Our nation’s history is made up of so many different narratives. The history of American colonization is a diverse one. Spain first colonized much of the Americas from present-day Florida, to the southern tip of South America, England established colonies on the East and Northwest coasts, while the Netherlands settled New York. France colonized Canada and parts of North America.
European colonization of the Americas led to the rise of new cultures, civilizations and eventually, states, which resulted from the fusion of Native American, European, and African traditions, peoples and institutions.
There is a rich culture of first hand historical memoirs of such settlers, indigenous, women and slaves, that depict the complex history of our country, shaped by fear, survival, optimism, faith, and cultural assumptions.
Rather than solely relying on history text books to depict these diverse relationships, these first hand accounts do a much better job at broadening our understanding of our country’s origins and what it means to be an American.
One such memoir I use at the beginning of my American Literature course is La Relación by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, since it’s one of the very first written narratives we have of our country.
Cabeza de Vaca, an early Spanish explorer, explains his survival and interactions with Indigenous peoples. While describing his time spent with Indigenous tribes, de Vaca was pleased with how welcoming Indigenous peoples were to him and the other Spaniards.
The way that Cabeza describes them, however, makes them seem weak and unknowledgeable, strictly because of their lack of Christian knowledge. This power imbalance continues throughout his journey, and is acknowledged directly, but also implied by the language he uses in his narrative to describe them.
For example, while describing how the Indians welcomed and cared for him and his companions, Cabeza de Vaca credits God rather than the people themselves.
He writes, “And surely, even if there had been no other tokens, it was wonderful how He prepared the way for us through a country so scantily inhabited” (de Vaca 100).
de Vaca attributes everything he has received from God. This observation reveals how religious belief shaped not only his understanding of events, but also how he communicated them to a European audience that valued Christian miracles and divine purpose.
When describing the Indigenous way of life, Cabeza de Vaca states, “They have no fixed dwellings nor possessions, and they wander from place to place” (de Vaca 13). This description shows how Europeans often believed that permanent homes and material wealth were necessary for a society to be considered civilized.
While de Vaca often portrays Indigenous peoples as generous and respectful, he still places them within a hierarchy that centers around European values and Christianity, dismissing Indigenous spiritual beliefs as superstitious or demonic.
Reading La Relación as a primary source, in addition to a history textbook, allows us to better understand the mentality of the earliest of settlers, through a more human perspective with both its strengths and limitations.
I also assign a slave narrative or two, usually, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself, and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs.
The autobiographies of ex-slaves in America are the foundation of the African American literary tradition, as well as providing a look at the cultural values that allowed and justified slavery in our country.
American slaves wrote their personal stories to demonstrate their own humanity, in contrast to the current beliefs at that time.
They also wrote to prove that they could be reliable truth-tellers of their own experience. And they wrote I-narratives in order to declare their own literary, psychological, and spiritual independence.
The stories that slaves wrote were not only about their imprisoned lives, but also about how they became free.
There are so many first hand accounts of all different types of Americans coming from different experiences and cultures, from suffragettes, to civil rights activists, and many others; both privileged and underprivileged, whose juxtaposition and tension have shaped our country.
Peace and Love, America. Happy 250!
The Cultural Easton 