Or why Native Americans who lived 1000 years ago are "pre-historic"?
Does the fact the the Euopeans didn't know they existed make them prehistoric?
Why do we continue to discount that they had civilzations, histories, cultures = even observatories, long before we knew there were continents here.
When the white man came, they found cities that surpassed those in Europe - and astronomical observatories, planetary observations, calendars, predictions and a numerical system that surpassed that of the old world.
Even Chaco Canyon was a remarkable community where over 5000 people lived for a few hundred years. They observed the planets, kept track of the solstices, ...
We try to ignore the histories of the Native Americans because we haven't grown up enough yet to admit they were not just a bunch of wild savages whose lands we were meant to take thru' "manifest destiny."
Very sensible statement. I agree.
Do you have a mouse in your pocket?
"surpassed"? Do you realize how much of the great cities of Europe today had already been built by the time Europeans wandered on over to the Americas (officially)? Do you think the Mayans could have taught the long gone Romans anything about civil engineering? Did the "Native Americans" have anything like Notre Dame de Paris when Columbus first landed on their shores?
Newsflash: the people living in the Americas were still neolithic peoples. Sure they did some spiffy stuff, but so did the neolithic peoples of Europe and they outgrew that level of technology a few thousand years earlier.
You have fabricated a lovely mythology for yourself.
"Why do we continue to discount that they had civilzations, histories, cultures = even observatories, long before we knew there were continents here.
When the white man came, they found cities that surpassed those in Europe - and astronomical observatories, planetary observations, calendars, predictions and a numerical system that surpassed that of the old world.
Even Chaco Canyon was a remarkable community where over 5000 people lived for a few hundred years. They observed the planets, kept track of the solstices, ...
We try to ignore the histories of the Native Americans because we haven't grown up enough yet to admit they were not just a bunch of wild savages whose lands we were meant to take thru' 'manifest destiny.'"
Whoa! Let's not go overboard here.
Who is "We", specifically?
You mention "Manifest Destiny". That was a particularly American political philosophy, having to do with the obvious (hence "manifest") destiny of the United States to sweep aside the European and post-European empires in North America and thereby reach from sea to sea. It didn't have anything to do with the Mayas at all.
If one wishes to dwell on Mayas and Aztecs, or Incas, then one isn't talking about American history at all but Spanish.
Also, one is not dealing with "a" culture, but several, which were not friendly to one another. Mayan civilization was long in decadence (no thanks to "us", once we've defined who "we" are) when the Aztecs were at their peak, and there was no love lost between the Aztecs and the Mayan descendants either. And there still isn't.
I am confused as to who this great monolithic "We" is that somehow embraces both the Spanish AND the Americans AND has as its target everything and everyone from the Iroquois to the Mayans.
Were various Amerindian civilizations interesting? Of course. Were they technically advanced? Not very, really. But you have to break down who we are talking about. The North American woodland Indians with whom the English and French and Dutch settlers came into contact were a stone age people. Europe is closer to Plymouth Rock than the Incas were, so it's tough to see any continuity between South American ancient civilizations and the North American woodlanders. Their languages were utterly unrelated. They were as different from each other as Ethiopians are from the Irish, and farther apart too.
But before we can even discuss that, we have to settle who this "We" is who has those peculiar views you outlined? "We" generally means "You and me", at least. What do you and I have in common?
Because they didn't have common written histories?