Terminal Narratives

it is because we say it is

Photo by Sean Foster on Unsplash

Why would it be useful to create and preserve "terminal narratives" about Indigenous people?

It is useful to create and preserve "terminal narratives" in order to reinforce the origin myth of the United States. By conflating our history to battlefields, generals, and memorials, the reality of a concerted genocide eradicating tens of millions of native inhabitants, in the name of greed. Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson were both land prospectors who directly profited by clearing the land of it's native inhabitants. In a quick Google check, I found The University College London, or UCL, estimates that 56 million natives were genocided between North, Central, and South America. This horrific figure is conveniently swept under the rug because it destroys the origin myth, that the founding fathers were just good guys trying to escape persecution.

 In order to maintain the myth that the United States is on the side of diplomacy and democracy, history must be distorted and whitewashed. We must be provided with a terminal narrative that prevents further inquisition. United States good, why? Cause we say so. The myth holds up against all odds due to a steady barrage of propaganda by our corporate-owned media. You could say we get our news from the company store, given that all media outlets are owned by just six corporations.

If we taught the truth about the imperialistic greed, conquest, and genocide we committed against the indigenous peoples then the myth of "America" would fall flat on its face. It is much more beneficial to perpetuate the false narrative that these under-skilled and underdeveloped peoples just could not compete with European weapons and that most of the people were just wiped out by disease. This narrative completely whitewashes a ruthlessly planned governmental genocide and land grab.

The reality of a well-organized campaign of genocide clashes sharply with the idealized vision of what the United States claims to be. The practice of scalping by European bounty hunters further reveals the hypocrisy embedded in the American myth. Acknowledging that the Ulster Scots perfected their brutal tactics of genocidal warfare against the Irish before employing them against the indigenous peoples in the Americas would necessitate a major revision of many history books.

It is much easier to accuse your opponent of doing the very thing you are doing in order to shift the blame to your opponent for the outcomes of your actions. As propaganda spread popular myths of natives scalping European settlers, in actuality, the US government was paying settlers a bounty for native scalps or ears.

For these reasons it is in the interest of indoctrination into the great origin myth of America that we maintain the "terminal narrative". Another way to describe this is American exceptionalism, we are the greatest nation, so why? cause we say so. Just don't look into the past or dig too deep into corruption cases. 

In reality, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, we now possess government documents that reveal numerous crimes committed by the government against its own people. With documented evidence of atrocities like the Tuskegee experiments and Operation MK Ultra, one can only imagine the covert projects the U.S. government might have implemented to eradicate Native Americans.