A suitable book for Christmas - Letters of a Nation

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04/12/2006, 4:25 PM

Michael Ryan is not online. Last active: 25/08/2007 15:39:07 Michael Ryan

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Shrewsbury
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A suitable book for Christmas - Letters of a Nation

"Letters of a Nation" [A collection of extraordinary American letters] has some amazing letters, including from Native Americans. Steven Spielberg's "Into the West" showed Sioux children being taken to an industrial school to be "Americanised". One of the letters in the above book is about such a school, and was sent to the College of William & Mary, Virginia, by the Indians of the Six Nations in 1744 and referred to their experience of such "improvements": "Several of our young people were formerly brought up at the Colleges of the Northern Provinces; they were instructed in all your sciences; but when they came back to us they were bad runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods, unable to bear either cold or hunger, knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, or kill an enemy, spoke our language imperfectly, were therefore neither fit for hunters, warriors or counsellors, they were totally fit for nothing." Another letter, from Massa Hadjo, a Sioux Indian, was printed in the Chicago Tribune [5 December 1890] concerning the attempt to destroy the"Ghost Dance religion" of the Indians in favour of Christianity. The part of this letter that has special appeal for me states: "We [ie the Indians] pay no lawyers or preachers and yet we have not one-tenth part of the crime that you do." My impression of Native Americans is that they were a deeply spiritual people who lived in harmony with their environment. Here in the UK, our history is littered with domination and lack of human rights, both at home and abroad. Kind regards, Michael Ryan, Shrewsbury
Michael Ryan, Shrewsbury

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