Erasing the White Man's Indian:  Stereotypes of Native Americans

     The Stereotyping of the Native American Indian in the United States seems to be as American as Baseball or Apple Pie.  The negative labeling of our indigenous people is almost as prevalent as the common cold and has been going on longer than the United States of America has been a country.   The Stereotypes are everywhere in our culture.  They help sell all sorts products and promote many different types of sports teams.  The misrepresentations are in our movies, T.V. shows, pop songs, comic books and have even made their way into our history lessons.  The false portrayal of Native Americans is an institution in the United States that has a long history and if things continue as they have been, they will have a long future.

     Jane McCrea was a 26 year old victim of the Revolutionary war (Jane 1).  She was captured by Native Americans that were allied to the British Crown (Jane 1).  She was scalped supposedly by those same captors (Jane 1)  The British paid hefty bounties for the scalps of enemies of the crown (See March 23, 2013 Post).   The Rebel Colonists embellished the details of her untimely demise and then spread the story in newspapers throughout the colonies (Jane 1). This anti-British propaganda also spread hatred and fear of all Native Americans in the American colonies (Jane 1).  A depiction of Jane’s death was painted by John Vanderlyn in 1804 and the painting helped perpetuate the misrepresentation of “The Skulking Indian Enemy”.

The Death of Jane McCrea

     Newspapers in America have been instrumental in protecting our democracy from the lies of tyrants and seeking out the truth by developing a tradition of journalistic ethics.  Unfortunately, that has not always been the case.  Newspapers and reporters have also been guilty of misleading the public or even spreading lies about Indian attacks on defenseless white settlers to sell more newspapers and thus helped to perpetuate the myth of, “The Skulking Indian Enemy” (Lester 113).  This stereotype takes on many forms most commonly the painted face, war crying savage attacking innocent woman and children (Lester 114).  This is the most recognizable Indian to most of the world due to the movie industry pumping out one flick after another portraying the Native American in this way.

                               

                       (A short documentary on Hollywood's treatment of Native Americans)

Many of Americas young children in this country were introduced to stereotypes of Native Americans through  cartoons.

                              

                       (Short "Betty Boop" cartoon from the late 1930's)

     The opposite of the “Skulking Indian Enemy” is the “Noble Savage”.  This is the Indian we like to talk about on Thanksgiving Day who shared his bounty with the Pilgrims.  He goes out of his way to help the white man at the risk of family relationships and even his own life (Lester 114).  This stereotype implies that the Native American is grateful that the wise and powerful Anglo will rescue him from his primitive backward culture and way of life (114).  Similarly, there is the myth of the “Stoical Indian” who never smiles and is always very serious.  I hope the video below helps to dispel the myth that Native Americans are always serious.  Actually, most Native Americans that I have met have a terrific sense of humor.  (Sorry, but there seems to be a technical problem with uploading this video, "Going Native American American Indian Comedy Slam is the name of the video and can be watched on YouTube.)

(See I told you Native Americans can be funny too!)

Both the ,"Noble Savage" and the“Stoical Indian”, images were on the dime store novels and newspapers of the 19^th Century and helped to perpetuate the myth that the Indian, if he is truthful, is actually grateful for Manifest Destiny rescuing him from his primitive ways (114).  This myth is like the rapist justifying his deed by saying, "She liked it."  If you go to Barnes and Noble today and look through the Romance section you can still find these images.

  The stereotypes of the “Skulking Indian Enemy”, and “The Noble Savage”, are the most common misrepresentations used by sports teams (Lester 115).  Teams like the Braves, the fighting Illini of the University of Illinois, and Sioux of the University of North Dakota rely on the fear that the “Skulking Indian Enemy” social construct might conjure in the minds of their opponents ( 115)  However, some sports teams like the Cleveland Indians have chosen a composite of the two stereotypes.  The Cleveland Indians mascot is “Chief Wahoo” a cartoonish caricature that also exaggerates the racial features that Native Americans are often associated with.   The most blatantly racist team name has to be the Redskins best known as the professional football team representing Washington D.C.  Fans of these teams make war cries, wave toy tomahawks, do war dances dressed as Indians, and threaten to scalp their rivals (115).  Team owners and fans defend these names and mascots by saying that they are respecting and honoring Native Americans.  In all fairness there are some teams like the University of Florida Seminoles that have been given permission by the tribe to use their name and image (115).  Still it is hard to imagine most Native Americans are not offended by the way they are portrayed at these sporting events.  Today, many schools have decided to either change the name of their team or if the tribe still exists ask for permission to use their likenesses in a respectable manner (116).  The stereotypes of the "Skulking Indian Enemy”,  and, “The Noble Savage”, usually seek to dehumanize the male Native American.  Native American women have a different set of negative labels to overcome.

