500 Nations

Well, I certainly was NEVER bored with this documentary. 500 Nations brings a lot of emotion to the surface. It is an honestly presented, and meticulously research history of the native cultures of North America, and the effect upon them of the invasion of the white Europeans. When I say "honest", it is disturbing at times, and parents should be warned that, while accurate historically, it also pulls no punches in showing the highly organized and cultured tribes of the Americas being brutalized by ignorant european invaders. You can also sense that the white europeans would have been so much better off, had they truly wished to live with the Nations as brothers instead of conquerers. Our society is less today than it might have been, had the europeans brought more to the relationship that genocide, destruction, and disease to the Nations. IMHO, the best documentary on some of the Nations who called North America their home, long before Vespucci decided to give the land his name.

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.

I can remember first seeing this documentary almost seven years ago and at the time, I was completely fascinated by so many unknown truths that this documentary uncovered. There are so many things that are not taught about the Native American struggle in our country. Many of the things in this documentary are simply not talked about in schools when I was growing up. I wish I could remember more details of this great documentary but it has been seven years.

Kevin Costner did a wonderful job producing and hosting this mini-series. Perhaps he was inspired after making "Dances with Wolves". Whatever the reason, this mini-series will always stand out for its stunningly beautiful and tragic portrayal of Native American history in the Americas.

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.