Thomas King: Not Just a Reaction to Colonialism

In “Coyote and the Enemy Aliens” by Thomas King, the main character, the Coyote, has the “most important job in the world” (King 55) as he states it is more important than being “truthful” (King 55), “reliable” (King 55), “fair” (King 56), and “generous” (King 56). The Coyote’s job is a direct parallel to the job of an Indian Agent when it was introduced in 1867. The Coyote’s job is to confiscate and sell any contraband items that the Enemy Aliens have in their possession or any items that the Coyote believes is unnecessary for the Enemy Aliens to have. Similarly, the job of an Indian Agent had the same duties. An Indian Agent had the right and role to regulate everything that happened on a reserve, including confiscating property and relocating problematic Indigenous people away from their home and family. With the Coyote’s ability to confiscate Enemy Alien property, especially the family heirlooms, this can cause depletion of Enemy Alien traditions and heritage can become lost. The loss of tradition was the goal of the Canadian Government when the Indian Act was introduced, “assimilation and civilisation of First Nations people” (Gov website). Eminently, King’s installation of the Coyote’s job appropriates the position that the Indian Agents portrayed in the history of Canada. It exhibits how much unquestionable authority and dominance the government had over the Indigenous society and how much the introduction of the Indian Act had on how the Indigenous people were scrutinized by society.

A common phrase is “History is written by the victors”. Perhaps that is the reason why King George III of England is remembered as being the mad king who lost the American colonies. However, there is more to the king than what the rebel colonists made him out to be. King George’s reign of nearly 60 years was full of hardships and setbacks, yet he was a hard worker who was kind and looked out for the welfare of his empire.

Thomas handled the Boss in Morocco perfectly. That was because the person in charge was directly violating rules and laws that could be upheld in writing. Haig coming in drunk alone could have been grounds for termination in most companies, but that isn’t even a question of morality, but usually just company policy for some people function highly when drunk. In my opinion, the real reason he should have been reported by Thomas was because of the treatment of the Moroccans. That under no circumstances was appropriate. Between the alcohol, abuse to the locals, and also the many IOUs that were written in the books. This man should have been fired a long time ago and Thomas bringing these issues to the head office was the perfect reaction. However, he got lucky. Thomas could have dug himself into a grave had the headquarters known about Haig’s habits and they might have considered him a liability for reporting him. Corruption is real in corporations and you never know who is in on it.

How did Pain use concepts of equality, reason, and nature to criticize the legitimacy of the monarchial government and British control of the colonies?

For the longest time, Americans have celebrated Columbus day, commemorating the admiral’s supposed discovery of America. But, in “The Inconvenient Indian”, Thomas King shatters this idea and develops a new thought in the mind of the reader about natives. By using excellent rhetoric and syntax, King is able to use logos, ethos and pathos in his chapter “Forget Columbus”, where he develops the argument that the stories told in history aren’t always a true representation of how it actually happened.

Columbus has always been portrayed as an enlightened, peaceful explorer who “discovered” a new world, and became friends with the native people. Howard Zinn’s view on Columbus’s encounter with the natives is an entirely different perspective. Zinn describes Columbus as a man who is willing to torture and kill others to be able to accomplish what he wants; in this case he wanted to obtain gold and other resources to take back with him to Spain.

The long history between Native American and Europeans are a strained and bloody one. For the time of Columbus’s subsequent visits to the new world, native culture has

When the first colonists landed in the territories of the new world, they encountered a people and a culture that no European before them had ever seen. As the first of the settlers attempted to survive in a truly foreign part of the world, their written accounts would soon become popular with those curious of this “new” world, and those who already lived and survived in this seemingly inhospitable environment, Native American Indian. Through these personal accounts, the Native Indian soon became cemented in the American narrative, playing an important role in much of the literature of the era. As one would expect though, the representation of the Native Americans and their relationship with European Americans varies in the written works of the people of the time, with the defining difference in these works being the motives behind the writing. These differences and similarities can be seen in two similar works from two rather different authors, John Smith, and Mary Rowlandson.

"The native person in King's work often acts as a detached observer, pointing with amazement and disbelief to the self-interested behavior within North American culture." (Mc Neily 10)

In a world where seven billion people can communicate in fractions of a second across the globe, share thoughts and exchange cultures, the way we choose to identity ourselves can often ‘’mark’’ us. You can often tell a lot about someone who proclaims to be Quebecois before being Canadian. And theses thing are often present in areas that have a clash of cultures, such as Québec in the former example. But the author Thomas King dives deeper into the subject with his short story Borders. King’s characters do not attach themselves to the place they were born, instead they take pride in their parents’ legacy, their heritage. By writing through the eyes of a twelve year old boy and using opposition, King displays the importance of such things and how minorities are slowly losing them.

Deborah Miranda’s Bad Indians utilizes a unique blend of writing styles to piece together a clearer and more distinct view on the Mission system, Gold Rush, and settlement of California. Through this revolutionary collection of writing, we receive a detailed account of the treatment that California Indians had to endure during the Missionization era and are able to draw our own conclusions in regard to whether the missions were a positive or negative aspect of California history. Although Miranda’s ancestors suffered and survived horrible conditions, she, in my opinion, does not villainize the Mission system, but rather displays the facts as they are, therein allowing us to reach our own conclusions in relations to this history. Because there

Colonialism has a historical context that has long obscured and distorted the experiences of indigenous people, particularly those who endured the brutalities of the California Missions. Although indigenous people are portrayed in history as docile people, who openly embraced invasion, Deborah Miranda dismantles this depiction in her memoir, Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir, through two stories called “Dear Vicenta” and “Novena to Bad Indians”. Throughout the stories run various narratives of survival and resistance, which form new understandings of colonization and missionization. Miranda practices decolonization through oral history in order to form new and ongoing indigenous identities. Evidently, through decolonial practice and deconstructing dominant narratives about “colonized” peoples and replacing them with stories that use traditional memory and practice, Miranda disrupts the commonly accepted narrative of indigenous peoples by reconstructing the dichotomy between good and bad Indians through acts of resistance and survival.

As a new and mysterious world awaits to be discovered, daring conquistadors leave their home country of Spain in a journey of exploration. Two men by the name of Narvaez and Cabeza de Vaca set sail to thwart the untrustworthy Cortez who, behind the backs of Narvaez and Cabeza de Vaca, sailed to the New World with half of Narvaez’s crew in search of treasures. However, the journey would prove to be treacherous as the conquistadors would have to encounter hostile Native Americans and strange terrain they have never seen before. Throughout the expedition, future encounters between the Native Americans and conquistadors were heavily influenced by the personalities of the individuals and past experiences the Native Americans faced.

The Black Legend and White Legend: Relationship Between the Spanish and Indians in the New World

Changes in British policies toward the colonies between 1750 and 1776 played paramount in the evolution of relations between British North America and Mother England. Tension between England and the colonies mounted from the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War to the signing of the Declaration of Independence as a result of the several implemented changes imposed by Parliament for the purpose of increasing income and tightening the grip on America.