The history of America interacts with other countries in its own, subjective way because all history is written by people, all of whom have biases. Many times, it is the oppressed or formerly oppressed whose narrative is ignored and suppressed. Nikole Hannah-Jones, Daniel Richter, and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz are three authors who have in recent years begun studying and presenting a new narrative of the founding of the United States of America. Instead of using the euro-centric perspective that has been accepted for centuries, they instead attempt to view settlement through the eyes of black people and Native Americans. When all three authors look at the founding of America through a different lens, the new insights can be applied to the present in order to help understand the systems of power that exist today and predict where the country is going in the future.

The narrative centering around forgotten people of color during the founding of America is incredibly important because it acknowledges their previously ignored contributions, but historians have not reconciled it with the mainstream narrative. Hannah-Jones finds that “one of the primary reasons some of the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery” (Hannah-Jones, 4). Many have disagreed when it comes to this point of view due to “the deep, abiding American need to conceive of and understand our history as ‘progress,’” (Serwer, 4), but the perspectives can coexist. It is true that one of the reasons that the colonists declared independence was due to the profitability of keeping their slaves, just as it is true that they also broke free due to high taxes and oppression by the British. Both reasons can coexist, and while one is far less idealistic than the other, together they acknowledge the multiplicity of the American Revolution and how it built the US up. The fact that this narrative was suppressed in the first place destabilizes the foundations of the American revolution and brings a new meaning to what it means to be American, and whether the country has made any progress since 1619. It forces people to confront the fact that the country was not just built on the idea of independence, but on bondage as well. However, this new perspective, while hard to accept, can simultaneously teach historians a lot about racial politics today and where the US is going in the future.

Not only are the contributions of black Americans to the founding of the US glossed over in the mainstream narrative, but the rich Native American history and culture are also not a part of the settlement narrative. The native civilizations of the Americas were far more advanced than most historians give them credit for, with complicated agricultural, trade, and governmental systems that are ignored in favor of the idea that Native Americans were uncivilized. Dunbar-Ortiz writes, “by the time of European invasions, Indigenous peoples had occupied and shaped every part of the Americas, established extensive trade networks and roads, and were sustaining their populations by adapting to specific natural environments” (Dunbar-Ortiz 27). Regardless of these facts, the predominant view among the American populace is that Native Americans were uncivilized and not advanced at all. To spread these views to the general populace, historians must change, because if they “shift [their] perspective to try to view the past in a way that faces east from Indian country, history takes on a very different appearance” (Richter 8). When examining Richter and Dunbar-Ortiz’s work and how they interact with the mainstream narrative, it is clear that they have very little interplay. Dunbar-Ortiz simply dives into the rich history of native culture without discussing how it would change historical arguments and views in the 21st century, while Richter’s work does better in discussing the overlaps between the mainstream narrative and the ignored story of Native Americans. Neither of these two pieces interacts well with Hannah-Jones’ work because both sides posit their champion—black Americans and Native Americans—as the true cornerstones of US identity and history. Both can be different cornerstones of different aspects of US history at the same time because both group’s contributions and cultures are important, but the authors’ arguments do not interact. Regardless of the interaction between arguments, the authors still agree that people of color were vital to the founding of America and their contributions have been ignored for too long, shifting the historical narrative into one of the brutal suppression of a rich culture that has survived only in pieces and fragments to the 21st century.

When focusing on the suppressed narrative of people of color in US history, all authors agree on one fact: history’s application and effects on the modern-day changes and becomes a story of survival that applies to the present. For centuries, the story of people of color is a story that hasn’t been told, creating a homogenous view of US history. With additional narratives, the tale complicates itself, but there is much more to be learned from history and how it can be applied to the present. It can help mark the progress that has been made in the fight for equality tracing back to the beginning of the United States, and it can help historians understand where the country can go in the future.

Bibliography

Agrawal, Nikki, and Sarah Willrich. 5 Sep 2020.

Agrawal, Nikki, and Thalia Renaker. 6 Sep. 2020.

Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. Beacon Press, 2015.

Hannah-Jones, Nikole, Mary Elliott, and Jazmine Hughes. The 1619 Project. New York Times, 2019.

Richter, Daniel K. Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America. Harvard University Press, 2003.

Serwer, Adam. “The Fight Over the 1619 Project Is Not About the Facts.” The Atlantic. January 21, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/historians-clash-1619-project/604093/.