Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Inconvenient Indian, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
History and Mythology
Racism and Systemic Oppression
Land
Sovereignty
Summary
Analysis
King laments the difficulty of deciding where to begin a book about Indians in North America, eventually settling on Columbus’s arrival in 1492, though his wife begged him to avoid this cliché. Columbus was credited with discovering the North American landmass, since Europeans were unfamiliar with it prior to his arrival. Of course, if history hadn’t awarded Columbus the title of discoverer, it would’ve gone to somebody else—the Norse, perhaps.
The notion that one must consciously decide when and with whom to begin a history reinforces King’s stated goal in the introduction: to blend fact with fiction. In mulling over where to begin his account, King reinforces the element of choice and narrativizing at play in the construction of history. In other words, history is less objective than one might think: it is the product of decision and narrative framing.
Themes
Because history is “the stories we tell about the past,” it is inherently biased toward favorable depictions of celebrated men. King decides to tell a different story—one without Columbus—and begins his account in Almo, Idaho, a small town of 200 in southern Idaho whose only claim to fame is an Indian massacre that occurred in 1861. There’s a plaque in town dedicated to the 300 westbound immigrants who lost their lives. Generally speaking, King explains, Indians didn’t kill that many Whites at one time, though there are exceptions, such as the 1813 Fort Mims massacre.
King reinforces the subjectivity of history by defending it as “the stories we tell about the past.” By this logic, most histories of Indian-White relations in North America begin with Columbus to place the accomplishments of White men front and center. King’s remarks about 300 being an unusually high number of White casualties challenges the idea that Native Americans inflicted more violence upon settlers than settlers inflicted upon Native Americans.
Themes
King continues, “giv[ing] credit” to the massacres committed against Indians by Whites by listing off the much larger death tolls for which they are responsible, such as a 1598 massacre in present-day New Mexico, in which Juan de Onate and his troops killed over 800 Indians and cut off the left foot of every Native man older than 25; or the infamous Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, where over 200 Lakota were killed. In short, the Whites have been far more successful at massacres than Indians. This is why, in contrast, the 1861 Almo massacre seems so horrific.
King’s comment about “giv[ing] credit” alludes to his earlier remark about history being written to “giv[e] credit” to a particular individual or nation. King implicitly takes issue with the fact that Whites typically only credit themselves with actions that paint them in a favorable light. Here, he widens the historical perspective to “credit” Whites with the massacres they committed against Indians.
Themes
King backtracks, revealing that the Almo massacre never actually happened. Its first mention was a 1926 book called Reminiscences of Early Days: A Series of Historical Sketches and Happenings in the Early Days of Snake River Valley, which presents the gruesome supposed massacre as “a right proper Western,” says King, complete with brave, persevering White women and “bloodthirsty Indians.” Though this piece of “history” has since been discredited, the town of Almo wishes not to remove the plaque, so the non-massacre remains “part of the culture and history of the area.”
The plaque in Almo purports to memorialize a historical event, yet, in reality, the commemorated massacre never happened. King is careful in his use of language here, describing how the massacre remains “part of the culture and history of the area” to show how history and truth aren’t necessarily the same thing. History is what a group of people with similar incentives or values choose to believe. He implies that because the plaque upholds a version of the past that depicts Indians as “bloodthirsty” and settlers as martyrs, the town chooses to keep it as part of its “history,” even after the commemorated massacre has been discredited.
Themes
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King shifts his focus to the infamous myth of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith. Smith claimed he was captured by the Powhatan in 1607 and saved by the head man’s daughter, Pocahontas. However, Smith had been telling variations of this compelling story well before 1607. In reality, Smith’s first mention of Pocahontas occurred in 1616, when she arrived in England as a famed “American Indian princess.” Furthermore, because Smith would have been 27 to Pocahontas’s 10 when he arrived in present-day Virginia in 1607, it’s unlikely they even knew each other. Nevertheless, the story’s “exoticism” and “White hero” figure ensure that it persists.
The myth of Pocahontas saving John Smith is an example of history being skewed to reinforce a narrative of “exoticism” and the resilience of the “White hero.” Despite its fictitiousness, it remains a popular myth in American popular culture, so much so that it was adapted as a Disney movie in 1995, for example. The stereotype of the “American Indian princess” cliché is itself a further example of America’s history of Native Americans centering around Western ideals, since the concept originates from Europeans falsely believing that Native peoples shared the European system of royalty, where the daughters of chiefs were akin to the daughters of kings.
Themes
Next, King recalls the Battle of Little Bighorn, often mythologized as “Custer’s Last Stand,” and which U.S. historians often frame as an archetypal “heroic but ill-advised and failed endeavor[].” These accounts typically portray General Custer as a hero who fought to the end, a myth popularized through word of mouth and countless works of visual and literary art depicting the battle, though, of course, none can be accurate, since there was nobody there to photograph it.
