Misrepresentation as complicity: the genocide against indigenous Americans in high school history textbooks

iv Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Conceptualizing the Reality of Genocide 7 Chapter 2: Institutional Genocide against Indigenous Americans 17 Chapter 3: Appropriate Genocide Education 33 Chapter 4: Methodology 47 Chapter 5: Findings 55 Chapter 6: Conclusions and Implications 89 References Cited 93 Appendices 99 Hitler’s concept of concentration camps as well as the practicability of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history... [he] often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America’s extermination‐ by starvation and uneven combat‐ of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity. (Toland 1976:702) Nazi Germany’s move toward genocide was gradual, argued John Toland‐‐ one of Hitler’s most well‐known biographers‐‐ yet was done with a calculated certainty. For Hitler, the history of the United States had shown genocide to be possible and practical. He took the lesson that with time it could be seen as acceptable by the nation and the world. His plans were thankfully thwarted by the failure of the Axis Powers to defeat the Allied armies, and his massive campaign of genocide was exposed to the world. It is arguably because of this defeat that genocide was canonized in international law. Had Nazi Germany come out of the Second World War victorious, there is a distinct possibility that “genocide” as an international legal concept might not exist. This does not mean that what happened would not constitute genocide by today’s standards; it simply means that the dominant discourse on the events would likely be significantly shifted away from Nazi Germany’s aggressive actions toward civilians. Genocides are committed with the intent of destroying a population of people identified by the perpetrators as the “other”, separate and distinguishable by some common identity. A successful genocide aims to remove even the memory of the targeted group, leaving a population of perpetrators and bystanders. Genocides are started through aggressive actions against targeted populations, but they are extended, continued and arguably completed by the purposeful destruction of the collective memory of the targeted population. In order for an act to be considered genocide, it must be shown to have been committed with intent (mens rea) to destroy the targeted group, which will be further discussed in Chapter 1. Misrepresenting the victims of genocide may or may not be done with the necessary “intent to destroy”, yet it supports the 2 perpetrators’ goals of identity destruction and, in my opinion, when it is carried out by an educational authority of the state, it constitutes complicity in genocide. In examining the representation of victims of genocide in educational settings, multiple perspectives on the topic need to be incorporated. Genocide is now a clearly defined crime under the United Nations, and, as such, the legal definition provides consistency for students in educational discussions of genocide as well as allowing for comparative analysis. This is important because once identified, naming an occurrence of violence as genocide allows students to think about it in a fundamentally different way, associating it with concepts that distinguish it from conventional warfare. Reconceptualizing the violence as genocidal brings the victims to the forefront. They become the subject of the violence rather than merely a product of it. Scholars and activists have developed a strong canon of literature on the best practices for discussing genocide’s victims in a way that helps to counter their attempted destruction by the perpetrators, and these standards are vital for educational institutions interested in teaching about genocide without tacitly supporting it. The representation of indigenous peoples’ experiences in United States history textbooks is a well‐investigated topic. Recent studies have been completed on the changes in representation over time (Schuman, Schwartz and D’Arcy 2005, Moore and Clark 2004). There are also studies of contemporary textbooks currently employed in classrooms (Lavere 2008, Sanchez 2007, Kaomea 2000, Ashley and Jarratt‐Ziemski 1999). Regarding changes over time, Tami Moore and Barbara Clark (2004) found that while the consistently identified derogatory themes in textbook representation lessened over time, especially in response to the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, representation typically moved away from overgeneralization toward “terse and sterile presentation” (2004:21). They suggested that while the reduction of negative stereotypes in textbooks was 3 positive, the absence of engaging information could be just as damaging. Howard Schuman, Barry Schwartz and Hannah D’Arcy (2005) looked at textbook coverage of the Columbus story, which they posit as the creation myth of the United States. They found that generally the representations of indigenous peoples had become more positive over time, while the representations of Columbus remained mixed. The changes in historical perspectives on indigenous people were not indicative of a change in historical perspectives on the purposes and repercussions of Columbus’s actions, which had significant effects on indigenous populations. Analyses of contemporary textbooks reveal significant shortcomings in representations of indigenous peoples. Building from the work of James Loewen (1995) and others, Tony Sanchez (2007) analyzed textbooks for the accuracy of their representation of indigenous cultures. His findings were consistent with the longitudinal studies mentioned above; while representations had generally improved from earlier studies, only three of the fifteen textbooks he analyzed “do an acceptable job of depicting Native peoples within the scope of the American experience in a truthful, accurate, and objective manner” (Sanchez 2007:316). Julie Kaomea’s study (2000) of Hawaiian textbooks found that the mandated inclusion of indigenous history was, in fact, detrimental to students’ understandings of indigenous Hawaiians as a cultural group. She argued that Hawaiian textbooks institutionalized indigenous identity as a part of Hawaii’s tourist industry and warned indigenous peoples “to think closely before lobbying for inclusion in area studies curricula that may ultimately do more damage than good” (2000:319). David Lavere (2008) focused on the exercises included in textbooks which students were expected to complete in order to demonstrate their learning and “critical thinking” skills in regards to indigenous peoples. He found that eleven of the thirteen textbooks he analyzed used “lower‐level questions at a rate of 90 percent or more”