Indian Cent - Cultural Appropriation?

@basebal21

Of course there have always been people that get outraged over trivial issues, but social media has given them an exponentially increased voice to do so.

It's changed it in the sense that now it's very easy to find something to be outraged about with the increased visibility of everything online, and it's much easier to pile on/get people to pile on. The other thing it has done is given the opportunity for small groups to become very vocal and make something seem like a mainstream issue that just isn't.

It was just a warning for everyone to keep it civil. That is all. Nothing more.

Not today.

Judging one era by the standards of another commonly yields anachronisms like this.

Another example: given what the "white man" did to Native Americans by 1913, is depicting an Indian on the Buffalo nickel any less offensive than the IHC?

Yes it was fresh in their consciousness, but also at the time, in general, the persecution was considered a GOOD thing.

There were 32 states in the US when 1859 started, with much open territory in the US west still to be settled. The US was still close to 50 years away from completing the taking of Indian lands as part of what ultimately became the 50 states known today. So I don't think Americans were thinking of persecution of Native Americans in 1859. These thoughts likely did not emerge until the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.

As this country was settled, I believe there was always some aspect of romanticism of Native Americans and Native American culture. As the nation expanded West, this was reflected in items such as the Indian Head cent and even the Buffalo nickel, which marked the end of the Westward Expansion - Arizona and New Mexico were admitted in 1912, making the lower 48 complete. The coin designs reflect this.

I fairly recently read "The Last of the Mohicans", written in 1826, and it very strongly conveys the romantic themes of the frontier and the current residents of that frontier (the Indians) as both noble and savage. I was very surprised by this given the date it was written.

The history of the world is made up of many terrible and wonderful things. How it can be so is the great mystery of our life on this planet.

@KenKat Firstly I can appreciate that viewpoint. And although I agree that the general public might have had feelings of "romanticism" toward the American Indians, I believe the facts of the government's treatment of them is contrary.

Firstly, although it is true the Western territories were not "settled" or ratified as States yet, all of these lands to the Pacific coast, north to Canada and South to the current border of Mexico were United States territories by the end of Mexican-American war in 1848. This set the stage for America's westward settlement, later coined "Manifest Destiny".

Inconveniently, American Indian people populated much of the country from coast-to-coast. The forcible removal of Native American people from their lands via the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the subsequent "Trail of Tears" resulting in thousands of American Indian deaths was the means by which the United States cleared the way.

So maybe persecution is the wrong word. But there is no doubt that the United States had done the Native people wrong especially in the era immediately prior to the release of the IHC. Whether or not that was well-known by the public is probably another matter.

If anybody is interested in learning about this from the Native American side, I would suggest a great book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. It explains in detail, many of the manipulations and maneuvers between the U.S. officials and the Native leaders during this period. It is a good contrast to the one-sided version we get in our government history books.

I hear that.

Thanks for the civil discussion.

Also appreciated this: