“We Were Not The Savages: Collision Between European and Native American Civilizations,” by Daniel N. Paul

Used by permission by Fernwood Publishing, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

 

    I learned of the book, “We Were Not The Savages: Collision Between European and Native American Civilizations,” by Daniel N. Paul, through my son John who lives on the Red Cliff Ojibwe Reservation in Wisconsin. 

   Although I am not a Indigenous person, many of my relatives are through marriage. My interests in their culture and history are paramount to my day-to-day education; I read. I visit. I listen. I learn. 

   My Anishinaabe Ojibwe grandson, Ozaawaa, John’s son, is 13 years old; he’s been my primary catalyst of learning and experiencing Anishinaabe culture since his birth.

   One day when Ozaawaa was six, we were outdoors playing Frisbee, he stopped and asked me, offhandedly, “Grandpa, are you Native?”

   It was a question that I knew we’d be sharing eventually, and as I was unable to avoid it, I answered,
“No Ozaawaa. I’m not.”

   “What are you then?” he said.
“I’m ... uh ... Euro-American,” I answered watching his face for recognition so I wouldn’t have to explain further. Not receiving it, I added, “I’m a ... white man.”

   “Maybe you’re Native, and your mother never told you,” Ozaawaa ventured, giving me an out. “Grandpa, I really need you to be Native.”

   Knowing that my father’s ancestors had come to North America in the 1700s; and my mother’s ancestors in the 1880s, I was anguished by the truth I had to share with him.
“I’m sorry, Ozaawaa,” I said. “But I’m as faraway from being Native as I can get.”

   As this question had seemingly come out of the blue, I asked him, “Why do you want to know? Did you learn this in school?”

   “I met an American at the gas station,” he said smiling, so proud in his achievement.

   Knowing humor is in great supply on the rez, I could imagine how the conversation may have come about, as highly sociable he was at that age.
“Ozaawaa, you and I are Americans too! I said, smiling at him. “That person was having fun with you!”

   And with that, he threw the Frisbee at me, and shouted,
“You should’ve caught that! I threw it right to you!”

   Later that afternoon I contemplated the derision I may had sown when others learned what I had told Ozaawaa, “You and I are Americans too.”

   I could’ve cut myself some slack for the fact I that I was only six years into my education about Indigenous peoples, except that I started out 500-600 hundred years behind the class from its very beginning. The irreparable ignorance and disrespect with which Europeans came ashore, eternally scarred The People throughout the North and South Americas for generations. Being a White man, forever weakens my relationship with them. No matter how much I thought I had non-participated in it, I would never recover from its effects as well.

   What was I thinking? The fact was, I didn’t think about the implication of including Ozaawaa in that statement, for being Indigenous is being Indigenous the world over, not a governmental designation accepted by the whole.

   Declaring him solely as an American, as I identify, disrespects the fact he is Anishinaabe Ojibwe first and foremost. The Jay Treaty, of 1794, between Great Britain and the United States, recognized Indigenous peoples of having a sort of duality in providing “ ... that American Indians ... and First Nations people born in Canada may travel freely across the international boundary ... for the purpose of employment, study, retirement, investing, and/or immigration.”

   Had I said it in the presence of others, especially elders, I think it likely that their reaction would have been quiet contempt or social distancing. Historical ignorance of their culture, past and present, has played out negatively from the our very beginning and only years of genuine interaction, respect, honor, and love will amend it on a personal basis, so I tread lightly, but sometimes still stumble along the way.

   Reading Daniel N. Paul’s 4th Edition book, “We Were Not The Savages,” repeatedly dredges up that decisive division that European invaders created, and we, as non-Indigenous descendants since, derive our very existence in North America.

   In his First Edition published in 1995, and early self-published writings in the 1980s, Paul spat out his anger and pain across the pages writing about the terrible persecution and suffering of his ancestors the Mi’kmaq people of Nova Scotia, and other Indigenous First Nations, of Acadia, and Maritime Provinces of Canada.

   Paul’s figure of speech reminded me immediately of the 1995 Anishinnaabeg Ojibwe book, “We Have a Right To Exist: A Translation of Aboriginal Indigenous Thought,” by the late Red Lake Ojibwe author Wub-E-Ke-Niew, aka Francis Blake, whose book was described as ‘a fierce book, fiercely written.’  Their combined use of polemic writing, although based on historical reality, challenged me to finish both books; although by the 4th Edition, Paul’s efforts were tempered by 27 years of research and extensive documentation.

   One subject in particular that seized my attention was Paul’s First Edition assertion that disease was not the primary killer of Mi’kmaqs but instead it was the British guns and the destruction of food supplies that were responsible for the Mi’kmaq demise; by the Fourth Edition, Paul expands:   

   "We Were Not The Savages: Collision Between European and Native American Civilizations," 4th Edition. Paul, D.N. (2022) Douglas Beall and Brenda Conroy (Ed.)  (pp 204-205) Dispossession and Imposition of Poverty: The Imposition of Degrading Poverty. Fernwood Publishing Nova Scotia: Halifax: Canada:
     “Many historians, anthropologists, archeologists and others have argued that the horrendous death toll suffered by Native Americans during colonization was caused primarily by European-originated diseases. This was so, in their opinion, because the Indigenous Americans had little or no natural immunity against them.

   “Let’s examine another, more plausible, theory. Amerindians had been in contact with Europeans for at least five or six centuries, maybe more, prior to European invasion and colonization. Many had also traded with the Inuit, a people who had been in contact with their Asian relatives for uncountable centuries. When these centuries of contact with people carrying the diseases of Europe and Asia are considered, it is reasonable to assume that by 1492 the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas had acquired considerable immunity.

   “Therefore, it can be assumed that diseases from Europe were not solely responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of Native Americans. What caused a great deal of the population decline, besides cold-blooded murder and genocidal policies, were the destruction and cutting off of traditional food resources by Europeans. With this came famine, malnutrition, and starvation, which severely lowered resistance to all sicknesses and created ideal conditions for disease to run rampant among them with deadly consequences. These were the major factors which caused the 90 plus percent decline in the Amerindian population over the centuries after 1492.

   “The European way of life and livelihood, entirely foreign to Indigenous American cultures, was also a prime factor. However, after acclimatizing themselves to residing within a foreign social environment, where racism was paramount, the populations of many Amerindian civilizations began to stabilize around the middle of the nineteenth century, and some began to increase around the middle of the twentieth; but many others had already become extinct.”

 

   Addendum: A request was made, by John, to add: The intentional breakdown of the family unit, addiction to drugs, alcohol, and the slow death from dietary diseases becoming prevalent in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries as among the major factors causing the decline in Amerindian populations.