Indian Degradation

 

Over the years the footprint of Indians in America have slowly faded. According the Apess the Indians were a strong culture that were "defiled" by the white man. The settlers made the Indians  "believe they are minors and have not the abilities given to them from God to take care of themselves". The Indians were taken advantage of for not only their talents but their land as well. Apess says that many white men were merely "Agents... and care not whether the Indians live or die". He uses Christianity as a way to make people alert to right the wrongs against the Indians. He lets his readers know that Christianity has no skin color and that the Indians, in all aspects of life, deserve to be treated with equal levels of respect. Apess asks, "Is not religion the same now under a colored skin as it ever was?" Sigourney writes about similar injustices to the Indian people in her poem, "Indian Names". She writes about the rich Indian culture that has been swept away by a new, more prominent people. She writes, "ye say, they all have passed away, that noble race and brave...". Even though the Indians have long since been prominent in American culture, Sigourney writes about the everlasting impact their culture will have on America. She writes, "But their memory liveth on your hills, their baptism on your shore, your everlasting rivers speak their dialect yore...Your mountains build their monument, though ye destroy their dust". So, even though the Indian culture has been erased from most of this country, their influence will last forever.