Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Indian slaughter you seldom hear about.

Huh. Who'da thunk it? You saying you've actually read a BOOK?

C'mon. Cite me some books that are better words, first, last, or in between, than Diamond's. Diamond is a damn good scholar, which I can't say for a lot of the pop anthropologists out there. Not that I hang my hat on what he thinks/writes, but he's made some damn good points.

Cite away. I'd love to read 'em, if I haven't already.



"1491" is pop anthropology; neither at its best nor its worst. I found it engaging in writing style, but to anyone with any background in North American anthropology, there were no surprises. Worth reading for the newbie.

I think the point which is often missed is, of the people who lived back then, regardless of their racial makeup, a large percentage would have been aptly described by the word often used in place of "anus". That is certainly the case today and I don't imagine things were much different a couple of hundred years ago. People who fit into this category often do things which might be considered to be less than moral. A significant percentage of those who fit into the anal category may also overlap into the "stupid" classification. The stupid anal personality seldom acts in a way which would be a source of real pride. GD

Actually, both books are "pop" anthopology, but 1491 received the best book award in 2006 from the National Academy of Sciences.

Like you I was intrigued by Diamonds book.

All one has to do is see the work of the mound builders, or the Anasazi, the Maya or the Inca or the Aztecs to realize there were civilizations in North America, concentrations of populations. Some of the pottery, and ceremonial grave goods, and the trade routes represented should indicate that.

Sycamore

No question there were civilizations in the Americas prior to entry of Europeans! And there was very likely knowledge in those civilizations that has been lost with their passing. "1491" was a brilliant snapshot, if you will, of what existed in that moment in time.

With all due respect, I beg to differ with your categorization of Guns, Germs, and Steel as "pop" anthropology. IMHO it is far more than that. It is a "gateway book".

Diamond's background and life spent as a field scientist is the backbone of his book, and it tells in the "Further Readings" section at the end of the book. The references I've followed up (in my areas of particular interest) have opened up an ongoing journey of learning for me that few books have ever done, and which is ongoing. The only other bestselling book I would put in its class is Laurie Garrett's The Coming Plague, which is, like GG&S, a door that--should one choose to open it--leads into an entire new library of knowledge. Not necessarily comfortable knowledge, but we are not ostriches...

Technological advancement is neither the only, nor necessarily the best, measure of a society.

"Simple fact" obscuring Frontier realities and giving the usual misleading and usually wrong cast of pop history.

"Prior to the settlement of Europeans" as you put it, American history as we know it weren't happening yet. AFTER contact, though we usually focus on all the cool stuff like wars and killing, an intensive technological exchange began to occur, this weren't just limited to weapons.

I'm reminded of Alan W. Eckert's description of the Miami Indian Town of Kekionga in present-day Ohio during the Rev. War period; plank sidewalks, two trading posts, a saloon, and a whorehouse. THAT was the reality along the Frontier of that era, pop historians like yourself would have 'em all living in bark longhouses.

Put another way; to the 600 man American army under St. Clair getting wiped out one bloody morning on the Wabash, the fact that the guys firing the rifles at 'em had great-grandparents who use sharp rocks would be irrelevant, about as irrelevant as the fact that the Euros originally got iron from the Hittites or whatever, and gunpowder from the Chinese.

Birdwatcher

With respect to assimilation being a necessary prerequisite to technological adoption...



What you had just previously written was....



There were blacksmiths among the Iroquois before the Rev War, and Delawares were repairing and restocking their own guns by that time. Indian carpenters were building "longhouses" from sawn timbers with glass windows, but with the fireplace and chimney placed in the center.

The Sullivan Expedition (1779) into Iroquoia found all of the above plus fenced-in fields that had been ploughed.

Down in the Southeast, I dunno exactly when the first Cherokee/Creek/Choctaw/whatever plantation-type agriculture appeared, complete with a version of chattel slavery, all operated by guys with heavily tattooed faces speaking tribal dialects.

Were they Neolithic?

We ain't arguing, just having a discussion.

