James W. Loewen Quote

The textbooks also fail to show how the continuous Indian wars have reverberated through our culture. Carleton Beals has written that our acquiescence in Indian dispossession has molded the American character. As soon as Natives were no longer conflict partners, their image deteriorated in the minds of many whites. Kupperman has shown how this process unfolded in Virginia after the Indian defeat in the 1640s: It was the ultimate powerlessness of the Indians, not their racial inferiority, which made it possible to see them as people without rights. Natives who had been ingenious, industrious, and quick of apprehension in 1610 now became sloathfull and idle, vitious, melancholy, [and] slovenly. This is another example of the process of cognitive dissonance.

James W. Loewen

The textbooks also fail to show how the continuous Indian wars have reverberated through our culture. Carleton Beals has written that our acquiescence in Indian dispossession has molded the American character. As soon as Natives were no longer conflict partners, their image deteriorated in the minds of many whites. Kupperman has shown how this process unfolded in Virginia after the Indian defeat in the 1640s: It was the ultimate powerlessness of the Indians, not their racial inferiority, which made it possible to see them as people without rights. Natives who had been ingenious, industrious, and quick of apprehension in 1610 now became sloathfull and idle, vitious, melancholy, [and] slovenly. This is another example of the process of cognitive dissonance.

Related Quotes

About James W. Loewen

James William Loewen (February 6, 1942 – August 19, 2021) was an American sociologist, historian, and author. He was best known for his 1995 book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. A 2005 book, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, galvanized a national effort to develop a list of sundown towns.