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The Historian and the Indian: Racial Bias in American History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Jack D. Forbes
Jack D. Forbes*
Affiliation:
San Fernando Valley State College, Northridge, California
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Extract

The student of history who is concerned with the historical past of the American Indian and who is also a reader of general American historical works is faced with a provocative problem which apparently does not seriously bother other members of the historical profession. That is, he is aware of the question of defining what is meant by the concepts of “United States history “and “American history.” Most historically minded people would solve the problem very simply: American history is the story of America’s past (meaning by “American “the United States of America only) or, Unįted States history is the story of the development of the United States as a nation and as a region.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , April 1963 , pp. 349 - 362
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1963

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References

1 Boorstin, Daniel J., cited in Hagan, W.T., American Indians (Chicago, 1961), p. vii Google Scholar.

2 Craven, Avery and Johnson, Walter, The United States, Experiment in Democracy (New York, 1952), pp. xi, xvii, 17.Google Scholar

3 Hicks, John D., A Short History of American Democracy (Boston, 1949), p. 1.Google Scholar

4 Hicks, John D., The Federal Union (Boston, 1948), p. 2.Google Scholar

5 Hofstadter, Richard, Miller, William, and Aaron, Daniel, The United States: The History of a Republic (Englewood Cliffs, 1957), pp. v–vi, 1, 20–22.Google Scholar

6 Current, Richard N., Williams, T. Harry, and Freidel, Frank, American History: A Survey (New York, 1961), pp. 3, 343.Google Scholar

7 Bailey, Thomas A., The American Pageant (Boston, 1956), pp. 3, 47, 50, 65–7, 571.Google Scholar

8 In Arizona and the West, v. I, no. 3, 1959 Google Scholar.

9 It should be noted that the Indian element in the United States is increasing rapidly in proportion to the balance of the population. Aside from the constant influx of Puerto Ricans and Cubans of White-Negro-Indian ancestry and the continued entrance of Indian Mexicans, is the fact that the Indian-Mexican segment of the population is increasing about seven times as fast as the White and almost three times as fast as the Negro, due to a very high birth rate.

10 Adams, James Truslow, Provincial Society (New York, 1927), pp. 101–107 Google Scholar.

11 Of course, these figures are only indicative and would be altered if the descendants of a case of intermarriage intermarried themselves.

12 Herskovitz, Melville J., The American Negro (New York, 1928), p. 33.Google Scholar

13 Hallowell, A. Irving, The Backwash of the Frontier: The Impact of the Indian on American Culture (Washington, 1959), pp. 448, 470Google Scholar.