KateC34

In Playing Indian, Phillip Deloria addresses how Americans are perceived. Many colonists admired Native Americans for their freedom and their connection to the land. Yet American Indians also stood in the way of frontier expansion and land acquisition. The reality that colonization neither wiped Native Americans off the continent nor fully assimilated them into the Euro-American culture largely explains this identity dilemma.

I found one of Deloria’s points extremely interesting. “For American colonists, Indians broke down these oppositions, serving as a savage Other while at the same time representing an American Self” (32). It makes the reader question the true meaning of an American. When reading textbooks and historical documents, one rarely gets the feeling that Indians’ characteristics are a tremendous part of our being as humans. Colonists liked the fact that Indians represented instinct and that raw connection to the earth. As Europeans, this is what they were lacking. However, they were too afraid to admit that they approved of “Indianness”. Americans then felt that they had to ‘play indian’ instead of outwardly embracing their culture. Since Americans cannot commit to either culture, European or Indian, they are stuck in the middle, left to question who Americans really are.

How would Americans be different than they are today had they not been influenced by the Native Americans?

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