azu_etd_13218_sip1_m... - The University of Arizona Campus

azu_etd_13218_sip1_m... - The University of Arizona Campus

THE MARSHALL TRILOGY AND FEDERAL INDIAN LAW IN 21ST CENTURY
HIGH SCHOOL U.S. HISTORY TEXTBOOKS: PROGRESS (?) YET LITTLE HAS
CHANGED
by
Michael W. Simpson
__________________________
Copyright © Michael W. Simpson 2014
A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the
Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in American Indian Studies
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
In the Graduate College
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
2014
2
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
GRADUATE COLLEGE
As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation
prepared by Michael W. Simpson, titled The Marshall Trilogy and Federal Indian Law in
21st Century High School U.S. History Textbooks: Progress(?) Yet Little has Changed
and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the
Degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
_______________________________________________________________________
Date: 04/21/2014
Dr. Mary Jo Tippoconnic Fox
_______________________________________________________________________
Date: 04/21/2014
Dr. Raymond D. Austin
_______________________________________________________________________
Date: 04/21/2014
Dr. Stacey Oberly
Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s
submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College.
I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and
recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement.
________________________________________________ Date: 04/21/2014
Dissertation Director: Dr. Mary Jo Tippeconnic Fox
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STATEMENT BY AUTHOR
This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University
Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library.
Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission,
provided that an accurate acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for
permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in
part may be granted by the copyright holder.
SIGNED: Michael W. Simpson
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My first acknowledgement is to the Creator who made me and endowed me with a
passion to make matters right in the universe. Any and all credit goes to Creation. All
errors and mistakes are mine to serve as lessons for my improvement. I am a work in
progress.
I acknowledge my father, Darrell, and my mother, Mary, for giving me life and raising
me. My father taught me about work and my mother had a great passion for schooling
and education. Neither of my parents had the opportunity to attend college. They remind
me that some of the most valuable learning and knowledge exist outside formal systems.
My grown children, Jeremy and Charity, have taught me many lessons about being
human. They are productive, critical, and caring people for whom I am grateful. My
daughter-in-law Katina is an excellent mother to my wonderful grandson, Jaxson. They
all are the reason I continue my quest.
I must give credit to all the teachers that resisted schooling’s reductionism and passion
killing structure and who recognized the “little light” that burned inside me. Thanks go
out to Mrs. Cook, Coach Harper, Professor Rosa Cintron and many others left unnamed.
I honor my committee chair, Mary Jo Tippeconnic Fox, for being patient with a hardheaded advisee. Raymond D. Austin and Stacey Oberly have provided thorough
examinations and invaluable insights. In addition, their classes were amazing. I honor
you all.
Perry Gilmore’s classes on discourse analysis introduced me to the important work of
Halliday, Fairclough, and Coffin. Beretta E. Smith-Shomade’s cultural and social theory
class introduced me to a more in-depth study of hegemony, media, and larger sociocultural analysis.
The American Indian students that trusted me enough to open up about the way school
history made them feel and who responded to my teaching critical historical skills are the
reason I kept going on this process when poverty and doubt were great.
My office mate, Cheryl Bennett, encouraged me when during the course of her research
on border town crime she said that she understood the importance of my work. Caroline
“Charlie” Williams provided technical assistance and urged me to continue. Lynnette
Barnard provided friendship and assistance during good times and bad.
The Graduate Interdisciplinary Program leaders helped me with a tuition award and a
scholarship which allowed this dissertation to be completed.
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DEDICATION
This dissertation is dedicated to all that have been victimized by history.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES
12
ABSTRACT
13
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
15
HYPOTHESIS
17
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
17
SCOPE
17
OUTLINE AND OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
17
LIMITATIONS
18
IDEOLOGY, HEGEMONY, COLONIZATION,
AND WHITESTREAM
18
Ideology
19
Hegemony
19
Ideology Revisited
21
THE TERM “AMERICAN INDIAN”
24
THE MARSHALL TRILOGY
24
HOW CAN THIS DISSERTATION CHANGE THE WORLD?
27
WHAT IS THE MASTER NATIONAL NARRATIVE OF
THE U.S.?
28
U.S. National Narrative: Problems
30
Racism According to National Narrative
32
Women According to National Narrative
33
Indigenous Peoples According to National Narrative
33
7
TABLE OF CONTENTS – continued
SCHOOLING, HISTORY AND SOCIAL STUDIES AS THE
PROBLEM
Master Narrative, American Indians, and High School History
CHANGES FROM PAST STUDIES AND REPORTS
Checklists
35
35
37
38
WHAT REAL INCLUSION OF AMERICAN INDIANS MEANS
39
PROBLEM WITH HISTORIANS AND HISTORY WRITING
41
TOWARD TRANSFORMATIVE AND REAL DEMOCRACY
42
WHY TEXTBOOKS ARE IMPORTANT AND HOW THEY
ARE MADE
43
Textbook Production
47
Textbook Adoption
50
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
53
SOVEREIGNTY AND TREATIES: JETTY
54
INCLUSION OF AMERICAN INDIANS
57
NINE GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS: HENRY’S
SEMINAL WORK
57
AMERICAN INDIANS COME AND GO
58
RECEPTION AND INSTRUCTION
60
EUROECENTRIC NARRATIVE
60
IMMIGRANTS, VOICE, AND SCIENCE
61
STUDIES OF EARLIER EDITIONS OF TEXTBOOKS IN STUDY 62
A CONSUMER’S GUIDE: RAVITCH
64
8
TABLE OF CONTENTS - continued
Consumer’s Guide: American Nation
65
Consumer’s Guide: Pathways
66
Consumer’s Guide: The Americans
66
TEXTBOOKS IN THIS STUDY
CHAPTER THREE: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND
METHODOLOGY
68
69
POSITIVISTS
69
CRITICAL THEORY
70
POSTMODERN
71
HERMENEUTICS
72
TRIBAL CRITICAL THEORY AND RED PEDAGOGY
74
Native Science
CHAPTER FOUR: METHODS AND PROCEDURES
83
84
SELECTION OF TEXTBOOKS FOR THE STUDY
84
METHODOLOGY AND METHODS
87
Content Analysis
89
Critical Discourse Analysis
90
Dialectical-Relational Approach
92
APPRAISAL, Systemic Functional Linguistics, and History
93
Procedures for Analysis
97
CHAPTER FIVE: RESEARCH FINDINGS
98
QUANTITATIVE FINDINGS
98
9
TABLE OF CONTENTS - continued
QUALITATIVE FINDINGS
The Marshall Trilogy and Cherokee Country
103
104
Johnson v. McIntosh 1823
104
The Cherokee Cases
110
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia 1831
111
Worcester v. Georgia 1832
112
APPRAISAL and Critical Analysis
113
Review of APPRAISAL
113
Critical Textual Analysis
114
The Textbooks
114
Boyer’s The American Nation
114
APPRAISAL
116
Critical Analysis
118
The Americans
125
APPRAISAL
127
Critical Analysis
128
American Anthem
132
APPRAISAL
134
Critical Analysis
135
United States History
APPRAISAL
143
145
10
TABLE OF CONTENTS - continued
Critical Analysis
146
A History of the United States
151
APPRAISAL
153
Critical Analysis
153
America: Pathways to the Present
160
APPRAISAL
161
Critical Analysis
162
The American Nation
167
APPRAISAL
169
Critical Analysis
169
America: A Narrative History
173
APPRAISAL
174
Critical Analysis
176
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
180
SUMMARY OF GENERAL CRITICAL FINDINGS
182
CHAPTER SIX: DISCUSSION, RECOMMENDATIONS, AND
CONCLUSION
DISCUSSION
195
195
Consequences
195
The DRA Questions
204
RECOMMENDATIONS
208
CONCLUSION
212
11
TABLE OF CONTENTS - continued
APPENDIX A: APPRAISAL
213
APPENDIX B: JUDGMENT
214
REFERENCES
215
12
List of Tables
Table 1 Showing Marshall Trilogy Coverage in Eight Textbooks
96
Table 2 Showing Marshall Trilogy Coverage for Four Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt books
97
Table 3 Showing Marshall Trilogy Coverage for One McGraw-Hill Textbook
97
Table 4 Showing Marshall Trilogy Coverage for Two Pearson Textbooks
97
Table 5 Showing Marshall Trilogy Coverage for One W.W. Norton
98
Table 6 Showing other Indian law cases named/discussed in each textbooks
98
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ABSTRACT
This dissertation examines eight 21st century high school U.S. history textbooks
for content and omission concerning American Indians. The focus of the inquiry is on the
Marshall Trilogy cases and other federal Indian law cases. The Marshall Trilogy cases are
three cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court over 180 years ago that remain the
foundational legal principles that guide governmental relations with Native peoples. The
treatment afforded these cases is evaluated in light of a master national narrative for the
United States. The Marshall Trilogy cases and the master national narrative have had and
continue to have global consequences. The way federal Indian law is presented in
textbooks impacts the way citizens treat American Indian peoples and their support for
various foreign policy options. In addition, the content of high school history curriculum
can affect the way students perceive history, Native America, and schooling. By
examining history curriculum critically and establishing a truly inclusive narrative, the
hope is that schooling and history become legitimate for all students.
The primary approach is to use both a quantitative and qualitative critical content
analysis using an indigenized critical discourse approach. Generally, the analysis will
move from the focused text within each textbook, to other text within each textbook, to
text across the textbooks, and finally to larger socio-cultural phenomena. The
APPRAISAL analysis (Coffin, 2006) allows a discerning of linguistic attributes that
allows for the exposition of the narrative of the specific text concerning the Marshall
Trilogy. The general content analysis is given a critical lens by Brayboy’s Tribal Crtical
Theory (2005) and Grande’s Red Pedagogy (2004). The curriculum work of Apple
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(2004) and Hall’s (1986) exposition of Gramsci’s hegemony add to our understanding of
the nature of textbooks and the knowledge that counts for society.
Fairclough’s (1995) Dialectic-Relational Approach guides the study to
determining whether there is a social wrong, and if so, what it is. The wrong is then
examined to determine what obstacles are in the way of addressing the wrong and
whether the society needs the wrong. Finally, various ways of correcting the social wrong
are addressed.
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
In the musical Man of La Mancha, Quixote sings the reason for his quest:
“To dream…the impossible dream; to fight…the unbeatable foe;
to right…the unrightable wrong; to reach…the unreachable star”
(MetroLyrics)
The purpose of this dissertation is to change the world. This dissertation looks at
the national narrative, the story that nations tell about themselves, in eight high school
U.S. history textbooks by examining how the narrative constructs American Indians
within such textbooks and narrative. The specific focus is on how the Marshall Trilogy
and other federal Indian law cases are presented in these mainstream textbooks. The
dissertation employs quantitative and qualitative analysis of eight high school textbooks
to determine how federal Indian law and American Indians fit into the national narrative
after decades of guidelines and checklists calling for change. One purpose of this work is
to make high school history more legitimate for all persons by a real inclusion in the
national narrative. This purpose does not derive from ego. I was raised to make a
difference in the world. That difference is to make the world a more peaceful, loving and
caring place where all may flourish in a sustainable present that takes into account seven
generations into the future.
I did dream. I saw the whole world at peace. The United States no longer
occupied countries under the presumption of white supremacy – bringing “our” way to
the people of the world – and taking their resources in exchange. The U.S. Supreme
Court announced that it would no longer rely on racist and anti-Indian ideas in deciding
16
cases, but use current international human rights as the foundational framework.
Resources formerly spent on occupation and conquest were now used to build sustainable
communities, including Indian Country. Conflicts were settled by various restorative
methods learned from Indigenous peoples.
This drastic change in the world came about because of a change in U.S. school
curriculum, especially in history which no longer glorified conquest nor excused
genocide. People realized that they were once tribal and sought connections. I saw a
world transformed when people went beyond celebration and inclusion, and truly began
to understand the ideological work of Indigenous scholars and elders. People began to
understand different ways of knowing and being in the world and that the past affects the
present and future. History became relevant when the selection became broader and
people understood privileges obtained through power based upon wrong assumptions
about themselves, others, and the universe. Everyone began to understand their
complicity in genocide, injustice, and ecological destruction. They acted for change.
People shifted the paradigm toward what Newcomb called the “central teaching of
indigenous law: Respect the Earth as your Mother, and Have a Sacred Regard for All
Living Things” (2008, p. 136).
I make no apologies for seeking social and ecological justice. As Kovach points
out, such is part of giving back that Indigenous ways ask of researchers (2009, p. 174).
She also notes how dreams are part of Indigenous research (pp. 58, 180). I have had
many dreams in the process of my work.
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HYPOTHESIS
High school U.S. history textbooks in the twenty-first century ignore the Marshall
Trilogy and federal Indian law and/or misstate included cases to fit into a master national
narrative that serves the majority white interests.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. What do 21st century high school U.S. history textbooks include concerning
the Marshall Trilogy and other federal Indian law cases? What is excluded?
2. How does the textbook treatment of the Marshall Trilogy and other federal
Indian law cases fit into the master national narrative of the textbook?
3. What are the consequences of the findings from questions one and two?
SCOPE
This study is part of a larger project that examines the entirety of the content in
the textbooks. No prior study has been made with a focus on the crucial federal Indian
law cases within the history textbooks though Jetty (1998) did examine secondary
textbooks for treaty and sovereignty inclusion. The study is part of a larger hegemonic
struggle to change what people know about the unique and special status of American
Indians in the U.S. system.
OUTLINE AND OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
This study employs critical theory as indigenized by Grande (2004) and Brayboy
(2005). Through content and discourse analysis, textbook content is questioned;
assumptions and implications are probed, with the purpose of exposing oppression.
History and social structures are important in understanding regime impositions of
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imposed truths. Quantitative analysis tells about emphasis and selection. Qualitative
hermeneutic analysis reveals underlying assumptions that cannot be measured and tells us
about the message transmitted, remembering that it is crucial to locate the silences.
Chapter two presents the literature specifically focused on studies that review
American Indian related textbook content. Chapter three provides the detailed theoretical
and methodological foundations touched on briefly within this present section. Chapter
four lays out methods and procedures. Chapter five includes the content and discourse
analysis of the textbooks. A discussion of the findings in relation to the master national
narrative and the implications to law, politics, and general Indian-white relation is within
chapter five. Chapter six considers the Dialectical-Relational Approach questions,
avenues of change, limitations, and conclusion.
LIMITATIONS
Textbook selection was purposeful and intentional, but no claim is made of
complete coverage of all textbooks. The study takes time and new textbooks editions may
have come out. The author would be hopeful that great changes have been made, but the
research suggests such as unlikely. This research does not claim to present the one and
final Truth. This research does present a truth based upon evidence, author experience,
training, and knowledge.
IDEOLOGY, HEGEMONY, COLONIZATION, AND WHITESTREAM
Since the author will be working with a Gramscian theoretical framework that is
informed by the curriculum work of Michael Apple (1989, 1991, 2004) and the
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indigenization of critical theory by Bryan Brayboy (2005) and Sandy Grande (2004),
some discussion of these terms is needed early.
Ideology
Ideology is a problematic definition. Generally, it is a system of ideas, beliefs, and
values about social reality. Some see ideology as justifying and legitimizing vested
interests of existing or contending political, social, and economic groups (Apple, 2004, p.
18). Geertz saw ideology as systems of interacting symbols that allow us to make
complex social situations understandable (p. 18 citing Geertz, 1964, pp. 47-76). Ideology
is then the shared conventions of meaning that make social interaction meaningful.
Ideology also has a rhetorical force. Argument seems to have certain systematic
structural form that persuades and motivates the group members while also trying to
convert outsiders (Apple, 2004, p. 19 quoting McClure and Fischer, 1969, pp. 7-10).
Those who can determine the parameters of the debate and incorporate competing claims
into their own discourse, increase their power (Apple, 1989, pp. 26-7). Thus, Apple
(1989, 2004) encourages us to think of ideology in the way that it permeates our lived
experiences so that we can see how it organizes lived experiences and enables people to
believe that they are neutral participants in neutral schooling, while serving particular
economic and ideological interests which may be hidden from them (p. 20).
Hegemony
Ideology is closely related to the concept of hegemony. Apple states that
hegemony “refers to an organized assemblage of meanings and practices, the central,
effective and dominant system of meanings, values and actions which are lived” (Apple,
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2004, p. 4). Stuart Hall (1986) provides us ways that Gramsci may be used in racial,
ethnic, and colonial analysis by explaining the hegemonic concept in Gramscian
complexity (pp. 5-27). He writes that after a general class common interest is recognized
and then is solidified around the economic field:
Finally, there is the moment of “hegemony,” which transcends the
corporate limits of purely economic solidarity, encompasses the
interests of other subordinate groups, and begins to “propagate itself
through society.” Bringing about intellectual and moral as well as
economic and political unity, and “posing also the questions around
which the struggle rages…thus creating the hegemony of a
fundamental social group over a series of subordinate groups.” It is
this process of the coordination of the interests of a dominant group
with the general interests of other groups and the life of the state as a
whole, that constitutes the “hegemony” of a particular historical
bloc. It is only in such moments of “national popular” unity that the
formation of what he calls a “collective will” become possible (Hall,
1986, pp. 14-15 quoting from Gramsci’s writings in Smith & Hoare,
1971).
Gramsci denies the economic determinism of Marxism while recognizing the
importance of economics in shaping and structuring the whole of social life (Hall, p. 10).
Economics helps create the ground upon which certain modes of thought and the
questions posed are disseminated in the development of national life (Hall, p. 11).
Gramsci brings a sophisticated analysis that denies the total victory of any power in that
hegemony is a process of struggle. We will see this play into Apple’s discussion on
textbook production later as well as in other discussions. Gramsci warns against seeing
immediate causes as the only causes which might be called ideologism or ideological
determinism (Hall, p. 13). We can see Gramsci’s influence on Apple in his encouraging
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an analysis of relations and relationships rather than accepting a one-way determinism of
either economics or ideology (Apple, 1989, p. 20).
Gramsci’s influence is further seen in Apple’s examination beyond state power to
include relations and institutions of civil society: schools, community, organizations, and
relations of gender, race, and ethnicity (Hall, 1986, p. 18; Apple, 1989 & 2004). The
modern state exercises moral and educative leadership and is a site where social blocs use
it to justify and maintain domination by leadership to obtain the consent over those ruled
(Hall, 1986, p. 19). The coercive power of the nation-state is available, but not necessary
to maintain power through other means.
Ideology Revisited
So Gramsci contests post-colonial notions of a unified, dominant state and
complicates the way hegemony is obtained and maintained since simplistic determinism
of either the economic or ideological are not accepted (Hall, 1986, p. 19; Apple, 2004, p.
3). To discover the process of determining the parameters of discourses, we need to
return to a discussion of ideology. For Gramsci, ideology has a philosophical core that is
only historically effective when it impacts the popular thought of the masses. This is
common sense (Hall, p. 20). Common sense is a product of history in that elements of it
are added over time. Common sense is fragmented and disjointed just like the “self” and
the collective. Common sense is important because any other ideologies and philosophies
must contend with it for mastery. Common sense is not rigid; structures of popular
thought require extensive intellectual work which is “an essential part of hegemonic
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political strategy” (Hall, p. 21). The two aspects of ideology, philosophy and common
sense, are connected by politics.
The cultural, educational, religious, and political organizations are major agencies
in this struggle with the principal agents being intellectuals who develop and circulate
culture and ideology. Because people are complex, fragmented, and contradictory, there
is never one, unified and coherent ideology which pervades everything (Hall, p. 22).
Hegemony is never a permanent, stable state, but a process because social forces that lose
in any particular historical period do not just disappear (Hall, p. 14). They can challenge
the historical bloc although extensive and difficult work is required to change the
common sense of any present hegemonic bloc. The people have consented to the current
situation and such seems normal. Transformation occurs within institutions of the civil
society and the state. One ideology is not replaced for another in total, but through
gradual transformation (Hall, p. 23).
Put another way, we could say that a national story that includes the popular
occurs when a dominant group can make their interests seem like the interests of all and
the state. This is done as a purely economic solidarity among a certain group or class
when it begins to incorporate or encompass other groups interests and begins to penetrate
society at economic, intellectual, moral, and political fields. Meanings and questions are
formed such that their interests seem the common interest. Common sense makes
competing meanings seem odd and therefore difficult to accept. Schools play an
important part in maintaining meaning and reproducing common sense.
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This discussion should not be considered abstract knowledge. Gramsci and Apple
both rely on lived experiences. Raymond Williams (1961), often quoted by Apple, spoke
of the importance of substantial verses abstract knowledge (p. 23). Substantial
knowledge, the highest form of human organization, is that which makes us as one with
the whole; abstract knowledge assumes nature verses mind. The fatal flaw in our studies
has been separating politics, art, science, religion, family and other things and failing to
consider their relationships before considering specifics (Williams, p. 39).
Similarly two indigenous scholars, Brayboy and Grande do not separate theory
from the lived experience. One of Brayboy’s (2005) nine tenets of Tribal Critical Theory
(hereafter TribalCrit) is that “stories are not separate from theory; they make up theory
and are, therefore, real and legitimate sources of data and ways of being” (p. 430).
Because theory and practice are connected, scholars must work towards social change.
The hegemony in U.S. society seen by Brayboy is colonization. Colonization is defined
to “mean that European American thought, knowledge, and power structures dominate
present-day society in the United States” (p. 430).
Grande (2004) uses the term “whitestream” to mean that the U.S. “remains
principally and fundamentally structured on the basis of the Anglo-European, ‘white’
experience” (p. 9). She uses the term to describe her text as insurgent by not relying on
devices of the white man’s Indian by its limited use of narrative and autobiography and
by being theoretical and political (pp. 3-4). Grande notes that whitesteam history
revictimizes indigenous peoples (p. 175). Grande critiques various aspects that prevent
24
needed social transformation and calls for disruption of the structures of inequality (pp. 6,
165).
Apple, Grande, and Brayboy all see a dominant group in the U.S. and all
interrogate the role of schooling in sustaining and reproducing the inequalities and
injustice caused by dominance. While Apple tends to focus on class, race, and gender;
Brayboy and Grande focus on endemic colonization and European American structures
while not denying race, class, and gender. All of this scholarship helps in understanding
what and whose knowledge counts in school and in the larger society and why.
THE TERM “AMERICAN INDIAN”
Often the author will use the term “American Indian peoples” to recognize that
there was and is great diversity among the indigenous peoples of what became the United
States. The use of “peoples” has significant international law meaning which is also an
intentional part of the usage here. Even when the term “American Indian” is used, the
reader should think of the diversity of peoples. The term is used here to recognize the
pan-indigenous enterprise in challenging whitestream history.
THE MARSHALL TRILOGY
The Marshall Trilogy should be included in high school history books because
these cases remain effective law, show how the United States views American Indians,
explains how land was obtained, and is the basis for legal cases that justified U.S.
expansion abroad. Without these cases, students cannot fully understand American
Indians, the use of international law by the U.S., or the basis of U.S. foreign policy. The
textbooks include the African-American cases of Dred Scott and Plessy. These cases
25
upheld slaves as property and the doctrine called separate but equal. The textbooks note
how the post-Civil War Amendments and Brown v. Board of Education reversed these
cases. The textbooks champion progress. If the textbooks exclude the Indian law cases
that are so negative and racist, but notes modern cases where Indians have won, then a
false impression of progress in Indian law is inferred. People will infer that if there were
any bad Indian cases that they have been reversed just like the African-American cases.
In addition, American Indians can simply be seen as another minority without any unique
political or legal status. This endangers Native nations’ existence.
Because the author focuses the study on the treatment of the Marshall Trilogy, a
short introduction into the three legal cases is needed. The Marshall Trilogy refers to
three United States Supreme Court cases decided in the 1820s and 1830s while John
Marshall was Chief Justice. The cases are considered the foundational cases of federal
Indian law, the law of the relationships between Native nations and the United States, and
are some of the most cited cases in U.S. legal history. The cases are still good law. This
means that they have not been overturned.
The first case is Johnson v. McIntosh, 21 U.S. (8 Wheat.) 543, 5 L.Ed. 681 (1823).
The case involved two white land speculators with claimed interests in the same lands.
One bought land directly from the American Indian nations; the other bought lands from
the federal government which had obtained the lands from American Indian nations. The
Court held for the purchaser from the federal government. Using the European-created
international Law of Discovery, the Court stated that American Indians had only a “right
of occupancy” or “right of possession” to their lands until the discovering and conquering
26
U.S. federal government extinguished that right through purchase or just war. This is
often referred to as Indian title. American Indians essentially became tenants rather than
owners of the lands. American exceptionalism is seen when the Court allows a people to
be considered conquered without any real defeat at the hands of the U.S. government.
The idea of removing Indians from the existing eastern states in the early 1800s
was strengthened with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Andrew Jackson’s election in
1828 renewed efforts in this regard. Jackson was considered an Indian fighting
frontiersman. He pushed through the Congress the Indian Removal Act in 1830, which
called for treaties with Native nations for the purpose of removal to lands in the
Louisiana Purchase, specifically the now state of Oklahoma. Georgia had been promised
this when it gave the federal government its western land claims in the early 1800s. The
Native nations had been promised their lands forever in the state of Georgia and
elsewhere. Georgia executed a Cherokee named Corn Tassel for his commission of a
crime in Cherokee Country and despite a writ from the United States Supreme Court. The
Cherokee Nation considered this time as opportune to bring their case against Georgia for
actions Georgia took in Cherokee Nation.
In 1831, the United States Supreme Court decided Cherokee Nation v. Georgia,
30 U.S. (5 Pet.) 1, 8 L.Ed. 25 (1831). The Cherokee Nation brought an original suit
before the Supreme Court against Georgia claiming to be a foreign nation as that term is
used in the United States Constitution. Original jurisdiction in the Supreme Court is
allowed by the Constitution when a foreign state sues a state. The Supreme Court denied
jurisdiction ruling that the Cherokee Nation was not a foreign nation, but a “domestic
27
dependent nation” that is unable to obtain standing before the Court. In essence, Native
nations were something less than full nations in the eyes of the United States. How much
less is left open and seems to change from time to time.
Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515, 8 L.Ed. 483 (1832), the third case of
the Marshall Trilogy, involved missionaries in the Cherokee Nation convicted and
imprisoned by the state of Georgia for violating state laws that criminalized residing on
Cherokee lands without a state license and taking an oath of loyalty to Georgia. The
Supreme Court held that state laws have no effect in Indian Country. American Indian
nations are distinct political communities and any intercourse with them is a matter for
the U.S. national government under the U.S. Constitution through the treaty and
commerce clauses. State laws do not apply in Indian Country.
More detail and critical analysis is made in sections to come. With this
background, the following should be better understandable.
HOW CAN THIS DISSERTATION CHANGE THE WORLD/?
The United States is the world power today. The stories that nations tell about
themselves define how they conduct themselves in the world. The U.S. story, what is
referred to as the master national narrative, is based upon the experiences of those
Europeans who came to the Americas to colonize. The master narrative created justified
genocide and property theft from the American Indian peoples already present (Johnson
v. McIntosh, 1823; Connors v. U.S. & Cheyenne Indians, 1901).
When the majority U.S. society deemed the American Indian peoples conquered,
the U.S. employed the same myths to colonize other peoples around the world (Saito,
28
2010). The myths of the master national narrative continue in the present as the U.S. has
military forces on almost all continents of the Earth and acts as the policeman for the
world (Saito, 2010; Department of Defense, 2004). The consequences are dire as the U.S.
is now the world’s largest debtor nation and the U.S. leadership preemptively decides
who shall live during this permanent state of war (Cuadra, 2011; The News International,
2012). “Collateral damage” from U.S. military adventures abroad often includes women
and children as well as innocent men (The News International, 2012).
And at home, American Indian peoples struggle against the harms of past conduct
toward them by the U.S. government and the continuing paternalism that restricts and
violates their human rights as provided in various international declarations. The master
narrative continues to do harm to American Indians, others within the United States,
people around the world, and to those who colonize in that such enterprise dehumanizes
the colonizers in addition to the colonized. A story change or a critical inquiry into the
story necessitates changed action. That changed action can be consistent with
international human rights standards and a renewed democracy.
WHAT IS THE MASTER NATIONAL NARRATIVE OF THE U.S.?
After studying U.S. history textbooks he described as dull, Loewen (2010) stated
the narrative in one sentence, “the United States started out great and has been getting
better ever since” (p. 10).
Sturgeon (2009) noted the myth of the frontier as the defining American myth
first used to justify a nation created by invasion and conquest and then to validate U.S.
29
control around the world (p. 53). This myth has intertwined ideological notions about
nature, evolution and destiny with American Indians and nature as central motifs (p. 54).
The set of ideas in this national frontier myth are: (1) inevitable progress results in
expanding industrialization with unavoidable destruction of natural resources; (2) a
primitive, even when considered noble, is inferior to the civilized; (3) history is the story
of progress or social evolution, sometimes called Social Darwinism; (4) White Americans
(note that Americans is a term understood as white, see Lipsitz, 2006, p. 1, Takaki, 1993,
p. 2) are divinely ordained to civilize or democratize darker peoples who are less
advanced and more natural and to improve their lands (Manifest Destiny); (5) White
Americans can take the lands which are essentially “empty”; (6) the American character
(democratic, masculine, honorable, hardy, innovative, individualistic, risk taking,
competitive) evolved from the challenges on the frontier (Frederick Jackson Turner’s
famous frontier thesis); (7) American nature (mountains, plains, and rivers especially of
the West; Sale, 1990, p.78 reminds us the word “savage” derives from the Latin word for
“woods” and so we often see American Indians described as children of the forest) is the
necessary arena to produce the American character (much of the arena to be preserved in
national parks to allow for continuing development of the unique American character);
(8) the vastness of American nature allowed more and more land to be given to white
small farmers to develop and maintain the democratic character; and (9) American
exceptionalism – the assumption that the United States is not really imperialist, but a
reluctant warrior that fights only to uphold democracy and protect the weak and never to
dominate, exploit, conquer, or control (Sturgeon, 2009, pp. 55-6).
30
U.S. National Narrative: Problems
The standard U.S. national narrative leaves out American Indians. American
Indians stand in contrast to the immigrant narrative, for theirs was not the immigrant
experience (Takaki, 1993, p. 10). Calloway (2008) notes that American history has been
taught as a single story of nation building and unending progress that united diverse
peoples into a single American story (p. 2). This celebratory story of expanding liberty
and equality left out those people whose story did not conform to the master narrative
(pp. 2-3). In essence, the American Indian’s story was not the American story and so it
leaves them out (p. 3). When they were included, they were portrayed as futile resisters or
as subjects of federal government attempts to solve the “Indian problem” (p. 3). More
recent narratives include the romanticized environmental Indian as tragic victim of white
expansion (p. 4). They remain one-dimensional, lesser humans who lived to fight and be
defeated (p. 4). Sturgeon (2009) echoes this point and explains that early on the narrative
needed a mostly negative American Indian image and in the 20th century used the old
noble savage idea to create the environmental Indian that was still seen as continuing the
frontier myth with the nature and culture, wilderness and civilization, and primitive and
civilized binaries (pp. 57-8). The narratives are not about American Indian peoples as
complex humans, but about what the dominant white culture needed.
In fact, white Americans needed American Indians in order to define themselves;
they were the opposite of what they ascribed the American Indians to be (Gerstle, 1997 as
citied in VanSledright, 2008, p 111). The dominant American society deemed that the
“other” had and has nothing to contribute to history or knowledge as inferior primitives
31
and must disappear as civilization brought by Anglo-Americans spreads through taking
the lands and resources of the American Indians. Treaties protecting land and resources
are broken because the superior American nation is spreading civilization and salvation
for the higher good of all humanity (Saito, 2010, p. 117).
Loewen (2010) expresses a concern that having only one model for existence puts
us at risk of extinction if that one model fails (p. 120). Cajete (2000) argues that native
science in conversation and cooperation with majority culture may have answers to
essential questions that threaten our existence and survival. The master national narrative
stands in the way.
Saito (2010) argues that from inception the United States set itself both within
international law to justify revolution and to exempt itself from such because as the
divine carrier of civilization it had to violate international law as determined by it for the
greater good of humanity. This is American exceptionalism and a major idea of the
national narrative. What was originally expressed in federal Indian law and policy
eventually became U.S. foreign policy justifying imperialism and colonialism abroad.
The current policy of the United States is a continuation of American Indian and
early expansionary foreign policy, rather than something new. The maintenance of the
master narrative prevents any critical analysis by the people in that it justifies and
legitimizes the inconsistencies. Where initially the narrative supported border expansion,
after Wounded Knee 1890 ended the so-called Indian Wars, the U.S. used the same
narrative to justify political, economic, and military control over parts of the world while
not desiring to bring too many non-whites within national borders. The Marshall Trilogy
32
of federal Indian law which used the International Law of Discovery, with the American
exception that people not yet actually conquered were deemed by law conquered by a
superior race of people, was essentially the basis for legal decisions approving U.S.
expansion abroad. While these events likely seem normal and natural to the great
majority of U.S. citizens, they seem otherwise for American Indian peoples and peoples
around the world. These peoples deal presently with the historical trauma passed down
through generations, but also the continuing paternalism, colonialism, discrimination, and
hate. National narratives are powerful tools to blind citizens who have their identity tied
to the nation. Any wrongs are deemed to be in the past and that everyone has more rights
and freedoms now.
Racism According to the National Narrative
Institutional and cultural racism are deemed extinct, with all racism being a trait
of individuals, from the inevitable progression of the U.S. toward fulfillment of the
American Creed of liberty and justice for all. This allows for blaming the victim. Since
we are now all equal, if any person or group is not living the American Dream then it
must be because of personal or group inferiority. In effect, the national narrative of
inferior others remains, but caste in another light.
The national narrative allows society to ignore the violent and oppressive nature
of racism and dispossession and minimizes social movements that challenge such acts.
The legacy can be ignored because what was done was in the past and people need to
“get over it” and take advantage of the expanded rights and opportunities. This charge
often comes from non-Anglo European immigrants and descendants who have become
33
white through strong association with the American Creed. Their experience becomes the
immigrant experience and the experience for all original “others.” This allows for a guilt
free existence since the past was inevitable and for the greater good.
Women According to the National Narrative
The master narrative is based on and presented from the experience of elite white
men. The masculinity of the American character is nonverbal, violent, nonemotional,
white, strong, effective, and rough (Tompkins, 1992 cited in Sturgeon, 2009, p. 55).
Where gender and ethnicity map into inequalities of power and status, it becomes easier
to mobilize attitudes of prejudice and intolerance that may ultimately lead to violence
(Smith, 2006, p. 30). Women are marginalized in the national narrative. Non-white
women are doubly marginalized within the national narrative. American Indian women
are especially victimized by abuse and sexual assault.
Indigenous Peoples in the National Narrative
The Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya,
issued his report on “The Situation of Indigenous Peoples in the United States of
America” on August 30, 2012 (United Nations). He notes that the indigenous peoples of
the United States “face significant challenges that are related to widespread historical
wrongs, including broken treaties and acts of oppression, and misguided government
policies, that today manifest themselves in various indicators of disadvantage and
impediments to the exercise of their individual and collective rights” (p. 1). Anaya
further reported that new measures are needed to remedy the “failed policies of the past
and continuing systemic barriers to the full realization of indigenous peoples’ rights” (p.
