Post #4: "George Catlin's Indians"

The painting of Pigeon’s Egg Head before and after his trip to

Washington

is a good representation of George Catlin’s feelings towards the Native American people as a whole during the early to mid 1800’s.  During this time, Jacksonian Democracy took hold of the nation, spelling disaster for black slaves and Native Americans alike. The painter uses an interesting tactic; he splices two images of the young chief-to-be (one before his brush with English culture, one after) into the same painting, which gives the audience an idea of just how much white society changed him. Sadly, the piece can be applied not only to Pigeon’s Egg Head, but also, in a way, to the entire race. Catlin shows both his admiration of these indigenous peoples and the decline of the Native American identity in his painting.
            
            During the 1830’s, Andrew Jackson’s system of government sought equality for all white males, but this entailed the abuse of other races for labor and land.  “The demand for new lands put continuing pressure on Indians, whose valuable cornfields and hunting grounds could produce marketable commodities like cotton and wheat.” [1] Eventually, some natives were drawn into the

U.S.

economy, selling crops to make money for purchasing white goods.  As this happened, the tribal society begin to fall apart, because the property was no longer being shared among all of the natives.  Some even bought black slaves, which went against the ideals put forth in their former culture.
            
            In the painting, this dissipation of the once noble Native American ideals is very clear.  On the left, Pigeon’s Egg Head stands tall and proud, representing his tribe and culture with grace.  He wears his native garb and a feather headdress, holding a peace pipe in his hand.  On the right (upon his return home), he is slouching, seemingly drunk with a bottle of liquor in his back pocket.  He has traded in his traditional dress for a sewn suit, waterproof boots and a top hat with a ridiculous feather on top. He now carries an umbrella and a fan instead of his pipe, showing that he has bought into the status symbols of the

U.S.

during this time period. 

            Catlin’s painting represents the former pride and the unfortunate transformation of the Native American people.  The

U.S.

government seemingly pretended to assimilate the natives into their culture, only to end up removing them by force to take their lands.  The Indians were too impressionable and began to change their ideals to match those of the whites, which can be seen both in their economic decisions during the 1830’s and in the way Pigeon’s Egg Head gave up his traditions for novelty.  It is obvious that Catlin respected and admired the Native American ways, but knew that the race was on a path towards destruction.

Comments

[Eric Perkins]

Your paper had some good points and some bad.

Here is a description of the strengths of your paper.

You have a good thesis for your paper. It tells the reader what exactly the paper will be about. Your paper follows this outline. The thesis is not overly broad nor is it too narrow. It provides you will enough structure so that you do not fail about but at the same time it dose not overly limit the possibilities of your paper.

You really analyze the picture. This is really good because you are not telling the audience everything but you are showing them what you are talking about. Your audience can then say, “I see what he is talking about” and they can make a more informed decision about the validity of your paper. In essence the audience can say more than I agree or I disagree with your paper.

Here are some of the problems in your paper.

One thing you did that really hurt your page was you failed to have a picture of the very thing you were talking about. This is especially bad since very few people know about the picture your page is about, so in a sense you are writing a paper with no introduction.

Another problem you had was that you used not quotes. This again removes a source of creditability from your paper. Without any quotes your paper is easy to doubt, because the reader only needs to doubt the word of a college student and not the word of some expert.

You had some problems with the formatting. You need to use some other problem that will not result in weird spacing of the text. As you can see
If
I
Write the
Text like this
It is not as effective as if I write it correctly. The reason being is if the paper skips around unexpectedly the reader often finds himself at the end of what he thinks is a sentence. When he arrives at these “sentences” he is very confused as to why the sentence stopped here. If the first result of improper formatting dose not stop the reader the lack of continuity will propose a good source of trouble.

Your conclusion is weak. It seems that it goes from one topic to another that are not really attached to each other. You need better transition among your ideas in your conclusion.

For example you could have written: Catlin’s painting represents the former pride and the unfortunate transformation of the Native American people. The agent of this destruction was the United States government, which pretended to assimilate the natives into their culture when all the while the US government was actually stealing the Indians’ land right from under their feet. If this was not bad enough the Indians were too impressionable and were readily giving up their ideas to match those of the whites. This destruction was all to clear to George Catlin, which admired and respected the Native American ways but knew their race was rapidly on its way to destruction.

[Eric Perkins]

p.s. Here are some quotes you could have used.

"underlying the doctrine of Manifest Destiny was a persistent deep rooted racism."

The plans Americans had for the mexican race was the same one it had for the indians. That they "must amalgamate and be lost, in the superior vigor of hte Anglo-Saxon race or they must utterly perish".

[1]Davidson, Heyrman, Lytle, Stoff, and Gienapp. 4th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2006. pg 373