SOURCE ANALYSIS: BOUDINOT’S “ADDRESS TO THE WHITES”
Elias Boudinot’s speech “An Address to the Whites” was first given in the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, in May 1826. The speech sought white American support of the Cherokees in further assimilation into white society and for aid in this endeavour, as well as making a case for coexistence in an effort to protect the Cherokee Nation. Specifically, the “Address to the Whites” was part of Boudinot’s fundraising campaign for a Cherokee assembly and newspaper. Boudinot himself was Cherokee, though he had been taken from America and educated by missionaries at the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall. This upbringing gave Boudinot a unique perspective on the issue of the Cherokee position
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Again, this shows Boudinot’s potential disassociation from Cherokee popular opinion. However, given that his audience would have consisted largely – if not entirely – of white Americans, Boudinot’s emphasis on Cherokee willingness for these measures would have been a significant rhetorical tool. The audience would have been more inclined to give aid to a willing group of people; it’s unlikely that Boudinot was ignorant of the Cherokee resistance movements, and his neglect to mention them is significant. Whether or not he intended this as a persuasive method or choosing wilful ignorance is …show more content…
Boudinot draws parallels between Cherokee and Christian religion as part of his argument that Cherokees and white Americans are not as far removed from one another as the audience may have believed. He compares the Cherokee “Supreme Being” to the Christian God, and calls this Being “the God of the white, the red, and the black man.” His knowledge of these two religions comes from the aforementioned evangelical Christian conversion that Boudinot underwent at Cornwall, which lends itself as a bridge between the two cultures. He quotes the Bible frequently, and uses the translation of the New Testament into the new Cherokee writing system that he helped develop as evidence for the Cherokee’s willingness to participate in and cooperate with white society. According to Jonathan Filler, Boudinot’s conversion to Christianity and education by the missionaries led to his desire to find “spiritual salvation” for the Cherokees. The use of religion to persuade and reach common ground with his audience, given that the speech was delivered in a church, works well in Boudinot’s
Winthrop D. Jordan author of White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro 1550-1812, expresses two main arguments in explaining why Slavery became an institution. He also focuses attention on the initial discovery of Africans by English. How theories on why Africans had darker complexions and on the peculiarly savage behavior they exhibited. Through out the first two chapters Jordan supports his opinions, with both facts and assumptions. Jordan goes to great length in explaining how the English and early colonialist over centuries stripped the humanity from a people in order to enslave them and justify their actions in doing so. His focus is heavily on attitudes and how those positions worked to create the slave society established in this country.
In 1845, Ebenezer Carter Tracy published a book titled, Memoir of the Life of Jeremiah Evarts. Within this book is a statement from the Cherokee people from 1830 called, “Appeal of the Cherokee Nation.” In this statement, The Cherokee Indians refuse to move west of the Mississippi River. They made this refusal for two main reasons. The Indians believed that they had a right to remain in the lands of their ancestors and they also insisted that their chances of survival would be very low if they moved west. Their survivability would be impacted by their lack of knowledge of the new lands, and by the Indians that were already living in the western lands, and who would view the Cherokee as enemies.
The famous anti-racism activist Tim Wise once said “The irony of American history is the tendency of good white Americans to presume racial innocence. Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.” White Privilege is commonly defined as “a set of advantages and/or immunities that white people benefit from on a daily basis beyond those common to all others.” (What) As White americans living in the United States, you never really pay any attention to the fact that there is a racial “smog” (Marks) living among us in everyday life and you really never realize how it affects the people on the other end who don’t receive this ‘privilege’. White privilege shapes the world we live in by how we go about and interact
This first document is written by a white American who sympathizes greatly with the Cherokees. This document is comprised of excerpts from the journal of the Reverend Daniel Sabine Butrick. He is one of many missionaries who support Cherokee rights and feel very sorry for what the Cherokee people have to go through.
Talking Back to Civilization , edited by Frederick E. Hoxie, is a compilation of excerpts from speeches, articles, and texts written by various American Indian authors and scholars from the 1890s to the 1920s. As a whole, the pieces provide a rough testimony of the American Indian during a period when conflict over land and resources, cultural stereotypes, and national policies caused tensions between Native American Indians and Euro-American reformers. This paper will attempt to sum up the plight of the American Indian during this period in American history.
