The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History

The first of Blackhawk’s two key theses is a methodological one. He challenges the customary use of the word “discovery” to describe European arrival in North America at the turn of the 16th century. “Encounter,” he suggests, is a more accurate descriptor since it acknowledges the dynamic of cultural collision that characterized the first meetings of Europeans and Native Americans. He articulates this claim in the Introduction:

Encounter—rather than discovery—must structure America’s origins story. For over five hundred years peoples have come from outside of North America to the homelands of Native peoples, whose subsequent transformations and survival provide one potential guide through the story of America (15).

This theme is most prominent in the book’s first chapters, which deal with various European empires and their relationships with Indigenous tribes during the early years of colonization. Blackhawk underscores the cultural diversity among both Indigenous and European groups rather than simply lumping them together along racial lines. Spanish, English, Dutch, and French communities approached Native peoples in distinctive ways according to their specific cultural values. In turn, Native peoples responded to the European presence in unique ways depending on their tribal context. For example, the origins of Spanish aggression toward Native peoples can be found in Spanish history: “The rapaciousness of Spanish colonialism originated in the centuries-long consolidation of monarchial power in Iberia during the Reconquista” (38). In contrast, Blackhawk characterizes the Dutch as primarily concerned with economic modes of colonialism, in keeping with their treatment of other European cultures. The specifics of cultural encounters, as Blackhawk works to illustrate, are therefore crucial for explaining the precise trajectory of European-Indigenous relations in North America.

The process of encounter did not cease after Europeans had fully established their societies in North America. In the modern era, Blackhawk points to exhibitions and media as spaces where non-Indigenous people became acquainted with Native Americans. These spaces, such as the seven World’s Fairs held between 1893 and 1915, were frequently controlled by white academics and businesspeople who sought to depict Native people as relics of a bygone era, destined for extinction. Native performers themselves, however, “used their time in these urban spaces to publicize their community’s concerns, to critique governmental policies, and to counteract public misconceptions” (514). Despite hundreds of years of cultural contact, “encounter” remains a useful framework for understanding the circumstances of Indigenous Americans in the early 20th century, as wide swaths of the non-Native population still had no conception of Native experiences or concerns. Blackhawk’s proposed revision of US history, then, raises questions about the level of general understanding for Native Americans long past the purview of his book. After over 500 years of contact, Blackhawk suggests that non-Native peoples still do not understand Native peoples.