Source 1:

Powhatan village of Secoton: Powhatan village of Secoton, colour engraving by Theodore de

Bry, 1590, after a watercolour drawing by John White, c. 1587.
Source 2:
“The natives, the so-called savages”
Francis Daniel Pastorius, Pennsylvania, 1702
Pastorius was the founder of German Town, the first German settlement in Pennsylvania.

The natives, the so-called savages . . . they are, in general, strong, agile, and supple
people, with blackish bodies. They went about naked at first and wore only a cloth about the
loins. Now they are beginning to wear shirts. They have, usually, coal black hair, shave the
head, smear the same with grease, and allow a long lock to grow on the right side. They also
besmear the children with grease and let them creep about in the heat of the sun, so that they
become the color of a nut, although they were at first white enough by Nature.

They strive after a sincere honesty, hold strictly to their promises, cheat and injure no
one. They willingly give shelter to others and are both useful and loyal to their guests. . . .

I once saw four of them take a meal together in hearty contentment, and eat a pumpkin
cooked in clear water, without butter and spice. Their table and bench was the bare earth, their
spoons were mussel-shells with which they dipped up the warm water, their plates were the
leaves of the nearest tree, which they do not need to wash with painstaking after the meal, nor
to keep with care of future use. I thought to myself, these savages have never in their lives
heard the teaching of Jesus concerning temperance and contentment, yet they far excel the
Christians in carrying it out.

They are, furthermore, serious and of few words, and are amazed when they perceive
so much unnecessary chatter, as well as other foolish behavior, on the part of the Christians.

Each man has his own wife, and they detest harlotry, kissing, and lying. They know of no
idols, but they worship a single all-powerful and merciful God, who limits the power of the Devil.
They also believe in the immortality of the soul, which, after the course of life is finished, has a
suitable recompense from the all-powerful hand of God awaiting it.

Source 3:
“Five Myths About Native Americans”
Kevin Gover, a citizen of the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, is the director of the Smithsonian’s
National Museum of the American Indian.

Thanksgiving recalls for many people a meal between European colonists and
indigenous Americans that we have invested with all the symbolism we can muster. But the new
arrivals who sat down to share venison with some of America’s original inhabitants relied on a
raft of misconceptions that began as early as the 1500s, when Europeans produced fanciful
depictions of the “New World.” In the centuries that followed, captivity narratives, novels, short
stories, textbooks, newspapers, art, photography, movies and television perpetuated old
stereotypes or created new ones — particularly ones that cast indigenous peoples as obstacles
to, rather than actors in, the creation of the modern world. I hear those concepts repeated in
questions from visitors to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian every day.
Here are five of the most intransigent.

MYTH NO. 1
There is a Native American culture.

This concept really took hold when Christopher Columbus dubbed the diverse
indigenous inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere “Indians.” Lumping all Native Americans into
an indiscriminate, and threatening, mass continued during the era of western expansion, as
settlers pushed into tribal territories in pursuit of new lands on the frontier. In his 1830 “Message
to Congress,” President Andrew Jackson justified forced Indian removal and ethnic cleansing by
painting Indian lands as “ranged by a few thousand savages.” But it was Hollywood that
established our monolithic modern vision of American Indians, in blockbuster westerns — such
as “Stagecoach” (1939), “Red River” (1948) and “The Searchers” (1956) — that depict all
Indians, all the time, as horse-riding; tipi-dwelling; bow-, arrow- and rifle-wielding; buckskin-,
feather- and fringe-wearing warriors.

Yet vast differences — in culture, ethnicity and language — exist among the 567
federally recognized Indian nations across the United States. It’s true that the buffalo-hunting
peoples of the Great Plains and prairie, such as the Lakota, once lived in tipis. But other native
people lived in hogans (the Navajo of the Southwest), bark wigwams (the Algonquian-speaking
peoples of the Great Lakes), wood longhouses in the Northeast (Haudenosaunee, the Iroquois
peoples’ name for themselves, means “they made the house”), iglus and on and on. Nowadays,
most Native Americans live in contemporary houses, apartments, condos and co-ops just like
everyone else.

There is similar diversity in how native people traditionally dressed; whether they farmed,
fished or hunted; and what they ate. Something as simple as food ranged from game
(everywhere); to seafood along the coasts; to saguaro, prickly pear and cholla cactus in the
Southwest; to acorns and pine nuts in California and the Great Basin.

