On Indians and Iron

From Wendell Berry’s The Unsettling of America.

"The New World,” Bernard DeVoto wrote in The Course of Empire, “was a constantly expanding market… Its value in gold was enormous but it had still greater value in that it expanded and integrated the industrial systems of Europe.

And he continues: “The first belt-knife given by a European to an Indian was a portent as great as the cloud that mushroomed over Hiroshima…. Instantly the man of 6000 B.C. was bound fast to a way of life that had developed seven and a half millennia beyond his own. He began to live better and he began to die.”

The principle European trade goods were tools, cloth, weapons, ornaments, novelties, and alcohol. The sudden availability of these things produced a revolution that “affected every aspect of Indian life. The struggle for existence… became easier. Immemorial handicrafts grew obsolescent, then obsolete. Methods of hunting were transformed. So were methods – and the purposes – of war. As war became deadlier in purpose and armament a surplus of women developed, so that marriage customs changed and polygamy became common. The increased usefulness of women in the preparation of pelts worked to the same end… Standards of wealth, prestige, and honor changed. The Indians acquired commercial values and developed business cults. They became more mobile….

“In the sum it was cataclysmic. A culture was forced to change much faster than change could be adjusted to. All corruptions of culture produce breakdowns of morale, of communal integrity, and of personality and this force was as strong as any other in the white man’s subjugation of the red man.”

I have quoted these sentences from DeVoto because, the obvious differences aside, he is so clearly describing a revolution that did not stop with the subjugation of the Indians, but went on to impose substantially the same catastrophe upon the small farms and the farm communities, upon the shops of small local tradesmen of all sorts, upon the workshops of independent craftsmen, and upon the households of citizens. It is a revolution that is still going on. The economy is still substantially that of the fur trade, still based on the same general kinds of commercial items: technology, weapons, ornaments, novelties, and drugs. The one great difference is that by now the revolution has deprived the mass of consumers of any independent access to the staples of life: clothing, shelter, food, even water. Air remains the only necessity that the average user can still get for himself, and the revolution has imposed a heavy tax on that by way of pollution. Commercial conquest is far more thorough and final than military defeat. The Indian became a redskin, not by loss in battle, but by accepting a dependence on traders that made necessities of industrial goods. This is not merely history. It is a parable.

I know it’s ridiculous that I haven’t finished processing this essay yet but this piece of writing was very revealing to me in its historical implications. I picked up DeVoto’s book The Course of Empire and found it fascinating. The political tableau that unfolded among the great lakes tribes and the French was unknown to me prior and the wars and trading and political gambles aspired to a level we’d recognize immediately today. The French became like demigods to the Indians and changed the fabric of their lives. Wendell spends a large part of this essay exploring the cultural implications of a nation that follows this path of exploitation and expanding markets and the history that traces that thinking. Pretty good stuff

What does it mean? In some ways it makes me feel hopeless. There is such a vast swing of history pushing us in certain directions it seems futile to reach for something different. But it also gives us a perception to deal with. You can't ignore technology. DeVoto makes a determined case for the technology of the age in the 17th century and its reasons for dominance. The hard truth of the times was iron ruled. Once again DeVoto,

The Fox chief who told Perrot, 'You gave birth to us for you brought us the first iron,' was telling the truth... To the last fragment of a broken axehead, the last half of a cracked awl, the last inch of strap iron, a better life depended on the trade.

An iron axe beat a stone axe. An iron arrowhead gained mastery over a flint arrowhead. This was an indisputable truth and if you denied that you got it in the back of the head.

Yet we have advantages. For starters, I don't think the tribe with the HighDefinition viewing capability has any paramount advantage over those that don't. And the guy with the ipod (That's me) is no more advantaged than the guy with the boombox on his shoulder. You laugh but I just saw a guy walking down the street like that last week. Boombox rockin by his ear. Swaggerin down the sidewalk. Soaking up the admiration. Though your mating capabilities may be deminished your ability to live is not.

We can pick and choose. We can decide whats to our advantage and whats not. With thought and consideration I think we'll find many technologies disadvantaging us and some profoundly useful. And the best lesson we can learn is if we can do it for ourselves then we should gain that advantage when its available. This is the lesson of the 17th century Indian. They became dependent on Europeans for their subsistence and thus were ruled by them. Will it be repeated again and again and again? Are we repeating it now? If you can't provide for yourself or your neighbor what you need to live then your not free. Am I wrong?