Eastman vs. Apess

Well to start, I'm writing this Saturday morning. I still haven't gotten into the groove of doing homework on Friday. I think I'll schedule myself to do this on Friday. Anyhow, let's move onward.


After reading more texts in this class, I feel more and more remorseful towards the Natives. Not ever having a formal understanding of Native culture, I'm shocked and appalled to learn what they have gone through so far. The theme of survivance manifests itself in text better than others. By better I mean has a greater influence on people, mainly White people. In one of my quickwrites actually, I compared Apess and Eastman and wanted to expand it a little bit.

Apess writes to ultimately preserve his people by trying to persuade Whites that they are civilized just like them. He writes Eulogy of King Philip in a way that attacks Christian Whites which isn't successful as merely showing them what it is that makes there culture civilized to Whites. Apess attacks Whites by writing phrases like, " Had it not been for this human act of the Indians [hospilality], everywhite man would have been swept from the New England colonies. In their sickness too, Indians were as tender to them as to their own children; and for all this, they were denounced as savages by those who had received all acts of kindness they possibly could show them." I personally think that such a passage would change my ways if I were a White back then but I also see that many people will not have known how to react to this and it takes one person to speak negatively out loud about it to aspire followers.

Now I think Eastman's approach in addressing Whites is much more effective because he isn't pointing a finger necessarily but describing events leaving the reader to decide if acts were justified or not rather than explicitly denouncing White people.