"America's Histories" Revisited: The Case of Tell Them They Lie

In the spring 1998 edition of American Literary History (ALH), Arnold Krupat puts forth an argument regarding the consideration and treatment of histories of the Americas that do not correspond with the received histories of U.S. academic historians. Using William Cronon as his principal guide, he concludes that it is "useful" to entertain Native American versions of U.S.-Indian history so long as they remain as documentation of the moral framework of the participants and as commentary. ¹ We may "recognize" alternate histories so long as we understand that where they contravene known facts about the past, they do not rise to the status of "real" history. Krupat regards this recognition as bringing these histories into something other than oppositional relationship to Western historiography.

In a revision of this article, to be published in a forthcoming book, Krupat shifts his analysis away from a conclusion about "real" histories versus documentaries of moral frameworks. Instead, he argues that "the only sensible way to reconcile the difference between traditional Native history and modern Euramerican history is for us to reconsider the place of factual accuracy in the determination of history." Both conclusions are symptomatic of the larger attitudes of a majority of literary and historical scholars working both within the field of Native American studies and outside of it. Either Native histories cannot be taken seriously except insofar as they provide clues to Native worldviews or we must decide that Native histories must be engaged with on a level other than the factual. While the second option seems on the surface more generous to Native histories, since it apparently forces Western historiography to displace its apparently central concern with matters of fact, its effect on Native histories is just as insidious: it amounts to the same treatment. Western historiography retains its privileged role as the sole purveyor of factual accuracy while Native historiography is effectively evacuated of the capacity for accuracy.

Since the extent to which Indian-controlled histories contravene known facts appears to be the crux of the matter, it follows that an interrogation of the extent to which facts are known about U.S.-Indian relations must be carried out. On a very small scale, that interrogation of U.S.-controlled versions of U.S.- Indian and Indian histories is the aim of this article. However, it must be said that mine is not a precedent inquiry. Each of the three narratives that Krupat chose to exemplify his principles questions this knowledge of facts as claimed by U.S. historians: explicitly, implicitly, or epistemologically. As Vine Deloria Jr. points out in another recent article in ALH, the fundamental issue at stake here is whether Native Americans are able to participate as intellectual equals in the academic debates that most keenly impact their lives.

Participation and equality here, however, should not be considered on an individual level in a manner that merely assimilates Native American intellectuals into an academically approved set of disciplines and methodologies. Native American complexes of thought—widespread, heterogeneous, and anciently rooted—are as formidable as those originating in east Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East; they can be treated with equal respect and deference. The same goes for others not equally respected: African, Aboriginal, and Pacific Islander. In fact, historically, Chinese and Indian complexes of thought were not at first received with respect by the West, and Arab ones have been subject to extreme fluctuations on the scale of respectability, registering the intensity of political tensions among the regions.

I will argue, therefore, that the very existence of these narratives reveals the extent to which U.S. versions of Indian-related histories have been allowed to rely on "facts" that are anything but known and questions that are anything but useful. Deloria's challenge not only raises the question of whether non-Indian U.S. academics are able to assume a certain humility in the face of...