The indigenous authors, Smohalla and Charlot, described the betrayal of white men, not just toward their people, but toward white men’s religion as well.
During European settlement, many things started to change throughout the indigenous authors’ homelands, especially displacement and settlement begun moving into their territory. These white settlers claimed to be trustworthy people since they followed a specific religion and set of rules created by their God.
Be that as it may, local natives had to respond to non-traditional events such as white men requesting on taking land, surrender in war, or the movement of different indigenous groups of people (Smohalla 411).
Charlot, along with his people, resisted nonviolently by giving a speech to the white settlers, who had been sent from their government to move the tribe out of their homeland and send them to a reservation, about how wrong this situation really was.
However, instead of yielding to Charlot’s pleads, the white settlers continued to move his people out. As Charlot witnessed this devastation, he said,
We were happy when he first came; since then we often saw him, always heard him and of him. We first thought he came from the light; but he comes like the dusk of the evening now, not like the dawn of morning. He comes like a day that has passed, and night enters our future with him (415).
Charlot did not understand what the white men had against his people or why the white men had begun to act so violently towards them, considering that they were just as good as the indigenous people, or so they said.
The white settlers considered the native tribe as savages for not wanting to leave their home or pay the settlers for a homeland that Charlot and his people already owed.
In conclusion, white men, white settlers in general, claimed that they were a peaceful group that followed these laws set by their God, yet they murdered innocent natives who were a peaceful group, considered the white men as their brothers, and had their own beliefs that they abided by.
For a Christian government, the white settlers harmed many of the native tribes that they came across. Although the laws set by their God told them that they should love and accept one another, the white settlers did not accept the indigenous people.
The white settlers had guaranteed that they were a serene assembly of people that obeyed the laws created by their God, yet they moved, sometimes killed, local natives and strayed away from their religious values.
Smohalla. “Comments to Major MacMurray.” The Norton Anthology of American
Literature. vol c. 8th ed., edited by Nina Baym and Robert S. Levine, W.W.
Norton, 2012, pp 411-414.
Charlot. “[He has filled graves with our bones].” The Norton Anthology of American
Literature. vol c. 8th ed., edited by Nina Baym and Robert S. Levine, W.W.
Norton, 2012, pp 414-417.