34
2). The United Nations Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which the
United States finally signed in December 2010, should be the basis for future decision
making according to the Special Rapporteur (p. 2).
The Special Rapporteur found persistent stereotypes, often promoted by
governmental agencies, that place American Indians as relics of the past and make
understanding American Indians today more difficult and keep alive racially
discriminatory practices (2012, p. 6). The master narrative is further implicated when
discussing federal Indian law. The Marshall Trilogy of cases from the early 1820s and
still effective and the cases up to the present that rely on them are based upon racist
assumptions of inferior, savage, and backward American Indians (p. 7). The doctrines
relied on by the courts are deemed “out of step with contemporary human rights values”
(p. 7).
The report provides details on “other persistent symbols of subordination” such as
limited tribal court jurisdiction, treaty violations, violence against women, historical
trauma from boarding school and removed children and much more (United Nations,
2012, p. 18). The United States needs to do more to address issues and come into
compliance with international norms that reverse the national narrative’s justification of
ill treatment of American Indians because they were deemed inferior. American Indians,
individually, and collectively have rights that protect their equality and also their special
relationship and rights as indigenous peoples. While the U. N. Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples is not legally binding, the Special Rapporteur called upon the
35
government to do as it did in earlier times when it used international law of that time to
determine rights of American Indians.
SCHOOLING, HISTORY AND SOCIAL STUDIES AS THE PROBLEM
The Special Rapporteur noted the role of “mainstream education on history and
social studies” in furthering racially discriminatory attitudes that “tend to render Native
Americans relics of the past” (United Nations, 2012, p. 6). The report makes note that
American Indians have less high school and college graduates than the main of society
(p. 10). Note is made of poorer life expectancy and other data that result from past and
continuing policy. The national narrative continues to impact peoples deemed inferior,
but that have survived. This dissertation looks at the national narrative in high school
textbooks and how American Indians are constructed within such. The specific focus is
on the Marshall Trilogy and federal Indian law. Here are some quotes from a teacher and
students about this matter.
Master Narrative, American Indians, and High School History
“Why are there Indians and Native nations when we won
the war?”
-----48 year old teacher educated in affluent suburb of
Phoenix.
“For one day, I felt good being an Indian at school.”
----- Tohono O’odham high school student in on
reservation public school after seeing When Your Hands
are Tied about Native young people retaining their peoples’
cultures and doing contemporary things.
“In my history classes they always turn things around, the
opposite way. They always try to make the White people or
the Spaniards better than the Native Americans. It’s all
written up like that in the history books.”
36
-----David, Dine student in an inner city public high school
(Martinez, 2010, p. 64).
The above quotes are not from 1750, 1850, 1950, but are from the 21st century.
No wonder American Indians were very concerned about stereotypes and portrayals to
the Special Rapporteur in 2012.
Any complaint stated about textbooks is instantly met with the response from
white elites that things are getting better. I am directed by those advancing the master
narrative of progress to look at the improvement in words used to describe American
Indians and the added content on American Indians as proof of progress. This is the
master narrative, the American Creed, that rights and opportunity continues to expand for
everyone and it is simply, automatically getting better.
Almost every time I speak with an educated liberal about American Indian
peoples, the response is that everything is getting better. This was true at a recent
educational conference where I argued that high school history textbooks do not deal
with the terrible aspects of the Marshall Trilogy cases because they are still active law
and would counter the cult of progress of ever expanding rights for all. The liberal
response denies the need for action and real change since automatic progress will
eventually bring change.
The title of this dissertation, The Marshall Trilogy and Federal Indian Law in 21st
Century High School U.S. History Textbooks: Progress (?) Yet little has Changed, draws
upon Derrick Bell’s (1987) passage in And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for
Racial Justice (p. 22) in assessing decades of civil rights struggle by stating, “We have
made progress in everything yet nothing has changed.” My students and many others
37
have not seen much change in history textbooks that still feel like weapons. This
dissertation employs quantitative and qualitative content analysis of eight high school
history textbooks that may shed light on the above quotes and the master narrative
response.
CHANGES FROM PAST STUDIES AND REPORTS
Criticism of American Indian portrayals in textbooks is not new. The
Superintendent of Indian Schools in the late 1800s complained about the mainstream
books used in Indian school as alternatively portraying Indians as monsters and romantic
heroes (Reyhner & Eder, 2004, p. 75). “Native Peoples have been depicted as two
dimensional savages, either bloody or noble” (Rains, 2003, p. 202). The Grand Council
Fire of American Indians in the 1920s wrote the mayor of Chicago requesting more
accurate descriptions and a true inclusiveness of American Indians in textbooks (Henry,
1970, pp. 1-4). The 1970 seminal study by Henry indicated that matters had become
worse. Inaccuracy of data persists and those who write and publish textbooks know
nothing of American Indian history, cultures, or philosophy (p. 219). Resistance to
change came from many sources (p. 219). As the 1970 study and those that followed
indicate, little has changed in U.S. school history textbooks concerning American
Indians. My previous work shows that while direct explicit offensive and demeaning
language is less likely found in textbooks than in the past, problematic indirect realization
and other issues remain (Simpson, 2006, 2010 April, 2010 summer).
Loewen (2010) notes the ongoing slander against American Indians (p. 26).
Textbooks continue to deem U.S. Native nations as not civilized (p. 116). In the binary of
38
the national narrative if you are not civilized then you are the savage “other.” The word
“savage” need not be used in order for the idea to be conveyed. American Indians are
relegated to serving as a backdrop for the white American landscape of justice and
freedom from tyranny (Rains, 2003, p. 202). Missing is a good account of American
Indians’ struggle in the past and present, their homeland defense, the realities of
continuous white interactions with American Indians, the failures to live up to ideals of
justice and liberty, and how the U.S. overthrew European tyranny only to impose such on
Native nations (p. 202). By silencing indigenous voices, the narrative in history
textbooks can distort and appropriate their story for its own use (Good, 2009, p. 62).
Even when indigenous voices are included, devices are used to minimize or privilege the
majority culture’s ways (Good, p. 56).
Checklists
The numerous studies, checklists, and guidelines reduced the direct negative
language describing American Indians and did increase inclusion to some extent. In
addition, most textbooks begin the story before Columbus which was requested by
advocates. Checklists only provide a cursory attention to issues of quality (TysonBerstein, 1988, cited in Watts-Taffe, 2006, p115). In addition, “the infusion of bits and
pieces of ethnic minority groups into curriculum not only reinforces the idea that ethnic
minority groups are not integral parts of U.S. society, it also results in the trivialization of
ethnic groups” (Banks, 1981. P. 158). The respect-for-diversity mirage provides a
peripheral inclusion of the “other” without any true integration of diverse perspectives
(Watts-Taffe, 2006, p. 117). The bits and pieces approach increase the tendency of U.S.
39
history textbooks to be disconnected and disjointed as they simply tell one thing after
another (Loewen, 2010, p. 12). Publishers add material, “mentions” to appease groups,
and checklists so books get adopted (Ravitch, 2003, p. 103).
WHAT REAL INCLUSION OF AMERICAN INDIANS MEANS
The very large U.S. history textbooks, both in physical size and pages, are unique
in the world. Ravitch believes that such is because U.S. teachers of history typically are
not subject matter experts and must rely on the textbooks (2004, p. 6). Large textbooks
give the illusion of rigor when they really promote memorization not thinking, reading
not questioning, and answers as more important than generating important questions for
exploration (Loewen, 2010, p. 34). Inadequately educated teachers prevent them from
abandoning or challenging the textbook (Loewen, p. 34). When curriculum is seen only
as transmission of factual knowledge, there is pressure to add more and more and this is
especially true when competing values and traditions compete for inclusion (Smith, 2006,
p. 35).
A true inclusion into the master narrative would not necessarily necessitate
massive textbooks. Of course, the master narrative would need alteration. This is
especially true in regards to American Indian peoples. “American Indians present an
interesting dilemma to the social studies. The dilemma is how to teach about “core
values” such as “freedom,” “liberty” and “justice for all” in a country that has a
continuing legacy of oppression and intimidation within its own boundaries” (Rains,
2003, p. 200). The key points here involve American Indian peoples and the continuing
legacy of oppression. American Indian peoples have a special and unique status within
40
U.S. society. While textbooks and society desire to place them as just another
ethnic/racial group, they are “both racial and legal political groups and individuals”
(Brayboy, 2006, p. 427). While textbooks seek to incorporate American Indian peoples
into the immigrant story, American Indian peoples maintain a special and unique status as
the indigenous peoples of the land. The story of how they lost the land is an essential and
necessary topic in any U.S. history class (Loewen, 2010, p. 20).
The dilemma can be avoided by simply not addressing the important distinctions
and the racism, anti-Indianism, and Anglo-centrism that formed the legal and political
basis for genocide and theft in the past and that continues as those same doctrines are in
effect as noted by the Special Rapporteur on Indigenous rights. Textbooks simply avoid
the legal cases that reflect the negative side of U.S. Indian policy that remains in effect
through the present. Textbooks skirt the dilemma by limited exposure that sometimes
allows some sympathy or identity with the “noble savage,” while maintaining minimum
detail (Rains, 2003, p. 200). American Indian peoples come and go in the narrative of
history textbooks. Rains states that American Indians appear in the Trail of Tears removal
and then disappear until westward movement under Manifest Destiny and the bloody
Indian Wars. The twentieth century becomes the exclusive domain of non-Indians (p.
200). In fact, when Rains speaks at schools, students ask her if she is a real Indian
because all the real Indians are dead (p. 203).
American Indian peoples fight for inclusion and accurate representation because
of the dominate narrative that the Indians are in the past and all died and a host of other
inaccuracies and omissions. This keeps advocacy from addressing the real challenge that
41
American Indian peoples present to the U.S. master national narrative: the transformation
from a white supremacist illusory democracy that uses a master narrative to justify and
legitimize continuing oppression, colonialism, and privilege. “American” means white
(Lipsitz, 2006, p. 1). My Native students understood this and displayed that
understanding when I asked them to draw “American” and the white crayons were soon
gone. Textbooks are written from a white supremacist viewpoint (Loewen, 2010, p. 3).
History belongs to the victors. “Perhaps no one understands this better than indigenous
peoples who, in addition to suffering the depredations of genocide, colonization, and
cultural annihilation, have been revictimized at the hands of whitestream history”
(Grande, 2004, pp. 174-5). History can be a weapon (Loewen, 2010, p. 6).
PROBLEM WITH HISTORIANS AND HISTORY WRITING
Educators in the United States and most people view instruction in the nation’s
history as a practical means of protecting and preserving the American way of life
(Thornton, 2006, p. 17). “In writing our national history, we do so with the master
narrative in our heads that sustains our collective sense of national purpose and identity,
and resonates with our most compelling myths” (Huggins, 1991, p. 27). Good (2009)
notes that those in “power foster a narrative that legitimizes and further facilitates their
privilege” (p. 51). Historians writing textbooks will write what they expect committees to
accept rather than what they believe more accurate (Loewen, 2010, p. 4).
White teens’ and adults’ understanding of history are congruent with the national
narrative in history classrooms and textbooks (Epstein, 2009, p. 112). That narrative was
a positive and progressive national development that ignored or marginalized non-white
42
contributions, the restriction of rights and racial violence (Epstein, pp. 112-3). Most
whites saw racism as a thing of the past with some individuals remaining racist (Epstein,
p. 113). National identity was associated with freedom and equal rights. They were
satisfied with the history taught in schools.
Black teens and parents sought resources outside of school to prepare for the
harshness of racism they still face (Epstein, 2009, pp. 113). School history was not their
history. One of the students Martinez interviewed noted how his black friend would ask
“What about the Native Americans” as the class progressed. This is a powerful question
that I have asked constantly and that I teach my students to ask. One purpose of my work
is to make school history more legitimate to all people by a real inclusion in the narrative
and by a critical, transformative schooling.
TOWARD TRANSFORMATION AND REAL DEMOCRACY
Henry (1970) notes that the 1927 Grand Council Fire of American Indians
statement was not a call for recognition (p. 124). Rather it was a “demand of a vital
segment of the American people to put an end to segregation of thought as well as deed,
the discrimination against ideas as well as persons. Democracy is rotten to the core in
America, if this type of omission is permitted to continue” (p. 124). That omission was
the “Indian as challenge to all our democratic processes and thought” (p. 123).
Grande (2004) carries this thought forward in her criticism of the politics of
representation and battles over authenticity rather than seeking radical indigenized social
transformation of the very structures of schooling. She questions the “culturalization” of
American Indian issues and concerns (p. 1). “Indigenous peoples continue to present such
43
an alter-native vision” to the illusionary democracy and destructive capitalism of
whitestream narrative, schooling, and reality (p. 175).
Pedagogy becomes what it is not currently: educators-as-students-as-activists
working together to change the history of empire and struggle together in decolonization
(Grande, 2004, p. 175). Working together, inquiry is made into the causes of all wars,
conflicts, and inter/intra cultural encounters. Red pedagogy seeks indigenous and
nonindigenous working together for a “life free of exploitation and replete with spirit” (p.
176). It seeks an education “to reenchant the universe, to reconnect peoples to the land”
and is equally about belief as it is questioning and empowerment (p. 176). Drawing upon
the work of Vizenor (1998), the goal is to move beyond victimization, mere survival, or
simple responses to colonization and to seek an active presence and repudiation of
tragedy and dominance (p. 175). School structures and processes can work around a
“decolonial imaginary” where exercising critical consciousness also comes with a
recognition of humbleness. In short, the master national narrative is changed drastically
as we seek to truly live in peace, caring, and in balance with the universe. This is not the
environmental Indian which simply continues the frontier myth with a twist (Sturgeon,
2009). This is about becoming fully human.
WHY TEXTBOOKS ARE IMPORTANT AND HOW THEY ARE MADE
The major conveyor of the curriculum in Western education for the last 500 years
is the textbook (Sleeter & Grant, 1991, p. 80). The curriculum in most American schools
is defined by one particular cultural artifact of symbolic capital, the standardized text
(Apple, 1991, p. 24; Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991, p. 5; Van Sledright, 2008, p. 113).
44
The U.S. history textbook is the single most important repository of the nation-building
narrative that provides symbolic shape and substance to the American creed
(VanSledright, 2008, p. 113). John Nietz, professor of education and school textbook
bibliographer, advised that to learn what is really taught in schools we must know what is
in the textbooks (1961, p. v).
Studies show the resiliency of teaching the textbook in history classes with
reinforcement from non-textbook materials (Cuban, 1991; Hicks, Doolittel, & Lee, 2004,
cited in Van Sledright, 2008, p. 118). This practice has intensified with the standards
movement, publishers align textbooks to state standards, and teachers are pressured to
cover everything on the standards test (Kaufman, Johnson, Kardos, Liu, & Peske, 2002
cited in VanSledright, pp. 117-18). The standardized tests typically ask multiple choice
questions seeking recall of specific items contained in the textbooks (VanSledright, p.
127). Additional print materials and visual images are used to support the textbook
(VanSledright, p. 118).
Teachers in the U.S. that teach the school textbook as one of many sources and
not as the one true source of history are exceptional and perceived as outsiders and are
remarkably rare (VanSledright, 2008, p. 119). Even though Wills reminds us that teachers
and students construct the social and cultural meaning of texts, his study actually
reinforces the centrality of the history textbook in classrooms as the meanings
constructed from them become representations in discourses (Wills, 1994, pp. 278-9).
Neither students nor teachers are likely to question the authoritative textbook (Jobrack,
2012, p. 6). The teachers allowed the central feature of the Eurocentric narrative to
45
remain unchallenged even as that story contradicted their own previous lessons in regard
to American Indians (Wills, p. 282). Epstein (2009) found this to be true in her study on
teaching the national history. In short, the standard conventional textbook continues to
dominate classroom instruction and teachers rely on a single textbook as the principle
source of knowledge (Foster, 2006, p. 157).
History makes us who we are, collectively and individually (Coffin, 2006, p. 1).
The text within textbooks is constructed through choices to position readers in certain
ways in regards to the text such that subtle judgments are presented while appearing nonjudgmental and spoken with an omniscient authoritative voice (Van Sledright, 2008, p.
115; Coffin, 2006). Skilled teachers can make critical readers of students and can expose
the judgments. The content of school history can affect our society’s ability to effectively
deal with racism and other forms of inequality that remain presently and delegitimize
schooling for many people who cannot believe the school history as taught (Epstein,
2009, p. 9). Textbooks are more than fact delivery systems. They result from the political,
economic, and cultural struggle of real people (Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991, pp. 1-3).
For those who care about improving history education, improving the history
textbook is an important goal (Paxton, 1999, p. 318). Sleeter and Grant (1991) encourage
careful scrutiny of textbooks that fail to educate children meaningfully about diversity
and the history of oppression (p. 101). VanSledright (2008) encourages everyone to
engage in conversations on history teaching and textbooks rather than simply accepting
the “happy heritage celebrations” presently taught and suggests some alternatives (pp.
131-38). Unfortunately, the public rarely questions the textbooks and when they do,
46
publishers and schools go back to prior textbooks that did not present the challenged
material (Jobrack, 2012, p. 7). The status quo is firmly entrenched in schools (Jobrak, p.
xix). Teachers do not like change in materials (Jobrak, p. 11).
So we must address how we have the textbooks we do. No one seems happy with
them. Yet they do not seem to change much. Thus, despite intense lobbying, articles,
books, and governmental hearings, textbooks remain “glossily-covered blocks of paper
whose words emerge to deaden the minds of our nation’s youth, and make them enemies
of learning” (Tyson-Berstein, 1988, p. vii). These observations are relevant today
(Jobrack, 2012, p. 21). Publishers try to avoid controversy and put something for
everyone in the textbooks in order to appeal to everyone and increase sales (Jobrak, p.
37).
Textbook disputes become very impassioned because the struggle is over defining
the symbolic representation given to the young (Sleeter & Grant, 1991, p 79). These
contests are power struggles. They are ideological battles over meanings (symbolic
representations) that seek to permeate the society such that their views seem natural and
common-sensical and thus arise to hegemony. They seek a national popular unity that
allows teachers and others to believe they are neutral participants in neutral schooling
while in reality particular interests are served. The existence of controversy shows that
hegemony is never complete and struggles to incorporate the interests of subordinate
groups is an ongoing process (Apple, 1989, p. 100). .
The meanings or symbolic representations in textbooks are important for three
reasons related to power (Sleeter & Grant, 1991, p 79). Symbolic representations in
47
textbooks confer legitimacy on views and groups important enough to write about. To
advance the hegemonic struggle, representations make socially constructed relations
seem natural and judgments and interpretations appear factual. Textbooks screen in
certain ideas and knowledges and screen out others so that students become predisposed
to think and act in certain ways without considering certain other possibilities (Sleeter &
Grant, p. 80). This assists in creating and maintaining the intellectual, moral, economic,
and political unity of hegemony.
Textbook Production
The work on understanding hegemony that extended analysis beyond the nationstate and into the civil and going beyond mere economic fields is insightful for textbook
creation in the United States. The United States does not have a national curriculum or a
central education ministry that regulates, requires, or produces textbooks (Apple, 2004, p.
181; Jobrack, 2012, p. 9). Textbooks are produced by private companies to sell in the
marketplace (Jobrack, p. 23). They are economic commodities with the goal of profit
maximization. Profit is maximized by having standard textbooks widely accepted and
purchased. The combination of financial and political aspects leads to the censorship of
profitability (Apple, 1991, p. 31). Publishers will not offend powerful players and will
seek to embrace challengers by making various “cultural offerings” (Van Sledright, p.
116). Behind the production and selling of these cultural commodities exists a whole
web of relationships, some internal and some external (Apple, 1989, pp. 82-3).
Apple (1989) does not contend that textbooks are produced and imposed on
schools by a small group of corporate owners, although he admits that the elite may in
48
fact plot many matters in their own interests (p. 101). Nor is he contending that
hegemony is “out there.” We reintegrate into dominant relations everyday as we make a
living, seek entertainment, purchase things and talk to one another following our
commonsense needs and desires (Apple, p. 102). His argument concerning textbook
publishing is to diffuse the idea that the market is all controlling. The market relations
may set limits on what is rational, but editors and others have partial freedom to pursue
their craft and internal demands of the publishing company.
Thus, exploration of internal operations within textbook publishing companies
provides important insights. Evidence suggests that editors and managers have career
paths that start in sales and marketing (Apple, 1989, p. 93; Jobrack, 2012, p. 35). This
background compliments the existing market structure where private companies have a
fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder equity. Major goals in textbook publishing will
meet the need of financial capital with its short term perspectives and high profit margin
mentality (Apple, 1989, p. 94). Symbolic capital takes a back seat. A publisher may
simply take the position that they will publish whatever makes the most money.
Production costs for textbooks can be very substantial and require a large volume
of sales to reach a break-even point (Apple, 1989, p. 95). Publishers seek to produce a
limited number of top sellers at comparatively high prices compared to other books. If the
book has a relatively standard content, little change is needed so that the book can be
marketed for years to come (Apple, p. 95). Money is saved when little changes from each
edition (Jobrack, 2012, p. 59). Design and marketing strategies draw substantial attention
of the editor and others involved in making a profit (Jobrak, p. 94). We see the internal
49
structure of publishing, which has tended to promote editors from sales and marketing,
limiting the focus or possibilities in textbook production to the glossy physicality of the
cultural commodity and accepting of any text that does not draw negative attention.
Publishers are wary of content disputes after the highly charged 1990 history wars
(Sewall, 1998, p. 2). Today’s editors seek to ensure fair representation of various groups
with no sensitive issues that create controversy (Jobrack, 2012, p. 47).
Publishers differentiate their products from a dwindling number of competitors
through “design values” which have nothing to do with actual content (Sewall, 1998, p.
2). The actual textual content varies little from company to company (Jobrack, 2012, p.
13). Purchasers also like buying complete instructional packages and seek “freebies” such
as program related add-ons like multimedia backups, prefab tests, classroom exercises
and annotated editions for teachers (Jobrak, p. 4). Negative terms for textbook publishers
are “text heavy” and “non-visual” (Jobrak, p. 5). The text itself is moving from a running
text of storytelling toward capsules and sidebars.
When Apple wrote in 1989 of the growing concentration in textbook publishing,
there were nine major social studies textbook producers (p. 92). In 1998, four major
social study textbook publishing houses remained (Sewall, 1998, p. 1). Presently, three
major textbook publishers remain with the 2007 purchase of Harcourt Brace by Houghton
Mifflin and the sale of Simon and Schuster’s educational division to Pearson in 1998.
Thus, the big three social studies textbook publishers today are McGraw Hill, Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt, and Pearson (Jobrack, 2012, pp. 29-31). Often, the new mega-
50
corporations will retain the old trade name as a marketing tool which adds confusion in
trying to determine the decrease in actual competition.
The paradox is that as competition between firms increases, consumers have
fewer companies from which to choose. In this market, taking risks on possibly
innovative or controversial textbooks could result in being shut out of the market (Apple,
1989, p. 92; Sewall, 1998, p. 3). The educational market is substantial. For 2006, the
entire textbook and educational sales for the three companies above (accounting for
mergers) were over $6,700,000,000 or about 75% of the textbook market.
Textbook Adoption
With billions of dollars at stake, the companies must assure they have access to
teachers and school districts. In twenty-one states, access comes through state adoption of
textbooks (National Association of State Textbook Administrators; Jobrack, 2012, p. 12).
State adoption in most states means that districts get state funds for purchases of such
books. The powerful association for publishers keeps lobbyists in the state capitals of
California, Florida, and Texas (Sewall, 2005). These are three adoption states that also
represent about 25% of all textbook sales (Sewall, 1998, p. 1). Publishers smartly gear
their publications to these big adoption states (Apple, 1989, p. 98). The contrast on a map
between those states with state adoption and those without is startling. The old
confederate states are adoption states. The states involved in Indian Removal in the 1830s
are adoption states. These states political climate and ideology determine textbook
content given publishers need to produce a small number of products to sell to a large
market (Apple, 1989, pp. 95, 98).
51
These state agencies are important sites of ideological struggle (Apple, 1989, p.
99). Here we see the nature of the struggle as both economic and ideological. State
committee make-up is an important issue. Members are likely to have differing interests
to some extent. Textbook companies can resist extreme ideological based changes in any
one state simply because of the financial capital interests. The costs of producing a
special book for the one state would simply make it unattractive. States faced with the
pull out by publishers may be willing to be less drastic in their demands. Because
directives may change from moment to moment in state politics, publishers are reluctant
to invest in any changes. Controversy may end the chance to earn large profits from
adoption. Publishers have become better at avoiding problems in text by having field
representatives, sales forces, market researchers, product managers, and editorial
directors determine content based upon what is not controversial (Sewall, 2005). These
people in the field can get the pulse of state regulators, advocate groups, and can engage
focus groups.
Apple noted that in 1989 authors still had some influence and tended to come
from the new petty bourgeoisie with some liberal ideology along with its contradictory
other interests (p. 100). He saw struggle between the symbolic cultural values of some
authors and publishers that could contest a pure market structure (Apple, p. 101). Thus,
there was some part of the process of textbook making that militated against the
censorship of profitability which has created strikingly similar textbooks throughout the
country without an imposed legal requirement (Apple, p. 97). Presently, publishers are
using writing-for-hire systems, India based writing companies, or abandoning authors all
52
together (Sewall, 2005; e.g. Outsource2India). Authors now have writers to do the actual
writing (Jobrack, 2012, pp. 37, 45). The authors are often selected by the sales
departments for their fame, often earned from their prior sales of books (Jobrack, p. 51).
Marketing concerns trump any author vision or philosophy (Jobrak, p. 37). The work is
increasingly outsourced (Jobrack, p. 46).
Textbook publishing is more aligned to the market profitability than ever. This is
a special market with a strong public hand.
This system of textbook production has produced a dumbed-down, text
accessible, dull, conflict avoiding, celebration of “American” heritage that celebrates
individualism and capitalism, with an incorporation of groups and individuals formerly
excluded, but used as evidence of “progress.” The main story line remains the same.
The selective tradition continues as American Indians are included as it benefits the
interests of the majority culture. That storyline is reinforced by political speeches,
including presidential addresses, film, television, media of all types, families, and various
organizations. In the age of the dominance of scientific-technical knowledge, which is
carried forward in history studies, school is unlikely to fully include the differing world
views of indigenous peoples since such knowledge is a threat to the established order of
knowledge and not easily evaluated in input-output terms (Apple, 2004, pp. 36-7).
Perhaps textbooks in the United States are exhibit number one in the trial of hegemony.
53
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
A substantial body of scholarship exists from the United States and beyond that
has considered textbook revision, research, bias, content, publication, importance,
treatment of various subject matters including war and conflict, and treatment of various
groups. In the United States, a multitude of studies have been conducted and articles and
books written that focus on the treatment of various ethnic minorities, war, and textbook
controversies. Representative research in these areas include Bender (2009) on
controversies, Scott (2009) and Leahy (2009) on war, Krug (1970) on AfricanAmericans, Cruz (1994) and Noboa (2003) on Latin Americans/Latino, and Garcia
(2002) on white ethnic groups. None of these will be included within this review. The
focus of this study is on American Indian peoples who have a unique history and a unique
political status.
No literature exists that has considered the Marshall Trilogy and other important
federal Indian law cases in history textbooks. No literature exists that has considered
American Indians generally in 21st century U.S. high school history textbooks other than
the author’s prior work. Good (2009) examined secondary 21st century junior and senior
high textbooks focusing on American Indians as immigrants, lack of Native voice, and
the privileging of Western science. The current study fills a very important and
substantial void in the studies. Most studies have employed various checklists or
instruments to expose overt bias, misrepresentation, stereotypes, perspectives, or
coverage in general terms not specifically related to federal Indian law within the
54
textbooks. They have employed various forms of content analysis (quantitative and
qualitative), historical analysis, and discourse analysis to determine how American
Indians have been treated in textbooks.
SOVEREIGNTY AND TREATIES: JETTY (1998)
The closest study to approach the research issues of this study is Jetty (1998).
Jetty (1998) examined eleven middle and high school history books for treatment of
sovereignty and treaty rights. These issues are substantially related to the Marshall
Trilogy and federal Indian law. Yet none of the federal Indian law cases are mentioned or
discussed. Thus, the current study extends Jetty’s work looking at important legal issues
and how they are covered in textbooks. Both raise an important issue: How can we expect
citizens to understand the nature of Native nations and people when the master narrative
does not deal with important legal matters?
Quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze both manifest and latent content
were used (Jetty, 1998). The quantitative was the foundation for the qualitative. The
quantitative located how much of the content related to sovereignty and treaties and
where it was located. He examined the index and reviewed page by page each textbook
for the desired content. Coding of content focused on reserved treaty rights, American
Indian sovereignty, specific treaty, and unnamed treaty or treaties. The qualitative
analysis asked such questions as where the American Indian content is situated in the
text, are American Indians discussed in each, which historical periods do American
Indians appear and how is sovereignty addressed, what are potential meanings of the
content, how do construction of American Indian issues studied marginalize and make
55
invisible American Indian claims of sovereignty, do the textbooks seem controlled by a
narrative that cannot allow American Indian sovereignty and treaties to be discussed
throughout the text, and how much depth was there in each mention of sovereignty or
treaty.
Jetty (1998) found that only six of over 370 treaties between the U.S. and
American Indian nations appear by name across the eleven textbooks. Only one textbook
out of the eleven included American Indian nation sovereignty (Jetty, 1998). Only one
textbook primarily referred to nations rather than tribes or tribal (Jetty, 1998). Those
textbooks that used both nations and tribes or tribal switched to tribe or tribal in the 20th
century. The qualitative findings illustrate many problems such as the continuing
importance of Turner’s frontier thesis, vacant land mythology, often misdirection of
readers concerning bad actions by non-Indian entities, little or no explanation of reserved
rights of Native nations, implying that the government gives American Indians land
rather than the other way around, emphasizing cash payments by the government, and
discussing American Indians winning 20th century cases based upon treaty rights without
prior development explaining those rights, and the idea that skillful use of the U.S.
political and legal system has allowed the American Indians to assert constitutional rights
and correct injustices (Jetty, 1998).
American Indians inclusion within textbooks dropped drastically after Wounded
Knee in 1890 (Jetty, 1998). Coverage before Wounded Knee 1890 is extensive,
especially very early in the narrative and again with expansion to the plains. Twentiethcentury coverage typically mentions the Indian New Deal, the sixties rights movements,
56
and winning court cases. The historical periods where American Indians can appear is
relatively consistent across the time span of published textbooks. American Indians
appear when they are in the way of U.S. expansion. Jetty (1998) confirmed two dominant
historical narratives in the textbooks that influence the ways American Indians can be
included in the narrative: Western Progress and American Exceptionalism .
Textbook selection was one of convenience since the books were found in his
university’s instructional materials center and the local school district’s curriculum
library (Jetty, 1998). He selected books from major publishers that were designed for
national audiences. The books were published from 1991 to 1997. Six of the books listed
reviewers who had written books specifically on American Indian related content.
Jetty (1998) conducted what he termed as an “Indigenist, neo-Gramscian content
analysis” of the selected textbooks (p. 97). He previously noted his Indigenist neoGramsian epistemology from which he would construct a theory of hegemony (involves
the ways one class or group maintains a world view justifying its own power and position
involving consent and coercion) and a critical text analysis methodology. The analysis
then would be connected to societal and cultural power issues by drawing upon American
Indian studies and critical education theory (p. vi).
Both middle school textbooks and high school textbooks were included in a study
focused only on sovereignty and treaty, and his selection of textbooks could have been
better than mere convenience (Jetty, 1998). Yet, his study has a substantial theoretical
framework to explain how, despite the almost complete absence of overt biased language,
bias continues in more latent ways. Further, despite more information on American
57
Indians in the textbooks, the structure of the master U.S. narrative remains. More
information does not mean the American Indian story is told especially when American
Indian information is fragmented and incoherent and supports the master narrative of
Western Progress and American Exceptionalism.
Shadowwalker (2012) noted that the secondary books examined across all
subjects never addressed sovereignty of Native nations or the special relation of
American Indians with the U.S. government (pp. 101, 103).
INCLUSION OF AMERICAN INDIANS
Simpson (2010 April) examined two popular high school history textbooks using
content analysis. A portion of the study looked at when American Indians appeared in
the chronology of the textbook narrative, the nature of the appearance and also
considered the significance of absence. The inclusion of American Indians in the
textbook narrative post Wounded Knee 1890 essentially disappears. Negative judgments
were indirectly invoked against American Indians in the Wounded Knee content and the
government was essentially blameless. Voice theory was used to show how a recorder
voice is so dominant in school history textbooks in that judgments are made indirectly,
seem to merely be reporting facts, and assume reader alignment with the author’s world
views. He showed how American Indians are used to support a national narrative of
celebratory progression of rights expansion while ignoring troublesome truths.
NINE GENERAL CRITERIA: HENRY’S SEMINAL WORK
A most important project was the textbook analysis by Henry (1970) which used
nine general criteria that included: American Indians as integral part of history
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throughout the narrative, first discoverers were Native, accurate data, faithful description
of American Indian culture and lifeways at first European contact, culture described as
dynamic rather than static, contributions to nation and world described, accurately
describe special position of American Indians, describe religion, philosophy and
contribution of thought, and accurately describe contemporary American Indian life (pp.
14-24). Thirty-two American Indian scholars were involved in this massive project that
examined over 300 primary and secondary school textbooks. Forty-two of the books
examined were U.S. history textbooks in current use in Bureau of Indian Affairs and/or
public schools at the time. Coding and interpretation by the analysts were not explained
nor was their theoretical framework completely developed. Yet, the use of American
Indian scholars along with the criteria suggests an Indigenous perspective.
None of the books could be recommended by Henry (1970) as providing accurate
knowledge concerning American Indians. Blatant textbook bias was revealed with the use
of direct negative words such as primitive, savage, warring, brutal and other similar
words. Thirty-eight of the forty-two books started with the European arrival. Twelve
books excluded contemporary American Indians. Forty textbooks excluded any
contribution of America Indians to the United States. This study was very detailed and
remains an important study in textbook analysis. The call for American Indian inclusion
through all texts for all grade levels remains a major challenge.
AMERICAN INDIANS COME AND GO
An important issue in analysis of text is that of omission. Many other studies in
addition to those above found that American Indians come and go in the master narrative.
59
Swanson (1977) found that forty-eight high school history textbooks ignored certain
events like white violence and contemporary issues (p. 35).
Clemmer (1979) conducted a content analysis of nineteen randomly selected high
school U.S. history textbooks which appeared on the Utah State Board of Education
adoption list from 1950 to 1977. She evaluated descriptive words, evaluative statements,
quotations, line count, and pictures to determine omission, distortion, and inclusion (pp.
iv, 6). Indians still come and go throughout the narrative in the textbooks with inclusion
in the early years and westward expansion. “Indians disappeared from the majority of
texts after 1890” (p. 83).
Baloch (1981) examined twenty-three high school U.S. history textbooks used in
the Pittsburgh area between 1960 and 1980. American Indian inclusion was disjointed
and incomplete. This was the greatest weakness across all the textbooks (p. 62).
