Went to the Heard museum which is all about Native Americans in the area. Very strange. Lots of very interesting things to see and a chatty guide but very confusing story. It was largely devoid of context and the treatment of them by the white Americans was touched upon but only rather lightly and patchily. Little was told about their own history before the Europeans arrived and I know this is tricky but not impossible because there is archaeological evidence of people before the tribes but it was all lumped together. When the settlers discovered that trying to kill them all was expensive they introduced compulsory boarding schools as a cheaper way to civilize them, eradicate their culture and religion and train an army of willing manual workers thereby solving the Indian problem.The section on this was tucked away upstairs where some visitors never reached. I talked to a couple of people working at the museum who were very coy about this, even dropping their voices to a whisper when referring to the darker side of American history. One, a former teacher, explained that the concept is far too complex to teach in schools. Very odd but interesting place nonetheless.one picture is a before and after of a young man subjected to the boarding school system.
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 07:01:34 +0000
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