George Armstrong Custer led the U.S. Army 7th Cavalry Regiment into battle against the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes in the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn. The tribes swiftly defeated the U.S. Army. History’s decision to mythologize Custer and his men as fallen heroes ignores the egregious strategic errors Custer made that brought about their downfall, such as the decision to break down his forces into smaller battalions and rejecting the offer of an additional Cavalry to assist his men, believing they could swiftly defeat the enemy tribes.
Themes
Next, King describes the Métis leader Louis Riel’s role in the Rebellion of 1885, which receives considerably less attention than the Battle of Little Bighorn. Riel’s story begins in 1869, with the Red River Rebellion, which ensued after Canada bought Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company—a purchase of nearly 4 million square kilometers. The problem with this purchase was that Hudson’s Bay Company didn’t own this land. After the purchase, Ottawa appointed as governor William McDougall, who despised the French. When McDougall sent surveyors into the newly purchased territory to divide it into parcels, they were met with Métis resistance and forced to retreat.
The Hudson’s Bay Company’s decision to sell land that wasn’t theirs to sell introduces one of the book’s major themes, which is the central role that control of land has played in Indian-White interactions throughout history. The Hudson’s Bay Company still exists today as a retail business group, but for much of its existence (it was founded in 1670 in London) it was a fur trading business. Finally, in suggesting that Louis Riel’s role in the Rebellion of 1885 receives less attention that Custer’s Land Stand, King insinuates, perhaps, that this is because Custer was White and Riel was Metis, one of Canada’s three recognized indigenous groups.
Themes
Louis Riel led the fight between the French and English for Métis land. He was involved in the creation of a provisional government for the territory and in numerous negotiations. Everything progressed smoothly until February 1870, when Charles Boulton, John Schultz, Charles Mair, and Thomas Scott attempted to overthrow the provisional government. Riel pardoned Boulton but executed Scott, which resulted in much anti-Métis, anti-Catholic, and anti-French sentiments directed toward Riel, who was forced to flee Canada.
Riel’s decision to execute Scott stemmed from his desire for the Canadian government to take the Métis seriously. Today, historians regard this decision as Riel’s biggest political mistake, mainly for the anti-Métis, anti-Catholic, and anti-French sentiment it inspired among Canada’s Protestant population. In fact, Scott’s execution was integral in the formation of the Canada First movement, a nationalist movement that persisted into the mid-1870s.
Themes
By 1885, it was apparent that the Dominion of Canada (Canada was not yet a country at this time) had no intentions to negotiate with the Métis, many of whom had since moved from Manitoba to Saskatchewan, where they formed a settlement at Batoche, along the South Saskatchewan River. That year, Riel returned to Canada to lead the North-West Rebellion, during which the Métis fought against the Canadian government to defend their stolen land. Riel eventually surrendered after his troops ran out of ammunition. While Dumont and many other of Riel’s troops managed to escape to Montana, Riel remained behind, was charged with treason, and hanged.
Riel lived in exile in the U.S. after the Red River Rebellion. He spent most his time in the Montana territory and became involved in religion and politics, campaigning on behalf of the Republican party. He became a naturalized citizen in 1883. The defeat of Riel and the Métis and First Nations people he fought with is remembered as an infamous failure for Canada’s indigenous people. Today, Riel is one of the most famous people in Canadian history. But history has portrayed him differently over time. Initially, his defeat was seen as a triumph of Protestant civilization over the supposed “savagery” of the mixed-race Métis. Later accounts of Riel were less racially charged, emphasizing how Riel’s defeat ultimately exacerbated the treatment of Canada’s indigenous population.
Themes
King considers Louis Riel, George Custer, and the others who died throughout the history of Indian-White relations in North America. He recalls Crazy Horse, who was murdered by soldiers at Camp Robinson, or Sitting Bull, who police shot at the Standing Rock Agency in North Dakota. However, because these men didn’t die “with their boots on” alongside Custer, history doesn’t remember their names quite as well as his. King ironically denies that race has anything to do with who is and isn’t remembered in American history.
King’s remark about not remembering the fallen Native leaders because they didn’t die “with their boots on” like Custer suggests that these men aren’t remembered as well because they aren’t White—the use of the “boots” imagery evokes clothing associated with Western culture. King’s denial that race has anything to do with which parts of history are remembered is sarcastic. This is typical of the conversational style King uses in the book.
Themes
King criticizes popular history’s tendency to highlight the inconveniences Native people posed to westward expansion while minimizing the invaluable assistance they provided to European explorers, surveyors, and traders who were woefully unfamiliar with the land. Ultimately, King concludes, much of Indian history in North America has been lost to time. He compares Native history to a fossil hunt, which requires the researcher to piece together the larger picture from scattered artifacts and clues left behind.
King’s closing remarks shed some light on the book’s title, speaking of the inconvenience Natives posed to White settlers wishing to expand their euro-centric settlements westward. Of course, it’s ironic for Whites to have thought this, since the sentiment implies that Indians were in Whites’ way when, in reality, Whites were the once imposing on Native land.
Themes
