America in 1492: The World of the Indian Peoples Before the Arrival of Columbus edited by Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. Highly recommended.

In America in 1492: The World of the Indian Peoples Before the Arrival of Columbus, editor Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., presents a series of essays that dispel the popular idea that the American continents were sparsely populated by primitive hunter-gatherers (or, after Hollywood, Plains Indians whooping on horseback). These essays, written by contributors such as Alan Kolata and Peter Nabokov, reveal the breadth and depth of Indian language, culture, arts, spirituality, and life ways. Part One covers the continents geographically, from northern Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, while Part Two examines language, religion, family and tribal or clan life, migration and cultural influence, systems of knowledge, and the arts. Renowned Native American writers N. Scott Momaday and Vine Deloria, Jr., contribute the first chapter, “The Becoming of the Native: Man in America Before Columbus,” and the afterword, respectively.

The weaknesses of the approach are evident; some essays are stronger than others, depending on the writer’s skill and bias and on the material available. Some contradict one another. In “In the Realm of the Four Quarters,” Kolata’s admiration for the success of the Inca empire is nearly boundless, while in “American Frontiers,” Francis Jennings doubts the real strength of the empire over its conquered subjects and its economic, political, and military sustainability. Such a survey book can cover only so much information, and, not surprisingly, the Aztecs and Incas are more prominent than, for example, the nations that make up the Iroquois Confederacy.

Another weakness of America in 1492 is focus, perhaps driven by lack of information in critical areas. Topics such as food, clothing, structures, tools, seasonal migration, major rituals, and so forth, are described in some detail, but whole areas are sometimes untouched or only briefly alluded to, such internal conflict resolution and justice systems, practical leadership (political vs. spiritual or hunting), the practicalities of daily life in large communal homes, and the frequency and practice of warfare. How often did conflicts occur and what provoked them? How were they conducted? How sustained were they?

Despite the inevitable shortcomings, 1492 does provide a good overview of life in the western hemisphere, from the head-hunting spiritual practices of some Amazonian tribes to the agricultural practices and cultivation of maize that spread from Mesoamerica, from trade routes to migration patterns. There are some surprises here for the novice, for example, that the Navajo so strongly associated in our contemporary minds with the southwestern desert migrated from the northern tundra; that the Great Plains were inhabited by farmers and that the tribes we associate with them, such as the Lakota, had not yet arrived there; and that extensive trade routes and trade centers existed, even if the concept of investment capital did not.

History emphasizes the differences between Europeans and pre-Columbian Indians, and certainly these differences — most obvious in the concepts behind language, in spirituality and philosophy, and in the ideas surrounding the individual and the community — are fundamental. As I read 1492, however, certain similarities to post-Roman Europe struck me. For example, there were the waves of migration that changed the face of Europe many times. There was all the ability of Europeans, and others, to establish and use trade routes and centers despite geographical, language, and transportation barriers. In very general terms, on both sides of the Atlantic there was restlessness over land and power combined with a need to live cooperatively and to exchange easily obtained goods, such as shells on the coast, for desired ones found inland, such as corn and furs.

This raises the question, “What is an Indian?” Indians are the native peoples of the Americas, just as Europeans are those who inhabit Europe. It is a broad category that does not reveal much. As in Europe, there are hundreds of languages, cultures, and beliefs, and most likely there is no common ancestry among many of the groups. “European” provides you with only a very vague notion of a person or group; “Swedish” or “Greek” paints two very definite, and different, pictures. That is what should be kept in mind when you read America in 1492. “The World of the Indian Peoples Before the Arrival of Columbus” changes with every few miles, every alteration in climate or topography, every season, and the world of the Incas is nothing like the world of the Arawaks or Arikara.

As Vine Deloria and others tell us, prophecies pre-dating Columbus predict the arrival of the white man and go on to say that his predominance will be the shortest of all. We look around at our impressive infrastructure that has altered (and in many cases ruined) the land, our health and long lives, and our prosperity, and think that such a prediction seems absurd. Yet we have been here a tiny fraction of the time the Indian has, and as the latest reports about climate change and other environmental and resource issues should remind us, our present way of life is not sustainable for the long term; in fact, it has become problematic in only slightly more than 100 years. The year 1492 in America marked the end of thousands of years of Indian tradition; what year will mark the end of our ways as we know them?

8 April 2007
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America by Russell Shorto. Recommended.

Before New York, there was New Netherland, claimed for the Dutch by English explorer Henry Hudson. At the heart of New Netherland was New Amsterdam on the island of Manhattan — a frontier village and the gateway to the vast American interior, ripe for exploitation.

