500 Nations

Fascinating amount of detail on AmerIndian history.

It's also however extremely one sided.

We don't hear about all of the endemic massacres by Indians of whites from the get go, through the whole thing.

We also don't get any context. I.e., everyone believed in conquest against deeply foreign peoples not sharing the same religion/world view in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

Certainly AmerIndians did, most of whom lived in states of endemic (as in yearly or more often) warfare, including often the extremely cruel torture of their captured enemies. E.g. the Hurons in common with many Great Lake tribes skinned alive their captives in ritual fashion back in their own home villages. For those not committed to reading source history, the movie Black Robe (which takes a quite neutral and or mutually critical cultural stance) is informative in this regard.

The current view that conquest is horrible and likely to be called genocide is unique, at least among winning societies (and usually among everyone), in world history.

The AmerIndians were the ones who taught total war to the whites early in the 1600s near the Atlantic coast, killing old women and children, as well as all men combatants (or not), and taking the younger attractive women as additional wives / concubines / sex slaves. This had been the form of warfare they had waged amongst themselves before first contact with Europeans.

Read Thomas Sowell in "Conquest and Cultures" on the Amerindian issues. Sober, balanced, and most interesting.

There's no question that Euro-Americans committed many atrocities against AmerIndians, as amply reported in this series. But to watch this series you'd think that Indians never killed their enemy's women and children or took them as slaves. In fact many tribes usually did one or the other as a matter of their avowed tribal political and religious policy whenever they had the chance whenever they were at war.

In contrast it was never or almost never the policy of the British or national American government to kill not only enemy men (combatants) but also women and children -- although it certainly sometimes was the policy of some local militia commanders, and later of some great plains and western Army commanders -- and sometimes in a winking way some frontier governors. However, shamefully, the "removal", i.e. "ethnic cleansing" of AmerIndians to points ever further to western semi or actual badlands was far too often official policy. This was partly in response to endemic guerrilla war and partly simply in response to endemic lobbying by land hungry whites (the only side of it we hear in this one sided, propaganda-lite series). Andrew Jackson's removal policy against the successfully settled, agricultural, for the most part no longer guerrilla raiding, and semi-assimilating Cherokee, known as the "trail of tears", is probably the most shameful of all instances of this. This is of course amply reporter here, though also of course, with the Cherokees totally and completely without fault or threat.

All history has some point of view. At a (desireable) minimus, one always has to edit what down to what is most important. Nonetheless, when the "victim" (under the approach of this series and many other works) is virtually completely without fault (a rare reference to increasing alcoholism solely of course as a response to victimization not really excepted), and certainly without any independent capacity for aggression other than belated and regretfully ineffective defense, a work may be hard to distinguish from propaganda.

Now if two competing propagandas on the same topic were aired back to back, that would have been another thing.

Being of Cherokee descent, I have a long-standing, fervent passion for Native American history. I only recently purchased the 500 Nations DVD set, which somehow I had managed to remain unaware of all these years. I loaded the first DVD of the set with the intention of viewing it in small bites; however, the program is so well-produced and so informative that I found myself unable to stop watching until I had watched every DVD, every chapter, every moment of the program. It is obvious that the producers really did their homework, striving to maintain a rarely experienced level of historic detail and accuracy.

Anyone with an interest in Native American history should make it a point to get a copy of this program, which is a definite "keeper" for any good library of documentary videos. It is more than worthy of inclusion in any American history class, as it provides tremendous insight into a part of North America's history -- including the parts which are bloody, embarrassing stains which can never be washed from the hands of a nation.

I saw the series when it aired originally and I thought that it was an excellent documentary on the American Indians. I don't think it is boring at all, I think that it is an excellent history lesson for us all.

The Native American history is not explored enough, that is why I am very pleased about the new Smithsonian museum opening next week. I believe this is a good supplement to our own history. The history of the Native Americans is not told enough or always correctly. I think this and the new museum will help educate the next generation. But of course this is just my opinion.

I can remember first watching this series when I stumbled upon it one summer in 2001, and I became both fascinated and depressed with what this series presented. In fact, this series changed my perspective of the original Americans forever, seeing them as genuine humans with plenty of stories to tell and how they were respectful of the Earth we are standing on. What shocked me was the cruel treatment from the Europeans whether it was the attempted conversion to the treacherous methods of mass slaughter that obliterated many of the nations. The interviews with the real Native Americans further fascinated me with their cultural ways and perspectives on European conquest (except for those that did offer hospitality). Kevin Costner is a great host, perfect for the part from his Dances with Wolves work. He deserves a humanitarian award for mentioning the once great folk that walked the Americas and how they should be recognized and respected.

When I was a kid in school, they made such a big deal about us learning every state and its capital; I certainly never remember being taught about the Native American nations or their locations or anything about the systematic genocide that was exacted upon the peoples of our land. While we have slowly (all to slowly) become aware of our legacy with regard to the Africans who we enslaved and the stain that lingers on our collective minds to this day, as a culture, we are barely aware of the Native American cultures, who these people were or their cultures. They meld together into a single notion of "people who were here when we got here and who lived in teepees," and that's about it. Everything else is learned from Hollywood's western movies ...films like Tarza, Son of Cochese," where they dress up Rock Hudson in what Hollywood thinks ALL Native Americas look. And the many rich cultures that existed on American soil for eons before White Eyes got here has been systematically, I would suggest painfully ignored. Our modern culture barely even acknowledges Native American history and these, some of the worse sins of our fathers . This documentary is essential i educating use so we can have an incite into who we really are, as painful as that might be.

500 Nations is told mostly in the exact words of those committing the atrocities, giving a rare authenticity to the narrative and keep everything anchored in the historical context. Having seen this documentary, the next time you hear those cliched discussions about how is that that ordinary people living ordinary lives in Germany could wind up committing those atrocities toward the Jews, it might give us pause to question how good European Christians forming a new country could do what THEY did to the natives who were here long before White Eyes stepped foot on this continent, bringing with them their diseases and alcoholism and religion and perverted ideas of ownership of the land, water and air, but worse, their propensity for violence and genocide. This documentary needs to be as universally taught in schools as is "Catcher in the Rye" or "The Great Gatsby."