Both of these comments are primarily addressing the level of information available to academics. The OP is talking about misrepresentations in pop culture. So it’s not just messier than that on the recording end, it’s much, much messier on the disseminating end. On the pop culture end, information is going to keep falling away because people like and want stories.
Washington died in 1799 and in 1800 Parson Weems published The Life of Washington, complete with: “I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet.” Pop culture is always going to erode and reshape history.
In a similar vein, the idea sometimes put about that the Japanese were just about to surrender in August 1945, and thus the atomic bombings were unnecessary.
There’s a book about this idea, The Bible Unearthed, covering Israeli archaeologists working in the Sinai. IIRC they found sod-all evidence that Jews spent 40 years wandering around.
More on this topic (warning: Cracked link), also covering the pop culture notions about the period being completely lawless and ruled by violence.
AND that it was generally applauded by the rest of the colonies. Almost all of the other colonies felt that reconciliation with Britain could still be accomplished through negotiation and that this episode of hooliganism by Boston pretty much negated any chances of that happening.
There’s also the Black Legend, portraying the Spanish conquest of Native Americans as much worse than other Europeans’ conquests. The Spanish conquests of the Native Americans were bad, of course, but so were the other European conquests.
Except for the earliest explorers, a lot of Europeans wouldn’t have seen the cities of the Native Americans. A lot of the agricultural societies collapsed due to epidemics of smallpox and other diseases, which spread from societies that had had contact with Europeans to others that hadn’t. Diseases that wipe out a large percentage of the population can really mess up an agricultural society. Some of the cities were probably abandoned because of population and societal collapse. The same thing had happened on a smaller scale due to the Black Death in Europe in the 1300s- archaeologists find a number of abandoned villages in England that were abandoned after the plague reduced the population.
Of course, all the Europeans wanting to take land from Native Americans had a vested interest in portraying the Native Americans as uncivilized. They did the same kind of thing in other parts of the world, such as Australia.
Well, as a note to that, Cahokia collapsed before any Europeans (or European diseases) affected them.
The Native Americans did not, however, abandon agriculture, even in the face of European encroachment and disease - and, in fact, some very quickly adapted to introduced technologies to build European-style towns … interestingly, these so-called “civilized tribes” were the descendants of the same peoples who had built Cahokia.
So did the Maya civilization. Native Americans had a history, just like people anywhere else in the world, but we don’t have the written records of it that we have for some other civilizations. We know that European conquerors deliberately destroyed written materials from the Aztec civilization. The Aztecs themselves had done something similar to civilizations they conquered earlier. Of course, we know more about the history of civilizations who left written records that survived to the present day than we do about civilizations whose records did not survive.
Of course. They were civilized, until other people wanted their land, then all of a sudden they weren’t.
I have heard that the Plains Indians did become more nomadic after they acquired horses from Europeans.
This is subject to some serious qualifications in respect of the Maya, though.
(1) The Maya “Classic” cities were indeed abandoned circa 800-1100 AD. However, this was not the end of Maya civilization: there were Maya kingdoms, and cities, waiting for the Spanish to find.
Indeed, the Spanish conquest of the Maya took an extraordinary time. The last Maya city to fall to the Spanish was in … 1697!
(2) As for the Maya, they most certainly had written records, both in the “Classic” era and in the pre-conquest period, but only recently could Western scholars read what remains of them. Ironically, more is left from the “Classic” era than from the “immediate preconquest” era, for the simple reason that the “Classic” left many texts carved in stone, while the “preconquest” wrote in books - all but four of which were burned by the Spanish!
What the "Class reveal is quite fascinating (at least, to me): a major war between an alliance centered on the great city of Tikal and the city of Calacmul divided the Maya world, preceding the fall of the Classic-era cities - something previously quite unknown.
I highly recommend for anyone interested A Forest of Kings by the late, great Mayanist Linda Schele - its somewhat old, but still great:
True enough - though the Aztecs also tended to idolize previous civilizations (as did the Maya), particularly the semi-mythical “Tollan”.
Yup, the horse had a huge impact - but in absolute numbers, far more Native Americans were always agriculturalists than nomads.
The ‘odd man out’, as it were, was the great chiefdoms of what is now British Columbia - settled peoples who mostly lived off of fishing. That was only because of the huge productivity of the salmon run.
I recall reading an article on Kruschev’s alleged shoe-banging incident at the UN. Long story short is that we’re unsure it happened at all, and if it did happen it was certainly not as commonly believed.
As a historian quoted in the article stated (paraphrased), “If we’re so uncertain about an event which happened within living memory, with many hundreds of eye-witnesses, at an event that was recorded and broadcast at the time, how can we really known anything about events which occurred hundreds of years ago”
Or as Napoleon rather more catchily said, “What is history, but a fable agreed upon”
Yeah, the weirdest thing about the popular idea of Indians living as nomadic hunter gatherers (either nobly or savagely), is that every kindergartner learns the story of the Pilgrims, in which the Indians teach the Pilgrims how to farm. They learn that the Indians farmed, but somehow don’t learn that the Indians were farmers. Amazing.
