The scramble of peoples and cultures
in North America has created a cultural mix that probably will
not be repeated in world history until we encounter life on another
planet.
- JACK WEATHERFORD, Native Roots
Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia is one
of the biggest tourist attractions in the country. In Native
Roots, Jack Weatherford speculates about why Americans are
so drawn to the beautifully restored colonial city. Americans,
he says, come to escape a world of pollution, violence, drugs,
television chatter, and traffic jams, to experience the way life
is supposed to be, the way it supposedly once was in colonial
America (116). They marvel over the simplicity and ingenuity
of the city, and the fact that it was built by simple folk who
just wanted to start a new life. "This is a view of American
history that suits us very well," Weatherford says. "Our
European ancestors arrived at nothingness and, through diligence
and their natural cleverness, made a beautiful city" (117).
However, Weatherford continues, they did not create that prosperity,
but rather all that prosperity resulted from the highly profitable
sales of the export of one single Indian crop-tobacco. American
Indian crops formed the basis on which the powerful agricultural
economy of the United States developed and matured, and, even
today, crops of Indian origin still supply some of our most desired
exports (128).
A cross-continental exchange of goods and ideas was prompted by the 1492 encounter which had geopolitical implications that changed the world. Plants, animals, disease, and ideas crossed the ocean in both directions, transforming the continents on both sides of the Atlantic. Primarily the older textbooks, but even currently used textbooks such as America: Yesterday and Today, do not address geopolitical issues. Many of the textbooks only describe how the Europeans changed the life of the Plains Indians by introducing the horse and/or the gun, such as A More Perfect Union: "Before the arrival of the horse, Plains Indians lived in villages along the Missouri River and its tributaries. The men hunted on foot, and the women cultivated crops. Horses changed all that. . . . The meeting of two cultures had dramatically transformed the lives of a people" (26).
However, some textbooks covered the geopolitical implication in more depth. The United States: Its History and Neighbors has a three-page "Close-Up" on "Plants of the New World." It describes how corn, chocolate, peanuts, beans, squash, the potato, pepper, and the tomato came from the Indians; how corn became one of the most important foods in the world; and how the potato saved many poor Europeans, especially the Irish, from starvation. A History of US: The First Americans discusses the exchange of crops, but also of animals:
Columbus did something important that no one noticed at first: he helped start an agricultural revolution. Before long, American corn, peppers, beans, pumpkins, and tomatoes were growing in Europe. One plant-the potato-proved more valuable to the Old World than all the gold in the Americas.
The exchange went both ways. Columbus brought oranges to the West Indies, where they were unknown. Cattle, sheep, horses, and pigs were sent to America from Europe. That transfer of plants and animals provided a way to feed bigger and bigger populations. (74)
America: The People and the Dream, in a section called "Movement: Columbian Exchange," discusses the impact of imported diseases on the Indians, the importance of American crops to the Europeans, and the crops and animals brought to the Americas.
In addition to the exchange of plant and animal life, ideas were exchanged as well. Catholicism was rocked by the existence of the Indians, as these new people were not mentioned in the Bible, and the ensuing controversy contributed to the unfolding of the Protestant Reformation (Loewen 57). The political makeup of the Native American nations, very different from and sometimes superior to those in Europe, surprised the Europeans and influenced the formation of America's democracy. The American Nation is the only textbook to include all aspects of the cultural exchange, including the exchange of ideas. Two pages are devoted to the influence of Native American crops, farming, language, technology, arts, sports, ecology, and government on the rest of the world. Later, another page is devoted to "The Columbian Exchange," which describes the exchange of crops, animals, and diseases between the Americas and Europe. The activity that corresponds with the section asks the students to make a map of the world that illustrates the flow of items in the Columbian exchange. Finally, The American Nation is the only textbook to state that Indian forms of government, specifically the Iroquois Confederacy, had a direct influence on the Constitution:
Many early American leaders admired the Iroquois system of government. They considered the League of the Iroquois as a model for the idea of unity. In the League, member nations governed their own affairs, but joined together for defense. When Benjamin Franklin urged a similar union of colonies in 1754, he pointed to the League's success. . . John Rutledge also admired the Iroquois union. At the Constitutional Convention, Rutledge read to delegates from an Iroquois treaty, which began, "We, the people, to form a union, to establish peace, equity and order." The framers used similar language when they wrote the preamble of the United States Constitution. (199-200)
I did not find this aspect of the exchange mentioned in any of the other textbooks. Some discussed the impact of European ideas on the Americas, such as the slave trade, religious intolerance, and land ownership. But many of the books that covered the geopolitical aspects limited that coverage to the exchange of plants and animals. Many only discuss the effect horses and guns had on the lifestyle of the Plains Indians. But the overall effect of the contributions of the American Indians to the rest of the world is not given sufficient coverage in American History textbooks.