These advocates expected the Native Americans to leave their lands voluntarily. With the promise for land west of the Mississippi there would be no limits to the tribe’s choice of government, assistance, relocation and protection. Jefferson believed that the Indians’ failures were theirs to own and they needed to depend on themselves alone to become numerous and great people. He encouraged them to take the new land and cultivate it, build a home, and leave it to his children. He was failing to tell them that they really didn’t have much of a choice. Boudinot determined that many of the Cherokee people would leave their land if the true state of their condition was made known to them. They were left with only two real alternatives, one to live under the white man’s law or to be forcibly removed to another country. However some American’s worried about the future of the Native Americans. John Ross’s letter to president Jackson believed it was the white man’s duty to relieve the Indians from their suffering. This could only be accomplished by allowing the Native Americans to obtain their land in Georgia under the rights and privileges as free men. Nevertheless no great lands good for farming would be given to the Native Americans and Jackson would sign the Indian removal act. This act would allow the government to exchange fertile land for land in the west, where they would forcibly relocate the Indian
“Quantie’s weak body shuddered from a blast of cold wind. Still, the proud wife of the Cherokee chief John Ross wrapped a woolen blanket around her shoulders and grabbed the reins.” Leading the final group of Cherokee Indians from their home lands, Chief John Ross thought of an old story that was told by the chiefs before him, of a place where the earth and sky met in the west, this was the place where death awaits. He could not help but fear that this place of death was where his beloved people were being taken after years of persecution and injustice at the hands of white Americans, the proud Indian people were being forced to vacate their lands, leaving behind their homes, businesses and almost everything they owned while traveling to an unknown place and an uncertain future. The Cherokee Indians suffered terrible indignities, sickness and death while being removed to the Indian territories west of the Mississippi, even though they maintained their culture and traditions, rebuilt their numbers and improved their living conditions by developing their own government, economy and social structure, they were never able to return to their previous greatness or escape the injustices of the American people.
Racism is not only a crime against humanity, but a daily burden that weighs down many shoulders. Racism has haunted America ever since the founding of the United States, and has eerily followed us to this very day. As an intimidating looking black man living in a country composed of mostly white people, Brent Staples is a classic victim of prejudice. The typical effect of racism on an African American man such as Staples, is a growing feeling of alienation and inferiority; the typical effect of racism on a white person is fear and a feeling of superiority. While Brent Staples could be seen as a victim of prejudice because of the discrimination he suffers, he claims that the victim and the perpetrator are both harmed in the vicious cycle that is racism. Staples employs his reader to recognize the value of his thesis through his stylistic use of anecdotes, repetition and the contrast of his characterization.
Talking Back to Civilization: Indian Voices from the Progressive Era edited by Frederick E. Hoxie is a book which begins with an introduction into the life of Charles Eastman and a brief overview of the history of Native Americans and their fight for justice and equal rights, it then continues by describing the different ways and avenues of speaking for Indian rights and what the activists did. This leads logically into the primary sources which “talk back” to the society which had overrun their own. The primary sources immerse the reader into another way of thinking and cause them to realize what our societal growth and even foundation has caused to those who were the true natives. The primary sources also expand on the main themes of the book which are outlines in the introduction. They are first and most importantly talking back to the “pale faces”, Indian education, religion, American Indian policy, the image of the Indians presented in America. The other chapters in the book further expanded on these ideas. These themes will be further discussed in the following chapters along with a review of this
In the early 1920's, many generational Americans had moderately racist views on the "new immigrants," those being predominantly from Southern and Eastern Europe. Americans showed hatred for different races, incompatibility with religion, fear of race mixing, and fear of a revolution from other races. At the time, people believed the Nordic race was supreme.
“It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the States; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community.” (Jackson).
Andrew Jackson used euphemisms throughout his message to describe the relocation of the Indians. For example, he said that the Indians would be able to peruse happiness in their own way. It is obvious of his real intentions when he stated that the relocation was “to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, and civilized, Christian community.” It’s obvious he had the interest
Perdue stated that prior to America 's involvement in Cherokee society, Cherokee women had a voice in Cherokee government and they were respected. She mentioned that it was a Cherokee woman who wrote to Benjamin Franklin in contemplation of negotiating peace with the new American nations. This anecdote indicated traditional Cherokee women’s political status in Cherokee society and their involvement in deciding major decisions of the nation, and women were the leading roles in resisting American’s potential invasion. Perdue went on explaining that the political influence come from “their maternal biological role in procreation and their maternal role in Cherokee society, …” in which women were the major economic sources that support families and they were women who represented their kins in negotiating with American
Muhammad Ali, a famous boxer, once said, “Hating People because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. I’s just plain wrong” (Goodreads, 2015). For many centuries, ethnic conflict between the humans have existed immortally due the never changing differences of culture and values, spinning the cycle of war. Fortunately, some have ended however some still remain immortal in the eyes of those who have experience struggle to this date. The lack of awareness of problems in a cultural crisis concerning those who fall victim to a system and society that discriminates and alienates. With assistance of Critical Race Theory, this essay will examine how the role of race with has affected has caused consequences within the lives of marginalized groups within society through the lives and their relationship with those in their communities.
Essay 1: WRITE A COHERENT ESSAY IN WHICH YOU ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN THE USE OF BLACK ICONIC IMAGES (AND OTHER ETHNIC IMAGES) TO SELL PRODUCTS AS THE ECONOMY OF MASS CONSUMPTION EXPANDED IN THE LATE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURY. YOU ARE ENCOURAGED TO INCLUDE IMAGES IN YOUR PAPER! During the 19th and 20th century, America –mostly white collar, middle class Americans- saw a great increase in salaries and a huge rise in mass production which paved the way for the modern American consumerism which we know today. The advertising scene saw a dramatic boost during that period and tried to latch on to this growing pool of emerging consumers. Although only limited to print, advertising during this pivotal period showed panache and reflected American society and popular culture.