An apt quotation re: WCW and his interest in Geo. Washindoon & the poem as small machine: "[...] and the primitive [pioneer] life is a most complicated condition of circumstances. Simplicity can only be attained in old and rich civilisations where the mechanism of life runs so smoothly that it is hardly noticed. On the colonial frontier life consisted of nothing but mechanism" (George Washington, W.E. Woodward, 126).
"The dealings of the colonists with the Indians were greatly complicated by the fact that the Indian mind was ten thousand miles away from every form of Caucasian thought. It is not sufficient to assert that they were far behind us in civilisation. They were not only behind, but were travelling on an entirely different road.
"The Indian had no clear idea of property. The tribes were generally, though not always, communal in respect to ownership. They did not understand the possession of land in the way we understand it. Whenever a tribe sold, with gaudy formality, an enormous mileage of territory for a few European gewgaws the Indian skull seldom contained a true conception of the transaction. This was not because they were fools--for many of them were intelligent in their way--but because the entire current of Indian ideas hardly touched our own.
"Most of the confused wars between the white man and the red man originated in disputes over land transactions. The white man nearly always got the better of the savage in these business dealings, until the Indian resentment reached the explosive point. William Penn bought land from the Indians in large areas and never had any difficulty with them. He paid the Indians what they considered a good price, though it was very little; and the purchased lands were surveyed with the boundaries marked. Penn explained carefully what land ownership meant, and took the time to make the Indians understand it.
"Both parties to land transactions often went through the business with their tongues in their cheeks. The Indians frequently sold land which they had no right to claim. They had hunted over it, perhaps, a few times. On the other hand, white men engaged in these dealings knew that they were not buying a substantial title. They merely wanted something which would look well in a legal record" (Woodward, 129-30).
"The dealings of the colonists with the Indians were greatly complicated by the fact that the Indian mind was ten thousand miles away from every form of Caucasian thought. It is not sufficient to assert that they were far behind us in civilisation. They were not only behind, but were travelling on an entirely different road.
"The Indian had no clear idea of property. The tribes were generally, though not always, communal in respect to ownership. They did not understand the possession of land in the way we understand it. Whenever a tribe sold, with gaudy formality, an enormous mileage of territory for a few European gewgaws the Indian skull seldom contained a true conception of the transaction. This was not because they were fools--for many of them were intelligent in their way--but because the entire current of Indian ideas hardly touched our own.
"Most of the confused wars between the white man and the red man originated in disputes over land transactions. The white man nearly always got the better of the savage in these business dealings, until the Indian resentment reached the explosive point. William Penn bought land from the Indians in large areas and never had any difficulty with them. He paid the Indians what they considered a good price, though it was very little; and the purchased lands were surveyed with the boundaries marked. Penn explained carefully what land ownership meant, and took the time to make the Indians understand it.
"Both parties to land transactions often went through the business with their tongues in their cheeks. The Indians frequently sold land which they had no right to claim. They had hunted over it, perhaps, a few times. On the other hand, white men engaged in these dealings knew that they were not buying a substantial title. They merely wanted something which would look well in a legal record" (Woodward, 129-30).
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posted by Al Kover(t) at
10:44 PM
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