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For Prof. Harvey's UCCS Class

I've never had a blog before. Prof. Harvey at UCCS suggested we put our journal entries for his class, "Jesus in Red, Black, and White" on a blog. In what way is language a problem in films about the Indians? How well does this one handle the problem? There are number of problems with language in Black Robe. First, the original people involved spoke Native American languages, French and Latin. The film is in English. Anytime there is translation involved, meanings get lost and misconstrued. In the book The Jesuit Relations: Natives and Missionaries in Seventeenth-Century North America, editor Allan Greer informed us that “demon” was not necessarily an evil spirit, yet the film depicted the Indians’ perception of the Jesuit “demon” as an evil or harmful spirit. Perhaps the director of the film didn’t read the Introduction, remember the Introduction, or chose to ignore the multiple meanings of “demon.” I think for entertainment value, the handling of “demon,” and the Indians laughing at the Jesuit’s difficulty with their language is good. As somber and sometimes depressing this film was, a little bit of humor was needed to break up the bleak outlook of the film.

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Jesus in Red, Black, and White

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Contributed by: Theresa Null on 1/17/2007

Just starting a blog to track journal entries for UCCS Prof. Harvey's class "Jesus in Red, Black, and White."

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Showing 1-10 of 82 comments

Submitted By: Theresa Null

posted on 5/11/2007 @ 1:48:48 AM

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Bibliography Apess, William. On Our Own Ground, Amherst, Massachusetts: The University Of Massachusetts Press, 1992. Deloria, Vine, Jr. God is Red, Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum, 2003. Greer, Alan, editor. The Jesuit Relations, New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000.

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Submitted By: Theresa Null

posted on 5/11/2007 @ 1:47:35 AM

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People who were less powerful, such as William Apess, worked under different assumptions than people who were in power. First, Apess acknowledged the powerful’s power, racism, and hypocritical use of the Christian religion. Apess, who had originally bought into a racist ideology, rejected racism when he became a Christian. Second, Apess used the language of the Christian religion and the language of the United States Constitution to help the Mashpee tribe regain their land use rights. Deloria may have been a great Indian theologian, but Apess affected change by acknowledging the racist culture he lived in without buying into it.

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Submitted By: Theresa Null

posted on 5/11/2007 @ 1:47:19 AM

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William Apess used his understanding of the white Christian language and ethnic and racial groupings to work with Mashpee Indians and whites to influence powerful people to reinstate Indian land rights. Unlike Apess, Vine Deloria rejected the Christian religion and language. Instead, Deloria bought into the ethnic and racial groupings to the extreme, almost flipping the white assumption of privilege to say that whites were less culturally developed than Native Americans. Deloria’s assumption of Native American superiority did not line up with the fact that the dominant power in the United States of America was a European derived culture.

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Submitted By: Theresa Null

posted on 5/11/2007 @ 1:46:17 AM

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The subjugation of the Mashpee and the indifference of their minister overseer Phineas Fish resulted in revolt where the Mashpee, along with William Apess, demanded their rights to their land. In the compendium, Indian Nullification, Apess and the Mashpee explained that the Indians had negotiated rights to their lands to the whites; therefore the Indians had more right to determine the use of the land than the whites. Indian Nullification included multiple letters by whites like Phineas Fish who fully understood that the Mashpee were reclaiming political and land use rights. In one telling letter Fish emphasized the Mashpee would be allowed to worship on parsonage property as a “special favor, and not conceded as your right.” (Apess, 256) Apess and the Mashpee worked together with sympathetic whites to petition the Massachusetts governor and public for the right to self-governance. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts eventually granted the Mashpee the right to self-governance.

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Submitted By: Theresa Null

posted on 5/11/2007 @ 1:45:50 AM

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When Apess suggested that Mr. Fish learn about the Mashpee’s concerns, Mr. Fish told him that he did not inquire “about their worldly concerns.” (Apess, 172) In the book, God is Red, Vine Deloria explained that the Christian religion was not concerned with the material world, but more concerned about the spirit life after the physical body’s death. Conversely, Native Americans were more concerned about the physical world and spirits during their lifetimes. (Deloria, 152) Mr. Fish’s subjugation of the Mashpee was only one conflict between whites and Mashpee. The other basic conflict was one of perceiving the physical and spiritual world.

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Submitted By: Theresa Null

posted on 5/11/2007 @ 1:45:33 AM

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Mr. Fish was not the first man of God who saw Indians as less than himself. A hundred and sixty five years earlier, Father Jean Pierron, a Jesuit priest, informed the Mohawks of his soul’s supposed superiority, “How could my soul be yours, when I am convinced that mine is a pure spirit, immortal, and like to the master of your lives, while you believe that yours is either a bear, a wolf, a serpent, a fish, a bird, or some other kind of animal that you have seen in a dream? Moreover, your soul and mine have very opposite sentiments.” (Greer, 144) Mr. Fish, like Father Jean Pierron, viewed the Indian as less than them.

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Submitted By: Theresa Null

posted on 5/11/2007 @ 1:45:11 AM

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Apess’ ministered amongst the Mashpee tribe in Massachusetts where the whites had taken Indian land for their own use and appointed an overseer, the minister Phineas Fish. Phineas Fish assumed that he had full control of the parsonage and its four hundred acres and that the congregation of Mashpee Indians who had donated the land had no say in the use of the land. Mr. Fish had segregated the Indians from the white population in church services. Fish allowed white Christians to sit in the “privileged” pews in the Indian church. The Mashpee felt unwelcome and chose to listen to the preaching of a man named Blind Joe. Mr. Fish derided Blind Joe as not having been qualified to preach. Mr. Fish confided to Apess that he thought the Mashpee were lazy, complaining and felt oppressed.

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Submitted By: Theresa Null

posted on 5/11/2007 @ 1:44:54 AM

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Like Apess, Father Paul Le Jeune links Indians with peoples from the great Mediterranean region, “I was once inclined to believe that pictures of the Roman emperors represented the ideal of the painters rather than men who had ever existed, so strong and powerful are their heads; but I see here upon the shoulders of these people the heads of Julius Caesar, of Pompey, of Augustus, of Otto.” (Greer, 32) Le Jeune wrote well of the Indian character, governing methods and Indian souls, “I believe that souls are all made from the same stock and that they do not differ substantially.” (Greer, 33) Perhaps Father Le Jeune could see Indians as humans like himself was due to Le Jeune’s newness to the Americas and the lack of a developed racist culture.

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Submitted By: Theresa Null

posted on 5/11/2007 @ 1:44:25 AM

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In Apess’ ministry to both Indian and white people, Apess decried the subjugation of Indians and preached heavily against the use of alcohol. In Apess’ sermon, Increase of the Kingdom of Christ, Apess warned of retribution for the abuse of the Indians by equating Indians with the lost tribes of Israel: “If...the Indians of the American continent are a part of the long lost ten tribes of Israel, have not the great American nation reason to fear the swift judgments of heaven on them for nameless cruelties, extortions, and exterminations inflicted upon the poor natives of the forest?” (Apess, 106) Apess’ audience did not have to believe that the Indians were part of the lost tribes of Israel to get the message that Americans will have to answer to God for their abuse of Indians.

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Submitted By: Theresa Null

posted on 5/11/2007 @ 1:44:09 AM

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Apess tell of his salvation experience “my heart melted into tenderness – my soul was filled with love – love to God, and love to all mankind...My love now embraced the whole human family.” (Apess, 21) Apess loved all humans, including the two parts of his mixed blood, Indian and white. As a Christian, Apess’ self-image became more positive although he did continue to struggle with alcohol and society’s perception of him as an Indian.

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