Class notes
Required reading:
Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Tompkins, "'Indians'"
Required viewing:
The Civil War, Reconstruction
Written assessment:
Quiz 4
Written assignment due:
web response paragraph
Essay 1
Web response prompt
Tompkins' essay is difficult. It requires some work on the part of us, her readers, to make sense of what she is saying and doing in this essay - to make connections between the pieces of the essay.
She begins by telling a story from her childhood - a story that "stands for the relationship most non-Indians have to the people who first populated this continent." She goes on to state that "The present essay ... doesn't have much to do with actual Indians, though its subject matter is the histories of European-Indian relations in seventeeth-century New England. In a sense, my encounter with Indians as an adult doing 'research' replicates the childhood one, for while I started out to learn more about Indians, I ended up preoccupied with a problem of my own."
As a way to start the work of making sense of Tompkins' essay, reread the essay paying attention to how her "encounter with Indians as an adult doing 'research'" could be said to "replicate" her childhood encounter.
Write a short paragraph (about 150 words) describing some of the connections you can make between her childhood story and the work of her essay. Remember to refer to specific examples with page numbers from the text.
10 comments:
I think this autobiography is the best way to imagine slave’s life. How they were discriminated and how were they selling like things. They were thought as inhuman beings and nobody cared of them. It is terrible when whole life you are trying to buy yourself or your children . there where phrases which made grate impact on me. For example “when he told me I was made for his use, made to obey his command in everything; that I was nothing but a slave”(page385). I really had some knowledge about slaves and also I have seen lot of films about slaves and there terrible life, but “HATTIET JACOBS” really made very big expression on me.
I want to make some parallel on nowadays slaves and slaves in 19th century. Unfortunately in 21st century there still exist slaves and the people whom they belong. The only difference is that in 19th century this big problem called “slave problem” and today it is called “prostitution “.
Even today people are under depression and that’s why I noticed that everyone should have some information about this horrible facts.
I completely agree with the points Jane Tompkins is making in her Essay “Indians”.
In the beginning I was confused and not sure what point she was proposing. By the end, I could understand her connection of fact to perspectives and it educed some incisive thoughts of my own. By involving her experiences and the standpoints of other Historians, I could understand the frustration there is in determining fact, fiction, or manipulation. With the information we are given, how do we use our opinions, perspective, understanding and morals to get our points across to our readers? She said ”Presumably there was something in my background that enabled me to see the problem in this way” (Page 117, Tompkins, 1986). By using her past experiences as a child and on, she could conclude her perspective and interpret the viewpoints of others toward Indians. Different people see different things and their point of views have in important role in getting their point across regardless of other interpretations. We use evidence to decide what best describes the analysis we will make and whatever and whomever can establish if the facts are true or false, “Facts are not facts because they are only the product of perspective” (Page 118, Tompkins, 1986). It all comes down too the perspective of others. I suppose that this assumption could be connected to all subjects, theories, or analyses written, said, or proposed by anyone. Nothing is new under the sun unless you want it to be.
Tompkins starts her essay how her mother took her to see some Indians and their caves in the Park.
"Imagination" – child and historians.
Tompkins writes how she imagined and described the life of Indians in the Park when she was eight years old...
And how historian like Miller writes history according to "his mental image..." (Tompkins, 104). For example he proposed in his history of New England, "movement of European culture into the vacant wilderness of America" (Tompkins, 103) excluding all the inhabitants of continental America, their culture, language, societies and civilizations. Assuming in his "mind" that the place is "Vacant". Tompkins underlines this "assumptions" and personal motives as the problem of history. And in her words mind is used as a source of history, rather than real "facts" (Tompkins, 116), creating biases in narration.
This is somewhat similar what Limerick argues in her essay, “Empire of Innocence”.
When I started this week's reading, I was surprised because it was different than all the previous.
I liked the way Jane Tompkins wrote this essay because I had a feeling like she was talking to me. She was communicating with the reader because she put herself to a position of a person who just wanted to find out something more about Indians than she knew while she was a child. I also liked the story Jane told at the beginning (p. 101 - 102) and the way she was comparing herself with Indians (they both liked animals and made mistakes). It is kind of interesting, it makes reader feel better for not knowing much about Indians.
In this essay, there were also things I did not like very much. For example, I found myself confused after mentioning all those authors and their essays (pages 103 - 115). She knew that it would happen to a reader and she understands that because she was in the same position while making this whole research but I still don't like that way of writing because she opened too many possible conclusions.
The main conclusion of this essay would be that it is impossible to make opinion about Indians because all those mentioned authors had their surroundings and they were affected by time when they lived. There even might be some true facts but everybody believes something else and the opinion about European - Indian relations cannot be generalized.
Jane Tompkins was at first trying to answer a simple question in her essay Indians, about a relationship between Europeans and Indians in 16th century. But on her way to the answer she came across a more complex problem. Why are these essays and stories she read so different? Why does William Wood’s New England Prospect state that we should admire Indians, while Alexander Whitaker’s pamphlet said the exact opposite?(page 113) What Tompkins discovered is that facts are products of perspective and historians can never escape the limitations of their own position. Meaning that Wood was trying to make Indians look good in order to encourage new immigrants to come to America and Whitaker was a minister who wanted to convince people that these naked slaves needed conversion. They represented Indians in the image of their own needs. These biased truths are taught in schools, like the story of Peter Minuit’s purchase of the Manhattan Island (page 101). Makes children feel superior and think that maybe Indians are not so clever, if they sold such a valuable thing. As Tompkins said, they are the ones who like animals and make mistakes. Imagining them living in a forest and dressed in feathers, because this is how they are described in books. People do not care what they are doing now. Ninety percent of the Native American population of New England died after the first hundred years of contact with Europeans and nowadays to see them we can go to a park and touch them. For kids they are just creatures of imagination (page 101).