Juhel (1996) used the historical contextual approach to examine six New York
high school U.S. history textbooks for visibility of American Indians. Findings included
that American Indians are too often left out, especially after 1890.
Other studies not focused specifically on high school, but that included high
school had similar findings (Gribskov, 1973; Hirschfelder, 1975; Garcia, 1978; Hunter,
1995; Barragan, 2000; Good, 2009). These finding were consistent in grades other than
high school as well (Ferguson, 1983; Vonda, 1994). O’Neill’s 1987 literature review
inclusive of all grades and the U.S. and Canada found that accounts of American Indians
remained disjointed, distorted, and incomplete.
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RECEPTION AND INSTRUCTION
While not a textbook study, Epstein (2009) is important for understanding how
American Indian matters are taught and perceived by students. Teachers only discussed
American Indians during the pre-colonial and colonial periods and the late 1800s (p.
116). As teachers went from sporadic lessons that dealt with white racism and positive
portrayals of American Indians back to the powerful whites and national policy lessons,
students reverted to prior stereotypes (p. 10). Both prior to instruction and after
instruction, white students saw American Indians as isolated with no contribution to
national development or a part in the national narrative (pp. 62, 74).
EUROCENTRIC NARRATIVE
Many studies found that the master national narrative is written from a white
perspective which provides comfort to white readers and settler descendants. Epstein
found that school history more closely aligned with whites at home and in community
than for African-American families and community (2009, pp. 112,115). Juhel (1996)
found the Native perspective absent (p. 33). Loewen (1995) cited in Gold (2004) found
that the overall story in textbooks gave more comfort to white readers (p. 284). Authors
were still writing to give comfort to settler descendants (p. 282). Gold admitted that the
textbooks were still “Eurocentric” and lacking any other perspective (pp. iv. – v.).
Simpson (2010 April) showed that American Indians are used to support a
national narrative of celebratory progression of rights. This is often promoted by
checklists from liberal groups. For example, Baloch (1981) developed a coding
instrument using the National Education Association’s 1973 Checklist for Selecting and
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Evaluating U.S. History Textbook which called for providing an “objective account of
struggles for equal rights” (pp. 18-19). When this is combined with the checklist call for
including contemporary group situations, American Indians are placed as a mere ethnic
group and fighting for civil rights along with other groups (Garcia, 1978).
Jetty (1998) notes many problems with the national narrative including the
discussion of American Indians winning 20th century court cases based upon treaty rights
without the prior development explaining those rights and the idea that skillful use of the
U.S. political and legal system has allowed American Indians to assert constitutional
rights and correct injustice.
IMMIGRANTS, VOICE, AND SCIENCE
Good (2009) included three high school textbooks in her study of secondary
textbooks. Using critical discourse analysis, she found the theme “immigration of all”
continued in the master narrative with the European immigrant perspective being
dominant. American Indians were seen as merely the “first Americans” within the
immigration narrative (p. 57). Western scientific versions of the peopling of the U.S.
were the sole narrative or the privileged narrative over indigenous stories. The corporate
multicultural approach infuses bits of others into the curriculum to give the appearance of
inclusiveness, but sends the message that such groups are not really important parts of the
society (p. 62).
Good (2009) points to the problem of simply providing checklists that publishers
can use to document inclusion while the storyline is not altered. Yet checklists have been
developed and used specifically as they relate to American Indians. Castagno and
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Brayboy (2008) list ten common biases produced by the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood in
their literature review on culturally responsive schooling (p. 968). The ten are bias by
omissions, defamation, disparagement, cumulative implication, lack of validity, inertia
(not keeping up to date), obliteration, disembodiment, lack of concreteness, and lack of
comprehensiveness and balance. They call for communities and students to create their
own curriculum recognizing inherent problems in standardized curriculum (p. 969).
Other significant checklists have been prepared by Grant and Sleeter (1989),
Slapin, Seale, and Gonzales (1996), and Harvey, Harjo, and Jackson (1997) which
includes the Indian Awareness inventory and guides for using the 1980 Council on
Interracial Books for Children guide. Jobrack (2012) tells that publishers prepare their
own guidelines that stay private as proprietary items. The one that became public is from
1975 and includes American Indian matters (Macmillan, 1975). None specifically
require the Marshall Trilogy or important federal Indian law cases.
STUDIES OF EARLIER EDITIONS OF TEXTBOOKS IN STUDY
Some studies have looked at different editions of the textbooks in this study. Jetty
(1998) included Boyer’s 1995 The American Nation. He notes how the textbook
eliminates eleven of the twelve Native nations involved in the Treaty of Greenville (p.
102). The book gives four treaties by name (pp. 104, 106). The term sovereignty is not
used (p. 107). In addition, the book preferred tribe or tribal over nation (p. 108). The
American Nation was seen as reinforcing the Turner thesis of an empty western frontier
(p. 112-13) and implied that land came from the government (p. 114). Yet the book also
said the opposite (p. 119). Jetty criticizes the limited description of AIM as a youth
63
movement (p. 138). Overall, the 1995 edition of Boyer’s The American Nation is not
effective in dealing with treaties or sovereignty.
Good (2009) included different editions of America: Pathways to the Present
(2002), The Americans (2003), and The American Nation (2003). “Immigration of all”
was the dominant narrative (p. 57). The American Indian voice was absent. Western
science is exclusive or privileged. The textbooks are written with a corporate
multicultural approach that adds bits of American Indian to the story that trivializes and
minimizes their role (p. 62).
Hawkins (2000) used critical multiculturalism as a lens to study U.S. history
books in California high schools that included two earlier versions of textbooks in this
study, America: Pathways to the Present and The Americans (p. 41). The earlier versions
of textbooks included in Hawkins’ study and also within the current study were the only
two books found by Hawkins to contain inaccurate sentences about American Indians
(pp. 57, 59). The same two textbooks were second and third in containing unrealistic
sentences about American Indians (pp. 62, 64).
Sanchez (2007) examined post-1991 U.S. history textbooks used from middle
schools through university. The high school textbooks included the 1998 The Americans;
1995 The American Nation; 1995 America: Pathways to the Present-Civil War to
Present; and America: Pathways to the Present – Modern American History. Different
years or versions of these textbooks are studied in our current study. Using an
authenticity guideline, each textbook was rated from zero for very poor to five for
numerous, comprehensive, and accurate coverage of American Indian matters. The
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American Nation was rated a one as was America: Pathways to the Present –Modern
American History. America: Pathways to the Present – Civil War to the Present was
rated a two. The Americans received a four. Sanchez notes that Boyer’s The American
Nation describes First Americans as all nomads and presents American Indians as
warriors actively resisting European settlement, but easily giving up. The Americans does
recognize that the Bering land bridge may not have been the only route of migration, but
still takes only a Western scientific view rather than a Native perspective. The overall
conclusion was that the situation had not significantly changed from 1991 to 2004 (p.
316).
A CONSUMER’S GUIDE: RAVITH (2004)
The 2004 study by Diane Ravitch for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute entitled
“A Consumer’s Guide to High School History Textbooks” included different years of
American Nation, America: Pathways to the Present and The Americans. Ravitch
brought together a panel of experts to develop a dozen criteria that emphasize “accuracy,
coherence, balance, and writing quality” in the examination of six widely used high
school U.S. history textbooks (p. 7). The discussion below highlights some of what
publishers face from many perspectives, especially the mainstream Euro-American
perspective.
According to Chester Finn, president of the Fordham Foundation, “The books
reviewed in this report range from serviceable to abysmal. None is distinguished or even
very good” (Ravitch, 2004, p. 8). The evaluation criteria included accuracy in facts and
major historical issues, lack of bias meaning the text is free of political or ideological
65
bias, democratic ideas (development of democratic institutions, human rights, and the
rule of law), historical soundness, and historical logic (free of presentism and moralism).
Examiners also considered graphics, interest level, use of primary sources, literary
quality, context, organization and selection of supporting materials. None of the U.S.
high school history textbooks scored over 78%.
Consumer’s Guide: American Nation
American Nation received average high marks for historical soundness, accuracy,
and context. High marks are defined as over eight out of ten. The textbook received a
failing mark (below 6 out of 10) for democratic ideas. Pyne admired the treatment of
Meso-American cultures and other early cultures in the Americas, but felt the text
downplayed the savage way Columbus treated the Native peoples. Keller described the
text as “reasonably even-handed (although a soft-liberal leaning prevails throughout)” the
book (Ravitch, 2004, p. 28). He further notes, “It certainly meets its production quota for
giving due and more than due attention to women, African-Americans, Hispanics, and
Native-Americans” (p. 28). Because of this, he says the book gives attention to people of
relatively little importance. According to him, the constant emphasis on multiculturalism
distorts history. He complains that the discussion of King Phillip’s War only mentions
loss of American Indian life and that the focus of Andrew Jackson is on Indian removal
rather than the Bank of the United States. He also found the book dealt with unfavorable
aspects such as racism, class and environmental harm, but was less inclined to explain
why the U.S. was so attractive a place for so many. Renehan wants a clear statement that
the United States is a “noble endeavor” (p. 29).
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Consumer’s Guide: Pathways
America: Pathways to the Present was Keller’s top book. Average top marks
were in context, historical logic, and historical soundness. The book received a failing
average for democratic ideas. In total, the textbook earned 71%. Keller described the
book as well written, balanced, relatively free of “political correctness,” and mature
(Ravitch, 2004, p. 30). He criticizes the books “exaggeration of the importance of
imperialism”(p. 32). Mirel says the book is the best written one and seems fair and evenhanded. Mirel faults the textbook for the descriptions of American Indian and white
conflicts when the description of whites killing Indians is called a massacre, but the
description of Indians killing whites is not called a massacre. Pyne criticized the lack of
depth. Renehan was bothered by what he saw as an assumption that capitalists are evil
and that capitalism is a zero-sum game.
Consumer’s Guide: The Americans
The Americans received the failing grade of 56% overall. The highest average
was in graphics. The book received failing averages in accuracy, context, selection of
supporting materials, lack of bias, historical logic, literary quality, use of primary
resources, and interest level. The general observation was that the book was a “corporate
product” authored by the publisher (Ravitch, 2004, p. 36). The result is a “prose
distinguished by a committee-fabricated blandness” and a “CNN Headline News-like
pastiche of pictures, boxes, charts, extracts: anything to spare them from the pain and
suffering of being subjected to an extensive, substantive body of writing” (p. 37). Mirel
found the uninspiring textbook not to be skewed toward any particular ideology, but the
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textbook did share the soft multicultural biases much like the others. Keller found the
judgments of the text distorted by multiculturalism. He objected to the proportionality in
the section on the nation’s origins. Apparently, American Indians had ten pages, persons
with African backgrounds had six pages, but only five pages were given for settlers with
European backgrounds. This is the section of textbook advocated by early American
Indian critics that wanted U.S. history to start before Columbus. Many people in the past
argued for proportionality in coverage. With Keller, we now see that argument made by
European-Americans in a section on U.S. history during a time that they were still in
Europe. Keller goes on to criticize the attention to Tecumseh and that the major
significance of the Age of Jackson was the persecution of American Indians. Pyne notes
that the textbook romanticizes American Indians as inherent environmentalists and
innocent children of nature and takes their quotes out of context. Less attention is given
to the view of explorers and colonizers that the American Indians were “uncivilized, unChristian, and backward” (p. 38). Mirel is concerned with the use of massacre only being
applied to whites killing Indians and with the absence of Aztec human sacrifice.
Ravitch (2004) is important because of the textbooks reviewed and the fact that
reviewers did pay attention to American Indian treatment. Further, the study is important
as a study not conducted by those focused on the bias toward American Indians. Bias in
this study meant being free of political or ideological tilt and not disparagement of
particular groups. The perfect textbook is assumed not to be a political or ideological
instrument. Accuracy was focused on facts and major historical events. The study seems
motivated because textbook publishers were said to have bent “over backwards not to
68
offend anybody or upset special interest groups” in the mad rush to revise textbooks after
September 11, 2001 (p. 5). The study provides a different tone than seen in other studies.
Perhaps the study is a good example of hegemony and the attempt to make a world view
that favors certain groups appear non-ideological. The position of reviewers is strongly
positivistic.
TEXTBOOKS IN THIS STUDY
Shadowwalker (2012) found that Danzer’s The Americans (2009), included within
this current study, misdirected readers away from atrocities by Europeans. The role of
disease was emphasized for the loss of Native population (p. 93).
Simpson (2010 April; 2010 summer) examined the narratives of America:
Pathways to the Present (2003) and The Americans (2009) which are included in this
study. The “we are all immigrants” theme appeared in each textbook as a dominant
narrative. American Indians come and go in each text and are seen in the early U.S.
period as resisters. After the Civil War, American Indians return with the nomadic Plains
Indians and buffalo. After Wounded Knee in 1890, the American Indian essentially
disappears. The 20th century treatment is one of another minority fighting for rights. Both
books only include Worcester among the Marshall Trilogy. All groups are subsumed by
the celebration of American progress toward ever greater rights and liberty. The cult of
progress glosses over conflict.
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CHAPTER THREE
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY
Because too much textbook analysis neglects a statement of a philosophical
position, this chapter begins with a discussion of five key philosophical positions and an
explanation of those key to this study. The philosophy underlying methodology and
methods adds a deeper understanding and makes clear what approaches are used. The
five key philosophical positions discussed below are: positivism, critical theory,
postmodernism, hermeneutics, and neo-hermeneutics. This study is not positivistic, but
such is discussed in order to understand how the other four inform this study. Within this
discussion, the Critical Tribal Theory of Brayboy (2005) and Grande’s (2004) Red
Pedagogy are used to indigenize the theoretical basis.
POSITIVISTS
For researchers that ascribe to positivism, they believe that the relationship
between objects and subjects is neutral and passive. A neutral and unbiased subject
(researcher) can discover patterns, establish facts, and develop concepts about the object
(textbook) (Nicholls, 2005, p. 25). The belief that there is a “real world out there” means
that a valid textbook is one that represents reality accurately as opposed to a textbook
ideologically biased, prejudiced, or with misrepresentations (p. 25). This perspective
seems to be the dominant perspective of past research regarding American Indians in
textbooks and the various guidelines and checklists. The assumption is that more
information and more truthful information about American Indians will lead positivist
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authors and publishers to fine tune the narrative toward a greater representation of the one
true universe, one that includes American Indian peoples.
Studies of American Indians in textbooks do not confirm much change in
representation or coverage of American Indians. Representation is a problematic issue
because American Indians in United States history are much more important than their
1% of the U.S. population would suggest and because a focus on representation diverts
attention from really changing the master narrative. My position is that while there may
ultimately be one truth, humans are not neutral and unbiased and bring their truth to any
encounter. What has passed as scientific truth in the past is now shown as very
problematic because of assumptions of neutrality that were in fact not neutral (e.g. Gould,
1996). We are all born into a socio-cultural milieu; a fishbowl to which we may not be
consciously aware. I would argue that the position “I am objective” is in fact an
ideological position; a worldview, one of many possible worldviews.
CRITICAL THEORY
Critical theorists see the relationship of subject and object as one of oppression,
alienation, tension, and class struggle (Nicholls, 2005, p. 26). They agree with positivists
about universal laws, truth, and rationality (p. 26). Their goal is to raise consciousness; to
know who you are and what you are about; to be liberated from oppression (p. 26).
For critical theorists, textbooks in content, production, distribution and use
express unequal social and economic relations (Nicholls, 2005, p. 26). Textbooks seek to
maintain the status quo and make inequality natural (p. 27). Gramsci’s concept of
hegemony is much involved.
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Apple is a critical theorist with a focus on curriculum and schooling. My research
draws from his work. Socio-economic, cultural, ideological and historical contexts are
important and affect the relation of subject and object (Nicholls, 2005, p. 26). I draw
from such perspective even as I contest its modernist Western Enlightenment bias; the
contestation draws upon Native scholars such as Brayboy and Grande. Critical
researchers see a duty to expose social injustice and have a duty to act in many arenas in
the struggle (p. 27).
POSTMODERN
Postmodernists see the “real” as unstable and always in flux (Nicholls, 2005, p.
28). Universal, eternal, absolute truth does not exist (p. 28). The relationship between
subject and object is simply one of relative difference (p. 28).
Postmodernism has much to offer in critique of the modernist thought.
Modernism marginalizes difference and creates the “other” to that deemed universal and
true and has too much faith in science, progress, and hierarchical structuring of
knowledge (Nicholls, 2005, p. 28). Postmodernism champions plurality and multiple
perspectives, celebrates diversity and difference, and seeks to unsilence voices from
oppressive modernist claims (p. 28).
For these theorists, the textbook can never be all encompassing, nor neutral or
objective (Nicholls, 2005, p. 28). The textbook is understood as a subjective work of
scholarship (p. 28). The problem is that postmodern in extreme is pure relativism, nothing
can be assessed, evaluated, judged or criticized because everything is relative. Subjects
are indistinguishable and meaningful action is impossible (p. 29).
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HERMENEUTICS
Hermeneutics envisions knowledge as circular and in ongoing relationship with
objectivity and subjectivity (Nicholls, 2005, p. 29). This perspective rejects the modernist
quest for the whole truth and for unity and the postmodern idea that all is relative,
subjective, and arbitrary (p. 29). Unity and multiplicity are in a dialectical relationship; in
a constantly developing and fluid symbiosis (p. 29). Subjects always bring assumptions
and prejudices to interactions with object (p. 29). Acknowledgement of this is the basis
for true scientific work.
This perspective focuses on ontology---concerned with the meaning of existence--with an emphasis on language (Nicholls, 2005, p. 29). Language is not a neutral tool but
a necessary condition for understanding and being in the world (p. 29-30). The textbook
analyst is in a circular relationship with the object textbooks (p. 30). Analysts are
consciously aware of prejudices that affect the analysis. Any approach is located in
sociocultural traditions (p. 30). Recognizing the complexity of reality and the multiple
horizons, multiple perspectives are used and necessary without everything being
subsumed by subjectivity and therefore denied meaning (p. 30). Analysts are not seeking
the “ideal” textbook, but are interested in the analytic approach and oppose rigid catch-all
formulas of analysis (p. 30). Every student becomes a textbook researcher (p. 30).
The critique of hermeneutics is that it lacks the ability to do social critique by
being stripped of ideas of truth and progress. My position is that hermeneutics is very
much aligned with the approach I take to textbook research, especially in light of the neohermeneutics discussed below.
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The later work of Foucault conceived power, knowledge and subject in a circular,
dynamic and on-going relationship (Nichols, 2005, p. 32). This allows the textbook
analyst critical agency in that truth is not flatly dismissed, but is always in a hermeneutic
circle that limits potential excesses (p. 32). The researcher of textbooks reveals truths in
need of re-justification, not THE truth and certainly not perfect and complete truth. (p.
32). The researcher investigates knowledge in the school textbooks in relation to the
politics of knowledge (p. 33). This new hermeneutics is preferred by me and is consistent
with the other theoretical and methodological choices made to conduct this research. The
critical aspect is maintained without the excesses of modernism and post-modernism. The
ultimate goal of my research is that every teacher and student in effect becomes a critical
textbook researcher.
Currently, teacher education does not involve learning critical textbook analysis
(Jobrack, 2012). In this way, even “bad” textbooks can be wonderful sources for
involved, engaged teaching and learning. The textbook publishers are denied the final say
and the hegemonic socio-cultural economic milieu of the textbook production is
contested. In my own experience and in the research, such an approach seems to benefit
American Indian students.
These philosophical positions are not necessarily exclusive to one another. The
positivist position is mostly rejected as my approach rejects the idea that the researcher is
neutral. The Truth is not sought; a truth is. This work does not seek another guideline or
checklist believing that such will result in better inclusion and representation. The work
does seek to change the world by raising consciousness, helping people to help
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themselves from oppression, and explores how textbooks naturalize inequality and
maintain the status quo as critical theory suggests. This study does not accept extreme
relativism and sees judgment as necessary.
This research agrees with the post-modern position with its emphasis on the idea
that textbooks are not neutral or objective and can never be all encompassing. In addition,
this study agrees with the post-modern that in mainstream societies differences are
marginalized and that the mainstream culture creates the “other” to define itself.
Hermeneutics helps focus on the importance of language that seems neutral, but
is not. The idea of a circular relationship between the analyst, aware of their prejudices,
and the textbook is intriguing. The potential of multiple perspectives without extreme
relativism is important. The ability to analyze without strict or fixed analytic approach
opens up a deeper possibility for dialogue.
The neo-hermeneutic idea of truth in need of re-justification is important in that
the continual struggle is recognized. The politics of knowledge in textbooks is
recognized. The names of philosophical positions do not correspond neatly with the
names of methodology or methods. The later often combine positions as I have above.
The overall approach can be described as critical indigenous hermeneutic.
TRIBAL CRITICAL THEORY AND RED PEDAGOGY
Brayboy (2005) brings Critical Race Theory (CRT) into American Indian studies
(p. 427). CRT developed from Critical Legal Studies (CLS) (p. 428). The basic premise
of CLS is that the law is politics and neither neutral nor value free. CLS seeks to expose
the inequity from seemingly neutral legal rules. CRT sees race as endemic in society and
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schooling and that racism is so ingrained that it is often invisible (p. 428). CRT
challenges claims of meritocracy, color-blind objectivity, and equal opportunity. The
theory values experiential knowledge (Brayboy, p. 428). The problem for Brayboy is that
CRT did not address American Indian liminality as both legal/political and racialized
beings or the experience of colonization (pp. 428-29).
The nine tenets of Critical Tribal Theory (hereafter TribalCrit) are:
1. Colonization is endemic to society.
2. U.S. American Indian policies are rooted in imperialism, White supremacy,
and desire to gain materially.
3. American Indian peoples occupy a liminal space with both political and
racialized identities.
4. American Indian peoples have a desire for tribal sovereignty, tribal autonomy,
self-determination, and self-identification.
5. The concepts of culture, power, and knowledge have new meanings when
seen through an indigenous lens.
6. Educational and government policies seek assimilation of American Indian
peoples.
7. Tribal philosophies, beliefs, customs, traditions, and visions for the future help
understand the lived realities and the differences and adaptability among
individuals and groups.
8. Stories make up theory and are real and legitimate sources of data.
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9. Theory and practice are connected in deep and explicit ways and scholars
must work toward social change (Brayboy, 2005, pp. 429-30).
Colonization means that European American thought, knowledge, and power
structures dominate the U.S. (Brayboy, 2005, p. 430). The actions of the majority culture
have sought to change the American Indian to be more like the whites (p. 430). American
Indians have been removed from reality and replaced with fixed images from the past of
what American Indians were or what the whites imagined them to be (p. 431). Selfinterested legal concepts allowed whites to rationalize and legitimize land theft. Removal
of American Indians was justified by a paternalistic government acting in the best
interests of the American Indian peoples as determined by the whites (p. 431). They were
said to be underutilizing eastern lands and they could do as they please out west (p. 431).
Manifest Destiny means God wanted the new settlers to have the land. The Norman Yoke
justified taking Native lands by establishing a moral obligation to exploit natural
resources on so-called vacant lands (p 432).
Both Manifest Destiny and the Norman Yoke are rooted in white supremacy
(Brayboy, 2005, p. 432). This means that the European way of doing things is superior
over all other ways (p. 432). Since this is viewed as natural, it is often unseen and
unspoken and thus derives its hegemonic power (p. 432).
The major emphasis of mainstream society racializes American Indian identity
(Brayboy, 2005, p. 433). The legal/political status of American Indians though welldefined in law and policy seems lost in popular settings (p. 433).
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Culture is seen as both fluid and stable (Brayboy, 2005, p. 434). Like an anchor,
culture keeps people rooted even as changes occur within the culture. American Indian
peoples engage in cultural production (p. 434). Power is seen as the ability to survive
rooted in a capacity to adjust to changing contexts (p. 434). Brayboy likes Vizenor’s
concept of survivance – survival and resistance together (p. 434). This is the ability to
determine your own place in the world (p. 436).
Brayboy calls upon researchers to utilize theory to make active change in the
world (2005, p. 440). Social structural inequalities and assimilatory processes must be
exposed, debunked, and deconstructed (p. 440). Scholars should act to make life better
for those we serve.
Grande (2004) critiques critical theory with an indigenized lens to expose its deep
Western forms of thought. To do so, she criticizes indigenous scholarship for privileging
local and personal experience without engaging more in social and political theory (p. 3).
For her, experiences are not self-explanatory and need more theoretical development.
This work has been criticized by some Native scholars who assert that their own ways are
the basis for what they need to continue as vibrant peoples (Calderon, 2006; Sterling,
2012). The criticisms seem to ignore the rest of Grande’s (2004) Red Pedagogy which
asserts that stories of survivance and the knowledge of communities and elders are the
basis of schooling and transformation (p. 175).
In any case, this current study deals with the Marshall Trilogy and federal Indian
law. While cases deal with specific Native nations, the law applies in a pan-Indian way.
Thus, indigenized theories and any others that help us see the problems with the
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treatment of federal Indian law in the textbooks are appropriate. Consistent with the
chosen philosophical approach, local stories are not excluded and are welcomed into the
dialogue. This research is my story, open to change and revision, and informed by
theoretical frameworks, methods, and my historical knowledge and consciousness that
have helped develope a critical awareness.
Grande (2004) challenges critical theorists to examine the deep structures of
Western thought within any theory (p. 3). These “Deep Structures of Colonialist
Consciousness” include:
1. Belief in progress as change and change as progress measured in terms
of material gain that breeds fierce competiveness for limited resources.
2. Belief in the effective separateness of faith and reason. Modern
epistemology is positivistic and empirical. Reason is perceived as
culture-free and technology is considered neutral.
3. Belief in the essential quality of the universe and of “reality” as
impersonal, secular, material, mechanistic, and relativistic.
4. Subscription to ontological individualism.
5. Belief in human beings as separate from and superior to the rest of
nature (Grande, 2004, p. 69).
The most central tension of an indigenized theory with critical theory is the failure of
critical scholars to recognize “the fundamental difference of American Indians and their
dual status as U.S. citizens and members of sovereign Native nations” (Grande, p. 27).
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Hope has a different meaning for indigenized theorists than Western critical
theorists who are focused on a future looking form with emphasis on inclusivity and
enfranchisement (Grande, 2004, p. 289). Hope is one that trusts in the beliefs and
understandings of the ancestors and the power of traditional knowledge. The indigenous
struggle is not about inclusion and enfranchisement into the world order, but about
sovereignty and indigenization (pp. 28-29). In other words, the indigenous struggle seeks
the power to determine their own destiny in relation to others and in their own ways.
While Western critical theory problematizes the concept of “democracy” as a
central aspect, indigenized theory puts sovereignty at the center (Grande, 2004, p. 35).
Western critical theory fails to problematize the issue of colonized land although new
theorists are moving in this direction and do not assume that tribalism is dead (pp. 49-50).
Sovereignty is detached from western notions of the concept in an indigenized theory and
based upon indigenous notions of power (p. 53). Grande uses Native scholar Alfred’s
suggestion of four basic goals for indigenous governance:
1. Structural reform: Accommodate traditional decision making,
consultation, and dispute resolution.
2. Reintegration of Native languages.
3. Economic self-sufficiency. Expand land bases and increase control.
4. Nation-to-Nation relations with the state. The authority of the state
over them is rejected and they assert the right to govern their own
territory (Grande, 2004, pp. 53-4).
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A Red Pedagogy requires “students to question how (whitestream) knowledge is
related to the processes of colonization” (Grande, 2004, p. 56). In addition, inquiry is
made into how various indigenous knowledge systems can inform decolonization.
Grande (2004) reminds us of the problems multicultural education presents for
American Indians. Pre-existing frames of the nation-state read democracy to mean
inclusion (p. 47). Multiculturalism homogenizes peoples by unifying all peoples in the
nation-state narrative of ever increasing inclusion (p. 47). The idea of sovereignty for
American Indians becomes associated with separateness by the white culture which is
viewed as antithetical to democracy (p. 47). Grande defines sovereignty as “a project
organized to defend and sustain the basic right of indigenous peoples to exist in
wholeness and to thrive in their relations with other peoples” (p. 171).
Grande (2004) offers insights into publishing and school history as well. Speaking
of “prevailing codes of ‘mainstream’ indigenous writing,” she notes how the whitestream
marketplace desires to preserve the white man’s Indian (p. 4). After suffering genocide,
colonization, and cultural annihilation, American Indians are “revictimized at the hands
of whitestream history” (pp. 174-75). Whitestream publishing maintains “control over the
epistemic frames of the discourse and thus over the fund of available knowledge on
American Indians” (p. 103). American Indians are portrayed as “perpetual victims” while
faulting rogue groups or individuals for the wrongs against them which allows the people
to distance themselves from the wrongs (p. 103). In addition, the focus on the past allows
mainstream people to believe that all the “real” Indians are dead and all that remains are
alcoholics and casino operators (p. 103). The ongoing court battles over land and other
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issues are relegated to the margins so that the great lie of the twenty-first century is
reaffirmed – “that America’s ‘Indian problem’ has been solved” (p. 103).
The reasons that publishers and others wish to restrict the American Indian story
is that American Indian peoples are an inherent threat to expose the great lies of the
United States (Grande, 2004, pp. 31-32 ). One lie is that the U.S. is a nation of laws and
not power (p. 32). The Marshall Trilogy and federal Indian law expose power as the basis
of government action. Additionally, the concept of internal sovereigns within the U.S.
borders defies one people, one nation (p. 32). The U.S. forms of democracy and
multiculturalism both enforce a white homogeneity. Grande uses the Marshall Trilogy in
discussing “The History of Democratically Induced Oppression” and as a basis for the
statement that for “American Indians, democracy has been wielded with impunity as the
first and most virulent weapon of mass destruction” (pp. 32, 36-40).
What do Brayboy (2005) and Grande (2004) contribute to the philosophical
positions? They remind us that even reported liberatory philosophies can themselves be
embedded in oppressive modes of thought such as the dominant Western philosophies
that fail to account for colonized land and peoples and to understand the unique space
American Indians inhabit as political/legal and racialized peoples. This unique status
allows a greater focus on issues of colonization and sovereignty without denying race.
American Indians should be removed from the collective “minority” status.
We are reminded that knowledge comes from many sources including the stories
of people over the great span of time. As such, what we know is constantly in a state of
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dialectic give and take and suspension of truth. Many voices should be heard. The
Western theories are too human centered and should include the whole.
We are reminded to move away from soft multi-cultural education with its
superficiality and a few mentions here and there into a social justice orientation (Writer,
2008). This social justice orientation requires connecting school and community.
An indigenous perspective can problematize conceptions of democracy and
provide alternatives to current understandings. Survivance stories can counter the very
problematic school history which Wilma Mankiller explained threatened sovereignty
because voters simply do not understand American Indians (2003, cited in Writer, 2008,
p. 8). Cultural imperialism makes American Indian perspectives invisible.
Indigenized perspectives align with critical theories in that they seek to expose
social injustice and to act in the world. They align with postmodernism in challenging the
privileging of certain knowledge and in opposing modernism’s marginalizing of
difference and creation of the “other.” The indigenized contributions align with
hermeneutics and neo-hermeneutics in that teacher and student together can investigate
and enter into dialogue about issues. Truth is always in need of re-justification.
Sociocultural traditions are important and central. My summary is not included to
subsume the indigenous within the Western, but is rather in the tradition of those leaders
who asked the majority white settler society if it could be possible to sit together and
work out what is best for everyone’s children.
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Native Science
The approach taken in this study draws from Cajete’s work on Native science
(2000) as well as frames discussed above. The researcher has engaged the texts deeply in
a process of creative participation. The researcher has not distanced himself from the
texts by assuming an illusionary objectivity. The researcher recognizes the self within a
cultural milieu and constantly questions self and text not to come up with a final TRUTH
but to assert a truth ready to enter into dialogue. Analysis and findings are grounded in
the philosophical and theoretical foundations.
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CHAPTER FOUR
METHODS AND PROCEDURES
A discussion of methods and procedures follows the discussion of textbook
selection for this study. Eight high school U.S. history textbooks were selected for the
study.
SELECTION OF TEXTBOOKS FOR THE STUDY
The following textbooks are included in this study:
Appleby, J., Brinkley, A., Broussard, A., McPherson, J., & Ritchie, D. (2004). The
American vision. Columbus, OH: McGraw Hill Glencoe.
Ayers, E., Schulzinger, R., de la Teja, J., & White, D. (2009). American anthem. Austin,
TX: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.
Boorstin, D., & Kelley, B. (2007). A history of the United States, classics ed. Boston:
Pearson Prentice Hall.
Boyer, P. (2001). Boyer’s the American nation. Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.
Cayton, A., Perry, E., Reed, L., & Winkler, A. (2003). America: Pathways to the present.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Danzer, G., de Alva, J., Krieger, L., Wilson, L., & Woloch, N. (2009). The Americans.
Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell.
Deverell, W., & White, D. (2009). United States history. Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart, &
Winston.
Tindall, G., & Shi, D. (2007). America: A narrative history. New York: W.W. Norton &
Co.
The American Textbook Council identified the following as widely adopted high
school U.S. history textbooks: American Anthem, A History of the United States,
America: Pathways to the Present, The Americans, and Boyer’s The American Nation
(2010). All of these books are included in this study as noted above. The Council also
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noted American Odyssey (Nash) as widely adopted, but this book has not been included
because the book’s primary focus is on the 20th century only.
Florida is one of the three most important states that publishers consider because
of a large student population and it has state textbook adoption (Leahey, 2009, p. 37).
The Florida Department of Education has adopted the following high school U.S. history
textbooks that cover the entire span of time for regular classes: The American Vision,
Boyer’s The American Nation, The Americans, and America: Pathways to the Present
(Catalogue of State Adopted Instructional Materials).
Texas and California are the two other state adoption states that are of most
import for textbook publishers. California does not provide districts a list of approved
textbooks for high school. Texas high school history classes cover the post Civil War era.
However, the list of adopted textbooks from Texas shows that for both the prior period
and the new adoptions for 2010, Boyer’s The American Nation, America: Pathways to the
Present, and The Americans are approved from the major national publishers (Texas
Education Agency).
North Carolina is considered the fourth most important for state adoption and is
home to five of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. (Sewall, 2000, p. 10). The state
has adopted The American Vision, American Anthem, and The Americans (North Carolina
State Board of Education).
Oklahoma is home to 38 federally recognized Native Nations, has 26 state
legislators that are Native (leads the country by far), and the only Native member of the
U.S. Congress (Oklahoma-tribes.com; Oklahoma House of Representatives;
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Indianz.com). Oklahoma has an 11% Native population which is highest in the lower 48
states (Census Bureau). Oklahoma adopts approved textbooks at the state level for high
school. Oklahoma has adopted the following high school U.S. history textbooks: The
American Vision, American Anthem, and America: Pathways to the Present (Oklahoma
State Textbook Committee).
New Mexico ranks close to Oklahoma in percentage of population that is Native.
New Mexico has adopted the post-civil war versions of The American Vision and The
Americans (Instructional Material Bureau).
Some of the largest schools districts were contacted in non-state adoption areas to
see what books were used in their districts. Philadelphia, the tenth largest school district,
uses The American Vision.
