such as Perry Miller, tend to view the American Indians the same way that the first discoverers did. He writes of how the United States was “vacant” when first explored. Perhaps he is missing the key element of the Native Americans. This view, or not one at all, of not associating American Indians as people has been passed down from generation to generation. When Tompkins was a child she remembered going to the park to see the Native Americans being shown off as if they were caged animals in a zoo, although she always thought that going to see them was a “disappointment.” This is how she was brought up to be, but her mind didn’t stay hooked on that and keep her feeling superior. There were many after the 1960’s that started to view the Native Americans as equals and people. What is the reason for this happening? Not having an open mind, this is why this happened. The early puritans, and present day historians had no realization that other people live lives, and that their cultures are just as justified as theirs are. From the beginning the Native Americans were having their heads messed around with. In Francis Jennings’s “The Invasion of America” he talks about how they rape, murdered, scalped, tortured, burned their homes…the list goes on. From the beginning they were treated very poorly. The closed minded ways of the puritans established a uniform feeling about the Native Americans for centuries. This feeling has been kept in people to only come up with the wrong impression, and make others feel the same bad impression. This attitude towards the American Indians is sad. What did they do to deserve this? In present day less people are feeling this way about the Native Americans. Though people are still forming bias’s against them, most people are trying to makeup for their losses that the colonial Americans caused. ...
