#4 - Trail of Changes

     Beginning in the 1820s, whites expanded their agrarian-favored society by the removal of the Native American Indians in the west. As this pressure for removal was at hand, their views and attitudes of Indians had changed as they "began to argue that the Indian was a permanently inferior savage who blocked progress [1]." The Indians angrily refused the idea of leaving their lands. In 1827, "the Cherokees adopted a written constitution modeled after that of the United States [1]" trying to adopt white ways and avoid any forms of removal. Also, they even "enacted the death penalty for any member who sold tribal lands to whites without consent of the governing genereal council [1]." When Congress passed a removal bill in 1830, the Cherokees still retaliated by filing a suit in federal court: the case of Worcester v. Georgia, which ruled that Georgia had no right to extend its laws over Cherokee territory [1].  Despite such desperate attempts to keep their lands, the Indians were removed and their traditional culture fusioned with white customs and lifestyles. In his painting, "Pigeon's Egg Head", George Catlin shows the relinquished and "child-like" transformation of the Indians from American influence.

     Catlin uses a before and after appearance to express the change of culture. His painting shows a traditional Indian standing next to his American-altered self. The traditional Indian is wearing an enthusiastic head dress, hinting him as a chief of his village. His serious facial expression and proud posture shows his stoic and dignified characteristics. His outfit is ornate and filled with richness; this speculates that he was a high rank of his people. He is holding a piece pipe, adding to the conviviality of his appearance. Overall, his colorful and intricuate quality of his dress allows the viewer of the painting to feel the originality and innovativeness of the Indian people. Behind this traditional Indian is a faded picture of the Capitol, which foreshadows the conversion of his physical appearance and lifestyle of white culture.

     The American-altered Indian shows a blatant comparison to his old self. An obvious change to white culture is shown as he resembles the military. He is wearing an epillette on his shoulder and the stripes on his legs corresponds to a military official status. His graceful posture has changed to a soldiery stance, as if he had something to drink; a bottle is even shown on his back pocket. His seriousness is diminished as he is smoking a charoot and has heels on his boots. This changed Indian also looks confused as he is wearing female-like clothing. He seems fascinated by things like a child, still exploring what the white culture has to give. Behind this altered Indian are tipees, and this faded image flashbacks to his old, comfortable ways.

     The Indians were assured by Jackson that they would be removed only voluntarily, but "the governments harassed the tribes into surrending lands [1]." In the end, the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Cherokees were inevitably removed and sent to present-day Oklahoma. The Trail of Tears was tragic as "of the 15,000 who traveled, approximately one-quarter died along the way of exposure, disease, and exhaustation [1]." Not only suffering from physical pain and emotional losses, these Indians lost something precious to them: their culture and way of life.

[1] Davidson, Gienapp, Heyrman, Lytle, & Stoff. (2006). Nation of Nations. Boston: McGraw-Hill. pg. 295-297.

Comments

[Julie]

This blog post is very strong. You seem to have analyzed the image carefully and looked at the details as well as the overall image. Your conclusion is very strong and you tied the textbook reference in very nicely. In your introduction, don't forget to underline or bold your thesis next time for extra emphasis. I believe your thesis was the last sentence in the first paragraph and I think it was put together nicely and flowed with the rest of your introduction. On your next post you may want to check your grammar. There were a couple errors in your second and third paragraphs. Using a large vocabulary in your post was good but make sure the words flow and make sense. Overall I thought your post was strong and I enjoyed reading it.

[Chelstan Char]

This post was written fairly well. You did a good job on "reading" deeply into the image getting down to the smallest details. Your thesis is kind of unclear because it is not bold and/or underlined. While I have little room to judge, I did notice a few gramatical and spelling errors. I can agree with Julie in that it is nice to use big vocabulary words, but its more important that the post flows smoothly so that the reader is focused on the topic and not the random vocab. All in all it was a good post. Keep up the good work.