Walk in History
"Hey, I think I found a piece of a pipe ..... and here's another one!"
My sister had sent a package of old photographs, newspaper articles, report cards, and other school paraphernalia she had sorted out after our mother died. Among them was a nine-page report on Native Americans I had wrote in second grade. My children consider it both interesting and a giggle, as it documents my early fascination with social justice.
The elementary principal had earlier spoke to our class about the history of our community, focusing on Mohawk leader Joseph Brant's meetings with General Herkimer, which took place on what was now one of the school district's baseball fields and tennis courts. That evening, I told my family what I had learned. My mother told me about one of our ancestors who was friends with Brant, including Brant's having him adopt two Indian children orphaned by the Revolutionary War.
My two older brothers would show me the sites of Brant's camps. I learned that when Brant went to warn white settlers to leave the area on the eve of the border wars, some of his warriors took the settlers' clothing from clothes lines, and some put on women's bloomers as a joke. I needed to learn more, and began collecting books on Indians, some of which are still in my library.
At that young age, I already knew that some of my siblings and father's friends had black skin. But I didn't think of this as an important distinction. I was aware of some concerns expressed when a third grade teacher had beat one of my brother's friends bloody, but I did not understand it was because she disliked him because he was black. But that community provided me with an education over the years, about relations between red, white, and black peoples.
These relationships were rooted in the pre-war, colonial era. They influenced the route this country would take, right up until my son took me for a walk earlier this month, on one of the sites my brothers showed me long, long ago. It was where black people who had escaped from slavery camped, along side of Brant and his warriors. This was where, through the sparse grass, my son found the two pieces of a pipe bowl.
We discussed how, during the Revolutionary War, Colonel Jacob Klock had sent an urgent message to Governor Clinton (Clinton Papers; Vol 3; pages 402-4), warning about the Indians and escaped slaves at this site. Clinton passed word on to General Washington, and the result is known as the Clinton-Sullivan campaign. Through the years, especially when the longest canoe race in the world takes place (Clinton Canoe Regatta) nearby, I would take all of my children to this field and related sites, to discuss history.
One of the things they found interesting is explained in Gary Nash's 1974 book, "Red, White, and Black: The Early Peoples of America." It has to do with how white culture viewed the two other groups. Black human beings were viewed as domestic animals, to be kept uneducated and separate from whites, in order to get maximum labor from them. They could buy or sell black human beings at auctions, much like the "farm auctions" that take place frequently around here today.
Indians, on the other hand, were generally considered to be wild animals. There was a year-round hunting season that was closely related to the white culture's desire to expand their territory. When the remaining Indians were subdued, there was a compulsion to wipe away their culture's traditions -- as they had the black people brought from Africa -- but with a different goal. Europeans in the northeast found it impossible to enslave the Natives, like Spain had done in Central America. Short hair cuts, "proper" clothing, and the bible were the tools needed to "tame" these wild humans of the woodlands. And unlike with black people, there was a need to educate the Indians, though never really allow them equal status to white men in America.
Now, my children had an advantage: my extended family includes all of what my friend Rubin called "the Tribes of Humankind." So when we discussed history, they had interacted with a wide variety of skin color on relatives and friends. It helped them understand the life experiences of, say Rubin Carter, who they considered an uncle, and Chief Paul Waterman, their third grandfather. It also helped them understand when, in 1998, at that canoe regatta, a gang of seventeen members of a racial hate group assaulted their cousin, a high school scholar/athlete, because they didn't like a black kid getting so much good press. They left him for dead in a dark field, although I'm glad to say he survived.
This education did not inflict the damage that a portion of white Americans -- who identify this as "critical race theory" -- believe it would surely it would. I grew up in a different world than my parents, or my ancestor who was friends with Joseph Brant. My kids have grown up in a different world than I did. They interact with a wide variety of non-white people, and understand that while they share a lot in common, there are different experiences that define the reality of others' lives. In fact, it provides young people the ability to unite for social justice. Perhaps that is really what scares those intent upon proventing "critical race theory" -- or what I call "history" -- in schools. It's sad that they are living in the past, rather than being here, now.
Peace,
H2O Man
PS: Between us, my son and I found a variety of projectile points, pottery sherds, and two pieces of a broken pendant. A lot of history there.
= new reply since forum marked as read
...my dad's family moved from Black Mountain N.C., near a reservation where he was born, to Reading, Pa..
It was there that he said they dropped any reference to themselves as 'Indian,' despite their mixed heritage. Dad said it was more acceptable at the time (with their darker skin) to be considered 'black,' so none of them carried on with that association (whatever it was) into their future, except Grandma, who's Indian features were more evident as she aged.
It's also entirely possible that Grandad, who was fleeing trouble there, took the family name (not indigineous to N.C.) from a Pennsylvania gravestone, as all records they had were obtained on their word in their new state.
Black Mountain was an interesting place where many races had settled after the finishing of the railroad expansion which drove the workers, Chinese and Indian laborers, and black slaves, to hide and shelter in the refuge of the deep woods. Grandad ran a speakeasy there where my dad described bringing up jugs from the cellar as a young boy (and drinking a bit, too).
An interesting coincidence: My wife's (by all appearances white, but mixed) father was also born on a Black Mountain reservation, a decade or so later. Neither were ever affliated with any tribe or clan.
Dad, sister, and brother, outside their home in Pa.
A lovely OP 
Just Do It!
acorns grow 
Sheila
Thanks for sharing H2O Man.
