Indian Givers
Essay Preview: Indian Givers
Report this essay
Indian Givers
How the Indians of the Americas transformed the world
By J. McIver Weatherford
This paper tries to explain Jack Weatherfords Indian Givers by examining the history of the Native American connection to many agricultural products would not have been produced without the knowledge that Indians gave. Weatherford further stipulates that it is through these advances in agriculture that the United States has remained a strong contender in the global market, that without the influences of the Native Americans on the early settlers those early immigrants to America would not have survived. Through his work, “Indian Givers: How Indians of the Americas Transformed the World”, Weatherford brings an insight to a people that most individuals have been neglected to consider. The paper concludes that it is Weatherfords purpose to demonstrate that Native Americans have been a misrepresented and forgotten people when the history of North America is discussed.
This book is complete with some facts, unfounded assumptions, explores Native American gifts to the World and gives that information credence which really happened yet was covered up and even lied about by Euro-centric historians who have never given the Indians credit for any great cultural achievement. From silver and money capitalism to piracy, slavery and the birth of corporations, the food revolution, agricultural technology, the culinary revolution, drugs, architecture and urban planning our debt to the indigenous peoples of America is tremendous. With indigenous populations mining the gold and silver made capitalism possible. Working in the mines and mints and in the plantations with the African slaves, they started the industrial revolution that then spread to Europe and on around the world. They supplied the cotton, rubber, dyes, and related chemicals that fed this new system of production. They domesticated and developed the hundreds of varieties of corn, potatoes, cassava, and peanuts that now feed much of the world. They discovered the curative powers of quinine, the anesthetizing ability of coca, and the potency of a thousand other drugs with made possible modern medicine and pharmacology. The drugs together with their improved agriculture made possible the population explosion of the last several centuries. They developed and refined a form of democracy that has been haphazardly and inadequately adopted in many parts of the world. They were the true colonizers of America who cut the trails through the jungles and deserts, made the roads, and built the cities upon which modern America is based.”
America owes a debt to slavery that can never be repaid. Thats not to say it shouldnt be. At the very least, it should be acknowledged, validated, and honored with the respect that it deserves.
Presents information and ideas that are too often overlooked in our day-to-day thinking about what we have, and where those things came from. Issues rose such as the American Indians contributions to the geopolitical influence of American silver and gold on the rest of the world. Questions from my youth are where did all of the Inca gold go to? Why is not Spain not a major world power? Why does it seem as though most foods are native to the Americas? These are questions that are avoided in popular history books, giving all of the stability of modern life to the credit of the civilized Europeans.
Chapter 7, “Liberty, Anarchism, and the Noble Savage” was very subjectively and one-sidedly trying to glorify the Indian nature, Indian government and Indian understanding of control. I am not trying to say that what Weatherford is totally incorrect, but the way he presents the knowledge is too