Analysis of American Protest Literature

Analysis of the Statesn Protest LiteratureThe protest literary works of early to mid-19th century America shares a common theme of example values. Both Henry David Thoreau and William Apess speak of a moral code that domain is bound to uphold. Although they addressed it in different ways and proposed different solutions, they investigate a similar question is America truly the swell come of principle that it claims to be.The essay The Resistance to civilian Govern workforcet was based on a series of lectures Thoreau gave in 1848 and was published in 1849. In it he discussed the shared responsibilities and duties of citizens and their governments. While his thoughts stand alone as a philosophical position, it is important to chthonicstand the historical context. Texas gained its independence from Mexico in 1836. The United States did non immediately incorporate the territory into the Union because of the ongoing political contest over the expansion of slavery, however, on De cember 29, 1845, Texas entered the United States as a slave state. Thoreau was an outspoken abolitionist, as made clear in separate of his writings, and was ada opustly opposed succumbing taxes which aided a government that upheld unsportsmanlike and immoral policies. He based his decision not to comply on the belief that there is a equity higher than civil law that demands the obedience of the whiz(a).Thoreau opened Civil Disobedience with the maxim That government is go around which governs least, (p 843) and he speaks in favor of government that does not intrude upon large numbers bonks. Government, he believed, was a means of attaining an end that existed only because the peck chose it to execute their result. Government, however, was persuadable to misuse, corruption, and prejudice. When injustice became extreme, much(prenominal) as by every last(predicate)owing slavery, individuals had both the right and vocation to rebel against the State with a variety of m eans such as refusing to pay taxes.Thoreau did not advocate the dissolution of government. Rather, he called for a better government (p 844), one which was limited to decide those issues that it was fitted to consider. Thoreau underscored the function of the individual to effect reform. Reform, he believed, came only by means of the individual, and moral issues were the individuals concern. It is not plummy to cultivate a respect for the law he said, so much as for the right. The individuals obligation was to do at any metre what he thinks right (p 844). He enjoined his audience to wake up and to refuse to be machines that served the State with their bodies or minds. Good people, he contended, must serve the State with their consciences and resist it when its policies and actions counterpoint with their consciences.Through this duty to resist, Thoreau introduced the concept of civil disobedience, tying to the birth of the state of matter through revolution. Merely expressing o pposition to slavery was meaningless. Only action what people did about their objection mattered. Wrongs could be redressed only by the individual, not through the government since the mechanisms of change provided by the State were too slow or were ineffective. He acknowledged that in practical application a single person might not be able to affect far-flung change, however, a person must at least not be guilty of supporting injustice through compliance. Individuals must not support a government whose policies are unjust. Talk is cheap action is immediate. deal must act with principle and must break the law if necessary. such(prenominal) action, however, comes with a price. People must be willing to bear the consequences of their actions. When the man of conscience acted in variance with the state, he might be punish by force. This force could be against his property, his family, or his person. Because of this potential loss, Thoreau believed it was impossible for a person of c onscience to hold honestly and at the same time comfortably (p 851). However, these penalties cost people of conscience less than the price they would pay in obeying the State. Therefore, it falls to the State to respect the higher and in mutually beneficial power of the individual since it is only through this that it derives its authority (p 857).The writings of William Apess are likewise protest literature and, like those of Thoreau, are better understood through their historical context. In 1830, the government passed the Indian Removal Act which original the removal of Indians from the bring ins east of the Mississippi to Indian Territory and other(a) areas considered suitable. In essence, this act spelled the end of Indian rights to live in those states under their deliver tralatitious laws. They were delven a choice assimilate and concede to US law or leave their homelands. The Act was based on the tweedness- pen news report of interactions between indwelling Ameri cans and European settlers a history rife with usurious stories and only the occasional act of kindness.Apess was bi-, or perhaps multi-, racial. Because he was generally raised by unobjectionables, he grew up with stories of the Indians cruelty. As he grew he go throughed of the competing truth of the whitenesss cruelty toward the Indians. He converted to Christianity early in his life and ultimately was ordained as a Methodist minister. His credit was integral to his ability to affirm himself as a Pequot and as a person of colourise, and in Christianity he found both hope and a philosophical framework from which to challenge racial bigotry.The central theme of An