Once IPH4YP was out in the world we read reviews and comments that pointed to things we could have done in the adaptation. Our response was to generate a series of posts for the IPH4YP companion blog that address what we’d like to do if we have the chance to do a second edition. As the title of this page indicates, it is about instilling fear.
In IPH4YP we talk about how politicians, journalists, popular writers and speakers used words to move settler-colonizers to think in certain ways about Native people. Primarily, settlers were encouraged to fear Native people. Some of this fear was grounded in reality, since the settler-colonizers were, after all, doing their utmost to take over Indigenous homelands and could not rationally expect that Indigenous people wouldn’t resist. But if they persuaded themselves that Indigenous resistance was coming from devil-worshippers, or brutes, or “merciless Indian savages,” that would be salve for their consciences (if they were at all troubled by those pesky things).
Like many of the people in the United States, we have been stunned and sickened by the news about shootings of African Americans by law enforcement and white vigilantes. We hear politicians and “news” outlets take stances that affirm those shootings as somehow justified, even when those killed were unarmed and not posing a threat that any rational human would perceive. Those same politicians and pundits frame subsequent public outcry and actions as dangerous. Whether it is a Black athlete taking a knee during the national anthem, or a peaceful demonstration in support of Black Lives Matter, or a politician who says police violence against BIPOC must end, there is an effort to convince “the public” to fear those who speak back to power. Over and over during the 2020 Republican National Convention, we heard speakers imply that the expressions of anguish and anger are signs that the US will descend into anarchy in which white people will be victimized unless the current administration is re-elected.
In our study of Ties That Bind, we see that Dr. Miles has spent some time showing how the British sought to promote anti-Black sentiment among Native peoples in an effort to keep them from uniting against the British colonizers. They used classic “divide and rule” tactics to encourage mutual antagonism. In chapter two, Dr. Miles wrote that “colonists attempted to introduce conflict by informing Cherokees that black slaves were to blame for the Cherokee smallpox epidemic of 1739 and for souring trade relations between Cherokees and whites.”
The article Dr. Miles cites (“Divide and Rule: Red, White, and Black” by William S. Willis, 1963) also describes anti-Indigenous fear-mongering by colonial officials. It’s well-documented that colonizers rewarded Native people for being “slave catchers.” Willis also says that colonial officials actively encouraged Native people to be especially cruel and brutal toward any Blacks who had participated in uprisings against whites. Officials and plantation owners then made sure that enslaved people heard about “Indian” cruelty, to create so much fear that no one would want to attempt to join the Indians. As Willis says, “Whites did not employ Indians as slave catchers only to recover valuable property and to punish offenders. They also employed them to make their slaves hate Indians” (p. 170). The colonizers needed to have the people they enslaved see Indigenous people as enemies of Black freedom.
Divide and rule tactics were used in the 1700s and they are being used today. Some--like the weaponization of disease--are strikingly similar. In the 1700s, it was smallpox. Today, the current president repeatedly tells voters that COVID-19 came from a specific people. They, he says, are to blame for the disruptions to American life. They, he argues, are to be feared.
We find much of social media commentary revolting as the election for US president draws ever near. If you are able to push through the vitriol, it may be useful to see how white supremacists then--and now--are using the same words and tone to drive wedges between Black people and others who would be their natural allies in ending police brutality. What do you notice about who is portrayed as brutish, thuggish, violent, untrustworthy? If you speak up about any of your findings, let us know.
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