Ravitch (2004) notes that the following are in wide circulation: Boyer’s The
American Nation, America: Pathways to the Present, and The Americans (p. 16-17).
Sewall (2000) notes that the following are leading textbooks: Boyer’s The American
Nation, A History of the United States, America: Pathways to the Present, and The
Americans. Aldridge (2006) included America: Pathways to the Present and The
Americans for his study because they were popular, widely adopted, and have highly
respected authors (pp. 664-665). He also notes Van Gosse’s statement that textbooks are
remarkably similar in what is and what is not included and more (p. 665). Sewall (2000)
used A History of the United States, Boyer’s the American Nation, America: Pathways to
the Present, and The Americans.
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Another part of this study details the conglomerated nature of textbook
publishing. The selection includes titles from companies that are considered one of the
three biggest publishers (Pearson; McGraw Hill; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt which
includes McDougal Little and Holt, Rinehart, & Winston) that dominate the market.
America: A Narrative History, published by W. W. Norton, represents a book from a
longtime independent and national publisher that is not part of the big three.
Selection was made based upon coverage of the entirety of historical periods,
from national publishers, and that have been noted as widely adopted or popular in
various studies and reports. The exception is the inclusion of a totally new national
textbook project with a major publisher which is represented by United States History
(Deverell & White, 2009). This may provide insights into current changes, if any, by not
being a simple continuation of a past series which often only get fine-tuned for sales
(Leahy, 2009, pp. 34-35).
METHODOLOGY AND METHODS
Before getting into the details, a discussion about the work of Linda Tuhiwai
Smith in the book Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (2002)
is necessary. Smith reminds us that the “negation of indigenous views of history was a
critical part” of colonial ideology, often considered “primitive and incorrect” but mostly
rejected because they challenged and resisted the mission of colonization (p. 29). She
reminds us that contested histories are not new to indigenous peoples. Different stories
and discourses have always been linked to the political indigenous life (p. 33). History is
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about power. It is the story of the powerful, how they became powerful, and how they
keep power (p. 34).
Smith (2002) notes that textbooks do not reinforce indigenous values, customs,
culture and identity. By concentrating on others, they imply that indigenous do not exist.
Things written are untrue. They include negative and insensitive things (p. 35). Simply
producing accounts of the truth will not alter the injustice done to indigenous people.
However, revisiting history has been an important aspect of decolonization. There can be
no post-modern until some business of the modern has been settled. By revisiting every
aspect of the history of the West, indigenous peoples can transform by beginning to tell
their stories, reclaiming, and testifying to injustices (p. 34). She notes that the issue of
colonization in history is similar in research. She proposes twenty-five indigenous
projects (pp. 143-161).
This researcher is not a recognized member or citizen of an American Indian
nation. But my own family history makes me an ally of American Indian peoples. While
much of the work on decolonization needs to be done by persons from the Native nations,
my work and this project can assist in the struggle. One part of one of the twenty-five
projects is indigenizing by having non-native scholars decentering Western ways (Smith,
2002, p. 146). This present study attempts this to a certain degree. I have already worked
on the seventh project which is intervening (p. 147). My workshops for teachers and
students based upon the current study and the larger body of work has been intended to
bring about change by both providing tools for Native students and teachers to critique
textbooks, but by also challenging non-Indians directly. This has resulted in a different
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reading of the texts which is project ten (p. 149). This study also works to reframe Native
peoples and issues by noting the mainstream problems rather than the Indian problem.
Reframing is project fifteen (p. 153). My workshops have and will continue to make the
research accessible to anyone interested. This research will be shared widely and meets
project twenty-five sharing (pp. 160-61).
Content Analysis
The basic and encompassing method of this study is content analysis. Content
analysis is a flexible research method that is useful for analyzing texts by describing and
interpreting the written artifacts of a society (White & Marsh, 2006, pp. 23, 41). Content
analysis is a conceptual approach to understanding what a text is about considering a
particular theoretical perspective (Beach, Enciso, et. al., 2009, p. 130). Critical content
analysis is one form of qualitative content analysis often conducted in cultural studies and
that employs critical analytic tools (Neuendorf, 2002, p. 7). What makes a study critical
is not the methodology, but the framework used to think within, through, and beyond the
text (Beach, Enciso, et. al., p. 130). The particular approach or specific type of content
analysis should be driven by the problem being studied and the theoretical and
substantive interests of the researcher (Weber, 1990, as cited in Hsieh & Shannon, 2005,
p. 1277).
The classic methodological process for all forms of content analysis include:
formulating the research question to be answered, selecting the sample to be analyzed,
defining categories, outlining the coding process, implementing the coding, determining
reliability and validity, and analyzing the results (Kaid & Wadsworth, 1989, p. 199). This
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process grew from quantitative content analysis. This is the approach taken in this
research.
Qualitative content analysis is humanistic and hermeneutic oriented as opposed to
positivist (White & Marsh, 2006, p. 35). It shares with quantitative methods the research
question, process of sampling what are relevant, distinguishing and using examples, and
contextualizing in light of what is known about circumstances surrounding the text (p.
34). The qualitative approach seeks to understand the organization and process of
messages (Altheide, 1996, p. 33, as cited in White & Marsh, p. 35). This approach seeks
multiple perspectives by considering diverse voices, perspectives from different
ideological perspectives, or oppositional readings (Krippendorff, 2004, p. 88, cited in
White & Marsh, p. 35). In short, content analysis examines what a text is about (Beach,
Enciso, Harste, et. Al, 2009, p. 130).
Critical Discourse Analysis
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a sub-method of qualitative content analysis
(Beach, Enciso, et. al., 2009). Consistent with the philosophical and theoretical positions
previously stated, CDA has broad roots in a great number of disciplines, including
rhetoric, text linguistics, philosophy, literary studies, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics
and others (Wodak & Meyer, 2009, p. 1). What makes it critical is that it aims to
contribute to addressing social wrongs by analyzing sources and causes, resistance to
them, and possibilities of overcoming (Wodak & Meyer, p. 163). CDA’s methodology is
in the hermeneutic tradition (Wodak & Meyer, p. 28).
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CDA, as a school or paradigm, is characterized by some principles: all approaches
are problem-oriented, interdisciplinary, interested in de-mystifying ideologies and power
through systematic investigation of semiotic (meaning making as an element of the social
process) data, and researchers are explicit about selves and remain self-reflective during
the research process while employing methodologies (Wodak & Meyer, 2009, p. 3). CDA
examines naturally occurring language and focuses on larger units than isolated words or
sentences (p. 2). CDA studies action and interaction with a focus on dynamic sociocognitive or interactional moves and strategies (p. 2). Non-verbal aspects of interaction
and communication can be included (p. 2). CDA looks to the functions of contexts of
language use (p. 2).
CDA does not have a singular theory or methodology, but is a research program
with multifarious studies derived from different theoretical backgrounds held together by
a shared perspective on doing linguistic, semiotic and discourse work (Wodak & Meyer,
2009, p. 4-5). This study draws from many areas, but is focused on language and
discourse. Some aspects of this shared perspective include: seeing language as a social
practice with the context of language as a crucial aspect with discourse being both
socially constitutive and socially conditioned (p. 5-6 citing Fairclough & Wodak, 1997);
CDA is critical, meaning it makes visible the interconnectedness of things, assuming an
ethical position as researcher (p. 7 citing Fairclough 1995 & van Leeuwen, 2006); and
CDA seeks to reveal structures of power and to unmask ideologies (Wodak & Meyer, p.
8).
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Dominant ideologies are made normal and natural such that they go largely
unchallenged and when people forget alternatives researchers see Gramscian hegemony
(see methodology discussion under Content Analysis and National Narrative) (Wodak &
Meyer, 2009, p. 8). Power is an important concept in that CDA often examines language
use of those in power and the ways discourse produces domination of one group over
another (p. 9). CDA mostly assumes an understanding of power similar to Foucault in
which power is seen as a systemic and constitutive element and characteristic of society
(pp. 9-10). Texts are often sites of struggle of differing discourses and ideologies (p. 10).
In short, CDA investigates social inequality as it is expressed by language use (p. 10).
Language is political and ideological (p. 10). This study investigates social inequality
arising from language.
Dialectical-Relational Approach
The overall guiding research strategy draws from the Dialectical-Relational
Approach (DRA) of Fairclough (Fairclough in Wodak & Meyer, 2009, pp. 162-186). The
theoretical basis for this approach draws from Foucault (discussed more extensively in
the Philosophical Underpinnings section), Marx (especially as refined by Gramsci), and
Halliday (Systemic Functional Linguistics) (Wodak & Meyer, 2009, p. 20).
The DRA methodology consists of 4 stages: 1. What are the semiotic aspects of a
social wrong? 2. What are the obstacles to correcting the social wrong? 3. Does the
social order “need” the social wrong? 4. What are possible ways past the obstacles to
addressing the social wrong? (Fairclough, 2009, p. 167 in Wodak & Meyer, 2009).
These questions are answered in this study.
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To assist in understanding the first stage, what are the semiotic aspects of a social
wrong, the study draws upon a quantitative examination of the inclusion of the Marshall
Trilogy cases and other federal Indian law cases. This exposes what is included and what
is absent. In addition, the study relies upon the critical historical discourse work of Coffin
(2006). Coffin (2006) draws upon the Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) of Halliday
to expose the way language works in school history (p. 12). Further, general critical
analysis of the language in addition to a critique of the statements of law and history will
show how language is used to commit a social wrong. Descriptive analysis examines the
text. Interpretative analysis examines the relationship of the text with various discursive
practices. Social analysis explains the relationship with the discursive practices and larger
social processes (Fairclough, 1995, p. 97). In other words, analysis proceeds from the
text, to the text production and interpretation, to larger sociocultural processes (p. 98).
Stages two through four of DRA lead to discussions about hegemony and social
change, the role of the master national narrative, processes of production, and suggestions
for counter-hegemonic actions. These stages are contained in findings and discussion as
well as recommendations.
APPRAISAL, Systemic Functional Linguistics, and History
Here is further discussion on the historical discourse work of Coffin (2006) noted
above and the APPRAISAL system of discourse analysis. The APPRAISAL system is
based upon systemic functional linguistics (SFL) (Coffin, 1996; Martin & White, 2005, p
xi.; Coffin, 2006, xiii). SFL asserts that language occurs in social context and that writers
make choices among words to effect meaning (Coffin, 2006, pp. 18-19, 25). One variable
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of the social context is tenor which involves social relations of status and solidarity.
Tenor is of interest in JUDGMENT analysis given the focus on interpersonal meaningmaking (Coffin, 2006, p. 41). Choices are made by writers in three areas: engagement,
graduation, and attitude (JUDGMENT’s focus). Engagement draws upon Bakhtin’s
concept of heteroglossia and authoritative discourse (Coffin, 2006, p. 143; Martin &
White, 2005, pp. 102-04). Monogloss engagement assumes sharing the same, singular
world view (Coffin, 2006, p. 143). Positive declaration encourages the reader to assume
the proposition is unproblematic. Heterogloss uses modal resources that indicate meaning
is contingent or negotiable (e.g. may, probably) (Coffin, 2006, p. 143). Another
important resource for heterogloss is to quote or report statements as made by others
(Coffin, p. 144; Martin & White, pp. 98, 111-117). At times, this attribution becomes
important in JUDGMENT as well.
Graduation refers to the force and the focus of the textual resources used (Coffin,
2006, p. 143). Some resources make a statement stronger or more forceful while others
weaken. Other resources mark very specific statements while others are vaguer (Coffin,
2006, p. 143; Martin & White, 2005, p. 37).
Three groups of resources exist within the attitude section of APPRAISAL
resources (Coffin, 2006, p. 141; APPENDIX A). Affect resources have to do with
emotions. Affect explains how events make us feel. Appreciation resources are
concerned with the aesthetics or social valuing of things or social processes (Martin &
White, 2005, p. 42-3). JUDGMENT resources involve ethics (Martin & White, p. 42).
JUDGMENT, like affect and appreciation, deals with feelings and like appreciation deals
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with institutionalized feelings. But unlike either affect or appreciation, JUDGMENT
deals with attitudes toward behavior (Coffin, p. 141). All of these attitudinal resources
tend toward prosodic realization. This means that meaning arises throughout a stretch of
discourse and that parts effect the whole; each choice works with other choices to
establish a tone or mood (Martin & Rose, 2007, pp. 25, 59). This concept is especially
important to remember when we start an actual JUDGMENT assessment and especially
in regards to non-explicit expressions of JUDGMENT.
JUDGMENT deals with resources that express feelings about ethical behavior
(Coffin, 2006, p. 145; Martin & White, 2005, p. 52). These resources can be further
classified into those involving social esteem and those involving social sanction (Martin
& White, 2005, p. 52). Social esteem is seen as involving criticism or admiration without
possible legal sanctions (Coffin, 2006, p. 146). Social sanction is more likely to involve
moral and legal rules made explicit by a culture (Coffin, 2006, p. 146).
The questions asked within social esteem and social sanctions provide the
application framework for JUDGMENT analysis. Under social esteem, we look at
normality or how behavior or way of life is unusual (Martin & White, 2005, p. 52). For
capacity or competence, we look to feelings of capability. And for tenacity or resolve, we
look for evaluation of how dependable, committed, or disposed the subject is. Under
social sanction, we look for veracity or truthfulness and ask how honest the subject is. In
addition, we look toward propriety or ethics and ask if the subject is beyond reproach
(APPENDIX B).
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Meaning may directly come from the word choices used by the writer or may be
evoked by specific words or by stretches of words or interactions across the text. Evoked
realizations are called Tokens of Judgment (Coffin, 2006, p. 147). Before analyzing a
sample text, consider a summary of the examination process used herein:
1. Is the judgment direct (explicit) or indirect (evoked) realization? Indirect
realizations are often referred to as tokens of Judgment.
2. Does the judgment relate to social esteem (normality, capacity, tenacity) or social
sanction (veracity, propriety or ethics)?
3. Is the evaluation positive or negative and to whom is evaluated?
Voice theory is a descriptive tool that explores how interpersonal styles have become
conventionalized (Coffin, 2002, p. 519). Coffin (2002) shows different voices in school
history writing and connects with JUDGMENT. The particular voice is influenced by the
social purpose, the genre, and the degree of perceived solidarity and alignment with
imagined reader (Coffin, 2002, p. 520). Coffin (2002) identifies three common voices in
school history writing: recorder, interpreter, and adjudicator. Recorder voice is very
common with a complete absence of explicit JUDGMENT. Interpreter voice is not likely
to use inscribed social sanction and will moderately use inscribed social esteem.
Adjudicator uses both social esteem and social sanction freely in direct and invoked
ways.
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Procedures for Analysis
Each textbook is examined for its entire content with page by page review. The table
of content, index, and special features are examined for assistance in locating Marshall
Trilogy and federal Indian law.
1. Examine the relevant content and the context of the Marshall Trilogy and
federal Indian law.
2. Provide the quantitative analysis of inclusion of Marshall Trilogy and federal
Indian law across the textbooks.
3. Provide a rich and deep description of the content for each book.
4. Use APPRAISAL system to analyze text regarding Marshall Trilogy and
federal Indian law.
5. Employ further critical analysis of DRA to examiner intertextuality, power,
national narrative, and social contexts.
6. Provide suggestions in regard to overcoming the obstacles to addressing any
wrong or wrongs found.
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CHAPTER FIVE
RESEARCH FINDINGS
This study examines the entirety of eight 21st century high school United States
history textbooks. The examination specifically focuses on the Marshall Trilogy of
federal Indian law and other federal Indian law cases. Initial findings display the
quantitative findings which are primarily to support the qualitative. The following six
tables summarize the quantitative information and include analysis from the tables. The
substantial qualitative findings follow the quantitative. The focus in this chapter is on
research question one and two: (1) What do 21st century high school U.S. history
textbooks include concerning the Marshall Trilogy and other federal Indian law? What is
not included? (2) How does the textbook treatment of the Marshall Trilogy and other
federal Indian law cases fit into the master narrative of the textbook?
QUANTITATIVE FINDINGS
Table 1 Showing Marshall Trilogy Coverage in Eight Books
Included
Named
Unnamed
Cherokee Nation
XXXX
X
XXX
Worcester
XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX
Johnson
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Table 2 Showing Marshall Trilogy Coverage for Four Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
books
Included
Named
Unnamed
Johnson
Cherokee Nation
XXX
Worcester
XXXX
XXX
XXXX
Table 3 Showing Marshall Trilogy Coverage for One McGraw-Hill Textbook
Included
Named
X
X
Unnamed
Johnson
Cherokee Nation
Worcester
Table 4 Showing Marshall Trilogy Coverage for Two Pearson Textbooks
Included
Named
XX
XX
Johnson
Cherokee Nation
Worcester
Unnamed
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Table 5 Showing Marshall Trilogy Coverage for One W.W. Norton (Independent)
Included
Named
Cherokee Nation
X
X
Worcester
X
X
Unnamed
Johnson
Table 6 Showing other Indian Law cases named/discussed in Each textbook
Named
America: A Narrative
none
Discussed
Alaska, Maine, South
Carolina, Massachusetts
land
Boyer’s American Nation
none
50s termination; Taos,
Maine
American Anthem
none
none
The Americans
none
Tribal ancestry and land
rights; Minnesota Chippewa
fishing
United States History
none
none
Boorstin’s History of United
none
Maine Penobscot and
States
Passamaquoddy land; Sioux
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Black Hills; Narraganset
Rhode Island; general suitsland, raise children,
resources
Pathways
none
Seneca New York,
Seminoles. General: land,
mineral, water rights
American Vision
none
Taos and Maine –land;
Impose taxes on reservation
businesses, sovereign
functions
Analysis from Tables
1. All eight textbooks include and name Worcester v. Georgia.
2. Four of the eight textbooks discuss Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, with only
one textbook naming the case also.
3. None of the textbooks include or deal with Johnson v. McIntosh.
4. Textbooks from the Big Three publishers all include and name Worcester.
5. Textbooks from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, one of the Big Three, all include
Cherokee in discussion but do not give the name.
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6. Textbooks from the other two publishers of the Big Three, Pearson and
McGraw Hill do not include or name Cherokee.
7. The independent publisher, W.W. Norton, includes and names Cherokee.
8. W.W. Norton’s textbook does not list reviewers, advisors, editors, and boards;
but author George Tindall is a noted historian of the American south. Neither
he nor co-author David Shi is noted as scholars for American Indian issues.
9. Two textbooks list American Indians who are scholars as either historical
reviewers, Donald Fixico for Pathways by Pearson, or academic consultants,
Calbert Seciwa for The American Vision by McGraw Hill. Neither textbook
includes Johnson, common with all textbooks, nor includes Cherokee Nation,
unlike four textbooks by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and W.W. Norton.
10. John Reyhner has written on the history of American Indian education. He is
listed on the multicultural advisory board for The Americans by Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt. This textbook discusses an unnamed Cherokee Nation and
includes Worcester.
11. Deborah White is listed as author of two books, United States History and
American Anthem both by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Both books include
only Worcester. United States History is the first book in a new series, but still
only includes Worcester.
12. Yasuhide Kawashima is on the editorial review board for The American
Nation and is a professor with a specialty in American legal history. He wrote
a book on Puritan justice and Indians. He is also an academic reviewer on
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United States History. Both textbooks are published by Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt. Both include Worcester and American Nation also includes a
discussion without naming Cherokee Nation. This textbook also has two
social studies teachers from New Mexico and Oklahoma, two states with large
American Indian populations and relative populations. For the book United
States History, another academic reviewer was Craig Yurish whose interest is
in Amerindian rights in the British empire. The textbook only includes
Worcester.
13. American Anthem has reviewers and consultants with expertise in
Constitutional law and civil rights. The textbook only includes Worcester.
14. No other Indian cases are named. In some textbooks, no other Indian cases are
discussed. The discussion is always positive with American Indian victories
before the law. If the authors are aware of victories, then they are aware of
losses.
What is the point of all of this? The publishers have people involved in the
process that know about the Marshall Trilogy and federal Indian law. The absence of any
case or cases is intentional. Later discussion addresses why the textbook creators make
the choices.
QUALITATIVE FINDINGS
The quantitative analysis displays the inclusion of federal Indian law cases. The
qualitative analysis details in depth the nature of the inclusion. After a more detailed
explanation of the Marshall Trilogy and conditions in Cherokee country leading up to the
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cases, a short summary of APPRAISAL and critical analysis is provided. Then the
content of each textbook is provided. Each book has an APPRAISAL analysis followed
by the reviewer’s critical content analysis. A summary of APPRAISAL and critical
analysis follows. The APPRAISAL analysis focuses on text while the critical analysis
connects text to the broader narrative within the textbook, across the textbooks, and to
larger social and political issues.
The Marshall Trilogy and Cherokee Country
This section provides more detail on the Marshall Trilogy cases and the situation
of the Cherokee for the relevant time period. The three cases are called the Marshall
Trilogy because they were all Supreme Court cases issued under Chief Justice John
Marshall. The three cases are considered the foundation of federal Indian law that
determines the relationship of the federal government with American Indian peoples.
Many of the important doctrines for Indian Country, such as the trust doctrine and Indian
title, come from these cases which are still effective law. During or after each textbook
analysis, the reader can recall or refer back to this section to see problems with the
textbooks coverage
Johnson v. McIntosh 1823
The facts in Johnson v. McIntosh (1823) started over fifty years before the case
(Echo-Hawk, 2010, p.55). William Murray presented a fraudulent legal document to
British officials in what was then western Virginia lands in order to purchase lands in
what is now Illinois and Indiana even though such purchase was prohibited by the Royal
Proclamation of 1763 (pp. 55, 59, 63). The lands were purchased directly from the Native
105
nations (p. 63). Johnson later obtained the interest in these lands. McIntosh obtained title
to the same lands from the United States government (p. 65). The government had
obtained title through a treaty with Native nations following the Battle of Fallen Timbers
in 1794.
The issue in the case became whether the grant of title of tribal lands by American
Indians leaders to private individuals or entities without federal government approval
would be recognized by courts of the United States. Another way to state this is whether
American Indian tribes could sell their lands to private parties.
The Court found the claims of Johnson to be fraudulent since they were obtained
under a fake legal opinion in violation of British law in 1773. In addition, the purchase
violated Virginia law which required a license from Virginia in order to make such a
purchase. Virginia had disposed of the Indian lands by ceding its western lands to the
U.S. or to war veterans (Echo-Hawk, 2010, pp. 68-9).
The Court findings did not stop there. In what is considered to be legal dicta or
non-essential narrative in a legal opinion, Marshall held that American Indians had only a
possessory or occupancy right to their lands (Echo-Hawk, 2010, pp. 69, 72-75). This is
what is known as Indian title. The exclusive right to extinguish Indian title vests under
the International Law of Discovery to the first Christian European nation to discover the
lands in question. The United States was successor to England as discoverer of the area
that would become the United States. Only the federal government of the United States
could obtain the consent of the respective Native nations through treaty or just war to
106
extinguish Indian title. Native nations had a diminished sovereignty after discovery by a
European nation (Echo-Hawk, pp. 72-75).
Before discussing the case circumstances beyond the legal opinion, some of the
language is provided directly from the case to show how American Indian peoples are
viewed by the Supreme Court in 1823. Here are passages directly from the case:
On the discovery of this immense continent, the great nations of Europe
were eager to appropriate to themselves so much of it as they could
respectively acquire. Its vast extent offered an ample field to the ambition
and enterprise of all; and the character and religion of its inhabitants
afforded an apology for considering them as people over whom the
superior genius of Europe might claim ascendency. The potentates of the
old world found no difficulty in convincing themselves that they made
ample compensation to the inhabitants of the new, by bestowing on them
civilization and Christianity, in exchange for unlimited independence.
(Getches, Wilkinson, and Williams, 2005, p. 63).
…discovery gave title to the government by whose subjects, or by whose
authority, it was made, against all other European governments, which
title might be consummated by possession. (Getches, et. al., p. 63).
…the rights of the original inhabitants were, in no instance, entirely
disregarded; but were necessarily, to a considerable extent, impaired. They
were admitted to be the rightful occupants of the soil, with a legal as well
as just claim to retain possession of it, and to use it according to their own
discretion; but their rights to complete sovereignty, as independent
nations, were necessarily diminished, and their power to dispose of the
soil at their own will, to whomsoever they pleased, was denied by the
original fundamental principle, that discovery gave exclusive title to those
who made it. (Getches, et. al., pp. 63-4).
Conquest gives title which the Courts of the conqueror cannot deny,
whatever the private and speculative opinions of individuals may be,
respecting the original justice of the claim which has been successfully
asserted. (Getches, et. al., p. 66).
The title by conquest is acquired and maintained by force. The conqueror
prescribes its limits. Humanity, however, acting on public opinion, has
established, as a general rule, that the conquered shall not be wantonly
oppressed, and that their condition shall remain as eligible as is compatible
107
with the objects of conquest. Most usually, they are incorporated with the
victorious nation, and become subjects or citizens of the government with
which they are connected.(Getches, et. al., p. 66).
But the tribes of Indians inhabiting the country were fierce savages, whose
occupation was war, and whose subsistence was drawn chiefly from the
forest. To leave them in possession of their country, was to leave the
country a wilderness; to govern them as a distinct people, was impossible,
because they were as brave and as high spirited as they were fierce, and
were ready to repel by arms every attempt on their independence.
(Getches, et.al., p. 66)
However extravagant the pretension of converting the discovery of an
inhabited country into conquest may appear; if the principle has been
asserted in the first instance, and afterwards sustained; if a country has
been acquired and held under it; if the property of the great mass of the
community originates in it, it becomes the law of the land, and cannot be
questioned. So, too with respect to the concomitant principle, that the
Indian inhabitants are to be considered merely as occupants, to be
protected, indeed, while in peace, in the possession of their lands, but to be
deemed incapable of transferring the absolute title to others. Getches,
et.al., p. 67).
No American Indian person or peoples nor Native nations were parties in this
case. A case that took away American Indian property and made them mere tenants did
not include them in order to protect their interests. A case that diminished their status as
nations did not include them. Such is a violation of fundamental fairness and due process.
The case is anchored in white supremacy. The “character and religion” of American
Indians makes them subject to “the superior genius of Europe.”
The speeches made by President Jackson sometimes included in the textbooks
draws upon much of the language used by Marshall in this case. Marshall tells of why the
American Indians cannot be incorporated into the U.S. by calling them constantly
warring savages who do not use the land for cultivation, but keep it a wilderness. This is
a continuing discourse from the Declaration of Independence which accused the king of
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setting American Indians against settlers while describing the American Indians as
constantly at war and killing women and children.
What is the compensation provided the American Indians for their land? The
whites bring them civilization and Christianity.
How can the U.S. government obtain the Indian title? The U.S. can obtain the
consent of such from American Indians or should the American Indians not remain “in
peace,” lose their protection. This is the just war doctrine. The dominant description of
American Indians as savages in a constant state of war allows for an easier account of
atrocities attributed to them to justify taking their land.
Marshall, in this 1823 case, recognizes the problem of claiming conquest when
such had not occurred and responds by simply saying that such had been asserted from
the start and continued to be asserted and as such “it becomes the law of the land.”
American exceptionalism is well stated within the opinion. The U.S. follows international
law when it benefits and makes exception when such is needed for the greater good,
which means taking land and resources in exchange for the American way of life.
The U.S. legal system requires actual cases or controversies. Echo-Hawk tells us
Johnson was a “friendly lawsuit” with a “feigned controversy” (2010, p. 56). In addition,
Marshall had an enormous personal stake in the outcome that necessitated the “farreaching dicta” that has greatly impacted American Indians from 1823 to the present (p.
56). Robertson provides substantial details on all of these points (2005). The short story is
that the interests that bought the lands directly from the American Indian nations
controlled the entire case. Circumstances ended up defeating their objectives. Marshall
109
and his family owned substantial interests in lands nearby that were obtained from
Virginia post-war (Echo-Hawk, 2010, pp. 68-72). Marshall turned the case from a preRevolutionary War case to a post-war case which secured his title in lands. He should
have excused himself from the case (p. 71).
Johnson influenced the development of indigenous land rights in Australia, New
Zealand, and Canada (Duthu, 2008, p. 73). Its influence on U.S. foreign policy has
previously been noted.
The case is not included in any textbook despite its significance around the world
and the continuing impact on American Indians. The case continues to be cited in the 21st
century (Duthu, 208, p. 73). As Williams (2005, p. 57) states:
“What should really matter, therefore, in terms of our present-day
understanding of Indian rights as interpreted by the Supreme Court, is that
Johnson v. McIntosh is still the reigning and supreme law of the land in
the United States. In fact, unlike Dred Scott, its antiquated and discredited
nineteenth-century counterpart minority rights decision negating black
Americans’ rights to citizenship, Johnson v. McIntosh and the stereotypeinfused model of Indian rights that it incorporates into U.S. law are relied
upon frequently and without any form of discomfort, embarrassment, or
even qualification as governing the Indian rights decisions of the presentday Supreme Court justices.”
As Grande (2004) reminds us, American Indians remind the U.S. of its great lies.
This case and the other Trilogy cases show how deeply ingrained in the western mindset
the idea of savage is (Williams, 2012). If included in detail within textbooks, this case
would expose how most white Americans believed in a system that deemed American
Indians racially and otherwise inferior to the Anglo-Saxon. The rule of law made a nonparty to a lawsuit mere tenants on land they controlled for millennia. No wonder EchoHawk included this case as one of the ten worst (2010, pp. 55-86).
110
The Cherokee Cases
The last two cases of the Marshall Trilogy are referred to as the Cherokee cases.
Before the cases are discussed, here is a look at the Cherokee during the 1820s and 30s.
By the time of Johnson (1823), Cherokee country was covered with log cabins and farms
that were equal or even superior to their white neighbors (Venables, 2003 vol. 2, p. 95).
A few Cherokee had become prosperous plantation owners (p. 95). The state of Georgia
protested when John Quincy Adams and John C. Calhoun referred to visiting Cherokee as
“gentlemen” (p. 95). The inferior savage image was needed to argue that Indians were
standing in the way of a superior white civilization properly entitled to the land in the
view of white people.
The Cherokee began reorganizing their government in 1817 and in 1828 ratified a
new constitution (Venables, 2003 vol. 2, p. 99). The structure emulated the U.S and did
away with ancient female councils (p. 99). The Cherokee prospered. In 1825, the
population of the Cherokee Nation was 13,783 that included 147 white men and 73 white
women (p. 99). They had roads and ferries (p. 99). They had substantial numbers of
livestock and farm equipment (p. 99). New buildings were constructed in New Echota (p.
99). They owned 1,277 black slaves, which in the South meant fulfilling the American
Dream (p. 100). Many Cherokee were educated in the best schools and colleges. The
newspaper was printed in English and Cherokee (p. 100). The Cherokee were doing so
well, they rejected a $50,000 offer from Congress to move west (pp. 100-1).
Some Cherokee, especially those preferring their older ways, had moved west
earlier in the nineteenth century, including Sequoyah (Venables, 2003, vol. 2 , p. 94).
111
Promises to the Cherokee that if they moved west, their lands there would be free from
whites forever met with denial as those that had moved west were already losing lands to
whites though made the same promise (p. 104). The Cherokee leaders continued to make
appeals and meet with government officials to prevent removal. The public and
politicians knew that the Treaty of New Echota was not a proper treaty, but the U.S.
Senate ratified it anyway in 1836 along political, not sectional lines (p. 143).
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia 1831
How did the real Cherokee influence Chief Justice Marshall’s opinions in the
Cherokee Cases? This time a Native nation was a party to the suit. The Cherokee saw the
hanging of the Cherokee Corn Tassel by the state of Georgia as a good time to bring an
original suit against Georgia in the Supreme Court to stop Georgia from its actions in the
Cherokee Nation (Venables, 2004, vol. 2, p. 114). The state had hung Corn Tassel after
the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order for the state to appear in the case to show why it
had authority over a crime in Cherokee Country involving Cherokees. Article Three of
the U.S. Constitution allows a foreign nation to sue a state in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Instead of addressing the actions of Georgia, Marshall considered whether the Court had
jurisdiction. This issue hinged upon whether the Cherokee Nation was a foreign nation
(Echo-Hawk, 2010, p. 103). Four of six justices decided that Cherokee Nation was not a
foreign nation and the case was dismissed.
The rationale of the Court relates back to Johnson. “They occupy a territory to
which we assert a title independent of their will…” the opinion stated. In addition,
American Indians “are in a state of pupilage” and “their relation to the United States
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resembles that of a ward to his guardian.” The framers of the Constitution did not
imagine Indians coming into court and neither did the Indians whose “appeal was to the
tomahawk.” Native nations were “domestic dependent nations” (Echo-Hawk, p 104).
The imperial, colonial, and racial language and reasoning continued.
The reality of Cherokee Nation made no difference. They no longer had attributes
of external sovereignty and the federal government was essentially their trustee. The
Court said Cherokee rights were political questions to be addressed by the legislative and
administrative branches. Marshall rejected the general international rule that nations not
owing a common allegiance are foreign to each other. He favored the peculiar and unique
nature of the U.S. and Indian reality. An opinion by Justice Johnson supporting the
decision stated the American Indians were restless, warlike, and cruel. Continuing, he
said they could not be nations because they were a lowly race of humans (1823).
So, the one case of the Marshall Trilogy with American Indians as a party is
dismissed without consideration of the injustices which necessitated bringing the suit.
The importance of this case for American Indians according to Echo-Hawk (2010) is that
it shut the courthouse doors for Native nations.
Worcester v. Georgia 1832
No case ever had the federal 1830 Indian Removal Act as an issue. This act
authorized the government to obtain Indian lands in the east in exchange for lands west
by treaty. Worcester v Georgia (1832) was the appeal of a criminal conviction in state
court. The parties were some white missionaries that had not followed Georgia
requirements for living in Cherokee Country and the state of Georgia. Certainly,
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Cherokee was involved in the case behind the scenes. This is because the issue was
whether state laws applied in Cherokee Nation. The answer was no and the reason was
that the Cherokee were in control of their internal affairs as a distinct political community
and the only government with power to deal with them was the federal government. The
federal government had a duty to protect Cherokee from those outside trying to interfere
with Cherokee.
The ability of either the Supreme Court or the president to enforce the holding
regarding the missionaries was limited at the time of the case. Jackson did convince the
governor of Georgia to release the missionaries and avoided the growing state
nullification movement that threatened the union (Satz, 2002, p. 53). The federal Indian
Removal Act of 1830 remained in effect and was never an issue before the Supreme
Court..
APPRAISAL and Critical Analysis
Review of APPRAISAL
APPRAISAL analysis holds that writers make choices (Coffin, 2006). These
choices are made in three areas: engagement, graduation, and attitude. The first choice is
in the area of engagement. Here the analysis looks at whether the text is monogloss or
heterogloss. Monogloss text assumes the audience shares the same, single world view as
the writer (Coffin, 2006, p. 143). The text lacks diversity in perspective and has no
conflict or struggle among differing voices. Heterogloss is the opposite. It assumes that a
single view is problematic and that other views raise the issues. The heterogloss text
signals that meaning is contingent and subject to negotiation.
