I just watched Pocahontas again, and the movie ended with me absolutely in love with it again. Then, I came on Tumblr and saw a ridiculous post about how white men had committed genocide upon the Native American population. Feel free to hate me for this post, but I am going on a rant.
First, the majority of Native Americans died from the European diseases. Even if we lived in Utopia in which everyone from every race magically got along and lived in peace the first time they ever came into contact with each other in history, the Native American population still would have been significantly decimated. Let’s not forget how many Europeans died when they first arrived to the Americas.
Second, gunpowder was invented by the Chinese. The Europeans get hate for the fact that they carry guns, but let’s not forget that gunpowder was first created by the Chinese instead of the Europeans. Should the Europeans be blamed just because the Native Americans had been so isolated on the Americas and Europe had the opportunity to cross paths with Asia? The crossing of culture will lead to advancement in certain areas, and that is what happened with guns and gunpowder.
Third, the Native Americans were not always peaceful and they weren’t the Earth-worshiping people they are painted as. The point of Pocahontas is that she and John Smith were the only two that were willing to set aside their differences. The Powhatans and the English were both revved up and ready to fight each other, both calling the other “savages”. This isn’t merely the English calling the Powhatans “savages”; the Powhatans thought the English were just as savage as the English thought the Powhatans were. The beginning of Pocahontas shows the Powhatans coming back from a battle with the Massowomeck Tribe. The many Native American tribes fought amongst themselves quite a lot; they were very similar to European countries in the fact that there was always conflict. The different tribes got along as well as England and France got along in their history before World War One (which in case you do not know, England and France were constantly at war with each other).
Furthermore, there is this idea that the Native American tribes used all parts of the buffalo. This is true, but it’s misleading. The Native Americans nearly drove the buffalo population to extinction; it was the Europeans who had saved the buffalo population from extinction. When they needed the skin, they’d kill the buffalo, and when they needed the meat, they’d kill the buffalo. It didn’t happen all at once.
I’m not denying that there weren’t atrocious parts of what Europeans did in the Americas. I am merely saying that to say that the Europeans are to blame for everything that happened to the Native Americans would be an over-generalization for a situation that had many different factors.
P.S. Even if you do not agree with a single word that I just said, please keep in mind that the United States of America did not exist at the time that the North and South American continents were being discovered and settled by the Europeans; thus, saying that Americans are responsible for what happened to the Native Americans is just wrong.
