Ending Comments

In summing up our discussion of the conquest in this class it seems fitting that we ended on the articles for this week.  The main theme of the articles is how the conquest is being dealt with today.  While it has been over 500 years since Columbus accidentally found his way to the Caribbean tempers do still run high.  So the question is how do we deal with this?  As we saw with the founder’s statue in New Mexico coming to an agreement that culturally respects all parties is an unending battle.  I run into this problem a lot is archaeology, where do you draw the line between studying and representing the past while still being culturally sensitive?  At least in the situation of the statues in New Mexico an agreement that dealt with most of the issues was achieved but that is not always the case.  In some cases groups would prefer to completely strip moments from the past and take them out of our history.  Victim identity has become such a powerful component in Native American culture that it can be frustrating at times.  Take for instance a run of the mill book store.  Since I study Native American Archaeology I always run through the Native American Anthropology section and the shelves are filled with books that concern the conquest and the aftermath.  Rarely is there a single book about the 20,000 plus years Native American groups thrived on two continents developing complex cultures and erecting beautiful monuments.  So even when we focus on the Native American perspective it is still restricted to a very brief subject.  I would like to see our culture empress our whole history, some things may be painful be we should by no means forget them.  So in ending this blog for this course I would like to say that I have enjoyed learning more about the conquest, however, I am not sure where we should go from here.  Tempers are still raging for some while others are finding ways to work together on both sides.  Finding a solution is still far off but at least we are discussing the problems we will all be facing more openly and hopefully that will lead so some form of common ground…………