American Pentimento: The Invention of Indians and the Pursuit of Riches"The modern regulations and pervading attitudes that control native rights in the Americas may appear unrelated to the European colonial rule, but traces of the colonizers' cultural, religious, and economic agendas remain. Patricia Seed likens this situation to a pentimento - a painting in which traces of older compositions become visible over time -and shows how the exploitation begun centuries ago continues today. Seed examines how the goals of European colonialist in the Americas. The English appropriated land, while the Spanish and Portuguese attempted to eliminate "barbarous" religious behavior and used indigenous labor to take mineral resources. Ultimately, each approach denied native people distinct aspects of their heritage. Seed argues that their differing effects persist, with natives in former English colonies fighting for land rights, while those in former Spanish and Portuguese colonies fight for human dignity." -- Book jacket. |
Contents
Owning Land by Labor Money and Treaty | 14 |
Imagining a Waste Land or Why Indians Vanish | 31 |
Gendering Native Americans Hunters as AngloAmericas Partial Fiction | 47 |
Ownership of Mineral Riches and the Spanish Need for Labor | 59 |
Tribute and Social Humiliation The Cost of Preserving Native Farmlands | 74 |
Cannibals Iberias Partial Truth | 93 |
Sustaining Political Identities The Moral Boundary between Natives and Colonizers | 115 |
Indians in Portuguese America | 137 |
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aboriginal American Indian animals Bartolomé Brazil brazilwood Calif Cambridge cannibalism Cartas Casas chap Christians claimed conquerors conquest contemporary crown cultural declared Dutch economic encomienda England English colonists Englishmen enslaved European farming Fernández former English colonies French gold HCPB Hernán Cortés History hunting Iberian Ibero-America indígena indigenous Islamic Jesuits João João III John king labor landownership language leaders Lisbon London Madrid means Mexico City mining monarchs moral Muslims Native Americans native communities Netherlands nineteenth century Norman Notes to Chapter officials original overseas Paulo Política indiana popular Portugal Portuguese Portuguese America Portuguese colonists practices profitable regions religious Richard Hakluyt ritual royal São Paulo settlers seventeenth century sixteenth century slavery slaves Society Solórzano Spain Spaniards Spanish Spanish and Portuguese Sustaining Political Identities terrain tion tives traditional trans treaty tribes Tribute and Social U.S. Supreme Court Virginia vols waste land William word World York
Popular passages
Page ix - Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.
Page ix - But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come...