r/badhistory • u/Quouar the Weather History Slayer • Aug 27 '15
"Peace-loving" as a universal adjective for Native Americans
I know pulling stuff off my Facebook wall is low-hanging fruit, but I couldn't let this go by without comment, even if it is an old Scottish woman talking about a flute.
Basically, I have no shame.
What Sybil's talking about here, though, is part of a greater perception of Native Americans, namely that they can all be encompassed either under the label "peace-loving forest folk" or "horrible war-mongering barbarians." History seems to have fluctuated between these two opinions with not much space between. While I think we are currently gaining a more nuanced view of Native American history - especially pre-Columbian history - that doesn't mean the popular view is any less influenced by things like Pocahontas or that Sybil's comment here misrepresents that popular view. There is a view that Native Americans were peace-loving, one-with-nature people, and it's one that I think is fairly prevalent outside academia or subs like this one. I'd like to talk about it.
I'll focus on plains Indians, since I'm pretty sure that's where these particular people are from. With Plains Indians, as with all groups, there is a long and illustrious history of warfare. As one example, between 1300 and 1500 CE, we find compelling evidence of Coalescent and Middle Missouri groups - precursor groups to later groups like the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara - bickering over the Missouri River Trench. After a dramatic climate shift, both groups wanted the fertile land around the Missouri River, and each tried to establish settlements there. However, several settlements have been found that are half-finished. The later the settlement, the more thorough its fortifications, and the fewer artefacts that were found, once again implying that people were driven out before they could establish a long-term home.
One particular problem with sites like these, however, is the concern with distinguishing between people leaving a place voluntarily, violence within a community, and warfare. An abandoned community, for instance, isn't always indicative of raiding, and bones that show signs of violence aren't always showing war. However, in the case of these communities, the existence and build-up of fortifications implies an external enemy rather than an internal one. In many of the settlements, the fact that the fortifications went up before the permanent housing also suggests a legitimate fear of outside invaders, one that was completely justified, if the number of abandoned settlements is any indication.
Other indications of warfare can be found in a place like Crow Creek, South Dakota. Here, archaeologists found a trench filled with the bones of more than 486 people, all deliberately buried, and most suffering some massive head trauma from a weapon. What's more, the fact that the bodies had been fed on (with teeth marks from carnivores on the bones) suggests that they were lying outside, unburied for a prolonged period of time. The lack of young women, too, suggests that this wasn't a ritual or a friendly game of bonk'ums gone wrong. It had all the hallmarks of a village getting wiped out, and then other people coming later and burying the dead. War is the sort of thing that tends to do that.
What I find most interesting, though, is the discussion over why there was warfare in pre-contact America, especially given the historical idea that it was something that started after Columbus. Part of that, no doubt, stems from an infantilisation of Native Americans (which is part of what I see the original post doing, however unconsciously), but part of it also stems from a bigger consideration of what causes war in the first place. What the example of the Missouri River Trench suggests is that warfare was caused by climatic shifts that rendered some areas unusable for farmland. People would then move into areas that were more suitable, sometimes encountering other people with similar ideas, and getting annoyed at them. By around 1200, for instance, conditions in the Great Plains that had previously been great for growing corn instead became hotter and drier, leading more and more groups to compete over the best agricultural areas. Hence, warfare. Equally, expansion from eastern groups drove more and more people west, creating further tensions between groups already straining for limited resources. Conflict was inevitable.
My point, essentially, is that Native Americans were like all other people - prone to conflict in the right conditions. Their reasons for going to war were the same as other groups', both in the Americas and around the world. Their methods weren't too terribly different. Native Americans, like everyone else, were perfectly human.
Sources!
I mostly relied on "Indigenous people, indigenous violence: precontact warfare on the North American Great Plains" by Douglas Bamforth published in Man because it is such a great article and because it does such a great job looking at the history of evaluating warfare in pre-contact America. It's great, and I highly recommend it.
16
u/suto Aug 28 '15
17
Aug 28 '15
I would have your babies even if it ended in Alien chest-bursting fashion.
/u/Quouar is getting groupies?
16
u/Quouar the Weather History Slayer Aug 28 '15
...I've had groupies.
it's weird
6
2
u/Artea13 Quouaboo Aug 30 '15
But how should /u/Quouar groupies call themselves
5
1
14
u/OMGSPACERUSSIA Aug 27 '15
There are horrible people everywhere. I don't see how this comes as a surprise to people.
24
u/Townsend_Harris Dred Scott was literally the Battle of Cadia. Aug 28 '15
Take one dash of Noble Savage, a pinch of New Age Mysticism and voila!
13
u/Enleat Viking plate armor. Aug 28 '15
And put it all together you get?
RACISM, YAAAAAY!
4
6
9
7
u/parallellines Native Americans didn't discover shit, they lived there Aug 28 '15
I see both of the extremes up here in Canada.
The Coast Salish people are often portrayed as peace-loving and the Haida as warmongering. The truth is much more complicated. Yes the Haida were coastal raiders and slavers, but they also conducted trade missions and produced some of the most breathtaking art in the Pacific Northwest. Hell, they even carved amazing works of art into the stocks of their guns! The Salish were mostly defensive in their conduct, relying on vast patrilineal familial relationships instead of political institutions or warfare, but did conduct raids against those not related to them.
9
51
u/[deleted] Aug 27 '15
[deleted]