     Native American women have for a long time been referred to collectively as "Squaws".   Native American woman did not refer to themselves as such the name was pinned on them and it stuck. The term "Squaw" in popular American culture has two different derogatory meanings (scholarsbank 1).  The two primary definitions for a  "Squaw" in our culture are first as a sexual punching bag and then as a drudge (1).   Whites pushed the idea of  the "Squaw" being a drudge or workhorse because the concept not only dehumanized them but was the direct opposite of what the ideal white woman was supposed to be this providing evidence of their savagery (Smits 1).  The Indian "Squaw" as a sexual object degrades Native American women and shows them as being an object for men, primarily white, to possess and manipulate (Ardrey 1).  The media markets this look to women and makes the stereotype a norm in society (1).  This type of stereotyping reinforces public impressions of what constitutes female Indian-ness and the place of indigenous women in a simultaneously romanticized and demonized past, present and future (1).  It is time for the squaw to be liberated and no longer the property of Native or non-Native American men.  Some stereotypes can apply to either Native American men or women.  The “Drunken Indian” social construct of Native Americans is completely gender neutral

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     The myth of the “Drunken Indian” assumes that all Indians are powerless over alcohol and that despite the noble efforts of the U.S. government the Native American is doomed to be a hopeless drunkard because of the loss of the tribal way of life (Miller 226).  There is no doubt that there are alcohol problems among Native Americans.  There are alcohol problems among all races of people.  Ironically, Native American treatment programs have demonstrated a high success rate especially among the youth (228).   It has been theorized that alcohol was not known to Native Americans and therefore they did not develop the proper genes needed to process alcohol (229).  Alcohol was indeed known to many tribes before European contact although they probably did not consume it other than in a ceremonial manner (229).  Rather than some biological reason for Indian Alcoholism researchers point to deplorable economic and social conditions on reservations and Indians living in urban areas as the leading cause of Native American alcohol abuse.  The U.S. federal government bears a large responsibility for the dissemination of the “Drunken Indian” myth (235).  If the Native American is perceived as helpless then they may need a benevolent “Father” figure that is really a wolf in disguise.  Just like all other stereotypes the “Drunken Indian” is totally false yet still widely believed. 

                               (A brief news report about poverty on the "Pine Ridge" Reservation)

     There are many more stereotypes about Native Americans than could ever fit into this Blog.  I have selected those that are the most pervasive and still widely believed.  All of these negative labels share a central theme.  The idea has always been to dehumanize and make it more socially acceptable to treat Native Americans with less respect and dignity than people of all other races and especially the white race.  What separates the longstanding negative social construct of the Native American from all of the other American ethnic and racial minorities constructs is that their negative labels helped to inspire the greatest genocide the world has ever known. 

I will leave you with a poem that one of my Native American sisters wrote and was published in Aloud: Voices of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

Sure You can Ask me a Personal Question
by Diane Burns

How do you do?
No, I'm not Chinese.
No, not Spanish.
No, I'm American Indi..uh, Native American.
No, not from India.
No, we're not extinct.
No, not Navajo.
No, not Sioux.
Yes, Indian.
Oh, so you've had an Indian friend?
That close.
Oh, so you had an Indian lover?
That tight.
Oh, so you've had an Indian servant?
That much.
Oh, so that's where you got those high cheek bones.
Your great-grandmother, eh?
Hair down to there?
Let me guess...Cherokee?
Oh, an Indian Princess.
No, I didn't make it rain tonight.
No, I don't know where you can get Navajo rugs real cheap.
No, I don't know where you can get peyote.
No, I didn't make this... I bought it at Bloomingdale's.
Yes, some of us drink to much.
Some of us can't drink enough.
This ain't no stoic look.
This is my face.

References

Algarín, M., & Holman, B. (1994). Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. New York: H. Holt.

Ardrey, K. (2011). hpiamardrey. Hofstra People. Retrieved March 29, 2013, from http://people.hofstra.edu/daniel_m_varisco/hpiaardrey.html

Smits, D. D. (1982). The "Squaw Drudge": A Prime Index of Savagism. Ethnohistory, 29(4), 281-306.

Jane McCrea Notable Women Ancestors. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nwa/jane.html

Lester, P. M. (2011). Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media, Third Edition. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.

Retrieved from https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/11739/s-word.pdf?sequence=1

The 'Drunken Indian:' Myth Distilled into Reality Through Federal Indian Alcohol Policy by Robert Miller, Maril Hazlett :: SSRN. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1160478