Day 1 (DDRD 3,074) April 1, 2026)
Read to page 27.
I had my doubts about going to this book next. Was I really prepared to read about the ignominious treatment of native Americans? Not a head in the sand reaction, but a keeping my head above water one. But it's a library book, and I knew that if I didn't start it now, it would go back unread. So....
x + 501 = 601 pages.
Go.
"...behind the American celebration of the self-made man is the reality that too many of those figures were and are mere hucksters and blowhards." (2)
Reference American Indians adapting to life after the invasion of whites by becoming ranchers, etc., Silverman says that "White civilization had no room for actual Indians adapting to modernity. Therefore, the White public either ignored them or dismissed them as inauthentic. Recognition as real Indians required playing to the stereotype." (4)
"...scholars no longer view race as real in a biological sense. Rather, they see it as a product of history, of human beings categorizing one another as discrete descent groups and giving those categories social, cultural, economic, and political meaning based on struggles for power. That is to say, scholars agree that race is not a matter of skin color, blood, or some other physical essence, but is purely a human construct for human purposes." (25)
Day 2 (DDRD 3,075) April 2, 2026)
Read to page 60.
I think I'm up the first person to read this book. The "received" stamp is for February 18th 2026, which is pretty close to the date I picked it up from the library. Also, there's this:
Is that a These Pages Have Not Been Turned Previously sound, or what?
Reference the deaths of many Native Americans from smallpox in the early 17th century, Governor John Winthrop said, "...so the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess." (35) How's that for a Good Christian Man?
After discussing the atrocities committed by Nathaniel Bacon and his followers, we're told that even after "Bacon was long dead...the fear, hatred, and greed that drove his movement continued to animate the colony's vicious exploitation of Native people for decades to come." (50)
Which makes me wonder.
Day 3 (DDRD 3,076) April 3, 2026)
Read to page 90. According to Silverman, the governments of some of the colonies offered counties for the scalps of "Indians." They went as high as the equivalent of today's $80,000. Can that possibly be true? Well...AI Overview says $30,000. But still...Holy shit!
Day 4 (DDRD 3,077) April 4, 2026)
Read to page 120.
As I was reading about the American Revolution today, Jacqueline found a Schoolhouse Rock segment on the same topic. (Coincidence, I suppose, though sometimes that's hard to believe.) I stopped to watch. It was an innocuous bit set to bouncy music, and there was only one appearance of Indians --in which they peered at the White folks and then disappeared again. Apparently, they weren't part of the action according to 🏫 🪨. Which I understand, of course: the target audience is a little young for the subject of genocide. But why include the Indians at all? To make them skittish spectators does not honor history.
By the way, I have taken to using the term Indians without even the small solace of quotation marks because according to the author of this book, who is a Native American, the people prefer this term to others. Apparently, it's liberal white people (🙄) who try to force feed the Native American nomenclature.
They don't teach you this in history class: Indians refered to George Washington as Conotocarious, which meant Town Destroyer. (120)
Holy shit.
Another American hero, George Rogers Clark, said, "to excel [Indians] in barbarity was and is the only way to make war upon...and gain a name among them." To this, he added, "for his part, he would never spare Man woman or child of them on whom he could lay his hands." (120)
I have no words for this.