Source 4:
“Excerpts from speeches by Canassatego, an Iroquois, as printed by Benjamin
Franklin, 1740s”
This speech, which was given by Canassatego—one of the chiefs of the Iroquois Nations—to
Benjamin Franklin, shows the deep resentment that many Native Americans felt about colonial
encroachment on their lands and their subsequent difficulties with self-support. Canassatego
criticizes the fact that the settlements spoil Native American hunting, as well as that colonial
horses eat grass that is meant for deer.

We know our lands are now become more valuable: the white people think we do not
know their value; but we are sensible that the land is everlasting, and the few goods we receive
for it are soon worn out and gone. For the future we will sell no lands but when Brother Onas
[the proprietor of Pennsylvania] is in the country; and we will know beforehand the quantity of
the goods we are to receive. Besides, we are not well used with respect to the lands still unsold
by us. Your people daily settle on these lands, and spoil our hunting. . . .

If you have not done anything, we now renew our request, and desire you will inform the
person whose people are seated on our lands, that that country belongs to us, in right of
conquest; we having bought it with our blood, and taken it from our enemies in fair war. . . .

It is customary with us to make a present of skins whenever we renew our treaties. We

are ashamed to offer our brethren so few; but your horses and cows have eat the grass our
deer used to feed on. This has made them scarce, and will, we hope, plead in excuse for our
not bringing a larger quantity: if we could have spared more we would have given more; but we
are really poor; and desire you’ll not consider the quantity, but, few as they are, accept them in
testimony of our regard. . . .

Our wise forefathers established union and amity between the five nations. This has
made us formidable. This has given us great weight and authority with our neighboring nations.
We are a powerful Confederacy, and by your observing the same methods our wise forefathers
have taken you will acquire much strength and power; therefore, whatever befalls you, do not
fall out with one another.

Source 5:
The Suppressed Speech of Wamsutta (Frank B.) James, Wampanoag
To have been delivered at Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1970

Three hundred fifty years after the Pilgrims began their invasion of the land of the Wampanoag,
their "American" descendants planned an anniversary celebration. Still clinging to the white
schoolbook myth of friendly relations between their forefathers and the Wampanoag, the
anniversary planners thought it would be nice to have an Indian make an appreciative and
complimentary speech at their state dinner. Frank James was asked to speak at the celebration.
He accepted. The planners, however , asked to see his speech in advance of the occasion, and
it turned out that Frank James' views — based on history rather than mythology — were not
what the Pilgrims' descendants wanted to hear. Frank James refused to deliver a speech written
by a public relations person. Frank James did not speak at the anniversary celebration. If he
had spoken, this is what he would have said:

I speak to you as a man -- a Wampanoag Man. I am a proud man, proud of my ancestry, my

accomplishments won by a strict parental direction ("You must succeed - your face is a different
color in this small Cape Cod community!"). I am a product of poverty and discrimination from
these two social and economic diseases. I, and my brothers and sisters, have painfully
overcome, and to some extent we have earned the respect of our community. We are Indians
first - but we are termed "good citizens." Sometimes we are arrogant but only because society
has pressured us to be so.

It is with mixed emotion that I stand here to share my thoughts. This is a time of celebration for
you - celebrating an anniversary of a beginning for the white man in America. A time of looking
back, of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People.
Even before the Pilgrims landed it was common practice for explorers to capture Indians, take
them to Europe and sell them as slaves for 220 shillings apiece. The Pilgrims had hardly
explored the shores of Cape Cod for four days before they had robbed the graves of my
ancestors and stolen their corn and beans. Mourt's Relation describes a searching party of
sixteen men. Mourt goes on to say that this party took as much of the Indians' winter provisions
as they were able to carry. Massasoit, the great Sachem of the Wampanoag, knew these facts,
yet he and his People welcomed and befriended the settlers of the Plymouth Plantation.
Perhaps he did this because his Tribe had been depleted by an epidemic. Or his knowledge of
the harsh oncoming winter was the reason for his peaceful acceptance of these acts. This
action by Massasoit was perhaps our biggest mistake. We, the Wampanoag, welcomed you, the
white man, with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end; that before 50
years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a free people.

What happened in those short 50 years? What has happened in the last 300 years?