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#Post#: 323--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading 5: Joyce Chaplin
By: asantello Date: February 19, 2019, 8:29 pm
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Chaplin's look into the racism that the settlers created when
they came to America, and how it affected diseases was much more
interesting to me than all the details on diseases from last
night's reading. The part that stuck out to me the most was,
“Colonists saw epidemics as expected features of American
nature, not as recent alterations, and blamed the Indians for
their own mortality” (76). It frustrates me because I was like
- c’mon dudes stop blaming them it's your fault- but also it
made sense. I have to remember that they are coming here not
knowing anything about these people, how would they know if they
are usually dying left and right. If they’d tried to understand
a bit more they probably would have figured it out, but I can’t
be too surprised about the conclusion they came to. The part
that irks me the most is John Smith’s quote, “God had laid this
country open for us, and slaine the most part of inhabitants by
civil warres and moral diseases” (75). His idea that God would
just make a bunch of people die because he is more important was
just another infuriating time when people used religion and
racism to justify what they want to be true, rather than
thinking about the situation. This reading was very much from
the European perspective and while a good side to have I want to
think more about it from the Native perspective. There is
probably less writing on their thoughts and feelings, but if
there is some that would be a good read.
#Post#: 324--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading 5: Joyce Chaplin
By: yzhu2020 Date: February 19, 2019, 11:25 pm
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This reading examined "the English comparison between their own
bodies and those of North American Indians" (231). Unlike the
other articles, this article really goes it's way to show the
ignorance of Europeans. I think that this article marks the
start of 'racism'. In page 244, the author writes that the
English "distance themselves from the natives" (244) and claimed
their "effects on them were cultural rather than physical"
(244). It was very interesting for me to read in article because
unlike other articles about race, tis article brings up the idea
of types of people which eventually leads to racism. I am also
surprised by the fact that the whole article is so focused on
one topic.
Before this reading, I had a question about why did the
Europeans just assume that they had power or was more noble than
the Indians. We had this discussion in class about how the
Europeans viewed the Indians as animals / children which
somewhat answered my question. I was also able to gain some
insight in the readings to why the Europeans assumed their
power. In page 244, English people thought the climate of
American will "Indianize" them and make them lazy and
disrespectful of authority. Animals and children do not respect
authority (simply because they cannot) therefore the Europeans
assumed power over them.
#Post#: 325--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading 5: Joyce Chaplin
By: jbass Date: February 20, 2019, 6:52 am
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In the text we looked at tonight they talk about the difference
between the way we as scholars look at english settlers not how
they have shaped their identity. This made them inherently
racist even before they provided a sense of worth and value to
different people. This would require a sense of individual
identity. There was a lot of focus on physical differences.
These differences were considered birth defects or “accidents of
birth” which is very interesting to me. Historians at the time
looked at the decimation of the indigenous Americans as
something wrong with them not something caused by the incoming
english settlers. This is important when understanding
environmental history because without looking at the little
details and really checking the information of the environment
we would not know the truth about disease in indigenous
Americans.
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