Essay Questions

What is the controlling tonal mood of the text regarding the treatment of native tribes by the U.S. Government?

The litany of references to historical agreements between the U.S. government and native tribes is one of constant hypocrisy and broken promises. As a result, the dominant tonal voice in the text relative to this history is irony. Irony that is usually quite subtly implied, but nevertheless becomes corrosive and absolutely devastating simply as a result of the recurrence. The centerpiece of the book is legislation signed by Pres. Obama which is an official apology to Native Americans on behalf of the United States. The signing of this legislation was done without any pomp and circumstance, lacking even an invitation extended to tribal leaders. Further undermining the intent of the apology is the profound irony of it being included as a small element in a much more broadly comprehensive bill appropriating funding for the U.S. military—the same military whose history includes the genocidal slaughter of native people.

What early piece of American legislation preceding even the creation of the U.S. Congress is identified as what might be termed the origination point of America’s ironic hypocrisy toward native tribes?

That deeply ironic tone and the overall contextual message of hypocrisy on the part of the American government toward indigenous peoples is situated within a piece of legislation passed during the brief period of time during the country’s disastrous experimentation with a state-centered confederacy before the constitutional transformation into a federally-centered republican democracy. As part of the broad-based Northwest Ordinance of 1787 establishing procedures for settling lands acquired to the west of the established states, a provision was included for negotiating agreements with native tribes. One can only wonder at what stage in the country’s history this proviso first began to be greeted with sarcastic—even hysterical—laughter by most readers: “The utmost good faith shall always be observed toward the Indians; their land and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and in their property rights and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress.”

What factual error about Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln does the author make which could serve to undermine her credibility?

Whereas is not just a book of poetry, it is also a work of historical criticism. Although she explicitly points out that she is not a historian herself, the entire premise of the text is built upon a foundation of illuminating historical truths which allow certain factual truths to viewed through the perspective of hypocrisy. This type of non-historian authorship typically calls for a “big picture” approach rather than one which is detail-oriented and that is the case here. Such a “big picture” perspective means, however, that greater significance is placed upon getting the big things about history right while smaller details can be overlooked. The problem here is that the author gets a “small” detail about Spielberg’s film wrong, but that detail can be extrapolated into questioning whether she fully understands genuinely momentous piece of American history.

The detail that the author gets wrong about the Spielberg film is when she writes that “the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation was included in the film Lincoln.” In fact, the film is set two years after the Emancipation Proclamation at a time in Lincoln’s Presidency as the Civil War was winding down to its inevitable result and he was gripped by anxiety that it would be subsequently thrown out by the courts as unconstitutional. The film climaxes not with the signing of that document, but with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. While both are major historical documents on the same subject matter, they are quite obviously two completely different things that any “big picture” approach would be expected to recognize and differentiate.