Indians smell Glass for the White Man was the failure of white people to greet the irony and hypocrisy of denying Native Americans, who they considered to be heathens, the self-evident rights guaranteed to all men by the Declaration of Independence, and their un-Christian treatment of them. As the title indicates, his words were direct to a white audience. According to Apess, materially well-off whites were not fantabulous to the Indians from either a religious or moral perspective because they were unscrupulous in their dealings with people of a different skin color. He liberally used the word principle, or some variant thereof, for the objective of establishing the unprincipled actions of white men in regard to red men. What if, he asked, all the worlds different skins were put together, and for each one skin had its national crimes written upon it-which skin do you think would have the greatest? (p 501).Apess outrage at the mistreatment of Indians extended to the mistreatment of faints. His charge against the white citizens of the United States was not only that they had robbed a nation almost of their whole continent, and murdered their women and children, just that they had in like manner subjugated other nation to till their ground and welter out their days under the lash (p 50 1). He used the word black to metaphorically report the Christian morals and principles that were corrupted by the aversion to colored skins. If black or red skins or any other skin of color were disgraceful in Gods eye, he said, it appears that he has disgraced himself a great deal-for he has made fifteen colored people to one white and placed them here upon this mankind (p 501). He went even further and implied that Jesus, himself, had been a person of color.Apess implored the American people to think for themselves and act upon the morals that they held dear. As a minister he was able to incorporate quotes from the Bible in support of his position. He used every detail he could to gift the moral contradictions in American policy and used the philosophical underpinnings of America to support his argument against them. He concluded with a blistering indictment of bigotry directed at his audience By what you read, you may learn how deep your principles are. I should say they were skin deep (p 504), yet he maintained hope due to the actions of those who spoke out against mistreatment.Thoreaus The Resistance to Civil Government and Apess An Indians Looking Glass for the White Man can be seen as protests against a government that had failed to live up to its state patterns and failed to cherish the rights of its people. Both call upon the moral conscience to bring an end to injustice both appeal to the founding principles of the nation both call people to action.Question 7Literature speaks truths about the past to which history cannot give illustration. The writings of Pontiac, William Apess, and James Feni more(prenominal) barrel maker all express the concerns of native Americans, but through different perspectives. Cooper attempts to portray the Native Americans as honorable, albeit stereotypical, savages, Pontiac laments the desolation of traditional Indian culture, and Apess condemns the hypocrisy and bigotry of white society. Within all these writings are both overlapping and unique concerns that give voice to the challenges waitd by a culture forced to change.James Fenimore Coopers The final of the Mohicans, subtitled A Narrative of 1757, was published in 1826, however it harkens back to an preliminary period of American expansion. By the time it was written the prevailing sketch was that humans were divided into distinct races and that some races were inferior to others. Indians (savages) were fated to go before the superior (civilized) white men, and there was no changing fate. Cooper sought to force a true understanding of ethnological problems in a rapidly changing America. His prose was infused with a belief that shared adult male could be communicated across pagan and linguistic differences and could dispel the idea of the transcendent otherness that promoted fear and justified exploitation. Hawk-eye and Chingachgook were depicted as individuals who displayed, through their friendship, the ideal of human relation ships between Native and European Americans. Cooper embraced the concept of the horrible savage, but at the same time he also promulgated racial stereotypes. In his description of Chingachgook he noted that, His body, which was neighboringly naked, presented a terrific emblem of death (p 486).Coopers attitudes toward race were complicated even for his time. He was, after all, a white man and his characters reflected an obsession with systems of classification by which race was distinguished from race, nation from nation, and tribe from tribe. Hawk-eye and Chingachgook are both interested with racial purity. the worst enemy I have on earth darent deny that I am genuine white, declared Hawk-eye (p 487). They respected each other and could work together, but both rejected the idea of racial marriage. Hawk-eye frequently displayed his superior knowledge, as when he presented Chingachgook as ignorant because he did not understand about tides. Drawn in this way, their partnership did n ot threaten the racial status quo.From an historical perspective, this story was set during the cut and Indian War (1754-60), a proxy war which pitted the British Empire, its American colonies, and their Indian affiliate against the cut Empire, its Canadian colonies, and their Indian allies. It was the northernmost American theater of a much broader international conflict cognize as