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Graduation examines force and focus (Coffin, 2006, p. 143). The analysis looks
for words that raise or lower the force of statements. Some words may sharpen or soften
the focus of the text.
The primary focus under attitude is judgment analysis (Coffin, 2006, p. 141).
Here is a summary of the examination process:
1. Is the judgment direct (explicit) or indirect (evoked) realization? The
indirect are often referred to as Tokens of Judgment.
2. Does the judgment relate to social esteem (normality, capacity,
tenacity) or social sanction (veracity, propriety, or ethics)?
3. Is the evaluation positive or negative and who is evaluated?
Meaning may directly come from the word choices used by the writer or may be evoked
by specific words or by stretches of words or interactions across the text. See Appendix A
for a visual of APRAISAL. Appendix B provides a visual of Judgment.
Critical Textual Analysis
After the reviewer’s APPRAISAL analysis, each textbook is analyzed using a
critical indigenized lens. This is consistent with Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis as
we move from strict textual analysis toward discursive processes of the text and finally
toward explaining the discourse and social processes (1995, pp. 98-99).
The Textbooks
Boyer’s The American Nation
Boyer’s The American Nation (2001) is a long standing series. Dr. Boyer is the
Merle Curti Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is listed as
the single author. The five member Editorial Review Board consists of three professors of
history: Nan Woodruff specializes in 20th century southern history; Alfred Young
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specializes in African American history, and Yasuhide Kawashima specializes in
American legal history and wrote Puritan Justice and the Indian: White Man’s Law in
Massachusetts’s 1630-1763 (1986). The other two board members are a retired social
studies teacher from Albuquerque and a social studies department chair in Tulsa.
Seven contributors include Thomas Clarkson, author of Federal Indian Policy in
the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations: 1961-1969 (2001) , Paul Hutton author of The
Custer Reader (1993), Raymond Hyster, Mary Carroll Johansen, Carol Karlsen, Richard
Salvucci, and Otey Scruggs; all hold doctorates.
Content reviewers include twelve professors that reviewed the following areas
according to their specialty: post-World War II, U.S. political, 20th Century, urban,
women, U.S. 1492 – 1865, labor, colonial, ethnic, Gilded Age and Progressive Era,
antebellum reform, southern, late 19th century, early 20th century, Spain, Civil War and
Reconstruction, American Revolution, and maritime. Reviewer Melvin Holli focused on
ethnic studies mostly in Chicago and the Midwest with a strong focus on immigrants
from Europe. Fifteen educational reviewers are noted, none seem to be in American
Indian serving schools. Nine field test teachers are noted, none serve in American Indian
schools.
In Boyer’s The American Nation one of the Marshall Trilogy cases is discussed,
but left unidentified and Worcester is both named and discussed (2001, p. 245). These
occur in Chapter Seven “Nationalism and Economic Growth” in section four “Jackson’s
Policies Define an Era” (p. 243-49). Here is the relevant text surrounding the other two
Marshall Trilogy cases (pp. 245-6):
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Resistance in court. The Cherokee fought for their rights through the
courts. Arguing that they were a sovereign nation, similar to a foreign
country, the tribe appealed to the Supreme Court. In 1831 the Court ruled
that Indian tribes were not like foreign countries, but rather were
“domestic dependent nations,” with neither the freedom of a foreign
country nor the rights of U.S. citizens. This meant while tribes were
subject to federal laws, they did not have the right to sue in federal court.
To test whether this ruling applied to state as well as federal authority,
Cherokee ally Samuel Worcester disobeyed an order from the Georgia
militia to leave Indian lands. After he was arrested he appealed his case to
the Supreme Court, arguing that the state of Georgia had no power over
Indian lands. In the case of Worcester v. Georgia, Chief Justice John
Marshall ruled in favor of Worcester and the Cherokee, limiting state
power over them. The Court also indicated that the federal government
had an obligation to protect the Cherokee from state governments that
were trying to take their lands.
The victory was short-lived, however. Georgia officials – with Jackson’s
support – ignored the Court’s ruling and continued to seize Cherokee
lands. “John Marshall has made his decision,” Jackson is said to have
declared, “now let him enforce it.” Without federal protection, the
Cherokee could not hold out. In 1835 a group representing a minority of
the tribe signed a treaty that granted Cherokee land to the United States. In
return the Cherokee would receive money and land in Indian Territory.
The tribe was ordered to move west within three years.
The Trail of Tears. By the 1838 deadline, few of some 18,000 Cherokee
had moved west. Federal troops began forcing the remaining Cherokee to
make the journey to Indian Territory. An estimated 4,000 Cherokee died
on the 800-mile journey that came to be known as the Trail of Tears.
“Many fell by the wayside, too faint with hunger or too weak to keep up
with the rest,” remembered one of the survivors: “A crude bed was
quickly prepared for these sick and weary people. Only a bowl of water
was left within reach, thus they were left to suffer and die alone. The little
children piteously cried day after day….They were once happy children.”
APPRAISAL
The APPRAISAL analysis by this reviewer of Boyer’s The American Nation
shows the majority of Cherokee as acting properly in fighting for rights in court, but with
little capacity to resist what the improper actions of Georgia, Jackson, and the U.S.
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government were doing to them. The text is written in a monogloss manner and
judgments are indirect. The voice of the writing is recorder which appears the most
objective with indirect judgments.
All judgments are indirect unless noted otherwise. When the text notes that the
“Cherokee fought for their rights in courts” indirect positive judgments are made
concerning the normality, capacity, and tenacity of the Cherokee. But when the text notes
that the Cherokee did not have the right to sue in federal court there is indirect judgment
of a negative capacity. Both Georgia and Jackson are indirectly judged negatively for
normality and propriety when the text states that “Georgia officials –with Jackson’s
support – ignored the Court’s ruling and continued to seize Cherokee lands.” Cherokee
capacity is indirectly judged negatively and the U.S. government is indirectly negatively
judged for propriety when the reader is told that without “federal protection, the
Cherokee could not hold out.” Additional negative indirect judgment of Cherokee
capacity is indicated by the “tribe” being ordered and forced westward. A positive
indirect judgment of tenacity is made when the reader is told that few of the Cherokee
had left by the imposed deadline. Finally, the reader sees a positive indirect judgment
about federal troop capacity in forcing the Cherokee from their homes.
While the voice is recorder and very substantially monogloss, the inclusion of a
Cherokee survivor’s voice does bring some heteroglossia. However, that voice which
describes the suffering seems to reinforce the idea of the lack of capacity of the Cherokee
and that these events were sad, but inevitable.
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The overall narrative is one that the good Cherokee did their best to invoke the
federal courts, but the bad president from a southern state and a bad southern state
refused to follow the court rulings and forced the Cherokee west. While this is true to a
certain extent, later discussion shows the problem of such narrative and how it serves the
majority national narrative.
Critical Analysis
This reviewer’s critical analysis of Boyer’s The American Nation shows, like
other textbooks, a narrative that provides a substantial amount of text devoted to the
forced removal of the five Native nations from the southeast to Indian Territory. The text
notes how early hopes of U.S. officials that American Indians would “blend in to
American society” gave way to simple land hunger (p. 243). What is not stated is that
justification for the land theft became highly racialized. In addition, there is no inquiry on
why American Indians should blend into the white colonizer society rather than the other
way around. White supremacy is assumed as the norm. Instead, the textbook says that by
switching to farming, American Indians were now seen as competitors. This left unstated
a wrong assumption that American Indian peoples were not farmers until the whites came
and taught them (Cajete, 2000, pp. 107-47). No question is raised on why competition is
problematic in a country with competition as an essential element of national identity. In
addition, why is the focus on removing American Indian competitors and no other
competitors? Should white immigration be controlled? Was the real problem that white
farming methods depleted the soil (Venables, 2004, vol. 2, p. 85)? Perhaps there is no
inquiry on this because it exposes the anti-Indian, white supremacy of the majority.
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The text portrays Jackson as a humanitarian concerning the federal Indian
Removal Act of 1830 (Boyer, 2001, p. 244). By moving westward, the argument went,
the American Indians would not be bothered by whites. The textbook leaves out
Jackson’s depiction of the Cherokee as wandering savages who roamed over too much
land (Calloway, 2008, p. 230). He knew this was not true because he knew the Cherokee
and fought with them against the Creek (Calloway, p. 230). The textbook admits that
Cherokee, like Sequoya, served in the Cherokee regiment in the U.S. army (Boyer, p.
243). Jackson compared the roaming American Indians with an extensive republic of
cities and prosperous farms with all the improvements of civilization (Calloway, p. 230).
The only place for American Indians was somewhere out of the way of whites. In other
words, in the face of advancing white civilization “the Savage as the wolf” would retreat;
“both being beasts of prey though they differ in shape” (1783 Washington speech to
Congress cited in Williams, 2005, p. 42). Obviously, this speech is not included in high
school U.S. history, or more appropriately, heritage books. No critical inquiry is asked of
students on why the “civilized” Cherokee were treated as they were. Students are not
asked to understand why the lies are told and why they have such impact.
While the Seminoles fought a war to prevent loss of homelands, the text indicates
that the Cherokee fought for their rights in court (Boyer, 2001, p. 245). This textbook
discusses two of the three foundational cases of federal Indian law. The first case
discussed, which is never named, is Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831). The textbook
says that the Cherokee argued that they were a foreign nation (p. 245). Left unstated is
that the suit was brought to enjoin the state of Georgia from extending its law into
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Cherokee and to stop their harassment. The narrative does not say that the foreign nation
argument was required because the case was filed originally in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The U.S. Supreme Court has a narrow range of cases that it can hear as the first court of
record. One area the court has original jurisdiction over is claims between a foreign
nation and a state. Obviously, the Cherokee did not see the usefulness of filing their case
in Georgia since the actions of Georgia were at issue and state laws and state courts were
very much against American Indians (Echo-Hawk, 2010, p. 99).
The textbook accurately states that the Supreme Court determined that the
Cherokee Nation was not a foreign nation, but a domestic dependent nation (p. 245). The
Supreme Court dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds and declared the actions of
Georgia a political question to be addressed outside the Supreme Court (Echo-Hawk,
2010, p. 105). This essentially encouraged Georgia to continue its actions against the
Cherokee which was the real reason that the Cherokee brought suit in the first place.
Inclusion of such details might tarnish a Supreme Court that the master narrative needs to
present as an agent of ever expanding rights.
The textbook does not discuss important issues related to Cherokee Nation v.
Georgia. The textbook ignores the language and reasoning of the Supreme Court in
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia.
Worcester v. Georgia is named and discussed. The case is framed as the federal
government preventing Georgia from removing the Cherokee from Georgia (Boyer,
2001, p. 334). The text does make it appear that President Jackson is acting badly by not
following the Supreme Court in providing protection against the actions of Georgia
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(Boyer, p. 245). While this is true, making the case stand against removal when that was
not an issue and blaming the southerner Jackson for not enforcing the imagined case is in
error. The New Yorker, President Van Buren ordered troops to force removal under the
illegal treaty (Venables, 2004, p. 154). The textbook narrative fits into the current nonracist racism ideas that racism is simply the result of individual bad actors, especially if
they are southern, and not a more systematic racial and cultural issue.
The causes of death and suffering are not described. The national support for the
actions of forced removal, corruption of both government officials and private
contractors, and the actions of troops and whites could provide useful insight. All of these
result from the legal and political views of American Indians as less than fully human.
Johnson would provide incredible insights.
This American Creed idea that everything is getting better is shown on the page
following removal. In a boxed off section entitled “Changing Ways: Indian Territory” a
population graph shows the number of American Indians in Indian Territory then and
now (Boyer, 2001, p. 246). The population is shown greatly increased. The
accompanying photographs show American Indians sitting outside apparently working on
a hide and then a contemporary classroom. We are not told whether the numbers included
the American Indian peoples in the removed territories before and at the time of removal.
Nor are we told what the numbers would have been without genocidal policies. This is
something textbooks and the Anglo-American story leave out. The U.S. government
assumed the right to place American Indian nations where there already were American
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Indian nations. The assumption of vacant lands is strong. These peoples were erased by
the ideology of the U.S. and today’s textbooks.
The critical thinking questions ask students to explain how Indian removal
reflected the “lack of power afforded to American Indians by the U.S. government”
(Boyer, 2001, p. 249). This makes American Indian power something that comes from
the U.S. government and not from their natural rights as nations and as human beings or
owners of land long before whites came. Inherent sovereignty, never discussed in
textbooks, is wiped from the narrative.
No other federal Indian law cases are included; although, lawsuits in general are
discussed later. Two American Indian mentions occur in Chapter Twenty-nine “Society
After World War II 1945-1960.” In Section Three “Voices of Dissent,” American Indians
appear with African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians. In a sub-section entitled “Beyond
Black and White” is a segment on “Relocation of American Indians” that discusses the
relocation program and attempts to terminate Native nations in the 1950s (Boyer, 2001, p.
885). A photograph of a young American Indian is labeled “Protesting” and the sign says
“Must you take everything the Indians own?” American Indians have now become not
only another minority ethnic group, but one of the other minority ethnic groups. They,
like the others, were protesting. In the section review on page 887, students are asked,
“What did the experiences of Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Americans Indians reveal
about the United States in the 1950s?” The unique political, legal, and racial status of
American Indians has been obliterated; consumed into the minority groups struggle for
rights.
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This erasure of the special nature of American Indian peoples and nations is seen
in the last four American Indian mentions for this textbook in Unit Nine, “A Changing
Home Front 1954-1978,” which is 115 pages or approximately 10.5% of the text. After
Chapter Thirty, “The New Frontier and the Great Society 1961-1969,” and Chapter
Thirty-one, “The Civil Rights Movement 1960-1978,” American Indians receive four
pages of coverage after “Women’s Rights” and “The Chicano Movement.” Under “More
Groups Mobilize,” we have “American Indian Activism” which discusses the Red Power
movement, the Alcatraz occupation, Wounded Knee, and legal and political lobbying.
Once again, the textbook points out the extreme poverty of American Indians without
ever addressing the causes, such as racism and anti-Indianism, both at the individual and
structural levels. The text says that the Red Power movement was spurred by this extreme
poverty and “inspired by other groups’ civil rights gains” (Boyer, 2001, p. 961). This
denies American Indian peoples the capacity to develop their own movement without
someone else first developing.
The Red Power movement is part of the discourse of increasing civil rights for all
groups. While the text states that the movement sought self-determination, the basis for
such a claim and how it differs from the civil rights movement are left unexplained. Yet
students are asked in the section review how the claims of American Indians were
different (Boyer, 2001, p. 965). The problem is that it does not ask why they are different
and the textbook does not provide sufficient information throughout to explain that
question if asked.
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The last sub-section is entitled “Gaining Ground” where “quieter methods” such
as lawsuits and political lobbying result in success for Taos Pueblo and American Indians
in Maine. Again, all of this falls into a discourse that these groups are making the U.S.
live up to its creed as more and more rights are granted by whites. Progress is being
made, so the story goes, and patience and quieter means will pay off more than vocal
protests.
The erasure of the unique status of American Indian peoples at the end of the text
treatment relates back to the very beginning of the textbook where they are called “First
Americans” (Boyer, 2001, p. 4). The textbook tries to give different perspectives on
origins by inclusion of American Indian stories. The textbook tries to say that American
Indians had history and laws and were very diverse. But when all is said and done, the
textbook cannot escape the U.S. national narrative of immigrants as a way to deny
American Indians an identity of their own based upon the possibility they were here from
the beginning (Good, 2009, pp. 51-2, 57-8).
Good (2009) analyzed the same exact text that appears in this textbook above
about American Indian myths and then stating that scientists offer other theories about
origins. She notes that simply referring to a “Native American Legend” and not the
specific nation in effect silences the American Indian voice (Good, p. 55). The immediate
opposition to the American Indian voice by the Western scientific one serves to silence
and diminish the American Indian voice (Good, p. 55). Vine Deloria reminded us about
the myth of scientific fact and that Western science should not be privileged in telling the
American Indian story because the myths of science are just other inherited ways of
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believing things about the world (1995, p. 15). This part of the textbook points out the
problem of seeking more inclusion: the textbooks may add what we request, but through
various means they diffuse these additions and the most troubling aspect of the textbooks
remain which is a narrative of Anglo-Saxon supremacy, American Exceptionalism, and
Manifest Destiny.
There are no American Indian mentions in Boyer’s The American Nation (2001)
in section four of chapter thirty-two or for all of Unit Ten, “Modern Times 1968Present.” This amounts to no American Indian inclusion in 120 pages or approximately
10.95% of the entire text. American Indians are not associated with the modern. The real
Indians are in the past, dead. The 20th century American Indians help out in the wars like
other ethnic minorities and protest for rights and are rarely seen.
The Americans
The authors listed for The Americans (2009) are Gerald Danzer, J. Jorge Klor de
Alva, Larry S. Kreiger, Louis E. Wilson, and Nancy Woloch. Danzer, Wilson, and
Woloch are professors. Danzer and Woloch teach history and Wilson is a professor of
Afro-American Studies. Klor de Alva was formerly a professor of ethnic studies and
anthropology and was reported as president of Apollo International, Inc. Apollo
International owns many for-profit educational institutions including the University of
Phoenix. Krieger is a social studies supervisor for a public school system. A
Multicultural Advisory Board includes Jon Reyhner of Northern Arizona University who
has written on American Indian issues.
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The Americans includes only one case that it names and discusses of the Marshall
Trilogy. While Worcester v. Georgia is named and discussed, Cherokee Nation is only
discussed (Danzer, et. al, 2009, p. 228). None of the American Indian cases are among
the ten Historic Decisions of the Supreme Court (p. xv). Only Worcester has an index
entry (p. R118). The two cases are discussed under “Removal of Native Americans” in
section three, “The Age of Jackson,” in chapter seven, “Balancing Nationalism and
Sectionalism (p. 226-29).”
Here is the text from The Americans related to the cases (pp. 228-9):
The Cherokee Fight Back. Meanwhile, the Cherokee Nation tried to win
just treatment through the U.S. legal system. Chief Justice John Marshall
refused to rule on the first case the Cherokee brought against Georgia,
though, because in his view the Cherokee Nation had no federal standing;
it was neither a foreign nation nor a state, but rather a “domestic
dependent nation.” Undaunted, the Cherokee teamed up with Samuel
Austin Worcester, a missionary who had been jailed for teaching Indians
without a state license. The Cherokee knew the Court would have to
recognize a citizen’s right to be heard.
In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the Cherokee Nation finally won
recognition as a distinct political community. The Court ruled that Georgia
was not entitled to regulate the Cherokee nor invade their lands. Jackson
refused to abide by the Supreme Court decision saying: “John Marshall
has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”
Cherokee leader John Ross still tried to fight the state in courts, but other
Cherokee began to promote relocation. In 1835, federal agents declared
the minority who favored relocation the true representatives of the
Cherokee Nation and promptly had them sign the Treaty of New Echota.
This treaty gave the last 8 million acres of Cherokee land to the federal
government in exchange for approximately $5 million and land “west of
the Mississippi.” The signing of this treaty marked the beginning of the
Cherokee exodus. However, when by 1838 nearly 20,000 Cherokee still
remained in the East, President Martin Van Buren (Jackson’s successor)
ordered their forced removal. U.S. Army troops under the command of
General Winfield Scott rounded up the Cherokee and drove them into
camps to await the journey.
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The Trail of Tears. Beginning in October and November of 1838, the
Cherokee were sent off in groups of about 1,000 each on the long journey.
The 800-mile trip was made partly by steamboat and railroad but mostly
on foot. As the winter came on, more and more of the Cherokee died en
route.
A Personal Voice Trails of Tears Survivor. “Children cry and many men
cry, and all look sad like when friends die, but they say nothing and just
put heads down and keep on go towards west. Many days pass and people
die very much.”
Along the way, government officials stole the Cherokee’s money, while
outlaws made off with their livestock. The Cherokee buried more than a
quarter of the people along what came to be known as the Trail of Tears.
When they reached their final destination, they ended up on land inferior
to that which they had been forced to leave.
APPRAISAL
The reviewer’s APPRAISAL analysis of The Americans shows the majority of
Cherokee acting normally and properly in fighting for rights in court, but with little
capacity to resist what the improper actions of Georgia, Jackson, and the U.S.
government were doing to them. The text is written in a monogloss manner and
judgments are indirect. There are heteroglossic segments. For instance, when the decision
in the unnamed Cherokee Nation case is discussed, the phrase “in his view” is used to
introduce Marshall’s opinion. This suggests other views. In addition, the very
objectionable point-counterpoint debate on Indian removal, that accompanies the text
provided above, suggests different views are possible on genocidal actions. The voice of
the writing is recorder which assumes writer and reader alignment and which appears the
most objective since judgments are indirect.
The statement in The Americans (2009) that “Cherokee Nation tried to win just
treatment through the U.S. legal system” acknowledges both a positive normality and
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capacity of the Cherokee. The word “just” when combined with “in his view” when
discussing Marshall’s opinion denying Cherokee Nation foreign nation status and
standing to sue indicate a judgment that the decision was not just or proper. The holding
is a negative judgment of Cherokee capacity. Other negative judgments of Cherokee
capacity occur when the text describes them being “sent off” and having their things
stolen. The reader is provided positive judgment of Cherokee tenacity and capacity when
they set up the Worcester case, when John Ross continues court battles even after
Worcester, and when by 1838 nearly 20,000 remained in Georgia. Georgia lacked
propriety with the Court ruling striking down its laws in Cherokee and Jackson lacked
propriety when he did not abide by the decision. Federal agents are doubly judged
negatively on veracity and propriety when they treatied with a minority Cherokee interest
and when they stole Cherokee money. President Van Buren and the troops are judged
capable when he orders them to enforce the treaty and force the Cherokee westward.
Note how the text ties Van Buren to Jackson by noting him as Jackson’s successor.
The overall APPRAISAL story is that the Cherokee valiantly fought in court to
stay on their lands, but did not have the capacity to withstand a questionable decision in
the unnamed Cherokee Nation opinion and the improper actions of Jackson and crooked
federal agents after Worcester.
Critical Analysis
Critical analysis of The Americans shows that the holding in Cherokee Nation v.
Georgia (1831) is included without actually naming the case. Per the text, Cherokee
Nation was deemed by the U.S. Supreme Court not to be a foreign nation, but a
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“domestic dependent nation” and the case was dismissed (Danzer, et.al., 2009, p. 228).
Much important information is left out.
In the named case of Worcester v. Georgia, the text states that the Cherokee were
a “distinct political community” and state law did not apply there (Danzer, et. al., 2009,
p. 228). The details of the basis of the holding are left out so that students are not
provided the special relationship Native nations have with the federal government and
why such relationship exists. This text, like many others, frames that case as denying
removal and makes Jackson’s lack of enforcement appear to be the cause of removal. In
fact, Jackson had no legal authority to enforce the Worcester decision which reversed
state court criminal convictions (Satz, 2002, p. 49). However, the text also notes that the
federal Indian Removal Act empowered the federal government to conduct the removal
through properly negotiated treaties. This text recognizes such and that the government
often designated friendly Indian leaders, who lacked authority to act for the entire nation,
to sign treaties of removal (p. 229). This is what happened to the Cherokee.
The Americans recognizes that the actual forced removal was ordered by
President Van Buren from the state of New York. Most texts imply that the actual
removal was done by Georgia or Andrew Jackson.
The death and suffering of the Cherokee is blamed on the winter, government
officials, and outlaws. The national support of whites and their legal and political system
are not blamed. That legal system described American Indians as lesser humans.
The thinking critically exercise is a point –counterpoint debate on whether the Indian
Removal Act of 1830 was a terrible injustice or simply an unfortunate but necessary act
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by the United States (Danzer, et. al., 2009, p. 228). This thinking critically box asks
students to consider where Jackson and the tribes disagreed. Thus, an act of genocide
against American Indians is reduced to mere political and intellectual debate and
disagreement without significant moral and human rights dimensions.
Unit Six, “The 1920s and the Great Depression 1919 – 1940,” has two American
Indian mentions. One mention in Chapter Twenty “Politics of the Roaring Twenties,” is a
look back on how the government expanded economic opportunity for “whites by
clearing the land of its native inhabitants, relocating them to reservations or killing them”
(Danzer, et. al., 2009, p. 635). The word “inhabitants” is used rather than “owners.”
While arguably this is consistent with federal Indian law first announced in the case that
no textbook includes, such law should be addressed in the textbook and the basis for such
law in white supremacy should be exposed.
American Indians are paired with Latinos in Chapter Thirty-one, “An Era of
Social Change.” Section 1 is entitled “Latinos and Native Americans Seek Equality’
(Danzer, et. al., 2009, p. 974). This title reflects the master narrative of U.S.
exceptionalism that the U.S. is the brightest beacon of equality, liberty, and justice and
that those originally denied such have fought for and eventually been granted equality.
These pages reinforce the idea that any flaws in the U.S. have been worked out in its
superior system.
Ben Nighthorse Campbell (Northern Cheyenne) is praised for choosing “to work
within the system to improve” American Indian lives (Danzer, et. al, p. 977). Left out are
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many American Indians scholars, professionals, and leaders such as Vine Deloria Jr. and
many others.
“Congress and the federal courts did make some reforms on behalf of” American
Indians (Danzer, et. al., p. 978). Thus, American Indians are without agency. They must
wait for the government to act for them. A graphic on page 979 with arrows pointing
right indicating progress lists “Native American Legal Victories.” Interestingly, four of
the five victories have large sums of money noted. This adds to the rich Indian
stereotype. There is no chart or mention at all of the extremely damaging court opinions
in cases lost by American Indians or that the so-called victories are often framed in terms
demeaning to the full humanity of American Indians (Williams, 2005; Echo-Hawk,
2010).
The above section recognizes the desire by American Indians to gain control over
their affairs, but this text is under a big, bold sub-section title of “Native Americans
Struggle for Equality” (Danzer, et. al., 2009, p. 977). By clinging to their heritage and
refusing to blend in, American Indians are made responsible for being the poorest of U.S.
citizens that suffer the greatest rates of alcoholism. The termination policy of the 1950s is
seen as a cure by essentially forcing assimilation, but since it did not respect American
Indian culture, American Indians remained poor. American Indian culture is essentially
the cause of all American Indian problems and not colonization, white supremacy, and
policies of genocide. The American Indian Movement is presented as militant, violent,
destructive, and criminal. Violence by the government and others, excepting a mention of
police brutality as the organizing force for AIM, is not portrayed.
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The book opens with the theme of three worlds, three cultures, meeting with
different values. Cultural discourse takes over the tasks of racial discourse. Values clash
rather than a story of power and exploitation. It all is so acceptable and inevitable and
nicer than conquest and oppression (Wetherell & Potter, 1992, p. 137). The 20th century
Native is lost because of the culture contact and the politics of the dispossessed becomes
mere “ethnic politics” sanitized from the mainstream (p. 138).
In the final chapter, Chapter Thirty-four, “The United States in Today’s World,”
American Indians are included in the section discussing how immigration is changing the
country’s ethnic make-up (Danzer, et. al., 2009, p. 1092). The original inhabitants have
finally become nothing other than late-coming immigrants. This is set up from the
beginning of the text when Western science is privileged by the story of the Bering Strait
migration. Yet on the opposite page the text notes that the “ancestors of America’s
original inhabitants” continue to struggle (p. 1093). Per the textbook, the struggle is
needed because they are poor, alcoholic, and suicidal. The struggle mostly takes place in
courts where they get greater recognition of their rights. Thus according to the textbook,
American Indians are a litigious ethnic group making the U.S. a better place by forcing it
to live up to its ideals of equality and freedom for all in The Americans.
American Anthem
American Anthem (2009) has four college professors listed as authors. Deborah
White is a history professor at Rutgers and specializes in African-American history.
Robert Schulzinger is a professor of history at the University of Colorado with an
emphasis on post-World War II. Jesus F. de la Teja is a professor of history at Texas
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State University in San Marcos with an emphasis on Spanish borderlands and Texas. He
is the State Historian of Texas. Edward Ayers is professor of history and president of the
University of Richmond. His focus is on the U.S. Civil War. Senior Program Consultant
Sam Wineburg is a professor of education at Stanford and directs the only doctoral
program in History Education. Program Consultant Kylene Beers is a reading researcher
at Yale.
Three Academic Consultants specialize in religion, constitutional law, and
geography. Four Academic reviewers are college history professors with specialties in
civil rights, law, constitution, colonial, late 19th century, women, and medical. Ten
educational reviewers are high school teachers. Nine high school teachers field tested the
textbook. None of the high school teachers teach at a Native serving school. None of the
authors, academic reviewers, academic consultants, or program consultants have a
specialty in American Indian.
American Anthem includes only Worcester of the Marshall Trilogy which is both
named and discussed. Worcester is in the index (White, et. al, 2009, p. R142) and in the
main text (p. 248) as well as in the supplement “Supreme Court Decisions” (p. R22).
Cherokee Nation is discussed in the text without being named (p. 248). The discussion
occurs in Chapter Seven “From Nationalism to Sectionalism” and in section two “The
Age of Jackson.” Under a subsection entitled “The Indian Removal Act,” the cases are
discussed under “The Trail of Tears” (p. 248). Here is the text including cases (p. 248):
The Trail of Tears. While the Seminole resisted removal with armed force,
the Cherokee fought in the American court system. They sued the federal
government, claiming that they had the right to be respected as a foreign
country. The case reached the Supreme Court in 1831. Chief Justice John
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Marshall, however, refused to hear the case. He ruled that the Cherokee
had no right to bring suit since they were neither citizens nor a foreign
country.
The Cherokee, however, had another plan of attack. Samuel Austin
Worcester was a white man, a teacher, and a friend to the Cherokee. The
state of Georgia, carrying out the Indian Removal Act, ordered Worcester
to leave Cherokee land. He refused and brought suit on behalf of himself
and the Cherokee.
In 1832 John Marshall’s Supreme Court issued its decision in Worcester v.
Georgia. Many whites were stunned when Marshall ruled against Georgia,
denying them the right to take Cherokee lands. Jackson was outraged. He
reportedly stated, “John Marshall has made his decision – now let him
enforce it.”
To get around the Court’s ruling, government officials signed a treaty with
Cherokee leaders who favored relocation, even though they did not
represent most of the Cherokee people. Under the treaty, the Cherokee
were herded by the U.S. Army, like the other nations before them, on a
long and deadly march west.
Of the 16,000 Cherokee forced to leave their homes, about 4,000 died on
the march to Indian Territory. The Cherokee suffered so badly – from
hunger, exposure, disease, and bandits – that their exodus became known
as the Trail of Tears, a term that has become synonymous with all of the
nation’s suffering.
APPRAISAL
The APPRAISAL analysis of American Anthem shows a proper Cherokee seeking
redress in courts as opposed to the improper Seminoles that used armed force. The
Cherokee, however, lack capacity to resist the government. While the text is mostly
monogloss, we see instances of heteroglossia. In addition, we see more force in the
words.
An indirect negative judgment or propriety is made against the Seminoles use of
force and an indirect positive judgment of propriety and capacity are made of the
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Cherokees’ use of the courts. After that, indirect negative judgments of Cherokee
capacity are made when they have no standing in court, when Worcester had to bring a
claim for the Cherokee, and when the Cherokee were “herded” up and “forced to leave
homes.” The veracity and propriety of the government is indirectly judged negatively
when they entered into a treaty with a minority of Cherokee leaders that favored
relocation and used this treaty to force removal.
Some heterglossia occurs when the text notes that many whites were stunned by
the ruling in Worcester. This allows the reader to suspect that the issue was debatable.
Such also may lead the reader to believe that the majority of whites were not outraged.
This text uses more forcible words than in some. For instance, the Cherokee suffered
“badly” on the “long and deadly march.”
Overall, the voice remains that of a recorder with judgments being realized
indirectly. The judgments indicate a proper Cherokee unable to resist the improper
actions of the federal government acting under a questionable treaty made under the
federal Indian Removal Act.
Critical Analysis
American Anthem, Chapter Seven, “From Nationalism to Sectionalism 18151840,” includes the Cherokee Trail of Tears in the opening timeline (White, et. al., 2009,
p. 237). No American Indian mentions appear in section one on nationalism. This section
discusses Chief Justice John Marshall and two cases that support national over state
interests: McCulloch v. Maryland and Gibbons v. Ogden (pp. 240-1). The Marshall
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Trilogy cases that form the basis of federal Indian law are not included despite being
relevant to the issue of nationalism.
Section Two on Andrew Jackson asks how the Indian Removal Act led to the
Trail of Tears as one of four reading focus questions (White, et. al., 2009, p. 245). “Five
major Native American groups” still controlled “huge expanses of land” in the southeast
despite most of the land east of the Mississippi River being settled by whites (p. 246).
The five “groups” were called “civilized” because many members had adopted white
ways (p. 246). This is a clear statement that white ways are superior. “Many” whites
viewed them as inferior despite written constitutions, governments much like the U.S,
and multiple language skills (p. 247). But farmlands were scarce and white people
coveted the Indian lands (p. 247). Left unquestioned is why whites thought they were
entitled to Indian lands. Johnson could explain why whites thought Indian lands were
deemed open for whites. In discussing the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the text indicates
that it called for the relocation of the “five nations” west of the Mississippi River to
Indian Territory (p. 247).
The use of the word “groups” is still being used extensively, but we see
recognition as nations occasionally. This seems confusing as a reader, but overall
suggests that American Indian nations are something less than the U.S. without any
discussion of such even when talking about the ruling in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia,
unnamed in the text, on the next page. Left unexplained is why the American Indian
“groups” controlled their lands. The text does not explain sovereignty, treaties (except
agreeing to removal), and Johnson v. McIntosh (1823). Despite the textbook claim that
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“many” Americans deemed American Indians inferior, the law of the land made clear by
Supreme Court decisions deemed American Indians inferior and conquered. Perhaps the
case is not discussed because racism would be seen as systematic and not merely the
ways of “many” individuals.
The textbook makes clear that removal was under “the supervision of the U.S.
Army” (White, et. al., 2009, p. 248). Further, the U.S. government signed a treaty with
Cherokee leaders who favored removal and “the Cherokee were herded by the U.S.
Army, like the other nations before them, on a long and deadly march west” (p. 249). The
text emphasis on the role of the federal government is important because this textbook,
like others, presents the federal Supreme Court ruling in Worcester v. Georgia (1832) as
preventing removal and the taking of lands. The case did not limit the power of the
federal government to make treaties with American Indian nations for land or other
matters. Without a full exposition of the trilogy cases and the language and reasoning of
those cases, students are left with the impression that it was simply the greedy
uneducated poor white people backed by their populist President acting against the law
announced by the Supreme Court that created the problems for American Indian nations.
The system of white colonization and imperialism is not exposed.
This textbook announces that the removal treaty was a way to get around the
Supreme Court ruling. In fact, the goals of the Indian Removal Act were accomplished
through treaties. The Indian Removal Act and the treaty process were supported
nationally.
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The narrative states that the Cherokee suffered from hunger, exposure, diseases,
and bandits. No explanation is provided on why they suffered. The people of the United
States seem absolved of any responsibility.
