Indigenous Continent by Pekka Hämäläinen
An ancient and well-established myth about America goes something like this: Columbus “discovers” a distant land and returns with reports of vast wealth. The imperial powers of Europe rush in, eager to claim as much of this amazing “New World” as they can. Despite their resistance, Indigenous peoples are powerless to stop the attack. History is on an unstoppable march to the annihilation of Indigenous people, and white imperialists are destined to govern the continent.
Yet, this origin story also turns out to be based on fiction and misrepresentation, just like other widely believed origin legends. Acclaimed historian Pekka Hämäläinen challenges the most fundamental beliefs about American history in his book Indigenous Continent.
Indigenous Continent by Pekka Hämäläinen
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By changing our focus from Jamestown, Plymouth Rock, the American Revolution, and other well-known events on the conventional timeline, he paints a picture of a sovereign world of Native nations whose citizens, far from being helpless victims of colonial violence, ruled the continent for centuries after the first European settlers. Native American tribes routinely decimated European settlers in combat, from the Iroquois in the Northeast to the Comanches on the Plains, and from the Pueblos in the Southwest to the Cherokees in the Southeast. Indigenous peoples prospered because of skilled diplomacy and leadership systems, despite the white population explosion and the colonists’ lavish land greed.
The maps in contemporary textbooks that depict a large portion of North America in tidy, colour-coded blocks confuse extravagant imperial boasts for actual holdings, according to Hämäläinen, despite the fact that by 1776, various colonial powers had claimed nearly the entire continent, but Indigenous peoples still held control over it. The Lakota triumph at Little Big Horn in 1876, which was not an American error but an all-too-expected outcome, marked the apex of Native dominance in the late nineteenth century.
In the end, Hämäläinen argues that the concept of “colonial America” itself is inaccurate and that we should instead speak of an “Indigenous America” that only gradually and unevenly became colonial. The hundreds of Native nations that are still spread throughout the United States and Canada are signs of Indian defiance even now. Indigenous Continent puts Native peoples back in their proper place at the centre of American history, making it essential reading for anybody who cares about the past, present, or future of the country.
