My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to
live upon, and cultivate, as far as is necessary for their subsistence; and so
long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have the right to the soil—but if
they voluntarily leave it, then any other people have a right to settle upon
it. Nothing can be sold, but such things as can be carried away. (56)
This
passage is such a hot spot because it not only shows the strong ideological
differences between white and Native American conceptions of land ownership but
also contradicts the dominant narrative about Native Americans.
In
the introduction to the text, Rifkin explains that “rationalism enables Black
Hawk to understand the ethics of land conservation” (xxii). Black Hawk’s
rationalism contradicts white expectations of natives as “savages” and places
him right in the middle of the debate about racial difference that Reginald
Horsman discusses in Race and Manifest Destiny.
Horsman asserts, “Before 1815 the prevailing intellectual view in America as
well as in Europe was that environment, not innate racial differences,
accounted for the marked gaps in achievement between different peoples and
different nations” (98). Even Thomas Jefferson took a “classic Enlightenment
position” about Native Americans, writing that “proofs of genius given by the
Indians of N. America, place them on a level with Whites in the same
uncultivated state” (Horsman 107). Black Hawk’s explicit mention of “reason”
both supports and contradicts Enlightenment thinkers. The capacity to reason is
an inherent human capability that all
races share, thus this passage seems to be in agreement with the Enlightenment
thinkers who argued against inherent racial differences. However, the passage
also shows that different environments won’t always lead to differing
abilities. Just because Black Hawk’s reason led him to a different
understanding of land ownership does not mean his reasoning capabilities are
inferior to a white person’s; he should not have to be equated to a white
person who is still in an “uncultivated state.”
Black
Hawk’s use of the word “cultivate” also has the double-sided effect of
supporting and contradicting white ideology. Whites who first came to America
saw it as their Christian prerogative to cultivate and tame the wilderness, and
cultivation additionally became a measure of progress and civilization. White
Americans used agriculture and cultivation as another marker of their
superiority over the Native Americans. Horsman explains, “Ignoring the
extensive agricultural development among the Indian tribes with which the
United States was in contact…placed the whole confrontation in the simple
context of a primitive hunting society, on a lower stage of human evolution,
encountering an American agrarian society at the highest stage of human
development” (107). Both Horsman and Rifkin point to the inaccuracy of this
narrative. Rifkin argues that Black Hawk’s presentation of the story of the
origin of corn forges “a connection between the hunting grounds and the fields
of Saukenuk by portraying hunting not as the antithesis of cultivation but its (differently
gendered) partner” (687). As with Black Hawk’s “reason,” his conception of “cultivation”
is not inferior to that of white people, it is merely different. Like white
Americans, he highly values cultivation, so much so that he believes cultivation
gives people a right to land, whereas paying for land does nothing.
A
final important element I saw in the Life
of Black Hawk passage is the mention of “voluntarily” giving up land. Rifkin
explains
If legitimate settlement follows upon others “voluntarily”
vacating the territory, the text calls into question the validity of U.S.
jurisdiction by repudiating not simply native assent to a particular sale but
the possibility of construing the sale of Indian territory as ever consensual
in light of the fundamental alienness of such a transfer to indigenous
philosophies and spirituality. (684)
Indian
removal and land treaties are partially problematic because Native Americans
simply don’t see land as something that can be bought and sold. However, even
without that difference in ideology, “voluntarily” giving up land still remains
an important sticking point. Even if white Americans refuse to believe that
land cannot be sold, their treaties are predicated on Indians voluntarily
giving up their land, which gets at one of Maureen Konkle’s arguments in her
article. She explains, “Since the treaty, duplicitous or not, required the
presumption of Indian autonomy in order to be construed as legitimate, it also
allowed for Indians’ resistance to U.S. governmental authority: Indians could
choose not to sell” (460). White Americans had to find ways around this freedom
of choice in order to take the land they wanted. Black Hawk’s whole story
focuses on the consequences when Indians fight for the land that they never
voluntarily left in the first place.
Even though I already came to this realization in our class discussion today, I wanted to briefly tie Homi Bhabha into my blog about Black Hawk. When Black Hawk uses language in a way that both supports and contradicts the white ideology, he is engaging in mimicry. By using the words "reason" and "cultivate", Black Hawk effectively shows that he and other natives are "almost the same [as whites], but not quite" (126). He uses his reason just like whites claim to do, but he reaches a different outcome when it comes to understanding land ownership. He also cultivates land and sees the importance of agriculture, but his conception of agriculture remains different from that of whites. By mimicking dominant discourse throughout the text, Black Hawk is able to turn mimicry into a strategy of resistance just as Bhabha explains. He is able to support his tribal customs and undermine the customs of white Americans, revealing that there is a different way to understand and deal with land ownership that makes just as much sense (if not more). Class discussion was so helpful for getting all this to click for me. I really struggled to understand Bhabha's essay, but now I feel like I have a better grasp on it.
ReplyDeleteHey Cristy,
ReplyDeleteI think that your analysis raises a number of really sound insights. I'm in agreement with the idea that cultural difference shouldn't be intelligible simply in terms of racialized hierarchies, whether in terms of spatiality or knowledge. Your post got me thinking of a disjuncture inherent within the text, one that specifically relates to Enlightenment thinking. It's been a while, but if I recall correctly, John Locke posited that labor signifies property ownership. If we take that to be true, then Black Hawk's view of land cultivation is de facto a form of European property ownership. This idea would presumably undermine the early U.S. government's rationale for exploiting Native Americans and dispossessing them of their lands, since the same logic that they use to exercise territorial expansion would be at work in Native American tribes.
The second comment I'd like to make is that I think your post raises the question of alternative ways of "being" that resist early U.S. ontologies. Black Hawk espouses a distinctly intimate relationship to the land, one that I think culminates in an environmentally-focused ontology. It's almost as if this more fluid way of relating to the land plays a large part in constructing an entirely different cultural epistemology. Much could be said, then, about how Sauk mimicry resists U.S. imperialism. Can we say that the Sauk retain their cultural identity through environmental ethics?