Native American Tourism is Trying to Tell their True History

I don't see any way to completely undo the harm done to those who inhabited North, Central and South America before the Europeans arrived, but we can do a better job of explaining who they were and how they bettered the lives of we Europeans. They were sophisticated societies who developed methods to govern themselves and lived well. As this generation of those groups comes of age they are searching for new ways of teaching the history of life on this continent before the European invasions. They are marketing tours and seminars for interested people of tribal history as experienced by members themselves.

While I never experienced this myself, a few of my academic colleagues told of students who had an explanation of why native people are often poor. "They are poor because God is punishing them. They had the chance to 'develop their land' and they did not." There were about 37 million people in the Americas when Columbus arrived in 1492. They had been here for thousands of years and had vast histories and experiences. The had "developed the land" but in ways not familiar to Europeans.

To be sure, there was slavery practiced on this continent by the tribes. They had brutal warfare and murder of captives. We know, however, it was a mistake for Europeans, and many today, to refer to native societies of savages or as intellectually inferior to Europeans.

While there were a variety of beliefs in those many tribes, and some fought bitterly with others, the economic and social system most common was not what we call capitalism. There was a lot of common ownership and redistribution. Status and accumulated wealth were not one and the same. The link discusses capitalism and the damage it did, not only to native people, but to all societies. It is a good time for all of us to learn from the wisdom of those who were here before us.