When speaking of Indians, there are two main types of racism that comes out. The first is the obvious, the negative stereotypes and portrayals of Indians, because they are Indian. I’m not going to repeat any of those racist remarks, as we all know what they are.
But there is another sort of racism that is a bit more difficult to point out. I’d argue that it is just as damaging though, if not more so. It’s the portrayal of Indians as others. Looking at this photo, the view that is being portrayed is this idea of a noble savage. This is a view that grew out of early European contact with various tribes. As Europeans landed in North America, they witnessed what they called pristine forests, that seemed untouched.
Out of this, they began forming this view of Indians having a special relationship with the environment. That they were natural born ecologist. The idea becomes what is known as the noble savage. The problem is that this view simply isn’t historically accurate, and at the same time, it portrays Indians as others. It dehumanizes them as it strips their humanity from them and instead sees them more in a mythical manner.
Indians are humans like everyone else. Some are environmentalists, and others aren’t. Some try to protect the environment, and others pollute and destroy it. They are diverse, have differing views, act in different manners. Simply, they are humans.
If we look at the history of various tribes in North America, we can find examples of both. One of the examples I’m most familiar with is Pueblo Buenito in Chaco Canyon. Here, the ancestral Puebloans built a massive city with immense structures. It was a civilization that rivaled those in Europe at the time and wouldn’t be matched in the US for centuries.
Building a city of that magnitude required a massive amount of lumber. To feed the population, large fields of crops were needed, which required immense irrigation systems. This resulted in a couple of things.
First, it resulted in massive deforestation. At the time, the area was a thriving forest. But those trees needed to be harvested for lumber, and as the city continued growing, that meant moving further and further out. This wasn’t a responsible foresting practice, but one that stripped the land of every tree. The ancestral Puebloans would have seen that the last trees were being removed from the canyon, and that did not stop what they deemed to be progress.
Without the trees, erosion quickly began and only worsened over time. This caused problems for the irrigation system that was created to water their crops. Larger and larger ruts were created, so the irrigation ditches would have to be dug further down until they no longer worked. The final blow was a drought to the area, and instead of changing anything, things continued just as before. Until war broke out and violent atrocities were committed.
The result today is an area that is a desert, which will most likely never be able to produce fruit again. It was a complete ecocide before Europeans ever stepped on the continent. Pueblo Buenito isn’t the only example of this either. Possibly the most famous example, while not dealing with the Americas, is Easter Island. There, we see a forested island that was destroyed. In order to set up statues, the island was deforested so that those statutes could be moved. What’s most astonishing is that Easter Island isn’t that large, and the inhabitants would have seen that the last tree was being cut down.
Now the point of this isn’t to demonize Indigenous peoples. It’s to show that they also majorly screw up just like all humans do. They aren’t some natural ecologist. They aren’t more in tune with the earth by birth. They aren’t noble savages or some mythical beings. They are humans.
To portray Indians as others is really just another way of using them as a mascot. And it paints a history that doesn’t fit with the facts.
