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Reading and Film Presentations and Discussion

The Exterior Form of North America

Tocqueville starts by vividly describing the landscape of the Americas. He uses metaphorical and descriptive language to paint a picture of the landscape that is contained within the two continents. Tocquville characterizes each portion of America based on its physical appearance and aspects of its environment. The northern half of America he describes as gloomy and quite different from the flowery colourful scenery, one will experience in the southern parts of America. As he continues to describe portions of the continent he starts to become focused on the Mississippi river and talk on how it appears that life spreads out from the consistent flow of water that runs through this river. Tocqueville even makes an insightful judgement when he describes how the future of America appears to be moving westward toward the less abrasive land.

After describing the landscape which Tocqueville considers created perfectly fit for man he goes on to talk about the indigenous peoples of North America. Tocqueville describes them as unique and like no one has witnessed before. He continues to point out aspects of their lives which he believes have a relation to the environment in which they inhabit. When speaking about the Indigenus people he says “They have multiplied freely in the midsts of their deserts…”. I believe that Tocqueville connects the freedom that the American landscape provides to how he believes the Indigenous people act. He continues to say that the Indigenous people are not aware of the modern “civilized” aspects of society and that they were not truly possessing the American land. Tocqueville ends his piece by saying that the Indigenous people were not truly owners of the land they lived on and instead were simply holding the place until people who would properly make use of the land came along. Was Tocqueville justifying the extraction of Indigenous American groups from the land they were inhabiting? Did Tocqueville simply believe that the Indigenous people did not grasp the opportunities available to them? And how do Tocqueville’s ideas on the Indigenus people of North America represent the treatment that they experienced during the country’s founding?

One reply on “The Exterior Form of North America”

I feel as though this post was well done, especially in reference to the second paragraph. The initial body paragraph seemed to be more descriptive of Tocqueville’s writing while the second body paragraph was more analytical. I wrote a post about this same reading and had many of the same interpretations that are present here. I believe that Tocqueville holds a prejudice against Native Americans and it is clearly shown through his writing. I found your questions at the end to be relatively interesting; the one that stood out to me most was “Did Tocqueville simply believe that the Indigenous people did not grasp the opportunities available to them?” My answer to this would be no because the Indigenous people were apart of America’s development. Tocqueville holds strong prejudices against these folks due to his desires to control land.

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