Later when American Indians re-appear in the textbook narrative discussion of the
Plains Indians, the text states that “many Americans believed” that Indian lands were
available for the taking (White, et. al, 2009, p. 439). “Americans” mean white
Americans. The sentence ignores the case not covered from the 1820s that is a
foundational case in federal Indian law, Johnson v. McIntosh. That case makes clear that
the treatment of American Indians was not some inevitable clash of cultures and the
result of just a few bad actors because the case presents the racism of the white culture
with its presumed superiority.
The voice of the text that positions students as Americans (meaning white) and
justifying land theft is set up early. In chapter one, students are asked to imagine
themselves as a European explorer and to describe their reactions to “these people”
(meaning indigenous)(White, et.al., 2009, p. 37). Further, the students are asked how
Native land views would favor Europeans later (p. 37). This is set up by a false treatment
of American Indian peoples’ land views. American Indian peoples understood ownership
and the use and value of land. The narrative also privileges an unstated white premise that
all real ownership is individual (Grande, 2004, p. 111).
American Anthem has many historical errors. The textbook says that the Cherokee
sued the federal government in order to be determined a foreign nation (2009, p. 248).
Perhaps if the book included the name of the case to which it refers, Cherokee Nation v.
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Georgia, it could state that the Cherokee sued the state of Georgia over its actions
extending jurisdiction over Cherokee Nation.
The text states that Worcester brought suit on behalf of himself and the Cherokee.
There is no doubt that the Cherokee had a substantial interest and informal participation
in the matter. But the case did not include Cherokee as a party. The Cherokee had just
lost the ability to sue Georgia in the Supreme Court and this case was technically a
criminal appeal by Worcester. The text makes it look like they needed a white man to sue
on their behalf, which technically they did, but they were the force behind the case. This
text follows a paragraph where the text says they are called dependent. Cherokee are
capable human beings despite what these heritage textbooks tell students.
While American Anthem does not note later court cases, the narrative for the latter
half of the 20th century and the start of the 21st century is informative. Chapter Thirty, “A
Time of Social Change 1963-1975,” contains seven mentions. These mentions are the last
American Indian inclusion in the textbook. All relate to American Indian efforts in the
1960s and early 1970s in response to termination and urban relocation of the 1950s. All
are under section one, “Women and Native Americans fight for Change.”
A two page timeline under “Tracing History” entitled “Native American Policy
and Activism” states that American Indian peoples “have struggled to retain their ways of
life ever since European colonists first arrived” (White, et. al., 2009, pp. 990-1). The title
is problematic in that the word activist is used to describe anyone not simply going along
with the colonizing imperialism of assimilation. However, what could be more “activist”
than traveling to another place, taking their land and resources, and committing various
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forms of genocide to erase assumed inferior peoples. Further, it seems the white people
had a desire to preserve the traditions of their imagined “real” Indians. American Indians
simply desired the basic human right to determine how their living cultures and society
should be. Brayboy reminds us that American Indian peoples, “like all humans,” are
“shaped by their cultural inheritance, and they engage in cultural production” (2005, p.
434). But textbooks, including this one, fix American Indian peoples in the past. This text
from the beginning places American Indian ancestors into the anthropological present in
defined cultural area groups and also makes them another immigrant that came to
America (White, et. al., 2009, pp. 6-17). The colonists are the ones that formed “a
distinct, American culture” (p. 1).
Under “The Lives of Native Americans,” we see the usual description about how
bad life was as the American Indians “suffered” low income, high unemployment, poor
health, alcoholism, high infant mortality rates, and low life expectancy (White, et. al.,
2009, p. 990). No attempt is made to explain why and everything seems to be a problem
with Indians rather than the result of a colonizing imperialism with 500 years of
genocidal policies. The positive aspects of survival in the face of such an onslaught are
not mentioned. Even where they admit that the urban relocation was underfunded, the
problem was still the American Indians failure to adjust and not the extreme racism they
faced (p. 991).
The rest of the major mentions take place under the subheading “Native
Americans Fight for Fairness” (White, et. al., 2009, p. 991). “Fairness” is a very
questionable term regarding advocacy of American Indian peoples. Fairness means in
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compliance with the rules. But the rules continued and continue to work against
American Indians. While the racist Supreme Court rulings regarding African Americans
have been reversed and are included, the foundation of federal Indian law remains and
the Court continues to say that Congress can do what it wishes in Indian Affairs because
there is no Constitutional standard guiding the treatment of a conquered people (U.S. v.
Lara 2004). This is why some, like Pommersheim, are working on Constitutional
amendments to clarify American Indian peoples’ place in the constitutional scheme
(2009). Perhaps a better term would be “sovereignty” or “self-determination” rather than
fairness. The first term is never used in the textbook and the second one only appears in
legislation or quotes from Native persons (White, et. al., 2009, pp. 992-3).
The textbook says AIM wanted “better education for Indian children” and the
National Indian Education Association sought to “improve access to education” for
American Indians (White, et.al., 2009, pp. 992-3). The textbook does not explain what
“better” means and the issue of access seems to make the American Indian struggle like
the African American struggle to integrate the schools. No discussion is made about
bicultural education or what Native control over their education and schooling would be
like. This narrative needs to fall into the narrative that the U.S. is expanding rights for all.
The American Creed is fulfilled as various segments stand up and fight for fairness
within the system in order to become a fully assimilated part of the whitestream.
The American Indian Movement is portrayed as a civil rights group, but one that
“used more forceful tactics” (White, et. al., 2009, p. 992). These tactics are not further
explained. Certainly, AIM armed themselves. In Minneapolis, their community needed
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protection because of both over and under-policing. When someone in the Indian
community needed police protection, often assistance did not come. But American
Indians often found themselves targeted for police brutality. In this, AIM certainly
shared an issue with African Americans and others. But putting American Indian issues
into the civil rights movement is problematic because it ignores the unique relationship
that American Indians have with the national U.S. government and their existence as both
political and racial beings. This equating of various peoples is reinforced in the chapter
review timeline that has AIM with women, farm workers, Latino/a organizations, and
even hippies (p. 1010).
The text does list “Major Native American Legislation” that includes the Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act, Indian Self-determination and Education Assistance Act,
and the Indian Child Welfare Act (White. et. al., 2009, p. 993). Under the Alaska Native
Claims Settlement Act, the text says the “act turned over 44 million acres of land to
Alaska Natives and provided $962.5 million to settle other land claims” (p. 993). No
mention is made of Tee-Hit-Ton v. United States (1955) which involved Alaska Native
community claims to resources taken from their lands. The Supreme Court denied the
Fifth Amendment taking claims of the Alaska Natives. Rather, we see a narrative that is
seen in textbooks and in daily discourse that the government gave Native peoples land
and money and they still want more and are still poor. The reason such rhetoric can exist
is because of the failure to educate. This textbook leaves out many of the important
Supreme Court cases that highlight the nature of white relations with the original peoples.
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Unit Ten, “Looking Toward the Future 1968 –Present,” contains no American
Indian mentions in 100 pages of text. This unit includes Chapter 33, “Into the Twentyfirst Century,” which apparently does not include American Indians. Williams shows
how two 21st century U.S. Supreme Court cases continue the “long-established language
of racism” to support rights-destroying principles against American Indians under the
long ago adopted doctrine of discovery (2005, p. 136). But in American Anthem,
American Indians do not exist in the recent past, present, or future.
United States History
United States History (2009), unlike all the other textbooks in the study, is a new
textbook in the sense that the book is not a continuation of textbook previously written
and updated from time to time (personal communication, November 15, 2010). The
authors are William Deverell and Deborah Gray White. William Deverell is a professor
of history at the University of Southern California and has written books on Californians
and the railroads and the remaking of the Mexican past with the rise of Los Angeles.
Deborah Gray White is a former New York City school teacher and author of books
concerning African Americans.
Three program consultants are listed: Kylene Beers, Ed.D. is listed as contributing
author, Francis Gipson is general editor, and Carol Jago is senior literature and writing
specialist. Their backgrounds deal heavily with reading and writing.
Six consultants are listed with two noted as religious consultants, three as senior
consultants, with one associate director. The associate director, a specialist in Middle
Eastern Affairs, reviewed chapter thirty for Middle East content.
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Twelve academic reviewers include mostly history professors. Two of the
academic reviewers have some interest in American Indians. Yasuhide Kawashima, who
also is on the editorial board for Boyer’s The American Nation (2001), wrote Puritan
Justice and the Indian (1986). Craig Yurish’s interests include Amerindian rights in the
first British Empire.
Eighteen educational reviewers include: five teachers from Maryland; three from
New York; two each from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Illinois, and California; and one each
from Connecticut, and Michigan. None appear to be in American Indian serving schools.
There does not appear to be anyone focused primarily on American Indian studies.
United States History includes only one of the Marshall Trilogy cases. It names
Worcester v. Georgia on page 334 in section three entitled “Indian Removal” within
Chapter 10 entitled “The Age of Jackson.” Here is the relevant text (Deverall & White,
2009, pp. 333-4):
Cherokee Resistance. Many Cherokee had believed that they could
prevent conflicts and avoid removal by adopting the contemporary culture
of white people. In the early 1800s they invited missionaries to set up
schools where Cherokee children learned how to read and write in
English. The Cherokee developed their own government modeled after the
U.S. Constitution with an election system, a bicameral council, and a court
system. All of these were headed by a principal chief.
The adoption of white culture did not protect the Cherokee. After gold was
discovered on their land in Georgia, their treaty rights were ignored.
Georgia leaders began preparing for the Cherokee’s removal. When they
refused to move, the Georgia militia began attacking Cherokee towns. In
response, the Cherokee sued the state. They said that they were an
independent nation and claimed that the government of Georgia had no
legal power over their lands.
In 1832 the Supreme Court, under the leadership of Chief Justice John
Marshall, agreed. In Worcester v. Georgia the Court ruled that the
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Cherokee nation was a distinct community in which the laws of Georgia
had no force. The Court also stated that only the federal government, not
the states, had authority over Native Americans.
Georgia, however, ignored the Court’s ruling, and President Jackson took
no action to make Georgia follow the ruling. “John Marshall has made his
decision; now let him enforce it,” Jackson supposedly said. By not
enforcing the Court’s decision, Jackson violated his presidential oath to
uphold the laws of the land. However, most members of Congress and
American citizens did not protest the ways Jackson removed Native
Americans.
In the spring of 1838, U.S. troops began to remove all Cherokee to Indian
Territory. A few were able to escape and hide in the mountains of North
Carolina. After the Cherokee were removed, Georgia took their
businesses, farms, and property.
The Cherokee’s 800-mile forced march became known as the Trail of
Tears. During the march, the Cherokee suffered from disease, hunger, and
harsh weather. Almost one-fourth of the 18,000 Cherokee died on the
march.
APPRAISAL
The APPRAISAL analysis of United States History shows the Cherokee acting
normally and with positive capacity when fighting in the court system, but ultimately
losing out to improper actions by Georgia and President Jackson. The text has a strong
recorder voice which assumes alignment of world views between writer and reader.
While monogloss prevails, some heteroglossia is seen when the text notes that most of
Congress and the American people did not protest Jackson’s removal policies.
Great detail is given concerning the positive capacity of the Cherokee. They had
developed their own written language and they learned English. In addition, they
developed a written constitution similar to that of the United States. They stood up to
claim their independence in court. Some Cherokee were able to avoid removal and
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remained east. Georgia is judged negatively for propriety several times: the militia
attacked Cherokee towns, they ignored the Supreme Court, and they took Cherokee
businesses, farms, and property. President Jackson lacks veracity by violating his oath of
office when he refused to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision.
The overall narrative with APPRAISAL is that the Cherokee used the courts who
did issue a decision favorable to them, but the very bad state of Georgia with a bad
President Jackson forced them from their homelands.
Critical Analysis
In United States History (2009), American Indian mentions in Chapter Ten, “The
Age of Jackson,” occur within one of the three chapter sections and is entitled “Indian
Removal.” Sequoya appears on the timeline for 1828 noting completion of a written
language for the Cherokee and text admits that the Cherokee published their own
newspaper in Cherokee and English (Deverall & White, 2009, pp. 318, 333). The text
admits that the Cherokee had a written constitution modeled after the U.S. Constitution
(p. 333). The section contains a very substantial legal and historical error. The only
Cherokee removal case mentioned is Worcester v. Georgia. The textbook says that the
Cherokee sued the state of Georgia in this case and argued that they were an independent
nation and that Georgia had no legal power in their lands. The textbook says the U.S.
Supreme Court agreed. This is the Cherokee Nation case which was left out of the
textbook.
The holding in Worcester is somewhat misstated. While the Supreme Court made
clear that state law had no force in Indian country, it did not hold that “only the federal
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government” had authority over American Indians (Deverall & White, 2009, p. 334).
Certainly, the court ruled that only the federal government had authority over affairs
dealing with American Indian nations, the court specifically delineated that internal
affairs were the authority of American Indian nations themselves. The federal
government dealt with external affairs exclusively, excepting treaty provisions. These
powers came from the commerce clause and the treaty powers within the U.S.
Constitution. None of this is mentioned in the text. The text states that the Supreme Court
basis was that the Cherokee nation was a distinct community. The Court did say this, but
the text makes it appear that the national character of the Cherokee, whether as dependent
domestic nations or otherwise, had disappeared.
Worcester, when discussed in textbooks, is generally seen as the U.S. Supreme
Court prohibiting the forced march of American Indians from their homelands and that
President Jackson was acting badly and in the case of this textbook, violating his oath of
office by not stopping Georgia from harassing and removing the Cherokee. But the
textbooks fail to draw the connection that U.S. troops were used in the forced removal
and that President Van Buren was acting under a treaty authorized by the federal Indian
Removal Act of 1830 and ratified by the Senate. This act was not ruled on by the
Supreme Court. This is not to say Jackson is innocent, but rather to refute the idea of the
lone bad actor as racist and anti-Indian as the problem and deny the rule of law role and
its systematic racism. Removal essentially became accepted nationally as concerns for the
existence of the U.S. as a nation became central (Satz, 2002, pp. 52-3). Many today, deny
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that racism is anything but the prejudices of some individuals (Epstein, 2009, p. 79). The
history text helps strengthen this view.
Interestingly, this textbook also notes that most of Congress and most citizens did
not criticize Jackson’s actions. This seems to hedge on a statement of full support of
Jackson by most citizens, and can be interpreted to imply white hegemony.
The text does not note how Jackson violated his oath of office as president to
enforce laws. In fact, Jackson lacked legal authority to enforce the Court’s decision in
reversing a state criminal conviction at that time (Satz, 2002). He did persuade the
Governor of Georgia to release Worcester.
Left unexplained is why adoption of white ways by the Cherokee did not protect
them. This might require an analysis into deeply ingrained images of American Indians in
the white mind and as exposed in Johnson.
This textbook blames federal officials for not providing enough food and supplies
to American Indians being force marched to what would become Oklahoma (p. 333). The
government contracted for food and supplies with private companies that exploited the
situation. By not mentioning this, the narrative strengthens white ideas that the removal
shows the problem with government rather than a problem of exploitive private
companies. Epstein (2009) found white parents using their limited knowledge of
American Indians in U.S. history to construct an anti-government narrative (pp. 92-3).
And it ignores the deeply ingrained views of people that see American Indian peoples as
“savage,” or less than human, that encourages and justifies such treatment (Wiliiams,
2012, p. 236).
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Indian Territory, in what is now the state of Oklahoma, is described as “U.S.
land” (p. 332). No discussion is had about why the land was owned by the United States.
An astute student might connect the land to the Louisiana Purchase and an even more
astute student might ask if the American Indian nations that lived in that area were part of
the treaty and negotiations with France and the United States.
The text related to removal of the Sauk and Fox Nation and the Seminole Nation
is entitled “Other Native American Resist” (Deverall & White, 2009, p. 335). This
mirrors the subheading preceding entitled, “Cherokee Resistance”(p. 333). Again, we see
American Indians portrayed as resisting what all seems so natural and inevitable, the
progression of whites across the continent (Horsman, 1981, ch. 10). All of the above
erases the positive aspects of the text that include such things as recognition of the
education and language abilities of the Cherokee (Deverall & White, p. 332).
Two colorful pages entitled, “The Indian Removal Treaties” under a more general
theme of “History and Geography,” blame the continuing hardships after arrival to Indian
Territory in what would become Oklahoma on the land being “poor and not good for
farming” (Deverall & White, 2009, p. 336). The text says white settlers did not want this
land. In this way, hardships after removal are not caused by the failure of the U.S.
government to plan for a transition period, but by the land. In not too many decades,
whites were clamoring for settlement of these very lands. The tribes turned their new
lands into prosperous places with wonderful farms and ranches and built magnificent
schools that made the removed tribes much more literate than their soon arriving white
neighbors.
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The narrative that Indian country anywhere is poor and desolate must be contested
in history and today. This is a narrative that serves various powerful interests. The
narrative works for those wanting to dump nuclear waste in Indian country. The narrative
works for those wanting to buy the abundant resources from Indian country at a low
price. The narrative works for those hoping the Native young people all leave Indian
country so that at last the white people do indeed possess all the land.
While United States History does not discuss other law cases, the narrative in the
20th century is similar to other textbooks. The last mention of American Indians occurs
in Unit 9 “Postwar America” covering 1945-1975 (Deverall & White, 2009). The last
mention is in Chapter 28 “The Civil Rights Movement” and concerns the 1968 Indian
Civil Rights Act, which is wrongfully described as increasing control of tribes over their
lands, the 1968 Alcatraz occupation by the American Indian Movement, and the 1973
Wounded Knee standoff (pp. 884-885). There is a subtitle “Native Americans” under a
major subheading “Other Voices for Change.” Both are under the chapter’s section three
entitled “Rights for Other Americans.” Section three discusses Hispanics, women,
Asians, and persons with disabilities in addition to Native Americans. While the Native
American discussion notes that the struggle was for greater self-government on tribal
lands, it places Native Americans as just another minority or special interest group
seeking rights.
The section three assessment question asks students to compare the ways the
American Indian Movement is similar to the Black Power movement (p. 885). While
there was some similarity, AIM and Black Power had fundamental historical, legal, and
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political differences. There is no discussion about the special and unique status of
American Indians individually and collectively.
In the chapter review section (p. 887), an illustration is presented entitled “Many
groups of Americans organized to demand their civil rights during the 1960s and 1970s.”
People are on a path to the national capitol and hold signs entitled “Civil Rights,” “AIM”
(American Indian Movement), “DIA,” and “NOW.”
Unit 10 is entitled “Modern America” and covers 1968 to the present. The unit is
51 pages and contains nothing about American Indians. The unit includes Chapter 30,
“Searching for Order,” and Chapter 31, “America Looks to the Future.” Apparently,
America’s future does not include American Indians in United States History.
A History of the United States
A History of The United States (2007 Classics Edition) has Daniel Boorstin and
Brooks Mather Kelley listed as authors with Ruth Frankel Boorstin, wife of Daniel as
Editorial Associate. Daniel Boorstin died in 2004. Boorstin was a librarian of Congress,
a Pulitzer winning historian, and professor of history. As a Rhodes Scholar, he won two
degrees in law from Oxford. His books include The Discoverers (1983), Chicago History
of American Civilization, and the trilogy The Americans. His history degrees are from
Harvard and Yale. Kelley is a research affiliate in history at Yale and holds degrees from
Yale and the University of Chicago. Ruth Boorstin collaborated in her husband’s work
and holds degrees from Wellesley College and the University of Chicago. She has
worked on readability of history and economics.
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Unlike other textbooks, these are the only people listed with involvement in the
creation of the textbook. None of the authors or editorial associates appears to have a
background in American Indian Studies.
A History of the United States only includes Worcester by name and discussion
and not Johnson or Cherokee Nation. Worcester has an index entry (Boorstin & Kelley,
2007, p. 1036). Worcester has a one-page entry noted (p. 235). In Chapter Nine, “The
Jacksonian Era,” and section three, “Jackson takes command,” we find a subsection on
Indian Policy (Boorstin & Kelley, p. 234-36). Here is a relevant part for analysis (pp.
235-6):
The Cherokee, more than any other Indian tribe, had adopted the ways of
the white man. They were mostly settled in Georgia, where their farms,
factories, and schools were not much different from any others. But they
had no alphabet for their language until the brilliant Sequoya actually
invented one. With this new alphabet the tribe printed its first newspaper.
It was fitting that this Cherokee hero would later be commemorated in the
great California redwoods, which are called “Sequoias.”
The Cherokees went to court to retain their lands. In the case of Worcester
v. Georgia (1832) the Supreme Court led by John Marshall ruled that the
state of Georgia had no jurisdiction over Cherokee lands. But Georgia
ignored the Court, and Jackson refused to intervene. “John Marshall had
made his decision,” Jackson was reputed to have said, “now let him
enforce it.” Jackson really hoped that the Indians would quietly leave
Georgia as soon as possible. He feared that Georgia’s clear resistance to
the law of the land would encourage South Carolina’s efforts to nullify
acts of Congress.
The Cherokees did not give in. Finally, in 1838, the army under General
Winfield Scott rounded up those remaining in the East. During that
October and November the soldiers drove 15,000 Indian men, women, and
children westward. Through cold and rain the troops forced these innocent
and bewildered Cherokees away from their homeland to the new “Indian
Territory.” This would later be called Oklahoma. The Cherokees called
this path their “trail of tears.” And it was the right name, for 1500 of their
tribe died on the way.
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APPRAISAL
The reviewer’s APPRAISAL analysis of A History of the United States reveals a
somewhat normal, capable, and tenacious Cherokee people resisting through the courts,
but losing out to stronger U.S. troops and bad acting Georgia and Jackson. This text is
very monogloss with the readers’ world view assumed to be aligned with the writers’. An
appreciative aspect is seen when the text notes that the Cherokee called the path west the
“Trail of Tears” and “it was the right name” which seems to institutionalize a feeling of
sadness. The recorder voice is used since judgments are mostly indirect.
The Cherokee are seen as normal by adopting white ways and going to court to
address grievances, but less normal when they had no written alphabet until Sequoya
invented one. Going to court shows positive capacity and tenacity in trying to hold on to
lands. Indirect negative judgments of Cherokee capacity and normality follow from
textual descriptions of their being rounded up and forced marched as innocent and
bewildered beings (Boorstin & Kelley, 2007, p. 236). The army troops and soldiers are
judged indirectly several times for their impropriety. Georgia and Jackson acted
improperly when ignoring the Supreme Court.
The general results of the APPRAISAL analysis is that the Cherokee tried to hang
on to their homelands by using the white courts, but bad Georgia and Jackson used the
troops to remove them.
Critical Analysis
A History of the United States Chapter Nine, under “The Jacksonian Era,” includes
the substantial developments in federal Indian policy under Andrew Jackson, the “rough
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man of the frontier” (Borrstin & Kelley, 2009, p. 234). The narrative states that Jackson,
like “most frontiersmen and Indian fighters,” wanted Indians out of the way of whites (p.
234). Of course, the text admits that Presidents Adams and Monroe wanted the same
thing, but they did not accomplish it (p. 234). The removal and separation was sold on
humanitarian and peaceful order grounds. Separation would mean less conflict. The text
mentions ninety-four treaties concluded under Jackson that involved various amounts of
eastern lands in agreement for some western lands (p. 234). While some “tribes went
peaceably,” others “dared to fight against superior forces of United States troops” (p.
234). A question arises concerning what is meant by the term superior. Does this mean a
superior trained and equipped military or one that simply was larger? One myth is that
American Indians lost because they had inferior technology. However, tribes like the
Cherokee had victory after victory over whites and their military. What was “superior”
was that the whites simply kept coming and the Cherokee recognized that they would
keep coming and never go away.
Here we see an excellent example of the typical narrative that diminishes and
demeans American Indian peoples’ ability to defend themselves. The text says Chief
Black Hawk fought “bravely” to return home, but met disastrous defeat at the hands of
U.S. regulars and militia (Borrstin & Kelley, 2007, p. 234). Osceola led “the most
successful Indian opposition the United States regulars ever had to face” (p. 234-5). Their
power to resist was “surprising” and aided by runaway slaves, but even he was finally
captured (p. 235). The Seminoles, however, continued to defy the army for years (p. 235).
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The Cherokee are described as more like the white man than any tribe (Boorstin &
Kelley, 2007, p. 235). This assumes that all citizens of the Cherokee Nation were the
same rather than the great diversity within the nation. In an effort to distinguish them
from whites, the textbook says “they had no alphabet” until Sequoya invented one (p.
235). Actually, he invented a syllabary that allowed people to become literate in
Cherokee very quickly. Further, many Cherokee were literate in two or more languages
and generally much more literate than their white neighbors with their English alphabet.
The text mentions the Cherokee Nation newspaper, but omits that the 1828 Cherokee
Constitution was printed in both English and Cherokee within the paper (Venables, 2004,
vol. 2, p. 100).
Glorification by naming of trees or forests for an American Indian is problematic.
One way to objectify and commodify American Indians is to describe them as like the
wilderness or as children of the forest. For whites, wilderness and forests stood as
obstacles to their so-called progress, as were the American Indians.
A History of the United States tells the familiar story of how the Cherokee went to
court to retain their lands in Worcester v. Georgia (1832). No explanation is given on
why the Cherokee are not a named party. The text omits the case of Cherokee Nation v.
Georgia which was dismissed by the Supreme Court on jurisdictional grounds because
the Court held that the Cherokee Nation was not a foreign nation, but a dependent
domestic nation. The holding of the U.S. Supreme Court that Georgia law had no force in
Cherokee country is correctly stated (Boorstin & Kelley, 2009, p. 235-6).
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The narrative then turns to Georgia ignoring the law and Jackson not stopping
Georgia which is all designed to make Georgia the problem and the reason for removal.
What gets ignored is the promise made by the federal government to Georgia over thirty
years before that the federal government would remove Indians from Georgia in return
for the western lands that Georgia claimed (Calloway, 2008, p.229; Venables, 2004, vol.
2 p. 88). At the same time that the federal government was making this promise to
Georgia, it was signing treaties with the Cherokee to protect them in their lands in
Georgia (Venables, p. 98).
In addition, the narrative ignores the 1830 federal Indian Removal Act which
authorized treaties for removal which eventually led President Van Buren to order the
federal troops to remove the Cherokee by force. This text also ignores the treaty the
government signed with some Cherokee leaders in direct contradiction of the Cherokee
Council that agreed to removal. This was a common tactic and simply cannot be
disclosed by those with certain agendas that need to make the federal government the
“good guys” and states the “bad guys.”
The narrative goes on to state that the “Cherokees did not give in” and troops
forced “these innocent and bewildered Cherokees from their homeland” west of the
Mississippi (Boorstin & Kellet, 2009, p. 236). This description seems to imply the
Cherokee people were confused children by the white man’s actions. Despite federal law
and Supreme Court rulings to the contrary, the Cherokee people understood well the
actions of the white man. John Ross and others used great skill in protesting removal and
when such became inevitable, putting as much control as possible under Cherokee
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direction (Venables, 2004, vol. 2 pp. 154, 156). Ross submitted a petition signed by over
15,000 of the 17,000 Cherokee that the Treaty of New Echota did not represent them
(Venables, p. 154). The idea that the Cherokee people were “innocent children of the
forest, who were confused by the ways of a superior and complex race,” needs to be
retired from the discourse.
The text understates the Cherokee loss on the Trail of Tears and fails to give the
story of other Native nations and their losses. A map on page 237 shows various
removals, but details and stories are not included. This helps make the entire process of
removal look more isolated than reality.
The chapter review merely asks what percentage of the land in your state was taken
from Indians under Jackson’s policies and where were Indian groups in your state
relocated (Boorstin & Kelley, 2007, p. 245). This is an awkward and non-critical inquiry.
For Oklahoma students, a response might look like this: Much of current Oklahoma was
taken from the Native nations already in the area when the United States government
relocated the Native nations that had caused them trouble in the east. Since the Native
nations already in what would become Oklahoma had not yet become problematic to
white settlers, the lands they owned were considered vacant. These were not vacant lands,
but since the all-powerful U.S. government said they were, our history textbooks treat
them that way. Of course, under the Supreme Court case not discussed in the textbook,
all Native nations had already lost legal title to their lands in a case where they were not
parties and had no representation at all.
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Unit Twelve, “The United States Looks Ahead,” contains eight American Indian
mentions, all in Chapter Thirty-four, “In Pursuit of Civil Rights for All.” American
Indians are absent from the last two chapters of the textbook including “The Emergence
of a New World.”
Chapter Thirty-four states that college enrollments for American Indians peaked in
the 1970s (Boorstin & Kelley, 2007, p. 853). This is not true (National Center for
Education Statistics, 2010).
Interestingly, much of what is included in this very late chapter is missing from the
chapter that it should have appeared in. Placing issues and events from the 1400s forward
in the chapter on the civil rights era simply reinforces that American Indians are not part
of the American master narrative except as it benefits that narrative of American
exceptionalism and the American Creed. Here in this very late chapter, one that includes
other ethnic minorities which erases the unique status of American Indians, the narrative
shows groups fighting to make the U.S. live up to the ideals expressed of equality and
justice for all (Boorstin & Kelley, p. 860).
The past problems, the Indian problems, are blamed on history (p. 860). In this
way, genocide from a white supremist colonizing empire need not be addressed. The
problem according to this book was that since America Indians were not immigrants
settling in big cities that could vote, politicians ignored them (p. 860). To tell the most
legislated, regulated, and controlled peoples in the U.S. that the politicians ignored them,
is a sad joke in Indian Country.
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Agreeably, whites, referred to as “newer Americans,” saw American Indians as
part of the wilderness to be cleared and as essentially children in need of a guardian (p.
861). And yes, American Indians have been subject to changing whims of the U.S.
government (p. 861). But many would object to the use of the word “victims” and further
blaming government officials and not the entire government which was representative of
the whites. American Indians are not passive victims of white oppression. They have
survived an incredible genocide. This took an exceptional amount of skill.
While A History of the United States portrays the direct actions of AIM in a negative
light, it praises the actions in mainstream courts (Boorstin & Kelley, 2007, p. 863). Here
the text discusses various court victories without case names. The master narrative likes
this idea that eventually the courts helped the U.S. expand rights for all. What is ignored
here in the case of American Indians is all of the terrible cases that remain the basis of
federal Indian law and that continue even after the entry into the 21st century to allow
action by the U.S. government without any Constitutional restraint (e.g. U.S. v. Lara,
2004).
Finally, “Indians take the initiative” by developing “multi-billion dollar” casinos
and other economic development (Boorstin & Kelley, 2007, p. 863). But of course, some
traditionalists objected and serious economic and social problems remained (p. 863). The
problems of Indians per the textbook are obviously maintaining strong cultural ties. AntiIndianism, racism, white supremacy, greed and genocide are not really the causes of
problems, according to the textbook’s ignoring of such unpleasantries. This allows for
guilt free living by the majority.
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America: Pathways to the Present
America: Pathways to the Present (2003) (hereafter Pathways) lists the following
as authors: Andrew Cayton, Elisabeth Perry, Linda Reed, and Allan Winkler. All four are
history professors. None have identified as American Indian. One of eight historian
reviewers includes Donald Fixico (Shawnee, Sac & Fox, Muscogee Creek, and
Seminole), a history professor who researches and writes on American Indian issues.
Prentice Hall is a subsidiary of Pearson, one of three major textbook publishers that
control over 75% of all instructional materials (Jobrack, 2012, p. 29). Pearson
subsidiaries produced two of the eight textbooks in this study.
Pathways includes only Worcester v. Georgia in the Index section (Cayton, et. al.,
2003, p. 1288). Of the 68 cases discussed in the supplemental “Key Supreme Court
Cases,” none are cases on federal American Indian law (pp. 1200-1207).
Worcester v. Georgia is discussed in Chapter Eight, “The Growth of the National
Economy,” and in section five, “The Age of Jackson.” Here is the relevant text section
(Cayton, et. al., 2003, p. 301):
Cherokee Resistance. The situation of the Cherokees was unique. More
than any other Native American people, they had adopted white culture.
Many Cherokee had taken up white farming methods, home styles,
clothing styles, and religions. Some had married whites. In 1827, the
Cherokee organized a national government modeled upon that of the
United States.
Nevertheless, when gold was found on Cherokee land, the state of Georgia
seized about 9 million acres of Indian land within its borders. When
appeals to Georgia and to the U.S. Senate failed, the Cherokees issued a
public statement, trying in vain to rally the support of the American
people: “We wish to remain on the land of our fathers. We have a perfect
and original right to remain without interruption….It cannot be that
[America], remarkable for its intelligence and religious sensibilities, and
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preeminent [unmatched] for its devotion to the rights of man, will lay
aside this appeal.” –Cherokee public appeal, July 17, 1830.
Finally, in 1832, the Cherokees brought their case to the Supreme Court
through a missionary from Vermont, Samuel Austin Worcester. In
Worcester v Georgia, Marshall ruled that Georgia had no authority over
Cherokee territory. Georgia defied the Court, with Jackson’s backing.
“John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it!” the
President is said to have declared. Of course, the Court had no power to
enforce its decisions.
Jackson stated his reasons for supporting Indian relocation: “All preceding
experiments for the improvement of the Indians have failed. It seems now
to be an established fact that they can not live in contact with a civilized
community and prosper….No one can doubt the moral duty of the
Government….to protect and if possible to preserve and perpetuate the
scattered remnants of this race….” – President Jackson, annual address to
Congress, December 7, 1835.
In 1838, the United States Army rounded up more than 15,000 Cherokees.
Then, in a nightmare journey that the Cherokees called the Trail of Tears,
men, women, and children, most on foot, began a 116-day forced march
westward for about 1,000 miles to Oklahoma Territory. Roughly 1 out of
every 4 Cherokees died of cold or disease, as troops refused to let them
pause to rest.
APPRAISAL
The APPRAISAL analysis for Pathways reflects some capacity for Cherokee to
fight in court, but not enough to stop the improper actions of Georgia, Jackson and
troops. The text is in recorder voice which assumes reader and writer are aligned with
judgments made indirectly. The text is monogloss, but quotes from the Cherokee and
Jackson add some heteroglosia.
All judgments below are indirect unless noted. The Cherokee are described as
very normal and capable in that they had taken up much of the white culture and some
even married whites. Despite this, Georgia acted improperly by seizing Cherokee lands
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when gold was found and in ignoring the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is lacking
in capacity when the text notes that “the court had no power to enforce its decision.”
Jackson acts improperly when he backs Georgia. The troops that did the actual removing
were strong enough to do so, but acted improperly by refusing to let the Cherokee rest.
The Cherokee are not seen as capable at that point as they are “rounded up.” The quote
by Jackson negatively judges American Indians on all aspects of judgment analysis.
Overall APPRAISAL review of Pathways is that the normal and somewhat
capable Cherokee who won rights in court were unable to stop being forced to march
west because of bad Georgia, Jackson, and troops.
Critical Analysis
Pathways in Chapter Eight, “The Growth of a National Economy 1790 – 1850,”
provides more detail on Indian removal under the heading “The Indian Crises.” This is
indicative of the United States having an “Indian Problem” rather than a “white
problem.” The narrative is clear that the removal was done by Andrew Jackson and
federal troops under the Indian Removal Act (Cayton, et. al., 2003, p. 300-301). President
Van Buren and the Treaty of New Echota made with a minority of Cherokee are not
mentioned.
