being reported by the first travelers to America, especially in the much- discussed letters of Amerigo Vespucci. More made his utopia one of equality without money, which is straight from the Indians” (122). At the end of this quote it is very prevalent that he is trying to portray how important the Indians are to this book. It is not that what Weatherford is totally incorrect, but the way he presents the knowledge is rather biased favoring the Indians. Weatherford starts defending his point using Thomas More's 'Utopia' as an example, stating that he was enormously influenced by the Indians, while he was only excited about the new discovery of a new place. In 'Utopia', very contrary to what Weatherford is trying to describe, we see chained slaves. We see a monogamist system without divorce, a rule broken only in the severest cases of perverseness and adultery, however Indians are known to be, most commonly, polygamist, and in some cases adultery is not against Indian morals. Europeans exploited and colonize the vast continents of the Americas, gave the Indians diseases and Christianity and overlooked almost as much as they took from the Indians. This quote from the book looks into how the League of the Iroquois changed our constitution and what they put their influence on. “In the two centuries since the Constitution went into effect, some aspects of the system have changed. the voters rather than the state legislatures now elect both the electoral college and the senators through popular vote, but the system preserves the general features of the League of the Iroquois” (140). This basically means that within two centuries of the creation of the constitution the Indians have influenced our democratic practiced and how they came to be included in our American creation of democracy. The Iroquois Confederation is the oldest association of its kind in North America. Although some scholars believe that the Five Nations (Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Mohawk, and Seneca) formed their Iroquois League in the 12th century, the most popular theory holds that the confederation was created around 1450, before Columbus’ “discovery” of America. These five nations bore common linguistic and cultural characteristics, and they formed the alliance to protect themselves from invasion and to deliberate on common causes. In the 18th century, the Tuscarora joined the league to increase the membership to six nations. This all ties back into how the book speaks to how the Indians created the world and how the Indians of the Americas transformed the world. This informative book is written in a strong biased favoring the Indians and the disregard toward the settlers about how the Indians affected our world today. Jack Weatherford explains how the Indians changed many things in our society for the better in most cases. After reading this book I can now see rather clearly who really discovered the americas, and also on the other hand who stole it. Americans now being to attempt to repay the Natives by giving reservations back, but the reservations only cover 10% of the land that the Natives had originally lived on. I chose this book because Joseph always tells me about his family and his ancestors and where he lived and his strong feelings toward his Native descendants. This book opened my eyes to who really found America, and then thereafter transformed it.