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What are common misconceptions that people have

about Native Americans and how do these


misconceptions affect our relationship with them?

Nick Berndt, Tommy Gonzales, Hayden Schloz


What are common misconceptions that people have about
Native Americans and how do these misconceptions affect our
relationship with them?

Thesis: We believe that common misconceptions about Native Americans


have greatly affected our relationship with them as a society.

Reason: We believe this because we can see unfair treatment justified


with stereotypes throughout our history when dealing with Native
Americans.
Tommy’s Evidence

‘The effect that stereotyping has had on Indigenous women is one of the main reasons why non-
Indigenous people (mainly Euro-Canadian men) commit violent crimes of hate towards First
Nations women and girls.[21] Because Aboriginal women have been associated with images of
the "Indian Princess" and "Squaw" a majority of non-Indigenous people believe that Aboriginal
women are dirty, promiscuous, overtly sexualized, which makes these women vulnerable to
violent assaults.[21] In 2009, 13% of all Aboriginal women aged 15 and older living in the
provinces stated that they had been violently victimized, almost three times the rate for non-
Aboriginal women.”

“Stereotypes about Indigenous Peoples of North America.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_about_indigenous_peoples_of_North_America.
Tommy’s Evidence
In this quote the author can be seen using pathos and logos throughout
the quote to pull on the reader's heart string and make them feel bad for
what the Native Women have to go through, and use logos to show facts
of the native women are treated differently than other women . This use
of patho can be seen in phrases such as “vulnerable to violent assaults”
this makes the reader almost want to do something to stop it and is able
to being the point of how these people are exposed to more violence on
an emotional level. The logos can be seen in the quote “In 2009, 13% of all
Aboriginal women aged 15 and older living in the provinces stated that
they had been violently victimized” This brings the facts straight to the
reader and allows them to see just how bad this is.

This helps our understanding of the problem of what is happening to


these people and discovering the problem that they are facing on a
factually level. This quote helps show how Native Americans are affected
by this misconception.
Nick’s Evidence

“In the NSDUH analyses, the majority of NA, 59.9% abstained, whereas a minority of

whites, 43.1% abstained. Approximately 14.5% of NA were light/moderate-only drinkers,

versus 32.7% of whites. NA and white binge drinking estimates were similar—17.3% and

16.7%. The two populations' heavy drinking estimates were also similar—8.3% and 7.5%.

Results from the BRFSS analyses generally corroborated those from NSDUH.”

Cunningham, James K. “Alcohol Use among Native Americans Compared to Whites.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence

, 1 Mar. 2016, www.drugandalcoholdependence.com/article/S0376-8716(15)01830-X/abstract.


Nick’s Evidence
This quote from the drug and alcohol dependence article connects to the
reader using the affects of logos by using statistics found by the
National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). They use actual
percentages from a survey that was taken by a reliable source that
prove that the national average of white people that are heavy drinkers
is more than the national average of native american heavy drinkers.

The website that I got this quote from helped us answer our question by
supplying proof against the stereotype of alcoholism. This stereotype
has affected our relationship because Native Americans to some are
assumed to be untrustworthy and lazy, and because of this some
Natives are denied jobs.
Hayden’s Evidence

“Stereotypes are absorbed from popular


literature, folklore, and misinformation.
For instance, many children (and adults)
incorrectly believe that fierce native
warriors were universally fond of scalping
early white settlers and soldiers. In fact,
when it came to the bizarre practice of
scalping, Europeans were the ones who
encouraged and carried out much of the
scalping that went on in the history of
white/native relations in America. By 1703,
the Massachusetts Bay Colony was
offering $60 for each native scalp.”
Martin, Philip. “Scalping: Fact & Fantasy.” Scalping: Fact & Fantasy, www.manataka.org/page1438.html.
Hayden’s Evidence
In Philip Martin’s “Scalping: Fact and Fantasy,” Martin
disproves the common misconception that Native
Americans were the only ones who practiced scalping on
their enemies. In fact, Martin added that Europeans
would reward people just to murder and scalp the
Natives of their newfound land. This evidence that Martin
exposed has great purpose in the unraveling of a very
common misconception about Native Americans, in order
to educate the reader while also disposing of the
widespread uneducated assumption of Native American
savagery. The reader, in this case, could be anyone from
the aspiring historian to an intrigued audience member,
but it’s mostly geared towards the general populous of
the United States as a whole, as most American citizens
have no idea that scalping was far from being exclusive
of the Europeans who settled here.
Audience and Product

∗ Our audience was the No Place for Hate club because


we know one thing they try to do is clear up common
misconnections and eliminate the hate that
misconnections could cause, and we thought that
was the perfect group to present to.
∗ We designed our information for a more mature
audience by creating a website that they could
understand and also be able to access outside of
school to help spread the word.
Evidence of Product Delivery
∗ We delivered our project during lunch to the No Place for Hate club in Gillon’s room
169.

∗ Our presentation was received with a lot of curiosity as many of the people have
never really thought or been presented with this issue or this topic.

http://nativeamericanmisconceptions.weebly.com/ (our project/website)


Group Reflection

We learned that common misconceptions have a big


impact on other people's lives and Native American
relations.

We would change our audience because, although it fit


well, it was not as big as we would have liked.

Research the plethora of misconceptions on the


internet in order to further our knowledge regarding
this issue.
Works Cited and Consulted (MLA)
“Stereotypes about Indigenous Peoples of North America.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_about_indigenous_peoples_of_North_America.

Top10contributor. “Top 10 Common Misconceptions About Native Americans.” Top 10 Lists, 13 Feb. 2014, top-10-list.org/2014/02/13/top-10-
misconceptions-about-native-americans/2.

“Stereotypes | Indians of the Midwest.” Indians of the Midwest RSS, Indians of the Midwest, publications.newberry.org/indiansofthemidwest/indian-
imagery/stereotypes/.

Ridgway, Shannon. “Common Native American Stereotypes Debunked.” Everyday Feminism, 4 July 2013,
everydayfeminism.com/2013/06/common-native-american-stereotypes-debunked/.

Cunningham, James K. “Alcohol Use among Native Americans Compared to Whites.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence , 1 Mar. 2016,
www.drugandalcoholdependence.com/article/S0376-8716(15)01830-X/abstract.

Martin, Philip. “Scalping: Fact & Fantasy.” Scalping: Fact & Fantasy, www.manataka.org/page1438.html.

Buchanana, Susy. “Violence Against American Indians Is a Pervasive Problem.”Southern Poverty Law Center, Intelligence Report, 16 Jan. 2007,
www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2007/violence-against-american-indians-pervasive-problem.

Boxer, Andrew. “Native Americans and the Federal Government.” Native Americans and the Federal Government | History Today, Sept. 2009,
www.historytoday.com/andrew-boxer/native-americans-and-federal-government.

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