In The Island at the Center of the World, Russell Shorto makes the case for the influence of the Dutch and their colony on the future United States and for Adriaen Van der Donck, who tried to convince the Dutch government to wrest control of the colony from the inept hands of the Dutch West India Company. He failed, leaving the colony vulnerable to the British, who took it with little effort and made it a mere footnote in American history textbooks.

The modern perception of the Dutch colony seems to support the adage that history is written by the victor. Adriaen Van der Donck lost; Peter Stuyvesant won, so that it is the latter who has a place in the history books. It is not much of a place, according to Shorto; as the loser to the British, Stuyvesant is portrayed “as almost a cartoon character: peg-legged, cantankerous, a figure of comic relief who would do his routine, draw a few laughs, and then exit the stage so that the real substance of American history could begin.”

Shorto covers the colony’s history from the time Hudson “found” it to Stuyvesant’s reluctant surrender to the British in 1664, as well as Van der Donck’s career from his university days and the writing of his book to his efforts at The Hague, followed by speculation about his death.

In between, Shorto shows what was different about New Netherland from its encroaching Pilgrim and Puritan neighbors to the north. For one thing, the “Dutch” were not all Dutch in origin. They were Dutch, English, German, French, African, Jewish, Quaker, even Turkish. One of the founding couples of New Netherland was a “French-speaking teenager ” and a “Flemish textile worker,” “. . . two young nobodies” whose descendants are estimated to number more than one million. The Dutch, having been victims of religious intolerance, promoted an unusually tolerant society that naturally encouraged diversity, which continues today. Shorto notes that, where Peter Stuyvesant’s farmhouse once stood, “The same view takes in an Arab newsstand, a Yemenite Israeli restaurant, a pizza shop, a Japanese restaurant, and a Jewish deli.”

Perhaps the more important difference in the English and Dutch legacies lies in each colony’s original reason for existence. The Pilgrims and Puritans sought to escape persecution and to establish a society based on their own strictly interpreted religious beliefs, which did not preclude the persecution of others such as Quakers. New Haven and other cities were to be their equivalent of a promised land. The Dutch and others who settled New Netherland had a different motive — they saw opportunity. Here, anyone could obtain land, work hard, and succeed in a way not possible in the Dutch republic, with its limited space and resources. When writing of the initial report on New Netherland, Shorto says of the Dutch merchants reading it, “What jumped out at them, however, were other words, sharp, money-laden nouns — ‘Vellen . . . Pelterijen . . . Maertens . . . Vossen . . .’ — the report making a frank promise of ‘many skins and peltries, martins, foxes, and many other commodities.'” He reminds us that the colony was not managed by the government, but by a profit-making concern — the Dutch West India Company.

It was the opportunity that drew the French-speaking teenager and the Flemish textile worker and that allowed their descendants to proliferate, together with the Dutch attitude of religious, cultural, and social tolerance. It is easy to see the seeds of a democratic society in New Amsterdam, where the rules are different, where colonists of all skill sets are needed, and where opportunity is not restricted by class or status. Even the militaristic Calvinist Peter Stuyvesant can’t change the character of the colony that developed before his arrival.

The book would have benefited from quotations from primary personal sources, for example, letters and journals of Stuyvesant and Van der Donck. It appears that such historical riches have been lost or not yet translated. Shorto tries to fill in these deficiencies with colorful, evocative language and speculation about how these and other characters might have felt or acted at critical moments; for example, Van der Donck writes “like a man possessed,” while Stuyvesant might “stump off” in a fit of pique.

Shorto does bring the colony to life, including interesting and sordid details about court cases, facts such as that one-quarter of all businesses on Manhattan were taverns or breweries at one point, and details such as that one prostitute preferred to be paid in otter and beaver pelts rather than with money.

His evident passion for the subject and his frustration with Anglocentric (and mythologized) history leads Shorto to overstate the case for the influence of the Dutch colony. The United States today is not as uniformly tolerant, even in the Dutch sense, as Short believes, or as multicultural except in urban areas. Each urban area has not necessarily modeled itself after early Manhattan, but has evolved in its own way, not always offering equal opportunity to every group of immigrants or every individual.

Despite the Pilgrim/Puritan myths left to us and to which we cling, however, the United States, like Manhattan, is a unique creation born of a unique set of circumstances. Like the Pilgrims and Puritans, the Dutch were founding colonists and be given their due as such. If you are interested in a more complete picture of early American history, The Island at the Center of the World should be on your “must read” list.

Sunday, 6 August 2006
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf