Civilization or Prejudice?
The belief that one's race and culture is superior to all others is called "ethnocentrism". This is what the early white colonizers practice when coming to America. The reason was that Indians did not have a moral basis, society or a cultural basis.
However, native nations have their own developed culture. Here there are several facts about the "inferiority" of Indians:
- Most tribes were egalitarian societies. Men and women had different roles but they were considered as equal in importance.
- Most tribes were successful farmers or hunters and developed trade networks with each other
- All tribes have a strong oral tradition but this is dismissed as a primitive way to transmit knowledge.
- Most tribes have their own sophisticated systems of government. Even, the Iroquois Confederacy influenced the Founding Fathers' Constitution.
- They are human beings who suffered from terrible experiences such as the boarding schools, the Allotment act, and many other government policies.
Native American culture and civilization was not inferior from European culture and civilization, it was different.