Get History Right [04.14.04]

Luis' column last week scrutinizing the coming California quarter has prompted me to do my own critical coin analysis.

This year the United States Mint will release the first new nickel design in 66 years. The "Westward Journey" nickel series celebrates the bicentennials of the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark's expedition. There are two new designs, one to be released in the spring, and the other in the fall.

It's the back of the first nickel that provoked this writing. It features a "friendly handshake" between a Native American and a white man, with a peace pipe and an axe crossed above it. The design is modeled after "peace medals" that the U.S. government gave to tribes when they signed peace treaties or at other ceremonies.

The problem is that this happy image is just another part of the glossed-over story of Native/European relations that we have all been bombarded with since we were making pilgrim hats in kindergarten. You know, the story that the friendly Indians saved the pilgrims, then magically disappeared when the newcomers swept across the continent in the name of Manifest Destiny.

The real story is much different. At least 10 million Native Americans "disappeared" to make room for the white man and his greed. Treaties, handshakes, and peace medals simply meant that the American government knew you existed, and therefore your days are numbered.

A great example of this is the removal of the Cherokee Nation from its territory in the late 1830s, known as the Trail of Tears. The Cherokees had successfully challenged the Indian Removal Act in the U.S. Supreme Court, so the United States could not remove them without a treaty. The government found a small group of Cherokees (about 500 out of 17,000, none of whom had any real authority in the tribe) who signed the Treaty of New Echota. The U.S. Army then forcibly moved the Cherokee from northern Georgia to Oklahoma. About 4,000 Cherokees died during the journey.

There are countless other incidents just as ugly as the Trail of Tears. But you'd never know any of this if you only learned your history in elementary school. The false rosy image of Native American history is impressed upon your mind from a very early age.

It generally isn't until much later, if at all, that most American learn the ugly reality.

Now I'm not trying to say that all white people were guilty of atrocities toward Native Americans. Many Americans disapproved of the government's abusive tactics. Davy Crockett actually quit his political career in disgust over the Trail of Tears fiasco, saying, "I would sooner be honestly damned than hypocritically immortalized."

Nor am I trying to instill feelings of shame and guilt in our collective conscience over what our ancestors did to Native Americans. All I am saying is that it's high time we ended this ridiculous distortion of history that glorifies the relationship between Native Americans and the white man.