The interesting thing is that the Plymouth Rock story is such a perfect microcosm of the colonization of North America that it almost seems like Forrest Gump. Take Squanto–that motherfucker crossed the Atlantic Ocean six times. He didn’t show up and befriend the Pilgrims by accident. He had already learned English from, you know, living in England. And the Pilgrims had set up shop in his home village, which conveniently for them was empty, because everyone except Squanto had died of smallpox. And the nearby villages that hadn’t died decided to let the Pilgrim settle in the village because there was plenty of room, what with the plagues decimating everyone.
Anyway, the story of the Pilgrims could really educate people about what native American life was really like, if only they’d think it through. But nope, they put on a play with some turkeys and popcorn and black hats and feathers when they’re six, and then immediately forget about everything they learned and figure that North America was basically “Dances with Wolves” from the end of the Ice Age until the closing of the frontier.
I can’t attest to the accuracy, but here’s an excerpt of a Walter Cronkite recording called “I Can Hear It Now:”
(Cronkite speaking, sound of gavel rapping)
"As Nikita Khrushchev hammered on his desk at the United Nations, Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold sat in outraged silence and the president of the assembly futilely rapped for order–one of those spectacles of disbelief that riddled the '60’s.
“At another point, Prime Minister Harold McMillan was speaking, and few remember his classic ad lib:”
(McMillan speaking with classic British dry wit, Khrushchev pounding shoe)
“I. . . I. . .I’d like it translated if you would, certainly.” (sounds of laughter)
(Cronkite)
“Hammarskjold was fighting for his job and the future of the United Nations as the Soviets attempted in October 1960 to substitute the role of the Secretary General with a three-man troika.”
(Hammarskjold)
“It is not the Soviet Union, or indeed, and other Big Powers who needs (the) United Nations for protection–it is all the OTHERS. I shall remain in my post during my term of office as a servant of the organization in the interests of all those other nations as long as THEY wish me to do so.”
(Cronkite)
“In a desperate mission to the Congo to stabilize the deteriorating situation there, the United Nation’s most innovative Secretary died in a plane crash. Circumstances were never fully explained.”
I suspect the “deteriorating situation” in the Congo, had to do with ther recent independence, and America and The Evil Empire jockeying for influence in the local power struggles.
Either that or he was hanging up the phone with Siegfried.
It would be amusing to ask as a trivia question “historically, what was the largest city by population in the territory of what was now the continental United States prior to 1750?”. I wonder how many would guess “Cahokia”.
Custer’s a strange one as there are multiple histories. The narrative changes with each generation.
Heroically making a last stand against hordes of savages
An evil agent of the Injun-hating white government
A vainglorious fool who rashly charged into a huge Indian camp
After visiting Little Bighorn and reading some, the truth was kind of in the middle.
He did make the last stand, although the battle was relatively quick (the length of a meal) and had few Indian casualties. The Indians probably didn’t swirl around the surrounded soldiers, but rather concealed potshots from the coulees and brushes. They were surrounded, but fighting to the death was more of a practical than heroic decision. Death was usually preferable to being captured alive by Indians.
He didn’t blame the Indians for fighting back, after taking their land and breaking treaties. He even stated if he were an Indian, he would fight as well. His superiors’ intention was to bring them to the reservations. While not totally admirable, he wasn’t out to kill 'em all.
I don’t think he was totally rash in his plan. He was trying to duplicate earlier victories, like Washita, where he caught the Indian encampment by surprise. Quickness was key, lest the village scatter, so he didn’t want to wait for infantry support or gatling guns. Unfortunately, the village was far far larger than anyone anticipated, especially after he split his forces. A common refrain, and certainly not unique to Custer, is trying to refight your last battle.
There are those who doubt man ever walked on the moon. Despite the fact that it was broadcast live to millions, many that are still alive. The fact that many refuse to believe it is really irrelevant.
I find a lot of people get the basic facts of the British/English Civil War and the Commonwealth wrong, like the causes, the aims, the concerns of the two sides, why the King was executed, and on what basis the Commonwealth was founded and why it failed. A huge grey area for many.
Not really. The Nazis exaggerated the casualty figures (it was “only” 25,000 people killed, not 200,000), but it is quite legitimate to call the bombing of Dresden a war crime. The bombing targeted refugees fleeing fighting on the eastern front, while missing the factories and military camps that were the ostensive target of the bombing. At best, it was a total fuckup; at worst, a deliberate vengence attack meant to cause mass civilian casualties. It may not be convenient or comfortable to admit that our guys committed a war crime, but they did.
That’s not the worst thing the Allies did, either. Look up the firebombing of Tokyo some time. Even the most conservative casualty figures start at 100,000. And it’s known & accepted that causing mass casualties was part of the plan from the beginning.
And over here in America, the English Civil war is never, ever, ever mentioned, and NOBODY HAS EVER HEARD OF IT. We Americans invented the idea of not having a king in 1776. I was in my 20s before I ever heard the name “Oliver Cromwell”, and it was in a Monty Python song.
