A People’s Readalong: As Long As Grass Grows Or Water Runs
by Jenners • 02/26/2012 • A People's Readalong, History, Non-Fiction, P Titles, Z Authors • 14 Comments
Fizzy Jill and I (and a bunch of others) are reading a chapter a week of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. Feel free to join us in whatever way you prefer—by reading along, commenting, or writing your own posts. To keep things organized, link up posts over at Jill’s blog as she is the quasi-official host who designed the button and reading schedule. This week, we read Chapter 7: As Long As Grass Grows Or Water Runs.
IMPORTANT READALONG INFO
This past week, Jill and I made the executive decision (perhaps the only time in my life I could be even faintly be considered an executive) to change the posting schedule for this readalong to every other week instead of every week. We’ll still continue to read one chapter a week, but instead of posting on Chapter 8 next week (March 6), we’ll post about Chapters 8 and 9 on March 12 and continue posting every other week from there. Hope that works for all of you! If it doesn’t, talk to Jill. : )
My Thoughts
This chapter is about the policy of “Indian Removal,” which essentially meant removing the Indians from wherever they were in order to clear the land for white occupancy. As Zinn writes:
The cost in human life cannot be accurately measured, in suffering not even roughly measured. Most of the history books given to children quickly pass over it.
Indeed, as Zinn points out, the long and hard-fought Seminole War of 1818 (which led to the U.S. acquisition of Florida) “appears on classroom maps politely as ‘Florida Purchase, 1819”’—which implies a civilized business transaction rather than the forcible taking of land.
In a history of long and shameful actions by the U.S. government, the treatment of the Indians ranks up there one of the most evil and shameful. The repeated lies, broken treaties and complete dismissal of Indian culture and welfare were repeated time and time again. The complete and utter betrayal of the Indian’s trust and values was blatant and open. Regarded as nuisances that had to be pushed out of land they had lived on for generations so that white settlers had new places to live, the Indians were betrayed over and over. Whether they tried to resist via violence, non-violence or assimilation, the end result was always the same: decimation of their people and a forced migration to inhospitable land that wasn’t wanted by white men.
I was hard-pressed to disagree with Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief, who said:
The way, and the only way, to check and to stop this evil, is for all the Redmen to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was at first and should be yet; for it was never divided, but belongs to all for the use of each. That no part has a right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers—those who want all and will not do with less.
One of the primary architects and enforcers of Indian Removal was Andrew Jackson. Jackson got down and dirty in the fighting (though this is often left off his resume) and, when he became president, he found “the proper tactic” for dealing with the Indians:
The Indians would not be “forced” to go West. But if they chose to stay they would have to abide by state laws, which destroyed their tribal and personal rights and made them subject to endless harassment and invasion by white settlers coveting their land. If they left, however, the federal government would give them financial support and promise them lands beyond the Mississippi.
Do I need to tell you that the “financial support” never materialized and the “lands” were the most inhospitable and arid in the country? Time and again, the Indians were relocated and promised that they could remain in their new homes “for as long as grass grows or water runs”—only to be relocated again and again when white settlers wanted the land. (One treaty was broken within days of its signing.)
In the end, the various Indian tribes—the Creeks, Cherokees, Seminoles, Choctaws, Chickasaws—all faced the same fate: forced migration, starvation, disease and decimation of their population, culture, land and rights. What was done to the Indians was evil, pure and simple. The more I learn about their culture, the more I wish the civilization that had flourished in the U.S. had been that of the Indians and not the white men.
Some Thoughts on the Book Overall
Although this particular chapter was one of the more readable, I’m beginning to think that Zinn would have been better served by organizing the book differently. Instead of moving chronologically, I think he might have been better served by focusing on one disenfranchised group at a time. By telling the history of the Indians in a series of chapters—moving from the arrival of Columbus through modern times—I think it would be easier to grasp their full story rather than getting it in bits and pieces. There could be separate sections for Indians, blacks and women. Another section could focus on the establishment and maintenance of the class society that dominates U.S. history. This constant ping-ponging from topic to topic does a disservice to the important stories that Zinn is trying to tell.
Yet I also recognize that Zinn took on an amazingly difficult task to try to fit the entire history of the U.S. into one book. U.S. history is so complex and multifaceted that each one of these areas (women’s rights, slavery, Indians) could be the topic of their own book (and have been). For Zinn to address it all and more than 200 years of history in ONE BOOK seems like a Quixotic quest. While I admire what Zinn is attempting to do with this book and applaud it, I’m beginning to wonder if this format serves his important work in the best way. Still, it is easy to be a critic so I shall step down off my high horse and get ready for the next chapters.
