Jeff Ostler Profile picture
Oct 13, 2019 10 tweets 2 min read Read on X
1/ A few thoughts about this defense of Columbus Day/attack on Indigenous People’s Day.
nypost.com/2019/10/12/col…
2/ The argument is familiar enough: European “civilization” (cast here as “democracy”) is superior to the “savagery” of Indigenous people.
3/ The argument depends on a strawman: “Columbus didn’t bring cruelty to peaceful, benign peoples. The indigenous people were also cruel to one another.” True there is some popular culture/new age romanticism, but scholars, including Native scholars, don’t think this.
4/ The argument also depends on sensationalism and cherry-picking (cannibalism, ritual sacrifice of women, scalping alive). Again, no one denies these things. But there are serious questions about context and typicality given 1000s of Native communities/polities in 1492.
5/ The argument also depends on uncritical repetition of myth of “America and the shining example of liberal democracy and human rights it became.”
6/ But what about: Drones killing Muslim civilians? Nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagaski? Carpet bombing of North Vietnam? Multiple Trails of Tears and massacres to remove Indians from lands desired by white settlers and enslavers?
7/ Apparently the creation and maintenance of “liberal democracy and human rights” was not so benign, or am I just cherry-picking?
8/ There are many reasons to celebrate Indigenous People’s Day and not Columbus Day. Here are three:

1. Counters entrenched myths about American superiority.
9/

2. Recognizes the resilience and survival of Indigenous people in the face of genocide.
10/

3. At a time of an unprecedented world crisis (climate change), all of us need Indigenous knowledge.

#nativetwitter and #twitterhistorians can provide additional reasons, I'm sure.

/end

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More from @Jeff__Ostler

Jun 24, 2023
I'm honestly puzzled by the desire of western historians to tame the 1889-90 Ghost Dance,

making it into a religion of accommodation,

instead of (what I think it was), an anti-colonial movement.

A short thread:
Elliot West's monumental new book Continental Reckoning objects to characterizing the Ghost Dance as "reactionary, a reflex to reverse the unstoppable flow of events" Image
This seems to me an overly easy way to dismiss the perspective that the Ghost Dancers wanted to reverse colonialism and return to the undeniably much better world that existed prior to its advent.
Read 6 tweets
Aug 29, 2022
My article refuting Gary Anderson’s denial of genocide during the California Gold Rush has been published by AICRJ.

A thread about why I wrote the article and its arguments (if you don’t have access, DM me and I’ll send a pdf). cover of volume 45 issue 2 American Indian Culture and Reseatitle of article, "Denial of Genocide in the California
As I was writing a chapter on California for vol. 2 of Surviving Genocide I realized that I had to look at Anderson’s argument that genocide did not happen in California (made in Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian [2015] and a forum in Western Historical Quarterly [2016]) Cover of Gary Anderson's Ethnic Cleansing and the IndianTitle page of Gary Anderson's article "The Native Peopl
Anderson is a credible historian and his argument against genocide has received support from credible sources.
Read 16 tweets
Mar 10, 2022
Was the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre a massacre?

I was dismayed to learn today from @develvishist that a 2019 publication by a prestigious academic press @OxUniPress @OUPHistory claims Wounded Knee was not a massacre.

A thread on why OUP should retract this publication:
The claim that WK was not a massacre appears in this book:

"In Harm's Way: A History of the American Military Experience."

It purports to be "the most current, comprehensive, clear, yet concise survey of US military history from colonial times to the twenty-first century."
Here is what the book says about Wounded Knee (thanks to @develvishist):
Read 25 tweets
Jan 17, 2022
A year ago Trump’s 1776 Commission decided to honor MLK day by releasing its REPORT!

Let’s have a look at a few of the slimy ways the commissioners appropriated MLK for their reactionary* agenda.

*Note: I did not say conservative.
In defense of American exceptionalism and upholding colorblind white supremacy, the 1776 Report opportunistically quoted MLK upholding the values of the Declaration of Independence.
The Report even had a photo of MLK at the March on Washington, as if MLK would agree with an agenda to stop all talk about race.
Read 11 tweets
Dec 29, 2021
In 1960, the great Dakota artist Oscar Howe painted "Wounded Knee Massacre," which I am posting today on the 132nd anniversary of the massacre, along with Howe's own little-known commentary on the painting. Image
In describing Wounded Knee, Howe wrote, "I have kept the painting semi-objective rather than abstract. It was not meant to be a shocker but merely a recorded true event." (yet, it really is a shocker!) Image
"There was more to the massacre, but I left out some of the gory details." (but note that a woman in the background is holding up a child, pleading for her life with a soldiers and to the right a soldier is bayoneting a child, so some of the gory details are there).
Read 19 tweets
Oct 4, 2020
Catching up on some of the responses by Jeffrey Flynn-Paul to criticisms of his Spectator piece. I'm struck by their fundamental dishonesty. Here's why:
In this one F-P says his essay is "mostly a response" to a BBC piece. That's just not true. In the Spectator he writes, "as this piece was going to press, an article was published by the BBC." He had written the whole thing BEFORE the BBC thing caught his attention.
(The BBC piece is probably idiotic, but so what. For F-P to hold it up as a target is a ridiculous strawman. He can't use it to dismiss hundreds of scholars who have worked hard for an accurate account of Indigenous history.)
Read 15 tweets

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