the Seven Years War. The Treaty of Paris that ended the French and Indian War led to a flood of English settlers wretched across the Alleghenies into Indian territory. The French had gained the loyalty of their Native American allies by providing them with ammunition and supplies. The Indians viewed the French as tenants on their land who had provided gunpowder, rum, and other goods as a type of rent. The British, on the other hand, believed themselves to be governed by international law and felt no obligation to the regions original inhabitants. Native Americans were not members of the family of n ations and had no more rights than the animals they hunted. They were no longer welcome at the forts and intermarriage was discouraged. From the Indian viewpoint, the lack of support and disrespect were a hurt of protocol and an insult to the Indian nations and their leaders. American Indian resistance began to grow.Pontiac was an capital of Canada Indian chief who had been very successful in protecting his land and his people. During the French and Indian War, Pontiac was an ally of the French. The changes brought by the British victory did not sit well with Chief Pontiac. On April 27, 1763, a council gathering was held near Detroit. Pontiac gave a speech in which he recounted the indignities that the Indians had prevailed at the hands of the British. He believed that his people needed return to the customs and weapons of their ancestors, throw away the implements they had acquired from the white man, abstain from whiskey, and take up the hatchet against the British. He realized that in adopting the white mens customs and in using their food, blankets, and weapons, his people had become dependent upon them. He remembered the stories, heard in childhood, of the might of the Ottawas in the days when they lived harmonize to the old customs and longed for a return to the traditional ways.Pontiac was strongly influenced by the story of Neolin. Neolin was a respected visionary and spiritual leader of the Delaware people. Pontiac also understood the power that story telling had in his culture. Stories were guides that taught them how to act and live their lives. He used the story of Neolins encounter with The Great Spirit in order to convince the leaders of the neighboring tribes to join him in a rebellion. He reminded them of what the Great Spirit said to Neolin The land on which you live I have made for you, and not for others. Why do you suffer the white man to live among you? (p 223) The Great Spirit then instructed Neolin to thrash about all these things awa y live as your wise forefathers lived before you. And as for these English, these dogs dressed in red who have come to rob you of your search grounds, and drive away the game,- you must lift the hatchet against them. Wipe them from the face of the earth, and then you will win my favor back again, and once more be happy and prosperous (p 224)William Apess approach was different and can be best characterized as embracing the goal of nation-building. His work documented galore(postnominal) past injustices endured by Native Americans and lamented the state of their current life in and around Connecticut and Massachusetts. During this period, the relationship between Native Americans and the dominant white culture was viewed as a struggle between assimilation and cultural tradition. Apess revealed how false this dichotomy was. His was an authentic voice arising from the personal experience of his bi-racial identity. sooner of the either/or of cultural tradition or assimilation, Apess sought to promote affiliation.With the authority granted to an ordained Methodist minister, Apess relied upon religious engagement as a means to bring to light the hypocrisy of thePilgrims who would fight to discharge any perceived threat to their land or livelihood, but would not grant this same right to Native Americans. In doing so he also demonstrated the Native Americans capacity to affiliate themselves with Christian values. God, he said, will show no favor to outward appearances but will judge righteousness (p 499).Apess was the antithesis of the Christian nationalist. Growing up he depict how was terrified of his own people because his white caretakers told him stereotypical stories about Indian cruelty but never told him how cruelly they treated Indians. This past that they embraced was heavenly to them to him it was a degrading myth. They used their position to build churches, dispatch missionaries, and evolve the people they deemed savages to him their authority was m orally bankrupt. Apess challenged people to live up to the stated values of their government and their church. If they talked the talk then they also had to walk the walk. To pretend a belief in liberty and justice for all or the equality of all Gods children was not enough. People needed to act in accordance with their beliefs. If they failed to do so then they were hypocrites.Native Americans faced a variety of concern in the early to mid-19th century. They faced the loss of their traditional homeland, the dissolution of their cultural heritage, and the very real consequences of institutionalized bigotry. What can be seen in the speech by Pontiac and the writings of James Fenimore Cooper and William Apess is the multifactoriality of the cultural forces at work at that time. The portrayal of the savage or contemptible Indian was as much a creation of the white man as was the civilized, and Christianized Indian, who was created in the white mans image. Native Americans were uniqu e and complex individuals with the same needs and longings as any other people.