I highlighted so much in this chapter and for some crazy reason, the plight of the Indians makes me madder than how freaking long it took women the right to vote…Or maybe it’s that I’m 1/4 Cherokee AND a woman AND I live in Dahlonega, home of the first Gold Rush in the U.S. and the marker is in our county where the Cherokees began their death march and ends in Oklahoma where my dad grew up. And I guess I never really realized how much of a role Andrew Jackson played in the displacement of the Indians (and their tragic deaths). Every year he is celebrated at Stone Mountain Park in Atlanta…ugh! I’ll be boycotting that show from now on!
And thanks for breaking it up into every other week – I’m staying on top of the reading, just can’t get all the commenting done. I have got to learn how to use Google Reader – I hate to admit it has me stumped!
you cannot relate to either women OR natives of this time-period in ANY way. its foul of you to think you, and all others who “relate” to these people. You are simply identifying the wrong that is human suffering and subjugation. as Zinn mentions right off… there is class subjugation, and there is genocide, and the two are absolutely different. You don’t “feel madder” at one because you’re a women or not even really native, you are mad because you know right from wrong. good for you. now go do something about it..
My high school term paper was on the Native American removal and I spent several months getting mad and then heartbroken. I’m happy to be reading along with you, posts only
…although, if you look at the wider history of human migration and conquest through historic time, the disenfranchisement of the Native Americans stands out less for its brutality than its relative restraint. Consider, for instance, the Celtic peoples of mainland of Europe — except you can’t, because they were eliminated by the various peoples that took the continent for them. As they in turn replaced the people who had the continent before them, so thoroughly that all we know of them is conjectural. All of which is not to say that we should be happy that the Native Americans were largely conquered by the expanding American state, nor that it wasn’t even perhaps evil and shameful — but it is misleading to think of it as an unusual event in world history.
I’m not sure I follow you on the scope-of-book issue. Why not write a history of the U.S. in one book? You can get more specialized — a history of slavery in the U.S., is one of your examples — but wouldn’t the same problem still apply? History of slavery in the U.S. is way too broad — maybe stick to just slavery as it relates to the cotton trade? Or, if that’s too broad…. But on the other end of the scale, plenty of perfectly cromulant books have been written on the history of the world (including one I particularly recommend to you, Larry Gonick’s multivolume “Cartoon History of the Universe.” Maybe Zinn’s problem is that his focus is too narrow.
Important discussion about a subject I need to learn more about, the mistreatment and forced migration of the Indians. This book sounds quite comprehensive and figuring out how to best organize all the material must have been a formidable task. I look forward to the next Zinn-stallment.
I’m glad you and Jill decided to post every two weeks. Once a week is a bit much, particularly with all the information Zinn packs into a chapter.
I heard an interesting report about some Lakota students who created a video as a rebuttal to an ABC special called “Children of the Plains”. Here is the link. It is a wonderful piece of work.
This is one of those parts of our history for which I have mixed emotions. I do have opinions, but they might not be quite as informed as they should be, so perhaps I shouldn’t offer one here. Is that a cop-out?
This is definitely one of the most shameful aspects of our history. I agree with your suggestion for how Zinn could have organized the book differently. I guess he just followed the chronological format since this is what traditional history books use but I can see your point about how it would be easier to read the history of each group all at once.
Jenners–I’m with you about wishing Native American culture won here. It’s tragic to think of all that was lost. This chapter was fascinating and depressing, like much of this book.
The plight of the Indians has always bothered me, as it wasn’t only bribery but threatening malevolence that they had to face. As I mentioned on Jill’s blog, it’s sort of shameful to me. I also agree that Zinn would have been better off organizing the book into pertinent and flowing sections, instead of skipping all over the place and back again. It makes for a read with a lot less impact, and seems messy somehow.
I don’t know if Zinn mentions Jackson brought home one of the Indian orphans he created, and that was used (and still is!) by revisionists to claim he was actually a friend of the Indians….
The overthrow of the first nations of north america is an epic tale unto itself. I certainly appreciate his addressing it with candor, but I don’t know if there’s any chance of it ever being told justly. Or if it is, of it being heard. Either is an overwhelming prospect. Especially since it’s ongoing.
I’ve had the same thoughts on the organization, especially since he occasionally repeats himself. Like we need reminding of stuff. Trust me Zinn, when a book is as long as yours, nothing needs to be repeated!!
In PA, the Seneca Indians were moved when they built the Kinzua Dam – in the 1960s. The land was part of a treaty Chief Cornplanter made with George Washington. The Senecas were the last tribe to be moved, and now live in NY.
My grandparents built a home in the area, the land is now underwater. Several small towns were taken along with the Indian land.
The Kinzua dam is the biggest dam east of the Mississippi, I think. Beautiful country, awful history.