Natives and Newcomers: The Cultural Origins of North America

Axtell, James. Natives and Newcomers: The Cultural Origins of North America. NY: Oxford University Press, 2001. 418 pp.

The intermingling of cultures presented within the contexts of exchanges between traveler and native, historical encounters, or through the process of colonization, has been a continually occurring topic in literary and academic scholarship. Such writings, intriguing as they may be, inevitably reflect the ideological perceptions and chosen methodologies of its authors, resulting in constructive, or destructive, presentations of native populations, courting a variety of responses.

Western writings on populations of color, whether focusing on the Native societies of North America or the Arab Muslim populations of the Middle East, have often been tinged with condescending, paternalistic and exaggerated racist generalizations. Such writings have also been impacted by ideologies reflecting politically motivated and self serving agendas, all obstacles preventing the histories and experiences of native populations to be evaluated within their contextual realities based on oral or written traditions. Such approaches continue to occur in social science disciplines, evident in the ideology of Indianism1

James Axtell's scholarship in Native and Newcomer: The Cultural Origins of North America, reflects the spirit of sensitivity to the data and scrutiny of one's methodology through the use of ethnohistory (used in his lifelong work on Native Americans). This was the focus of his prologue. Through Axtell's use of this continually evolving methodology the reader perceives both Native American and English experiences as overlapping and influencing each other. Perceiving both groups in this manner offers realism and authenticity to the colonial era of the United States, paying close attention to the intertwined and often neglected relationships that created historical phenomenon such as the White Indian, contrasting textbook portrayal of Native Americans as primitive with certainly less than human attributes or, with childlike qualities.

It is difficult to choose between outstanding chapters in Axtell's book, as they are all dynamically written, based on historical and biographical narrative, and balanced; one can see the use of ethnohistory woven through its pages. Yet the eighth, The White Indians, was of special interest because it brought out the self-perceived superiority of the English; the English regarded Whites becoming Indians as incredulous, as no rational reason existed for "a civilized person...to become an Indian" (p. 189) The chapter also brought to mind that the White Indian has not often been given a place within the history of the European colonial or frontier experience in America, most probably because, based on an ideology parallel to that of Manifest Destiny, the existence of the White Indian did not fit the dominant historical perspective of Indianism. Axtell explains this from an Anglocentric view, " This desire ['to redeem savage souls'] was grounded in a set of complementary beliefs about 'savagism' and 'civilization'" "Moreover, the English were confident that the Indians would want to be converted once they were exposed to the superior quality of English life" (p. 189).

Axtell's subject, the White Indian has parallels to academic and popular renditions on the subject, such as Drinnon's (1972) White Savage, Larsen's novel The White (2002) and the Hollywood productions of Dances with Wolves (Wilson & Costner 1990), and The Last of the Mohicans (Mann & Lowry 1992) whose protagonist was Hawkeye, a White Indian. While the research methods used in such works are most certainly different from ethnohistory, these examples speak of the existence of the White Indian concept within the American mind. One wonders, then, why this subject has not been a consistent part of mainstream textbook history. Motivation behind works like Dances with Wolves, may have comprised a softened, more subtle criticism of Western colonialism, or an effort to rectify the historical picture with a more positive portrayal of Native American values and culture, factors which appear to have influenced Whites to remain within Native communities.

Axtell describes a variety of factors woven into the making of the White Indian. Using published period writings, Axtell presents complex issues that Whites faced in the process of becoming White Indians, their kidnap, assimilation into Native society, loss of the English language, the ambivalence of returning to their English communities, and the ability of Native communities to be tolerant of their reluctant guests, a fundamental value that impacted the desire of Whites to remain Indian.

Axtell gave several insights into the motivation and logic behind the kidnaping of English "yeoman stock " (p. 191) as, "...they captured English settlers largely to replace members of their [Native Americans] own families who had died, often from English musketballs or imported diseases". "Consequently women and children - the 'weak and defenceless'- were the prime targets of Indian raids" (p. 192) and, "The Indians obviously chose their captives carefully so as to maximize the chances of acculturating them to Indian life" (p. 193).