I care about the Indians, because they are people of God just like anyone else.
And look I agree with you about the whitewashing of Indian history. We’ll hear about the “darker side” of Columbus, but we WON’T hear about the darker side of the Iroquois Confederacy. That’s absolutely true. But I don’t want to hear any of the nonsense on the other side that Indians were simple barbarians as opposed to the cultured Europeans.
The French Jesuits *said themselves* that the Catholic Indians in the missions were *far* more devout and more fervent practitioners of the Christian religion than the native French. Read their accounts, and I dare you to disagree. The missionaries also talked about the Indians’ good qualities—like their magnanimity in hospitality—as well as their bad qualities (cannibalism) like you mention.
And I’m not so sure either that “contributing to the world” is a good metric by which to measure a culture. I’m 100% Italian. I know a little about culture that has “contributed to the world”...but that ain’t saving Italian culture right now from descending into the sewer as I think in some ways it is.
Give me a culture that, though obscure, is *good*. That’s the true measure. Of course, that’s a hard standard for any of us to live by: Iroquois, Anglo, or Italian.
Thank you. Well said.
How many “Catholic Indians” would there have been?