Jane Tompkins in her essay “Indians”: Textualism, Morality, and the Problem of History, tries to discover a genuine European-Indian relations but ended up dealing with absolutely different sort of discoveries. In the beginning, the author narrates about her childhood and her vision and feelings towards Indians. She explains how these feelings were developed:”I already knew about Indians from having read about them in school…” (p.101). Furthermore, she writes that the way history is told in schools creates some sort of superiority to Indians. The point that she is trying to make is that culture, education, background or any other knowledge influences people’s perspective on anything they are “looking” at. “The problem is that if all accounts of events are determined through and through by the observer’s frame of reference, then one will never know, in any given case, what really happened” (p.102). Tompkins brings lots of examples of historical perspectives on the same event. She tries to explain why these perspectives are so different, and what have influenced each one. Overall, she concludes that this is very complicated to describe historical events without dealing with “textualism”. All the historians see the same things so differently because they have very different backgrounds, Tompkins concludes. At the end of the essay she shows example of how people make their choices based on the information, knowledge etc. they have collected over the life: “…from deciding whom to marry to choosing the right brand of cat food” (p.118). This way she attempts to explain and connect the “problem of limitations” (being in a sense biased) to historian’s problem of perspectivism.
First of all, as I believe that history should be unbiased and should be as judgmental as possible, this piece of work by Tompkins is the most fascinating work that I’ve so far read for this course.
It is true that many history accounts, especially secondary sources and possibly primary sources, contain some form of thoughts from authors. This makes the history accounts biased and eventually might lead readers in confusion. Tompkins wrote in page 114 that “Europeans did consciously tamper with the evidence… they did not record faithfully what they saw” then she goes on to say “… the ethnocentric bias of the firsthand observers invited an investigation of the cultural situation they spoke from.” Which shows that all accounts should not be taken as it is.
In terms of judgment of history event by historical evidence, Tompkins says, in page 116, “… evidence of values we already hold, of judgments already made, of facts already perceived as facts.” This shows how judgment of history events is made in a set of already made norms. This work of Tompkins aimed to prove or to show how even “accounts of events (pg.102)” can be false.
In a way that she compared her set of norm in childhood brought difficulties but prove her point by suggesting various examples, such as Miller, Vaughan, Kupperman, and many others, she told us vital point when we examining the historical accounts and evidences.
I was astonished by the amount of work Tompkins has done, that only convinced me, how dedicated she must have been. On the base what she was taught and told in her childhood about Indians, she wanted to find out how it really was with them and the Europeans. Were the Indians as silly or plain people to sell Manhattan Island for such ridiculous value? Were they innocent animal-worshiping victims of western way of life? Or were they more likely cruel merciless fighters against white men’s oppression?
“In Miller, Indians had been simply beneath notice; in Vaughan, they belonged to an inferior culture; and in Jennings, they were more or less prey of power-hungry whites.” (Page 107-108)
“A favorable report like Wood’s, intended to encourage new immigrants to America, naturally represented Indians as loving and courteous, civilized and generous, in order to allay the fears of prospective colonist.”(Page 114)
This only proofs what Tomkins came to, that every report she had read lead her to different point of view, that depended on such factors as the age when the author had lived, or the thoughts and prejudice he has been influenced by. Same as little Tomkins was in her childhood ‘influenced’ by stereotypes about the Indians learned at school.
This statement is documented in Tomkins’ conclusion that “Winthrop and his peers were not racists but only Englishmen who looked at other cultures in the way their own culture had taught them to see one another.” (115)
This hangs together with the fact that we cannot separate the text from individual point of view.
“The effect of bringing perspectivism to bear on history was to ripe out completely the subject matter of history… everything is wiped out and you are left with nothing but a single idea – perpectivism itself.” (117)
In the end Tompkins complains about the solutions she got to. The problem is not that she cannot answer the question she had asked, but that her work has lead her on a different way than she supposed the study of history would lead her.
I found this essay very interesting, Tomkin's point of view and way of writing was unique and different from all the other readings till now. She as it was previously said talking to the reader and wanted to involve him in her story, trying to put him in the Indian's shoes.
I found if a bit difficult to follow when she was talking about the different historians and their ideas from which she was trying to form her own. Even if at the end she has a great pint, she states of how people are different, of how they think and have different backgrounds which make them look at Indians in their own way and that she, by presenting it to us in this form just wanted as to think of how we see them. I actually liked it better when she talked about herself and her passion for Indians and of how she felt similar to them, it captivated me more. I prefer to read about peoples feelings, experiences and opinions rather then facts because it's more personal that is why I liked the best our previous reading by H.Jacobs.
It was really truth and really exiting essay by Jane Tompkins. The beginning of the essay is nice and funny. I totally agree with her. Every historian and every writer who has some information always adds his or her own idea. I understand because now one has ever been to Indian society and no one really knows their real life. Every human has its imagination and unfortunately readers are often “victim” of their imagination.
The only difference between historians and Jane Tompkins was the difference between age and some more information about Indians. She is talking about different historians and criticizes them. It is absolutely receivable and understandable.
I was satisfied with this essay because my thoughts were to near with Jane’s writings and because I have never red such essay before
Post a Comment