Birdwatcher

The OP has me looking at what the Indian Wars were. The Wild West as WE know it went from around 1820's through 1885. The Wild East went from 1619 through just after the turn of the 19th Century. You want to read "Bloody Mohawk" and get a fair idea of just how bloody and savage the war was. It all happened in my area and is stunning to learn. Nobody who lived in the Mohawk Valley and Schoharie Valley was a candy ass. Just about EVERY town from Schenectady to Canajoharie ,Cobleskill, Cherry Valley, Stone Arabia,Middleburg..ALL were victims of massacres and were rebuilt over and over agin. The Wyoming Valley in N.Pennsylvania during the Revolution was a slaughterhouse for the Americans. At least part of the Wild West men had repaeting weapons to defend with. A more organized Army and telegraph helped. Here, matchlocks to flintlocks, knives and tomahawks were the primary weapons. REAL advanced stuff, eh??? NOBODY was innocent. Palefaces and Redskins were equally savage BECAUSE THEY HAD TO BE!! Even the minister at church services had his weapon with him in the pulpit. Cannibalism, particularly with the Ottowas and Mohawks was common. If you were killed,you were lunch. Just how it was.

You had just stated that Jared Diamond had stated the Indians couldn't feed themselves with agriculture, and hence were forced to keep hunter/gathering.

Since I have had the rare (in America) experience of actually living for three years among impoverished subsistence farmers while subsisting entirely upon the low protein locally-produced staples of corn, taro, cassava, and yams supplemented by small quantities of animal protein (including wild rodents, snails and whole dried minnows) I'm wondering if, by Diamond's definition, these people were also forced to rely on hunter/gathering. And if they were, how is that different from pre-industrial European peasants taking wild conies (rabbits) and occasionally offing one of his lordship's deer?

I suspect that, rather than absolutes, technology exists along a continuum.

I'll have to look into the native agriculture thing. As its proponents are quick to point out, the unique appeal of corn, beans and squash were/are they supply every amino acid necessary for human health. Question now is how much I'd guess.

I had read that per acre, thee sisters multicropping out-performed contemporary European-type agriculture as practiced in the colonies and would observe too that broadcasting rather than individually planting such large seeds as corn, beans and squash seems like an excellent way to feed the crows.

It does seem that corn, whatever its protein merits, quickly became the staple for all sides in North America. Corn and free-range hogs becoming the foundations of early American diet.

Anyhoo, for general interest, this is a three-sisters intercrop school garden planted by some students, I had never seen one before. What impressed me was how much it looked like a weedy field, and how every square inch of surface area was covered by leaves manufacturing useful carbohydrates. Dunno how this related to productivity vis a vis pre-industrial Euro agriculture.





Birdwatcher

Ya 'Twin, I've been re-reading that book.

OMG.. Battle of Oriskany, EIGHTY PERCENT casualties among the participants :shock:

Pertinent to this discussion, the itinerant Oneida blacksmith Ahnyero (Thomas Spenser) fell in that battle on the Patriot side, possibly to British-allied Mohawk rifles. Prior to this that guy was all over the place, collecting intelligence while plying his trade among the Indian villages, and most notably tracking British-allied Mohawk, Seneca and Tory scouting parties lurking in the forests around the settlements.

A seemingly rare commodity; a skilled blacksmith who could also track like an Indian, sounds about like Noah Smithwick fifty years later here in Texas.

Birdwatcher

cliff notes:

bunch of redskins killed some white settlers;

big mistake;

said redskins bit off more than they could chew and got the azzes handed to them;

isn't history fun boy and girls??


:yawn:

Yeah Birdie. I was a bit surprised to learn that the fighting here in NY went on well after Cornwallis surrender. The Bloody end of Butler gave me some satisfaction. Butler's rangers being routed (LAST battle) and running through the Adirondacks heading for Canada,Butler begging for quarter from an Oneida who killed him brutally saying "I give you Sherry Valley(Cherry Valley) quarter" in revenge for the slaughter Butler and Brant perpetrated there.

But.... in the end most of the Oneidas still got pushed out anyway. Same old story in the East; they were pushed out not by the first generations of Whites they had been coexisting with, but by the other hordes of 'em who came later.

Many of the first Whites were pushed out too.

