The founding fathers, the Puritans, labeled  themselves as New Israel in
New England, here to conquer New Caanan. The Puritans referred to native
folk as animals of the forest, beasts, etc.. The poetry of Timothy Dwight,
a Puritan President of Yale in its beginnings, confirmed the view and the
Puritan President John Adams lamented over the hopelessness of trying to
raise these people. The Declaration of Independence states they are
merciless savages. A large part of the justification of Protestant America
for their conquest of the continent is they have won it from the
"wilderness." Those things found within that natural wilderness are
therefore seen as part of natural history and though they are human, the
mythological/religous background of the Puritan dominance of much of the
forming culture has caused Native Americansto be seen as sensibly and
reasonably belonging within the Natural History of the United States to
this day.



Best,

Paul Apodaca, Ph.D.
Chapman University
One University Drive
Orange, CA 92866
(714) 744 7954
[log in to unmask]

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ museum-l.html. You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to
[log in to unmask] The body of the message should read "Signoff
Museum-L" (without the quotes).