The only legal case discussed is Worcester v. Georgia (1832). The stated holding
in the case was that Georgia had no authority over Cherokee territory (Cayton, et. al.,
2003, p. 301). No reasoning or explanation is provided by the text. This text, perhaps to a
lesser degree than others, still insinuates that the Supreme Court had stepped in to protect
Indians. But the case was not about removal. The Indian Removal Act remained fully in
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effect. Jackson pressured the Georgia governor to release Worcester, who had been
arrested and convicted, to effectively resolve the issue before the Court (Robertson,
2005, p. 136). Essentially, Jackson did enforce the case. Certainly, he did not enforce
protection of the Cherokee, but the Cherokee were not a party. The use of courts in the
civil rights era is set up here. What are left out are two other cases that remain
foundational cases in federal Indian law: Johnson v. McIntosh (1823) and Cherokee
Nation v. Georgia (1831) that did not and do not further American Indian peoples’ cause.
Alongside the text on Indian removal is a boxed section entitled a “Focus on
Culture (Cayton, et. al., 2003, p. 301).” The text within the box is about Sequoyah and
Cherokee writing that emphasizes cultural differences concerning written language. This
furthers the concept of cultural clash set up from the very beginning of the textbook
(chapter one). There is no box entitled “White Supremacy and Racism.” Cultural
discourse takes over the tasks of racial discourse. Values clash rather than a story of
power and exploitation. It all is so acceptable and inevitable and nicer than conquest and
oppression (Wetherell & Potter, 1992, p. 137).
The text does include the Cherokee appeal of 1830 which appeals to the
revolutionary spirit of rights of man (Cayton, et. al., 2003, p. 301). This quote is then
matched with Jackson’s 1835 address to Congress explaining how all efforts with the
Indians have failed and they simply cannot live in contact with civilization. Jackson went
on to say that the government has a morale duty to protect the “scattered remnants” by
separating them from whites. Jackson knew better for he was familiar with the Five
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Tribes and had fought alongside the Cherokee (Venables, 2004). This is left out of the
textbook.
The next time American Indian rights or cases are discussed is in Unit Nine, “A
Period of Turmoil and Change 1950 – 1975,” which contains eight American Indian
mentions. The three mentions of Chapter Twenty-eight, “The Civil Rights Movement,”
include them under “Other Voices of Protest” (Cayton, et. al., 2003, p. 935). The violent
warlike Indian of the past is now another minority protest group. The text notes the
“unique situation” American Indians faced (p. 935). That unique situation was that the
federal government managed the reservations (p. 935). Students are not provided an
explanation of what is meant by this and how it got that way. The narrative in this
textbook makes it appear that the government gave Indians land and, since the Indians
were incompetent, managed it for them. The words used in this text reinforce this when it
says the Indians lived in “terrible poverty” and the “problems of the Native Americans
remained: poverty, discrimination, and little real political representation” (p. 935). The
problem is all on the American Indians, even the discrimination.
The “civil rights advances of the 1950s were mere tokens of the real gains that
were needed” (p. 935). In the 1950s, American Indian peoples were fighting termination
of the trust duty of the federal government (Venables, 2004, pp. 323-334).
The textbook totally lacks any understanding of the “unique situation” of
American Indians and seems to know nothing of the historical processes that lead to the
situation they describe. However, the writers should know of substantial evidence and
historical records that explain what has happened and why because they are all historians
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and they have the advice of reviewer Donald Fixico. The selection has been made to
support the master narrative. American Indians in the 20th century are deficient just as
they were before, but the USA is struggling to help them according to the master
narrative.
In a special section on “Expanding Civil Rights,” students learn that the federal
government “granted Native Americans the rights of citizenship” in 1924 (Cayton, et. al.,
2003, p. 965). The text states that this included the right to vote in federal elections.
There is no discussion on whether any Native peoples or nations asked for or desired
such grant. There is no discussion about how many states, like Arizona and New Mexico,
denied American Indians the right to vote based upon their assumed incompetency as
wards of the federal government even after citizenship. The text furthers the national
narrative as the U.S. gives more and more rights to those previously excluded.
The last substantial American Indian mentions occur in Chapter Thirty, “An Era
of Activism 1960 – 1975,” in section two, “Ethnic Minorities Seek Equality,” under a
subsection called, “Native Americans Face Unique Problems.” In one-half of a page of a
narrative of 1151 pages, the text comes close to explaining the unique legal and political
status of American Indian nations and peoples. They are described as the “original
inhabitants” and the land “was once theirs” (Cayton, et.al., 2003, p. 1006). While the text
admits that “white society tended to view all Native Americans as one group,” it fails to
say how this textbook did the same (p. 1006). In discussing citizenship, the text says that
American Indians “continued as citizens of their own nation or tribal groups as well” (p.
1006). The need to constantly refer to groups seems to lessen the status of Native nations
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and ties into the narrative that American Indians are like other ethnic groups. The denial
of voting even after the granting of citizenship is mentioned (p. 1006). However, the
basis for such denial is not provided. Wardship is too disturbing to the national creed
especially as it continues into the 21st century. Wardship based upon presumed racial
inferiority is even more disturbing to the master national narrative of progress and ever
expanding justice for all.
American Indians are described as “victims” of stereotypes “like other nonwhite
groups” (p. 1006). Their uniqueness is recognized in the land and broken treaties, matters
of no concern to other groups (p. 1006). Of course, the exclusion of significant cases and
the emphasis on cultural differences in this textbook prevent students from developing an
understanding that the issues go beyond denial of “equal opportunity” (p. 1006).
American Indian land claims are noted as a special concern (pp. 1006-7). As usual, the
emphasis is on explaining how the courts or government pays money, but there is at least
some recognition that money does not restore the land or sacred sites to the Indian people
(p. 1007).
The American Indian Movement is described as following the example of militant
black groups (Cayton et. al, 2003, p. 1007). American Indian peoples are again denied
human agency by lacking the ability to create their own advocacy organizations. These
organizations, according to the textbook and the needs of the master narrative, must be
similar to black civil rights groups. The text does recognize that AIM’s first efforts were
in the cities to protect Indian residents. Broader goals were originally established that
included self-government (p. 1007). The events at Alcatraz, BIA headquarters, and
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Wounded Knee 1973 are covered (p. 1007-8). The events are noted as bringing matters to
national attention.
Important legislation was passed including the Indian Self-Determination and
Education Assistance Act of 1975 (p. 1008). American Indians “continued to win legal
battles to regain land, mineral, and water rights” (p. 1008). What is not said is they also
continue to lose court battles and even when they win, the reasoning is based upon
assumptions of inferiority and conquest. But the national narrative is served by the courts
being the champions of those left out in the past.
The American Vision
The authors of The American Vision (2005) are Joyce Appleby, history professor
at UCLA; Alan Brinkley, professor of American history at Columbia; Albert Broussard,
history professor at Texas A & M; James McPherson, professor of American history at
Princeton; Donald Ritchie, Associate Historian of the U.S. Senate Historical Office; and
The National Geographic Society. None of the listed authors notes an emphasis in
American Indian studies.
Twelve Academic Consultants are listed. One is Calbert A. Seciwa, Director of
the American Indian Institute at Arizona State University. The others are professors of
education, history, American women’s history, military history, black studies, political
science, and geography. Eighteen Teacher Reviewers are listed. None appear to be from
an American Indian serving school.
In The American Vision, only one of the Marshall Trilogy cases is discussed and
named - Worcester v. Georgia (Apleby, et. al., 2005, p. 270). This mention is in chapter
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eight, “The Spirit of Reform 1828 – 1845,” and in section one under “Jacksonian
America” (pp. 264-72). Here is the relevant text (p. 270):
Most Native Americans eventually gave in and resettled in the West, but
not the Cherokee of Georgia. Over the years, this Native American group
had adopted aspects of white culture, and they hired lawyers to sue the
state of Georgia. Their case, Worcester v. Georgia, eventually reached the
Supreme Court. In 1832 Chief Justice John Marshall ordered state officials
to honor Cherokee property rights. Jackson refused to support the
decision. “Marshall has made his opinion,” the president reportedly said,
“now let him enforce it.” (See page 1083 for information on Worcester v.
Georgia.)
Until 1838 most of the Cherokee resisted the government’s offers of
western land. Jackson’s successor, Martin Van Buren, eventually sent in
the army to resolve the conflict. The army forced the remaining people out
of their homes and marched them to what is now Oklahoma. About 2,000
Cherokee died in camps while waiting the migration to begin.
Approximately, 2,000 more died of starvation, disease, and exposure on
the journey, which became known as the Trail of Tears.
By 1838, the government had moved most Native Americans still living
east of the Mississippi, except for the Seminole of Florida, to reservations.
Most people supported these removal policies. Only a few denounced the
harsh treatment of Native Americans. Non-supporters included some of
the National Republicans and a few religious denominations, especially
the Quakers and Methodists.
Here is text from page 1083:
Worcester v. Georgia (1832) overturned the conviction of Samuel A.
Worcester, a missionary among the Cherokee. Worcester was imprisoned
under a Georgia law forbidding whites to reside in Cherokee country
without taking an oath of allegiance to the state and obtaining a permit.
The Supreme Court voided the state law, ruling that Cherokee were an
independent nation based on federal treaty and free from the jurisdiction
of the state. Georgia ignored the decision, and President Jackson refused
to enforce it, instead supporting the removal of the Cherokee to the Indian
Territory.
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APPRAISAL
The APPRAISAL analysis of The American Vision shows the Cherokee with
capacity to challenge actions, but unable to stop the improper actions of Georgia,
Jackson, Van Buren, and the federal government. The voice is recorder, which assumes
alignment of world views of the writer and reader and makes indirect judgments. The text
is monogloss except when it notes that “most people supported” removal policies. The
text lists some groups that denounced the treatment of Indians. We see force enhanced in
the text when the treatment is described as “harsh.”
All judgments are indirect unless noted otherwise. The text notes the negative
capacity and tenacity of most American Indians who gave in and resettled in the west.
The Cherokee exercised capacity and tenacity by hiring lawyers to sue Georgia. Capacity
and tenacity are further seen by the Cherokee refusing government offers of western
lands, although the propriety of such actions is questioned. Jackson, Van Buren, and the
government are seen as most capable by refusing to follow the Supreme Court’s decision,
ordering the troops in, and forcibly removing the Cherokee. Jackson’s and Van Buren’s
actions lack propriety, however.
The general narrative from APPRAISAL is that the Cherokee tried really hard to
prevent removal, but the two presidents, ignoring the Supreme Court’s decision, used
troops to force a removal that lacked propriety.
Critical Analysis
The American Vision at Chapter Eight, “The Spirit of Reform 1828 – 1845,”
includes six American Indian mentions. One occurs in the chapter introductory timeline
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when in 1838 “Cherokee are driven from Georgia and embark on the Trail of Tears”
(Appleby, et. al., 2005, p. 265). This sentence sounds like the Cherokee are headed out to
vacation.
In section one, “Jacksonian America,” the main treatment is Indian Removal. The
text states that the idea of removing all American Indians west had been around for a
while. Most people seemed to like the idea of sending Indians to what at that time was
seen as worthless land so that whites could get the good land in the east (Appleby, et. al.,
2005, pp. 269-70). Congress passed the federal Indian Removal Act in 1830 (p. 269).
“Most Native Americans eventually gave in and resettled in the West, but not the
Cherokee of Georgia” (p. 270). This makes the Cherokee out to be the trouble makers
and other American Indians as weak. The Cherokee, a “Native American group,” had
adopted some white ways and hired lawyers to sue (p. 270). “Their case, Worcester v.
Georgia, made it to the Supreme Court” (p. 270). Chief Justice Marshall “ordered state
officials to honor Cherokee property rights” (p. 270). The text is extremely confused
here. “Their case” was entitled Cherokee Nation v. Georgia where the Cherokee Nation
was held not to be a foreign nation, but a domestic dependent nation and as such could
not sue Georgia directly in the Supreme Court. The Court did not say that the Cherokee
were merely a group of Native Americans. The case that concerned Native nations’
property rights was Johnson v. McIntosh (1823). Worcester is misrepresented as a case
that somehow stood against removal.
The case description on page 1083, which students are referred to, says that the
Court held Cherokee to be an independent nation. This is wrong. Perhaps if the textbook
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included all of the Marshall Trilogy this error would not have occurred. Perhaps if they
were not so bent on a national progressive narrative, they could have been correct in what
the Court held.
The Cherokee that remained in Georgia were eventually removed by federal
troops under federal law in 1838 (Appleby, et. al., 2005, p. 270). The text notes that most
people supported the removal. The connotation here is much like “American” meaning
white, “people” seems to mean white also. This narrative also reminds us of the danger of
a brand of democracy where the majority that hates American Indians can violate their
human rights.
The reader does not hear of law or court cases again until mentions occur in
chapter thirty-one, “The Politics of Protest 1960- 1980,” following sections on the student
movement and counterculture and the feminist movement.
American Indians are portrayed in the 1970s as “the nation’s smallest minority”
group (Appleby, et. al., 2005, p. 936). They had begun as the owners of this place. They
had free and sovereign nations. The Europeans and later the U.S. made treaties with
them as nations do with nations. They had a significant part in the early history. But they
disappear in this history in the 20th century to reappear as a small part of a minority.
But these “descendants of America’s original inhabitants” had “justifiable
grievances” (Appleby, et.al., 2005, p. 936). Are inhabitants owners? The text goes on to
give all the bleak statistics about income, joblessness, and life expectancy (p. 936). Of
course, the statistics were bad. They had it all, land and resources, and it all was taken by
the group doing really well in the 1970s, the descendants of the colonizing settlers. These
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settler descendants tell the story of how hard their ancestors worked to build the country
without any government help and against all odds that included Indian attack. None of
the genocide and theft is brought forth and connected to this seemingly invisible group,
the people that took it all. The text notes discrimination, but only says that Indians
suffered it. Who was discriminating?
The text tells of the 1961 conference in Chicago that drafted the Declaration of
Indian Purpose (Appleby, et. al., 2005, p. 936). The call for more independence from
government is never placed into the legal and political context of being an American
Indian. No discussion is made of the Supreme Court declaring American Indians wards in
the late 1800s, nor is the complete and unprincipled total or plenary power of Congress in
Indian Affairs mentioned. AIM is portrayed as typically militant and violent (p. 936).
Again this is stated without placing AIM in historical, political, and legal context.
Finally, American Indians are brought into that national master narrative of some
progress being made (Appleby, et.al, 2005, p. 937). They had the 1975 Indian SelfDetermination and Education Assistance Act. Through the courts, they won land and
water claims (p. 937). They have casinos in states where others are prohibited from
having them, and just as “other American minorities did in the 1960s and 1970s,” they
fought for and got control of their economic future (p. 937). Thus ends the American
Indian coverage in this textbook with an overblown statement of progress that ignores
fundamental issues such as foundational legal cases based in racism and white
superiority.
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America: A Narrative History
America: A Narrative History (2007) is published by W.W. Norton and Company
of New York. W.W. Norton and Company is unlike the other publishers in this study.
The company is fully independent and wholly owned by the employees. The authors are
George Brown Tindall and David Emory Shi. Unlike other textbooks, readers are not
provided information and photographs of the authors. Nor are there sections on various
advisors, editors, and consultants. George Brown Tindall is deceased and was a long time
professor of history at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He was a noted
historian of the American south. David Shi is president and professor of history at
Furman University. He is most noted for cultural history. This textbook, the entire history
is in two volumes, is marketed as “Books students will read.”
America: A Narrative History includes both Cherokee Nation and Worcester in
both name and description. Both cases have index entries (Tindall & Shi, 2007, pp. A115,
A158). Nothing is included for Johnson. Cherokee Nation and Worcester receive
attention in Chapter Eleven, “The Jacksonian Impulse,” in a section titled “Jackson’s
Indian Policy” (pp. 396-400). Here is relevant content (pp. 397-400):
THE TRAIL OF TEARS. The Cherokees had, by the end of the eighteenth
century, fallen back into the mountains of northern Georgia and western
North Carolina, onto land guaranteed to them in 1791 by treaty with the
United States. But when Georgia ceded its western lands in 1802, it did so
on the ambiguous condition that the United States extinguish all Indian
titles within the state “as early as the same can be obtained on reasonable
terms.” In 1827 the Cherokees, relying on their treaty rights, adopted a
constitution in which they declared pointedly that they were not subject to
any other state or nation. In 1828 Georgia responded by declaring that
after June 1, 1830, the authority of state law would extend over the
Cherokees living within the boundaries of the state.
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The discovery of gold in 1829 whetted the whites’ appetite for Cherokee
land and brought bands of rough prospectors into the country. The
Cherokees sought relief in the Supreme Court, but in Cherokee Nation v.
Georgia (1831) John Marshall ruled that the Court lacked jurisdiction
because the Cherokees were a “domestic dependent nation” rather than a
foreign state in the meaning of the Constitution. Marshall added, however,
that the Cherokees had “an unquestionable right” to their lands “until title
should be extinguished by voluntary cession to the United States.” In 1830
a Georgia law had required whites in the territory to obtain licenses
authorizing their residence there and to take an oath of allegiance to the
state. Two New England missionaries among the Indians refused to abide
by the law and were sentenced to four years at hard labor. On appeal their
case reached the Supreme Court as Worcester v. Georgia (1832), and the
Court held that the Cherokee Nation was a “distinct political community”
within which Georgia law had no force. The Georgia law was therefore
unconstitutional.
Six years earlier Georgia had faced down President John Quincy Adams
when he tried to protect the rights of the Creeks. Now Georgia faced down
the Supreme Court with tacit consent of another president. Andrew
Jackson did nothing to enforce the Court’s decision. Under the
circumstances there was nothing for the Cherokees to do but give in and
sign a treaty, which they did in 1835. They gave up their land in the
Southeast in exchange for tracts in the Indian Territory west of Arkansas,
$5 million from the federal government, and expenses for transportation.
By 1838 some 17,000 Cherokees had departed westward on the “Trail of
Tears,” following other tribes on an 800-mile journey marked by cruelty
and neglect by soldiers and private contractors and scorn and pilferage by
whites along the way. A few held out in the mountains and acquired title
to federal land in North Carolina; thenceforth they were the “Eastern
Band” of the Cherokees.
APPRAISAL
The reviewer’s APPRAISAL analysis of America: A Narrative History allows
some propriety, capacity, and tenacity in the Cherokee to battle in the courts, but
eventually losing out to the improper actions of Georgia, Jackson, troops, private
contractors, and whites. The text is monogloss and uses the recorder voice which assumes
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reader and writer world view alignment and makes indirect judgment. Recorder voice is
dominant in that the text appears to be merely recording the facts.
All judgments are indirect unless otherwise noted. The Cherokee lacked capacity
by falling back to lands in Georgia, but were proper in that the lands were guaranteed
them by treaty. The Cherokee showed positive tenacity and capacity by adopting a
constitution that asserted no other entity had jurisdiction in their lands. The Supreme
Court took away some capacity in Cherokee Nation, which was not named. The same
discussion upholds the propriety of Cherokee assertion of control of their lands by noting
“an unquestionable right” to their lands until they voluntarily cede such to the United
States government. In Worcester, Georgia’s laws extending jurisdiction are ruled
unconstitutional thus denying the propriety of Georgia’s actions and their capacity over
Cherokee. Georgia shows tenacity in not following the Supreme Court’s ruling with the
negative propriety of Jackson not enforcing the decision. The Cherokee have negative
capacity “when there was nothing “ for them to do but to “give in” and sign a treaty of
removal. The propriety of troops, private contractors, and whites is shown to be negative
by the “cruelty and neglect” of soldiers and private contractors and the “scorn and
pilferage” of whites along the way.
The narrative that exits from APPRAISAL is that while having some capacity to
use the courts, the Cherokee lacked capacity to stop Jackson and Georgia in their
improper removal actions despite a good ruling from the Supreme Court.
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Critical Analysis
America: A Narrative History, in Part Three, “An Expansive Nation,” contains
twenty-seven American Indian mentions in five chapters covering 174 pages. The most
mentions concern Indian removal and interactions on the Plains and Mountain West
before the Civil War. The unit preview lets the readers know that westward expansion
brought conflict with American Indians (Tindall & Shi, 2007, p. 354). However, only a
“few people” expressed concern (p. 354). This statement either assumes that American
Indians were few in number or that they were not people (or perhaps both). The term
“Americans” clearly meant white people in this textbook and now it seems “people”
means the same.
Chapter Ten, “Nationalism and Sectionalism,” speaks only of Florida, the Creeks,
and the Seminoles and how Andrew Jackson handled Spanish and Indian matters there
(Tindall & She, 2007, pp. 365-6). This led to Florida becoming part of the U.S. Jackson
rose to the presidency in part based upon his fame as an Indian fighter (pp. 376-81). This
chapter includes a section on “Judicial Nationalism” that covers U.S. Supreme Court
cases during the Marshall era (pp. 371-74). Johnson v. McIntosh (1823), a very strong
statement of U.S. national imperialism, is not discussed.
Chapter Eleven, “The Jacksonian Impulse,” does include Indian policy in one of
its three focus questions (Tindall & She, 2007, p. 385). “Jackson’s Indian Policy” is a
section of the chapter and the dominant coverage of American Indians (pp. 396-400). The
introductory remarks to this section attempts to make the U.S. a multicultural nation by
the 1820s and racism more of an individual matter while at the same time recognizing the
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role of policy and government. The text says most “whites, however, were openly racist”
in the way they treated Indians (p. 396). Yet, it admits that “policy makers struggled to
preserve white racial homogeneity and hegemony” (p. 396). This is a rare admission from
any text. However, real anti-Indianism is blamed on Andrew Jackson and western whites
who believed “Native Americans were barbarians and better off out of the way” (p. 396).
When the text refers to western whites, it means the poor whites and Jackson’s rabble.
Interestingly, the textbook leaves out the opinion of the white elites in Johnson v.
McIntosh (1823) and George Washington’s statement of federal Indian policy in
September, 1783. Professor Williams reminds us of the racism in these statements from
the elite (2005, pp. 33-45, 47-58). These men were speaking for and determining the
actions of institutions and the rule of law.
The textbook furthers racial homogeneity by noting that in the old south, white
settlers had slowly surrounded the Cherokee and other tribes (Tindall & Shi, 2007, p.
397). The text notes that the Cherokee had “taken on many of the features of white
society” because they had a constitution, written language, and African American slaves
(p. 397). Nowhere in the textbook is there a discussion about mixing the races; nor in any
textbook for that matter. Nowhere do we learn that Principal Chief John Ross of the
Cherokee was one-eighth Cherokee blood or that the revered Sequoyah was mixed-blood.
Indians are only perceived as a racial category and never as a political one with a unique
legal relationship to the U.S. in the textbook.
The northern tribes are described as too weak to resist by the 1830s (Tindall &
Shi, 2007, p. 397). When Black Hawk led the Sauk and Fox to their old lands, they were
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massacred by the Illinois militia which included Abraham Lincoln (p. 397). American
Indians appear when they are described as resisters in the way of white migration.
The Seminoles and Cherokee “put up a stubborn resistance” to the federal removal
(Tindall & Shi, 2007, p. 397). Not all were removed (pp. 397, 399).
The Cherokee resided on land guaranteed to them by the 1791 treaty with the
federal government (Tindall & Shi, 2007, p. 397). The federal government had promised
Georgia that it would extinguish all Indian titles within the state if Georgia ceded its
western land claims to the federal government (p. 398). When Georgia extended its laws
into the Cherokee Nation, the Cherokee asserted its rights before the U.S. Supreme Court
(p. 399). This textbook covers the case and names it, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831).
The text states accurately that the Court denied jurisdiction holding the Cherokee Nation
to be a domestic dependent nation and not a foreign nation which would have allowed the
Supreme Court jurisdiction in a suit against a state (p. 399). The text then states that
Marshall added that the Cherokees had a right to their lands until title was extinguished
by voluntary agreement with the United States (p. 399). Yet the textbook does not include
the case that dealt with Indian land ownership, Johnson v. McIntosh, which is cited in
Cherokee Nation, even though the textbook uses the term Indian title.
Worcester v. Georgia (1832) is also presented and is accurately portrayed as
holding that Georgia law does not apply in the Cherokee Nation (Tindall & Shi, 2007, p.
399). However, the narrative following still makes it appear that the Court had ruled on
removal which it did not. The narrative makes it appear that because Jackson did not
enforce the Supreme Court ruling that removal occurred. But the case was about the
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criminal conviction of Worcester and not federal protection of the Cherokee. In fact,
when the Indian Removal Act was under consideration by the national Congress, an
amendment to guarantee federal protection was defeated (Venables, 2004, vol. 2, p. 104).
Certainly, Georgia pressure was intense and the likely reason some Cherokee signed a
treaty of removal against Cherokee Council direction, but the removal took place under
federal law with federal troops and contractors. As Venables (2004) points out, support
for the Indian Removal Act and the actual removal was national, not just southern (p.
106).
The three American Indian mentions in Chapter Thirty-five, “Rebellion and
Reaction in the 1960s and 1970s,” deal with the terrible conditions, Johnson poverty
programs, AIM, Alcatraz, and Wounded Knee II followed by court actions (Tindall &
Shi, 2007, pp. 1280-82). The American Indian “plight” is described as “more desperate”
than the other minority groups that join them in this chapter (p. 1280). In the text
narrative up to this point, American Indians are not discussed with other non-white
groups or with women. While the text never provides students the basis for the unique
status and place politically in the U.S., they were not treated with others in protest and
fighting for rights. The text notes that more effective ways were found than direct action;
Indians began winning in the courts and getting land and money (Tindall & Shi, 2007, p.
1282). The master narrative brings American Indians into the fight of making the United
States live up to its ideals through expanding civil rights and access to courts and money
damages. Forget that for many American Indians, money cannot replace land and
especially land with special significance. Forget the cases that the textbook leaves out
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that continue the language of savagery, the idea of conquest and discovery, and the
continuing lack of Constitutional principles to restrain government action.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
If the reader perceives all the various narratives are very similar, the perception is
expected. Writing school history is a genre or order of discourse. Texts are produced
from already produced texts in the area. Textbooks tend to stabilize in their
configurations of discourse as power, called hegemony, and rewards those with accepted
narratives (Fairclough, 1995, p. 2). Genre is a socially ratified way of using language in
connection with the particular activity, in this case secondary school history writing.
Among the sample of textbooks in this study is a totally new series. United States History
actually covers less federal Indian law than any of the other textbooks.
The publication process for textbooks in the United States was discussed in detail
in chapter one which explains why history textbooks are what they are. The need to profit
and to maximize profit requires producing a product as uncontroversial as possible.
Apple refers to this as the censorship of profit (1989, p.97). The reduction of the number
of textbook publishers has increased the need for a nationwide text that serves all and
sells in all places. In the past, the many publishers might find niche markets with more
varied products.
Below is a summary of quantitative and qualitative analysis. After this, the
following chapters will draw conclusions and discuss findings in light of the questions
asked and the methodology used and makes recommendations.
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No textbook includes Johnson v. McIntosh (1823). Cherokee Nation is discussed
in four texts and named in only one. Worcester v. Georgia is named and discussed in all
textbooks. No other Indian law cases are named in any textbook. In six of the eight
textbooks, cases are discussed in the late 20th century where American Indian matters are
framed within ethnic minority status with other minority ethnic groups. These cases
mostly deal with land issues, but also consider fishing rights, taxes, resources, and
sovereignty issues. American Indian peoples are seen as winning large amounts of
money.
The recorder voice is dominant in the narratives. This voice appears very
objective and factual with the author’s presence absent. The narratives are mostly
monogloss. When there are heteroglossic elements, the Native voices reinforce
the Trail of Tears as a sad event with hapless people suffering from bad actions of
a few people.
The judgments, which are predominately indirect, reinforce removal as a
sad but unavoidable event. The Cherokee are positively judged for normality,
tenacity, and capacity in using the courts as a proper place to settle disputes. Their
capacity is not as great as those forcing removal however. In seven out of eight of
the textbooks, Georgia and Jackson are judged improper in forcing removal. This
is enhanced by seven of the eight textbooks including Jackson’s statement about
Marshall enforcing his decision. The other textbook simply says Jackson did
nothing to enforce the decision.
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Only four of the eight textbooks mentions the treaty made with a minority
of Cherokee under the Indian Removal Act. This absence makes placing blame on
Jackson and Georgia easier to accomplish. The other textbook places the
impropriety on government agents and troops. Most of the other seven books also
add one or more of the following to judge improper: federal government, troops,
Van Buren, or private contractors. The United States Supreme Court is not judged
negatively. When much of the horrendous rationale in the cases such as Johnson
is excluded and the cases are constructed as standing for something that they do
not, then the federal court can appear as a good party in the narrative. This fits
into the civil rights narrative for the 20th century.
SUMMARY OF GENERAL CRITICAL FINDINGS
What coverage there is of the Marshall Trilogy cases occurs in a part of the entire
national master narrative where American Indians appear. Historically and also true for
these textbooks, American Indians appear and disappear throughout the narrative. This
sends a strong message that American Indians are not really part of the nation building of
the United States. Appearances are often associated when they are considered in the way
of white migration as is the case with the Marshall case coverage. Inclusion of American
Indians historically ended with the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre. Checklists,
guidelines, and advocacy has brought some 20th century coverage as this study indicates,
but the inclusion is sporadic and eventually makes American Indian peoples the smallest
ethnic minority and washes away the political/legal uniqueness which is never indicated
anyway in a substantial and meaningful way.
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Brayboy’s (2005) colonization and Grande’s (2004) whitestream are seen
throughout the narrative examined here. Brayboy defined colonization as the EuroAmerican thought, knowledge, and power structures that dominate present-day in the
U.S. (2005, p. 430). Whitesteam is defined as the U.S. remaining principally and
fundamentally structured on the basis of Anglo-European or “white” experience (Grande,
2004, p. 9). APPRAISAL analysis showed us a recorder voice with primary monogloss
text. Both of these assume a world view alignment between reader and author. Most
readers are white. Most state approval boards are white. The assumption is that whiteness
pervades and is the norm.
Examples of the pervasive whiteness are seen when “American” and “people”
both obviously mean white. The assumption in text and questions is that the American
Indians should blend with whites and never that white society should blend into the
Native. Whiteness maintains its purity in these textbooks. None indicate the children of
white and American Indian relationships. The textbooks admire Sequoyah, but never
point out his mixed ancestry. The same holds for one-eighth Cherokee blood Chief John
Ross. Such discussion would complicate the sole emphasis on racialized American
Indians that can fit into the racialized civil rights movement and expansion of rights to all
in the 20th century narrative which upholds the American Creed of ever expanding rights
for all. The political/legal nature of American Indian nations and individuals would need
to be addressed to explain why the system and individuals within that system believed
they could treat American Indians in the way they did and do. Suddenly Johnson v.
McIntosh, left out of every textbook, as well as the reasoning in every case about
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discovery, conquest, and inferiority would be essential to understanding American
Indians. But as Grande reminds us, American Indians expose the great lies about the
United States and defy the one nation, one people principle that defines America (2004,
p. 32).
So the textbooks do not cover Johnson, some cover Cherokee Nation with one
actually naming the case, and all cover Worcester. No other American Indian cases are
named. Two textbooks never discuss any further cases. The rest discuss all of the
victories and money won by the litigious ethnic minority that is left called American
Indians. These are praised while direct actions by AIM are denigrated. The whitestream
narrative wants American Indians to seek justice through the courts of the United States,
what Echo-Hawk (2010) refers to as the courts of the conqueror, and fears direct action of
sovereign nations and peoples to assert their rights as humans. Yet it is a question open
for debate on whether American Indians can obtain self-determination, sovereignty, and
human rights through means provided by the conqueror’s rule of law and the discourses
of conquest that pervades (Williams, 1986 cited in Grande, 2004, p. 50). This is
especially so when the master narrative studied in schools is not substantially reformed
(Pommersheim, 1995, p. 156).
The Marshall Trilogy cases when included are often misstated or only partially
explained. Worcester is primarily turned into a case about removal with the Supreme
Court standing up against such and the bad southern President and the state of Georgia
forcing removal. This inaccurate narrative needs to be replaced. Satz (2002) and
Roberston (2005) provide a substantial narrative that recognizes how the Marshall
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Trilogy was involved in the configuration of federalism. When we see the matters
Marshall was involved in personally and what he used the massive dicta in these cases
for, then students and citizens can begin to loosen their hold on these cases as long
standing, sacrosanct holdings. The rule of law is exposed as the rule of power.
The textbooks mostly leave out the inconsistent promises made concerning the
lands in treaties and in agreements with Georgia regarding removing Indian title within
their state in exchange for western lands claimed by Georgia. They leave out that the
Supreme Court said in Cherokee Nation that all of the issues Cherokee raised against
Georgia were political questions better left to the legislatures and executives of the
federal and state governments. Removal was never an issue before the Supreme Court.
The language of the Supreme Court in all cases that rely on notions of savagery of
American Indians is not included. As Williams points out, these notions of the savage are
long standing in western thought and in the minds of all concerning tribal peoples that
they continue to violate human rights (2012). Indeed, the textbooks leave out the
Supreme Court ignoring international law in Cherokee Nation (Echo-Hawk, 2010, p.
103). This is the same Supreme Court that drew upon the international law of discovery
to take all lands from American Indian ownership in Johnson while also carving out an
American exception by deeming all indigenous peoples of the Americas conquered by the
U.S. government. The holding and views expressed in Johnson were a large part of the
discourse of removal.
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Satz reminds us that the textbooks in the 1820s and 1830s supported removal
(2002, p. 55). The school narrative is important and powerful especially in light of the
Tee-Hit-Ton case, which will be discussed later.
The textbooks leave out or minimize that removal was a national effort and not
just a southern one. The Indian Removal Act was passed by the national Congress and
efforts by Cherokee and others fell on deaf ears as party politics took precedence over
morals. An amendment to the IRA that would have required the federal government to
protect the Cherokee and others was defeated by the national Congress (Venables, 2004,
vol. 2, p. 105). The Amendment failed, although, the 1802 Trade and Intercourse Act
required the executive to remove all intruders from Indian country (Satz, 2002, p. 46).
Corn Tassel is left out of the textbooks. Corn Tassel (Cherokee) was convicted by
the state of Georgia for murdering a Cherokee on Cherokee Nation. The U.S. Supreme
Court agreed to hear his appeal. The basis of appeal was the lack of Georgia jurisdiction
over Cherokee Nation. Georgia hung Corn Tassel, despite the appeal, and the case was
mooted. This case would have brought jurisdictional issues to the Supreme Court through
a Cherokee individual and not through the white missionaries.
Textbooks sometimes include Jackson’s description of the Cherokee and others
when promoting the Indian Removal Act. None of the textbooks challenged his lies, but
should have at least pointed out that he knew American Indians better than how he
described them. He fought with the Cherokee and others and he knew they were not the
savage wandering hunter-gatherers that he described in his speeches. The Cherokee were
very astute and politically involved as both Venables (2004) and Satz (2002) detail. This
187
might call into question the longstanding descriptions used by U.S. leaders when they
need to justify genocide against the “other” whether they are American Indians or the
many peoples around the globe that face U.S. military might.