Been debated over the years how much Joseph Brant actually intended the massacre at Cherry Valley to go down that way. Given the guy was the same Indian who had previously translated the Anglican prayer book into written Mohawk and all that.

(Gotta put "Indian", some people here might not know who Joseph Brant was.)

But... he was one of the principals that made the attack happen, so I suppose much of the blame attaches to him regardless.

Birdwatcher

Butler was the instigator of the Cherry Valley massacre, Brant had to go along with it. Never seemed to take much to convince a Mohawk to be brutal.

Why is it always a massacre when Indians were beat and a battle when they won?

Was this complete prior to Columbus?

This will come as a great surprise to all those prehistoric Lake Superior Indians who mined and worked copper for the last 7000 years.

Doc,

I think we might be in "violent agreement"

Diamond is a better writer than the 1491 guy. (Mann?) What was valuable ( to me, at least) about 1491 was the discussion of the various population estimates, the range, and links to the different proponents (dobyns, etc)

Like you, I always appreciate a book that sends me on a new journey of discovery.

Sycamore

Yes, Columbus, Ohio was not invented yet.

Gadfly,

Get a life, what happened with the American Indian vs Hitler and the Jews is a pathetic comparison. Even so, what was going on in the United States at this time was a vast expansion of settlement and discovery. The perception of the Anglo culture vs the Indian culture didn't allow for harmonious co-habitation. War and killing was a result, not so much a cause and as a result the American Government saw fit to kill Indians that didn't fit the template that was established during this expansion, creating the end result with what we deal with today. The Indian was considered vermin, I didn't decide that. I only made a comparison.

Like it or not, that is pretty much how it happened...

One of them things that might be primarily of interest only to me.

One of the best-documented accounts of 18th Century Indian Country can be found in the journals of those who participated in the Clinton-Sullivan Expedition of 1779. Due to their Loyalist alliances and proximity to Canada the Iroquois were a threat that couldn't be ignored. So much so that a combined force of 6,000 men was mustered for the purpose, enormous by the standards of the time and by far the largest expedition ever launched against Indians.

What was revealed was that, despite their fearsome reputation, Iroquois demographics had been hollowed out by disease and other causes. Joseph Brant was only able to muster 900 men to oppose the American force, ordinarily a formidable number but by 1779 simply not enough.

Western New York, then the homeland of the Senecas, the most numerous of the remaining Iroquois, was terra incognita to most Whites for the simple reason that it was general Seneca policy to restrict access.

Fortunately its also one of the best-documented actions through several diaries and journals, all of which marvelled at the size and productivity of the Iroquois fields.

http://www.sullivanclinton.com/

A snapshot of a larger Seneca townsite....

...after marching six miles we reached the castle, which consisted of 128 houses, mostly very large and elegant. The town was beautifully situated, almost encircled with a clear flat which extends for a number of miles, where the most extensive fields of corn were, and every kind of vegetable that can be conceived...

Not everyone lived like this of course, and interestingly enough, the warriors who came from these communities were as painted and as stripped naked as they had ever been.

With respect to the productivity of traditional Indian agriculture, first, as noted, native crops were quickly adopted by the European settlers in North America, the other way around; not so much. Regular folks voting with their bellies.

Jane Mount Pleasant, Associate Professor of Horticulture and Head of the Native American Studies Program at Cornell University is hardly a disinterested witness, but appears to have done more experimental work along these lines than anyone else.

She found....

http://whyfiles.org/2012/farming-native-american-style/

in 1779, a soldier sent by General George Washington reported that his unit had destroyed at least 200 acres of Iroquois corn and beans that was �the best I ever saw.�....

...In experiments replicating agriculture from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, Iroquois corn out-produced of European wheat....

�This was not backyard gardening, not primitive farming,� Mt. Pleasant says. �They were dynamic, producing farmers on really good soils.�

In modern tests of corn varieties believed to resemble those grown by the Senecas, one of the Iroquois tribes, Mt. Pleasant got yields of 2,500 to 3,000 pounds per acre (45 to 54 bushels per acre or 2,800 to 3,400 kilograms per hectare).

This was far above the 500 kilograms per hectare of contemporay wheat varieties grown in Europe.

Birdwatcher