From: kja@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (krista.j.anderson)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: Ghost Dance and precedents
Date: 2 Oct 92 20:04:37 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: AT&T

In article <16547@pitt.UUCP>, geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks) writes:
> In article <JMC.92Sep18174443@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>>   Are you suggesting here that Native Americans did not know how to grow
>>   their own food, as the whites did?
>>   Keith
> 
> >They grew it but not as successfully.  European agricultural
> >technology was better.  It was based on draught animals, on iron
> >tools, on milk cows, domesticated chickens, a large variaety of
> >plants, etc.  Indians could and some did adopt large parts of it.  As a
> >child I once plowed with a horse and a steel bladed plow.  I can only
> >imagine how much more work it would be without them.

But they didn't plow.  Some Indian groups used the slash and burn
method of clearing forests for planting.  Both in the Southwest and
in the Northeast, corn was planted in individual holes so that the
whole field didn't need to be plowed.  Considering how plowing in
the Great Plains (along with droughts and the lack of tree lines)
caused topsoil to blow away in the dust bowls, I'm not so sure the
Indians' slash and burn method was inferior, at least in terms of
environmental sustainability.

> The book: "When Jesus Came the Corn Mothers Went Away" deals with
> this question for the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico.  The Spaniards

Sounds interesting.

> introduced many new plants (essentially what the Pueblos had were
> corn, beans, and squash before that)

And red hot chilis!

> >Historical question: To what extent did some Indians merge with
> >the white population?  Of course, individuals did, especially
> >when there was intermarriage, but did whole tribes, besides
> >the Cherokees, who got chased to Oklahoma, do it?

To quantify an answer, there are over 30 million US Americans who
have an Indian ancestor, whereas there are only about 2 million
people identified as Indians in the US and Canada.

At least two new "peoples" have formed in historic times.  The
Metis of Canada are Cree and French and the Lumbees of N. Carolina
are Cherokee, White and Black.  The latter group formed when some
Cherokee and white abolitionists assisted runaway slaves and
intermarried with them.  Other Cherokees were slave-owners.  Today,
the Lumbees remain a powerful force for racial integration in
Robeson County, N. C., and have prevented the KKK from taking root
there.

The Potawatomis intermarried with whites and other Indians to an
extent that they had to change their tribal membership limit from
1/4 to 1/8 Potawatomi.  To weaken the tribe was intentional on the
part of the US; after the Black Hawk War the Potawatomi were
fragmented into small groups with separate reservations in
Oklahoma, Kansas, Michigan and Wisconsin, making it hard for them
to marry within the tribe.

Also, as far as the US government is concerned, the four locations
are separate entities, so that blood degrees from two different
Potawatomi reservations don't add.  That is, if 1 parent is Oklahoma
Potawatomi and the other is Kansas Potawatomi, you are considered a
1/2 of 1 tribe or the other rather than full-blooded.
-- 
Krista Anderson, att!ihlpf!krista
Xref: sparky soc.history:8691 soc.culture.indian:32622