In the United States, the people who are called Native Americans are those who came from North America. They are from different racial groups and statuses. Native Americans are known by different names viz. Indians, Red Indians, African Americans, American Indians, and so on. Here in these three essays writer highly criticizes the European-American Christian culture. These three essays are effective as they symbolize the very pathetic life of the Native Americans, especially the great tyranny they suffered from the whites. Generally, Christianity gives much consideration to fellow beings in terms of love and kindness without any discrimination but the reality in the US is not like that. William Apes through his essay ‘An Indians Looking Glass for the White man’ represents the discrimination that prevailed in the nation between the races. William Apes himself is the living symbol of the suppressed people who long for a world where everyone is equal and the writer himself is the mouthpiece of discriminated people. It is from their aching mind they got the strength to challenge their own faith in God and the racial discrimination. They even question why God shows so much love towards the whites and in the meantime why He created the colored people. They also question the rights of whites over the Native Americans. This essay is valuable to the oppressed since through this, the writer gives them the courage to face the struggle and wait for the day the tree of division fell down to the earth and the veil of discrimination tattered into pieces from the heart of every american and the national union.
In Elias Boudinot’s ‘An address to the Whites’, the author, like a fundraiser, asks the whites to offer additional help especially money in order to attain their goal. Through an argumentative speech, he persuades the whites to take any action for organizing printing press and school for the natives. The speech is about the Native Americans, their well doings, and consideration of fellow beings as equal to the whites. Boudinot’s speech resembles the nostalgic feelings of the Native Americans for their loss of a dignified savage. Towards the conclusion of the speech Boudinot puts forward a question towards the whites, “They hang upon your mercy as to a garment. Will you push them from you, or will you save them? Let humanity answer.” (Full Text of “An Address to the Whites”) (From the speech of Boundinot’s “An Address to the Whites”). This question meant that the natives are under the control of whites and it is in their mercy they survive or not. This essay is also effective for the people who are under great threat and are yearning for a better future. In ‘The Speech of Seattle’ he focuses on the crisis of native literature in English and the disappearance of Indian myth from the literature especially the repeated usage of moon and sun. The speech also inspires the deceased natives to never disregard the beautiful world and at the same time requests the whites to love the natives. This also is very effective to the native people and their literature also.
From these three speeches, one can understand the situation and condition of natives in the white-dominated country, especially the discrimination of colored people, their dependence on the whites for survival, and the ill-treatment of their works and myths. Thus these works will remain forever very effectively as they represent the real picture of the native people’s life, conditions, and struggle for survival.
References
Full Text of “an Address to the Whites”. Internet Archive. 2009.