While the textbooks essentially racialize American Indians in order to fit into the
civil rights narrative, they de-racialize them by focusing on culture as the problem so that
the real race talk that needs to occur is avoided by using culture talk. For textbooks,
culture is fixed for American Indians and is the problem. From the beginning, most
textbooks place American Indians in the anthropological present----fixed in the past,
never changing. By the end of the textbook inclusion, the traditionalists stand in the way
of progress or American Indians that lose their culture are lost. This denies the great
complexity of the ways people have survived the incredible actions taken to destroy
them. The textbooks could include these rather than making the story of American
Indians a sad, yet inevitable story in the face of an advanced civilization.
American Indians are problematically made part of the master immigrant story
when they are described as “First Americans” or similar in the start of textbooks. These
textbooks privilege western science by prioritizing scientific theories over indigenous
origin narratives often denigrated by use of “legends” in the texts. The narrative is
complete when American Indians become an ethnic minority placed together with other
migrants in the 20th century. This is enhanced by the textbook reference to Native nations
as “groups.” This serves to deny sovereignty and allow easy placement as a minority
group since the cases that are discussed never lay out sovereignty and the place of
American Indians in the U.S. Constitutional scheme.
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The textbook narratives constantly reinforce that land, power, and rights are given
by the United States. Inherent sovereignty is ignored and left undiscussed even within the
Worcester narrative. American Indian nations are essentially ignored during discussions
of the Louisiana Purchase, which is one of the events stated as leading up to the pressure
to remove the Native nations. The treaty was between the U.S. and France; and none of
the Native nations in the area was involved in the treaty making.
When the 20th century narrative discusses the victories in court by American
Indians, it seems to erase any possible bad cases which the narrative does clearly with the
African-American civil rights cases. All textbooks include Dred Scott, Plessy, and
Brown. For African-Americans, Dred Scott, which confirmed slaves as property, was
overturned by the Civil War Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Plessy, which
confirmed the separate but equal doctrine, was overturned by Brown. Given the textbook
narrative, students could rightly assume that all bad Indian cases, if indeed there are any
given the nature of the textbooks’ coverage, have been reversed. The liberals and
conservatives alike can claim much progress.
But for American Indian peoples, we must ask if much has changed. Unlike Dred
Scott and Plessy, the Marshall Trilogy of cases has not been overturned. One year after
Brown, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the U.S. forest service owed no
duty to pay the Tlingit in Alaska any monies under the 5th Amendment for taking and
selling timber from their lands (Echo-Hawk, 2010, pp. 359-94). In Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v.
United States (1955), the Supreme Court stated:
Every American schoolboy knows that the savage tribes of this
continent were deprived of their ancestral ranges by force and that,
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even when the Indians ceded millions of acres by treaty in return
for blankets, food and trinkets, it was not a sale but the conqueror’s
will that deprived them of their land (348 US 289-90).
This statement is the reason for this work and other work I do. If what people
learn in school is used in law to deny fundamental human rights, then what is learned in
school needs to be changed. Echo-Hawk points out that the “conquest” never occurred in
that there was no war between the U.S. and the Native Nations involved in the Tee-HitTon case (2010, p. 363). As stated before, this is part of the American exceptionalism
from Johnson, conquest is assumed. The story of Te-Hit-Ton is a microcosm for Manifest
Destiny and it brings the law of colonialism into the modern day (Echo-Hawk, 2010, p.
364). The case has never been reversed and was cited with approval in a 2001 Supreme
Court case, Idaho v. U.S. (Echo-Hawk, 2010, p. 365). Tee-Hit-Ton relies on the “great
case of Johnson v. McIntosh” which has been effective law since 1823 (Williams, 2005,
p. 92). Williams notes the larger impact of such a case by reinforcing the racism in larger
society which includes schools (p. 95). Tee-Hit-Ton is not in the textbooks.
But surely things are better now that we are in the 21st century. Williams (2005)
discusses two U.S. Supreme Court cases in the 21st century that continue to destroy the
rights of American Indians based upon the long established racism of U.S. jurisprudence:
Nevada v. Hicks (2001) and United States v. Lara (2004) (p. 136). Nevada continued to
expand restrictions of Indian jurisdiction over non-Indians begun in Oliphant v.
Suquamish (1978). Lara was hailed as a “victory” for Indian Country when the U.S.
Supreme Court upheld Congress expanding tribal jurisdiction in criminal cases to all
Indians when on tribal lands. Congress reversed the 1990 Duro v. Reina decision, where
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the Supreme Court denied tribal court criminal jurisdiction over nonmember Indians
(Williams, 2005, p. 150). The Court in Lara noted Congress’ plenary (complete) power
over Indians affairs in the commerce clause and the treaty clause in the Constitution.
However, the Court noted the federal government’s powers in pre-constitutional war,
conquest, and territorial integrity (Williams, 2005, p. 155). This decision essentially
could allow Congress to “completely destroy Indian rights in America” (p. 157).
Echo-Hawk (2010) lists the ten worst Indian law cases. Johnson and Cherokee
Nation are the first two cases listed. The other cases include Tee-Hit-Ton, discussed
previously, and the following: Connors v. United States & Cheyenne Indians (which
raises the issue about the legality of war actions against American Indians); Lone Wolf v.
Hitchcock (Congress’ plenary powers allow them to void treaties); United States v.
Sandoval (finding the Pueblo peoples to be “Indians” as “inferior people…adhering to
primitive modes of life, largely influenced by superstition and fetishism, and governed
chiefly according to crude customs inherited from their ancestors”); In re Adoption of
John Doe v. Heim (adoption of American Indian child to white family over Navajo
grandfather claiming Navajo law); Wana the Bear v. Community Construction (allowed
burial ground to be dug up); Employment Division v. Smith (First Amendment does not
protect American Indian religion practices); and Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery
Association (First Amendment does not protect American Indian Holy ground). Some of
these cases are state cases and some have led to legislation. Five of the cases occur since
1950.
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The list could be expended with cases such as U.S. v Kagama (allowing the
Major Crimes Act to allow federal jurisdiction over Indian Country for certain crimes)
and Oliphant v. Suquamish (tribe could not criminally prosecute non-Indians for crimes
committed against tribal police officers on the tribe’s own reservation). The problem with
all of these cases is that they show the dark side of Indian law which according to EchoHawk includes the doctrines of discovery and conquest that take land title from American
Indians, the depiction of American Indians as savage to justify decisions, the need for
guardianship, and the racial inferiority assumed among others (2010, pp. 44-9). In Indian
law, where is the Brown?
Cases that help explain fishing and hunting rights and sovereignty could be
included. These become very emotional in areas where they are concerned and lead to
claims of special rights for American Indian (Calloway, 2008, p. 469). Winters v.U.S
could be most enlightening on important water rights.
Worcester is not on the worst cases list. In fact, Echo-Hawk sees the case as
foundational to a process of making federal Indian law based upon human rights
principles invoking the U. N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, rather
than on the doctrine of conquest with its imagery of savage Indians, white supremacy,
and colonialism/imperialism (2013, p. 41). Both Echo-Hawk (2010, 2013) and
Pommersheim (1995, 2009) agree that Worcester’s recognition of inherent tribal
sovereignty is a place to build a coherent foundation (p. 41; 1995, p. 190). Textbooks
could help in this process by a more complex and inclusive treatment of the Marshall
Trilogy that could prepare citizens to bring about a more human rights based Indian law.
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The inclusion of Johnson and Cherokee Nation as the worst cases by Indian law
scholars and Worcester as potentially a very good case suggests reasons for their
inclusion in the textbooks. School history is more like heritage class than history. History
can critically examine events, warts and all. These textbooks leave out Johnson, the most
foundationally and fundamentally flawed case of all, even though whether cited or not, it
is in the minds of the courts which are included in the textbooks. Cherokee Nation is
mostly unnamed so that the emphasis of the Cherokee being closed out of the court
justice system is diminished. Worcester becomes the Cherokee’s case and is made to
stand for much more than its technical merits. Why? Because the master national
narrative needs progress and expansion of rights by the system and to make racism
individual misconduct.
In the 20th century, everything is going very well as American Indians are
winning all their cases and getting massive legislation passed. They, among many other
groups, are being brought into the one nation that delivers justice for all. When the texts
mention sovereignty or the uniqueness of the American Indian situation, it is simply gloss
because they simply do not deal with these issues in a meaningful way because such
issues are a problem for the one nation story. As Grande (2004, pp. 31-2) states:
American Indian tribes are viewed as an inherent threat to the nation,
poised to expose the great lies of U.S. democracy: That we are a nation of
laws and not random power; that we are guided by reason and not faith;
that we are governed by representation and not executive order; and
finally, that we stand as a self-determined citizenry and not a kingdom of
blood and aristocracy.
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If the original sin of the United States is the genocide of American Indians, can the
country truly live up to the American Creed until it deals maturely and completely with
that sin? (p. 31).
The Marshall Trilogy cases formed the basis for the reasoning in Jones v. United
States and other cases that upheld U.S. colonial and imperial expansion beyond the
borders (Saito, 2010, pp. 140-1, 149; Echo-Hawk, 2010, p. 178). Jones upheld extension
of federal criminal law to Navassa by accepting the assertion of the other branches that a
territory was indeed discovered and conquered as was seen in the Marshall Trilogy,
specifically Johnson. The series of cases known collectively as the Insular Cases used the
Marshall Trilogy to establish guardianship and plenary power over the people deemed
inferior in other countries such as the Philippines. None of the cases are in the eight
textbooks of this study. In fact, only one textbook drew a connection to Indian policy
when America: Pathways to the Present discussed how Social Darwinism was used to
justify U.S. imperialism much like in the case of American Indians (Cayton, et. al., 2003,
p. 588). To discuss these cases, including Johnson, would mean exposing the darker side
of the Marshal Trilogy cases. Such a discussion would interfere with the upbeat civil
rights inclusion of the 20th century.
This chapter has described the treatment of the Marshall Trilogy and federal
Indian law in the textbooks. APPRAISAL analysis provided insight into issues of author
voice and alignment with reader world views and judgments. Critical analysis has pierced
beyond the text associated with the cases to examine how they fit into a broader narrative
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about the United States. The next chapter addresses the consequences of the findings
above and looks at the four Discourse Relational Analysis questions.
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CHAPTER SIX
DISCUSSION, RECOMMENDATIONS, AND CONCLUSION
Chapter Four detailed the findings to answer research question one concerning the
treatment of the Marshall Trilogy and federal Indian law cases in the eight high school
U.S. history textbooks. Substantial findings related that treatment to the master national
narrative of the United States to answer research question two. This chapter addresses
research question three on the consequences arising from the answers to questions one,
what do the textbooks include, and two, how does the treatment of the Marshall Trilogy
and federal Indian law fit into the master national narrative. In addition, this chapter
addresses the four DRA questions concerning the semiotic aspects of the social wrong,
whether the social order needs the wrong, what are the obstacles to address the social
wrong, and what can be done to overcome the obstacles.
DISCUSSION
Consequences
The narrative taught in U.S. schools impacts students differently. Epstein (2009)
found that adolescent white students identified with the national master narrative with
European immigrants settling the land, creating a democracy with freedom and rights,
and building a world power that supported democracy worldwide (p. 65). While blacks
and women were originally excluded, they fought for rights with minimum conflict
against unnamed opponents to achieve freedom and equality (p. 65). The white students’
view was positive and the story progressive with ever expanding opportunity and rights
(p. 65). White students, like their teachers, had limited knowledge of American Indians
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because American Indians were not part of the national narrative (p. 74). The school
history was more congruent to white students and family than for Black students and
family (pp. 112-13).
Epstein found Black students constructed a national narrative less positive than
whites (2009, p.88). Their narrative was marked by racial violence, conflict, and
marginalization of groups (p. 88). Alternative history was often taught at home and
community. This history included institutional racism, rights exclusion, and individual
and collective challenge (p. 113). Textbooks were seen as problematic (pp. 105, 113).
In the Introduction, two quotes were provided from American Indian students.
One student was quoted by me, saying that after seeing the video When Your Hands are
Tied he felt good being an Indian at school (Hartle & Shebala). When I inquired further,
he detailed how social studies and history in school made him feel bad about being
Native. He attended an all-Native reservation public school. Another quote is from a
student in Martinez’s study of curriculum and instruction at an urban high school with
substantial Native populations. That student noted that the textbooks “always try to make
the White people or the Spaniards better than the Native Americans” (Marinez, 2010, pp.
64-5). The master national narrative is a problem for American Indian students.
Too often the history framework in school supports a narrative that placed
emphasis on voluntary migration to the U.S. while marginalizing forced migration and
the genocide and theft from American Indians (Epstein, 2009, p. 8). Systematic violence,
discrimination, and oppression against American Indians have been unacknowledged.
The structure of textbooks has been on elite white contributions, interpretations, and
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experiences (Loewen, 1995 cited in Epstein, p. 7). Even though coverage has expanded
recently, the nation is still seen as doing more to dismantle inequality than in perpetuating
it (Epstein, 2009, p. 7). The result of a disingenuous national history is that “millions of
young people leave the public schools knowing a nationalistic perspective, but not
believing it, while those who accept it have no framework for understanding racism and
other forms of inequality today” (Epstein, 2009, p. 9).
For many students, history feels like a weapon against them. High school
graduation rates in 2010 for American Indian students were 51% compared to 79.6% for
whites (Swanson & Lloyd, 2013). The suicide rate for American Indians age fifteen to
twenty-four is over three times higher than the national average for that age bracket
(Meyers, 2007, p. 30).
A critical and close examination of the Marshall Trilogy and federal Indian law
can provide American Indian students with a tool to understand their unique place in the
U.S. as well as understanding the colonizer mindset. This can be empowering. NonIndian students can learn what they need about the unique status of American Indians so
that they become allies against the centuries of lies and can advocate for a human rights
approach.
The current history narrative is a form of violence against our American Indian
students. Children confronted with an alien curriculum in terms of content are victims of
alienating violence (Salmi, 2006, p. 19). Alienating violence is deprivation of higher
rights that may include the right to psychological, emotional, cultural, and intellectual
integrity (Salmi, p. 11). Racism and prejudicial practices against any particular group are
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forms of alienating violence (Salmi, p. 12). Historical narrative that makes students feel
bad about themselves and their people, such as what whitestream history does, can cause
deficiencies not based upon the students’ abilities, but on alienation. Textbooks that
reflect a cultural or racial bias are a form of alienating violence. The effects of this on
achievement and life chances then become indirect violence. The failure to prepare all
students to be informed citizens is repressive violence, the deprivation of fundamental
political rights (Salmi, p. 24).
The textbooks examined offer a “conservative pluralism” approach that
emphasizes similarities among people (Smith, 2006, pp. 31-2). The national narrative of
immigration and the 20th century placement of American Indians with other immigrants
and minorities to be placed in the drama of ever increasing rights is an example. “Liberal
pluralism” recognizes and accepts differences, but often becomes no more than
“celebrations of diversity” or objectifying the exotic. Textbooks often exhibit this
especially concerning American Indians. The emphasis on “culture” is a display of this
approach. “Critical pluralism” recognizes both similarity and difference among people.
However, it looks at differences in status, privilege, and power relations among groups
(Smith, p. 32). This is the approach taken in this work and that has been outlawed in
Arizona (Ariz. Rev. Stat. section 15-112). This approach analyzes causes of injustice and
the possibility to act for social justice.
Teachers can mediate textbooks (Smith, 2006, p. 34). However, when teacher
education programs generally only offer or require a multicultural class, the effect would
be a soft multicultural or liberal pluralism approach that falls substantially short of what a
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critical education for real democracy would require. As Epstein noted, most teachers
know as little about American Indians as their students (2009, p. 74).
The U.S. history narrative in school violates the human rights of American Indian
peoples. The United States was the last nation to endorse the United Nations Declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2010 (Echo-Hawk, 2013, pp. xiv, 24). This
endorsement was done with State Department qualifications and the U.S. has stopped
short of implementation (pp. xiv, 24).
The Declaration contains three articles of import regarding education. Article 14
makes schooling accountable to indigenous peoples (Echo-Hawk, 2013, p. 50). American
Indians have the right to education free of discrimination, that promotes and respects their
cultures, and that is not used to assimilate (Echo-Hawk, p. 50). Further, public media
such as school books are powerful tools that permeate society (Echo-Hawk, p. 50). When
dominated by non-indigenous voices they can distort, create injurious myths, or ignore
and make American Indians invisible without any importance to the nation (Echo-Hawk,
p. 50). This work has shown that all of these wrongs against American Indians continue
in current textbooks.
Article 15 provides that American Indian peoples’ cultures, traditions, histories
and aspirations “shall be appropriately reflected in education and public information”
(Echo-Hawk, 2013, p. 50). Article 16 confirms the right of indigenous peoples to
establish their own media in their own languages and to have access to all forms of nonindigenous media without discrimination (Echo-Hawk, p. 50). Echo-Hawk’s work is
about replacing the dark side of federal Indian law with a human rights perspective. This
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task is made more difficult when textbooks and schooling do not include the dark side of
the law and only talk about recent court victories.
The national story that includes American Indians only when they are in the way
of colonial imperial expansion by whites, that fixes real Indians in the past, that freezes
American Indian peoples’ cultures and denies change and agency, and that makes them
just another immigrant group seeking rights in the 20th century violates the Declaration.
The Special Rapporteur for the United Nations on Indigenous Rights noted the role of
“mainstream education on history and social studies” further racially discriminatory
attitudes that “tend to render Native Americans relics of the past” (United Nations, 2012,
p. 6). At a recent conference that asked if you can teach U.S. history without Indians, my
response was that the master narrative needs the white man’s Indian, but real American
Indian peoples are too problematic to the narrative to be included. Until the real
American Indian peoples can be part of the narrative, their human rights are violated.
Every textbook follows the end of the so-called Indian Wars with a unit on U.S.
expansion abroad. There is no connection made between the genocidal policies toward
American Indian peoples and the development of empire abroad. Four hundred years of
genocide, theft, white supremacy and white entitlement made empire seem very normal.
The language and logic of the Marshall Trilogy of Federal Indian Law from the 1820s
and 1830s still forms the logic of empire and conquest for the United States. The way
textbooks present a linear narrative prevents students from critical understanding of vital
connections and also makes historical study seem irrelevant to the present.
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In Jones v. United States (1890), the U.S. Supreme Court, following the precedent
of Johnson v. McIntosh, held that the issue of claiming lands by conquest where no actual
conquest had been made was a political decision and not a judicial question. Thus, just as
with American Indian peoples, the United States set out its exception to the international
law of discovery by simply allowing the government to say conquest had happened
whether in fact it had (Saito, 2010, p. 141). Actions in the Philippines and elsewhere were
in fact viewed as a continuation of the Indian Wars, with many participating in overseas
massacres who were also at the Wounded Knee Massacre (Saito, p. 152). The white
man’s burden meant spreading democracy and Christianity to a savage people in
exchange for their land, resources, and labor all in the name of guardianship (Saito, p.
164-65). Guardianship is a very old doctrine not addressed in textbooks.
Not too long ago I was listening to the radio as I drove; the report was about the
United States government describing how much the Iranians were uncivilized. The
question I have is whether our citizens schooled as they are could see this as a 500 plus
year old strategy of empire. The U.S wants Iranian oil and to keep such from China. The
Iranians are no less civilized than the U.S. But citizens of the U.S. schooled on racial
superiority and U.S. exceptionalism are not prepared to critically analyze government
actions. The U.S., as the most dominant military force, acts and is seen worldwide as a
bully. If they hate us, perhaps it is with good reason. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us
to, “don’t let anybody make you think that God chose America as his divine, messianic
force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world” (Martin Luther King Jr. Online).
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I argue that if students are provided the Marshall Trilogy as a minimum that the
world can change. Not only can they begin to truly understand racism in the U.S. and the
entitlements white elites have provided for themselves for 500 years, but U.S. foreign and
immigration policy can be analyzed more critically and with historical context. The
hyper-praise for military and militarization can be reduced. The dehumanization of not
only the other but increasingly ourselves can be reduced. The substantial violence that the
U.S. brings both internally and externally might be reduced. The wisdom of indigenous
elders is an option that must be considered rather than dismissed. We might have a truer
democracy that is not owned by the military-industrial-banking complex.
Newcomb (2008) notes how the same moral system that underlies federal Indian
law underlies U.S. foreign policy (p. 132). The U.S. claims plenary power over the entire
world (p. 132). We have a military presence in over 150 countries. The “law” is just one
consequence of the more pervasive cultural process of meaning making (p. 131). As such,
the approach taken in this study is most relevant. He notes how the “great serpent” is
finally turning on itself as habeas corpus is attacked, use of military within our borders is
authorized, and we can add that the summary execution of U.S. citizens takes place
without trial or hearing based solely upon someone with power deciding that the person is
a terrorist (p. 134). The way out of this dark period is to shift away from the mindset of
Johnson v. McIntosh and the Christian Nation Theory and the Conqueror Model (p. 136).
This study does not call for checklists or guidelines. These have been done and
the narrative remains the same. Inclusion and representation that does not really change
either the treatment of American Indian peoples nor change the white supremicist,
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colonial, imperial national master narrative does little good. At the conference previously
mentioned in Chicago on Why You Can’t Teach U.S. History without Indians, the
historians argued for tweaking the national master narrative. I was the voice of
opposition. Five hundred years of a narrative that sets white Americans as superior, that
justifies violence against the other when the other has stuff whites want, and that allows
the U.S. to demand others adhere to international law while it may do as it please, is too
long. Tweaks have occurred as when American Indians and others are included, but
within the same old narrative. Our stories define who we are.
The liberal intelligentsia has an interest in tweaking. They can get credit and
promotion for good narrow scholarship that adds bits of interesting information. They can
attend dinner parties and state how against the violence and wars they are while staying
fully invested in the war machine through their stock funds and retirement plans.
Wherever your treasure is, there is your heart also.
Iroquois elder Oren Lyons asked at a 2013 public lecture I attended in Arizona,
“How can we get seven billion people to understand that we are all connected to each
other and nature?” When schools start teaching history---scars and all----and in less strict
chronology, but in a more connected way----we will be on the road to enhancing
conditions that may allow humans to survive on this planet.
We have seen the consequences of an unchanged master national narrative which
answers research question three: What are the consequences of the answers question one
and two?. Next, the four questions of the Dialectic Relational Approach to critical
discourse analysis are addressed.
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The DRA Questions
The first question asking what are the semiotic aspects of the social wrong has
been explored extensively. The social wrong of incomplete and inaccurate treatment of
the Marshall Trilogy and federal Indian law has had the APPRAISAL system and critical
analysis applied to understand why the social meaning is constructed the way it is.
Does the social order “need” the social wrong? A social order built on massive
amounts of military spending needs a narrative of spreading democracy to the lesser
peoples of the world by the U.S. as a beacon of democracy and ever expanding rights for
all. The warts from the Marshall Trilogy and federal Indian law cannot be a part of such
story. There is profit to be made from supplying the military, extracting resources from
military occupation, and by controlling the masses with possible military intervention
against them.
If the original sin of the United States is the genocide, past and present, against
the American Indian peoples, a narrative that makes such sad but inevitable and that even
blames the American Indian peoples allows white elites to enjoy all the privileges gained
from the labor, land, and resources of American Indian peoples to be guilt free. By
denying the existence of any “real” Indians in the contemporary scene, all wrongs are in
the past. White elites can proclaim, “Get over it!” Any present issues American Indian
peoples have is because they are deficient and especially if they try to remain traditional,
so the narrative goes. If American Indians suffer discrimination, it seems to be their fault
since no perpetrator is named nor any system exposed. White elites can feel good about
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themselves and their nation and never have to concern themselves with issues of social
justice or human rights.
By exposing the darker side of federal Indian law, the great lies are exposed. The
rule of law becomes less forceful when the decisions of Supreme Court justices support
their personal material gain and when rule of law is based upon the superiority of
Christianized Anglo-Europeans invoking biblical doctrine and secularized law assuming
their superiority. The rule of law is further weakened when the United States sets out an
exception to international law that allows it complete power to do as it will towards
American Indian peoples and later to “others” around the globe.
A more complete and accurate treatment of the Marshall Trilogy and federal
Indian law could expose world view differences concerning land and resources. The
current social order is taking us to the brink of destruction through the way the Earth is
viewed as mere commodity to be used up. One of the deep structures of colonialist
consciousness is that human beings are separate and superior to the rest of nature
(Grande, 2004, p. 69). Echo-Hawk (2013) discusses how differing cosmologies play out
in destroying the earth (pp. 133-155). The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples according to Echo-Hawk not only protects Native land interests but
opens up the possibility of a better land ethic for all (p. 133). Sustainability built on
western mindset will just be another marketing word. Sustainability built upon
indigenous values, the actual ones and not the white imagined Native values, may indeed
create the kind of relations that can allow the seventh generation to exist. Exposing the
dark side of federal Indian law increases the chance for human and other beings’survival.
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Maintaining the status quo serves those who seek individual wealth at the expense of
other beings, the Earth, and future generations.
What obstacles stand in the way of addressing the social wrong? A very big
obstacle is the pervasive image of American Indians in all areas of life: books, plays,
movies, advertising, sports mascots, and much more. The miseducation of all persons in
the U.S. is a major issue. Not only do textbooks fail to present the Marshall Trilogy and
federal Indian law, but teachers and administrators schooled on falsehoods and absences
make challenging the wrong difficult. This is made more so by the non-racist racism that
arises from multicultural classes. They claim not to be racist because they appreciate
difference. This leads to the “feathers and fry bread” days without ever really
understanding Indian country.
The college students I have encountered in American Indian Studies classes are
angry when they find out that their history classes left out very important matters such as
federal Indian law. A long time counselor at a Native serving, reservation-based high
school after observing me in the classroom advised that “they never had this here before.”
My inquiry on what he meant was answered with “Indian education.” Early in the year, I
asked my students at this southwest desert reservation school to draw what they envision
when they hear the word American Indian. Almost without exception, the students drew
teepees, horses, and riders with bow and arrows. When asked to draw what they see when
they hear the term “American,” they drew and colored in white people.
Our students are amazing. They received the often invisible message that being
“American” means being white. Further, they received the message about what a real
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Indian is. A real Indian in popular media and textbooks is a Plains Indian and when they
are massacred in 1890, no real Indians exist. So my students in the reservation school
asked me, “Are we indigenous? Are we Indian?”
Students learn early about what Brayboy (2005) terms endemic colonization and
Grande (2004) calls whitestream. The colonization of minds and the internalization of
whitesteam ways of thinking and being are a fundamental obstacle to addressing the
social wrong.
The above presents a good case example of the common sense that forms
Gramsci’s concept of hegemony. Because people think they know what Indians are like,
power can take the lands, resources, and lives of American Indian peoples. When calls
are made for better representation and inclusion, power incorporates these new demands
by focusing on culture. Culture allows for both the celebration of others and the blaming
of the others’ culture for their problems. But hegemony is never totally stable and is
contestable. This is discussed when we cover possible ways around obstacles to change.
Teacher education focuses on classroom management and methods of instruction
to transmit knowledge (Jobrack, 2012). American Indians might get some attention in a
multicultural course. This simply aligns with the treatment in our textbook narrative with
American Indians being consumed into minority ethnic group status. If we seek only
representation, since American Indians are about 1% of the population, they are entitled
to that much attention in the multicultural class. Of course, American Indian people
deserve more than that because of their special political/legal and racial/ethnic natures.
The increasingly intense standard and high stakes testing regime reinforce teaching as
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mere transmission and lessen the time available for the critical type schooling that would
be essential to include federal Indian law and to counter the massive popular views of
American Indians.
Much has already been included and discussed about the nature of textbook
publishing. Only three major publishers remain. The size of these companies along with
increasing costs to produce large flashy textbooks with lots of extras restrains new entry
into the market. In the current study, the seven textbooks published by the three
publishers are all very large, colorful artifacts with many supplemental sections, teacher
aids, and such. The one independently produced textbook is small in physical size, less
colorful, and more text oriented. Since teachers indicate a preference for the big, colorful
texts, smaller independent companies are at a disadvantage.
The state adoption states essentially determine text content. Those states are
primarily southern conservative states. The state committees face organized religious
fundamental groups that review textbooks (Educational Research Analysts). Publishers
want to meet the guidelines and nothing more. Any controversy that leads to rejection can
be devastating. Profit is maximized by needing little change from edition to edition.
Nothing is gained from an accurate, inclusive, and complex narrative about American
Indians or federal Indian law.
RECOMMENDATIONS
What can be done to overcome obstacles to change textbooks and curriculum for
correcting the social wrong? Hall’s (1986) work on the significance of Gramsci to
creating social change reminds us that the battle against hegemony needs to be waged
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everywhere –in both nation, state, and civil organizations. The suggestions below are not
meant to be exhaustive. Anyone seeking change must take every opportunity to raise
these issues and educate people. For students, the following question can raise important
issues in class: What about the American Indian peoples?
Here are some actions classroom teachers can take:
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Teach federal Indian law in history and government classes
Model questioning the authority of the textbook
Teach voice theory
Teach the APPRAISAL method (I have conducted workshops on this)
Teach the nature of knowledge and history
Teach about power and whose knowledge counts
Include stories of survivance
Include stories of good non-Indian allies
Use supplemental materials
Create your own textbook/students create their own
Provide documents such as the actual cases and other documents and ask
students to construct their own narrative
Contact NARF or Indian law attorneys to present
Contact person willing to serve as a class advisor on American Indian matters
and that can assure American Indians are in every historical period and that
cases are discussed
Look for the history beneath your feet. Seek local connections/consequences to
cases and American Indian matters.
Celebrate the diversity of over 500 tribes---not just an Indian day
Use one or more texts on American Indian history to compare and contrast with
main textbook
Examine your own biases and be willing to grow
Seek training on racism for non-racists
Have the courage to transform your classroom, school, community and beyond
Resist everything that reduces the humanity of yourself and your students.
Fight to change existing law regarding the ability of k-12 teachers to go beyond
the prescribed and to allow teaching for human rights
210
Teacher education programs must go beyond the soft multiculturalism and cultural
pluralism approach in order to provide justice for American Indians and others. The
approach described by Strong-Wilson in Bringing Memory Forward: Storied
Remembrance in Social Justice Education for Teachers is a suggested approach (2008).
To challenge the nationalistic story, each of us must address the stories we are invested in
deeply and how they impact us and others. Courses specifically focused on American
Indian history should be required. Further, courses on resources should be required. A
substantial body of film/video, books for all ages, good literature, web sites and more are
now available.
Many Native nations are developing media companies. An interesting possibility
would be producing a U.S. history textbook that meets all standards, but is written so that
the American Indian story is told and the narrative altered by such telling. Presenting this
textbook to state adoption committees would be an interesting exercise in advocacy.
Another sort of textbook that is used in many other countries focuses on several themes,
including a short narrative explaining the theme, and then has a series of questions
followed by suggested resources. American Indian focused resources could be placed in
every theme section. Students might construct very different narratives and the sharing
and discussion of such would itself be important educationally.
These Native media companies can produce materials for classroom. Teachers seek
supplemental materials. Short video clips are a good way for teachers to break up
classroom time and can often invigorate readings. Native nations can develop role play,
211
trial scripts, and other innovative materials to help contest the narrative and include
federal Indian law.
Materials can be produced for the general public. Native nations in Oklahoma now
run advertisements on television telling about their history and current activities. More
critical ads in the future can help change the “common sense” people have about
American Indians.
Native nations should individually and as a collective organize textbook and
curriculum review. Reports should be published and appearances should be made at
every state adoption meeting or local school board meeting.
Let us employ a multitude of American Indian people to travel to classrooms and
communities to present information and provide education on matters of import. Let us
offer free professional development and pay teachers willing to change and to implement
important classroom changes.
Native nations need to advocate for standards that include the Marshall Trilogy and
federal Indian law. Those standards need to detail exactly what is required otherwise they
could be consumed in the whitestream narrative.
Native nations could offer to critique textbooks for publishers for free. If the
publishers refuse, then issue a press release. If they agree, refuse to sign broad
confidentiality agreements that would keep nations from issuing public statements that
show their critique and what was actually published. If they will not allow a narrowly
tailored agreement, then go public on the secrecy involved in making public textbooks for
212
public schools. If the publisher changes the text to substantially meet the critique, then
publish that as well.
Further, Native nations and organizations might consider developing a litigation
strategy against curriculum that has such bad consequences for American Indian peoples.
An article by Gottlieb in the 1987 New York University Law Review is a place to start
(pp. 497-578). In addition, the various international declarations on educational rights,
the rights of children, and the rights of Indigenous peoples may serve as a basis for legal
action.
CONCLUSION
What Echo-Hawk (2013) shows as a strategy to make human rights the new basis
for federal Indian law, can also apply to and compliment school textbook and schooling
issues. He notes the need for a changed national narrative. He sees why American Indians
have been treated the way they have in the narrative. That treatment questions the very
legitimacy of the United States. Our inflated national narrative has led to American
Exceptionalism. But he argues that we can retain legitimacy by entering into a dialogue
toward repair, healing the past through atonement, and moving forward even stronger as
a nation committed in a deep and authentic way to addressing social wrongs.
My hope is that this work which has exposed the lack of inclusion of the Marshall
Trilogy and federal Indian law within a master national narrative that supports the
inflated view of the United States with severe consequences for American Indian peoples
and all peoples around the world and all living beings, can start a process of dialogue that
changes the world. I had a dream and it can be a reality.
213
APPENDIX A APPRAISAL Framework (Coffin, 2006, p.142 )
monogloss
ENGAGEMENT
heterogloss
A
P
P
R
A
I
S
A
L
AFFECT…
ATTITUDE
JUDGEMENT…
APPRECIATION…
raise
FORCE
lower
GRADUATION
FOCUS
sharpen
soften
214
Appendix B Judgment with Examples
Social Esteem
Normality (custom) “is the
person’s behavior and/or
way of life unusual or
special?”
Positive
lucky, fortunate,
charismatic, magical,
talented
Negative
unlucky, unfortunate,
tragic, odd, strange,
maverick
Capacity (Competence) “is
the person competent,
capable?”
able, successful, politically
skilled, astute, effective,
powerful, strong,
enterprising, tactical,
shrewed, pragmatic,
intelligent
incompetent, failure,
flawed, weak, shortsighted, lacking judgment,
foolish
Tenacity (resolve) “is the
person dependable, well
disposed, committed?”
brave, heroic, courageous,
hard working, willing, well
disciplined, daring,
fearsome, risk taking,
vigorous, formidable,
committed dedicated,
tenacious, determined,
passionate, self-reliant,
genial
cowardly, badly organized,
stubborn, arrogant,
cowardly, rigid, inflexible,
despondent, low morale
Social Sanction
Veracity (truth) “is the
person honest?”
Positive
genuine, honest , truthful,
credible
Propriety (ethics) “is the
person ethical, beyond
reproach?”
respectable, responsible,
self-sacrificing, fair, just
Negative
hypocritical, complicit,
deceptive, deceitful,
dishonest
ruthless, abusive, brutal,
injust, unfair, immoral,
corrupt, cruel, heartless,
oppressive
215
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