An Indian's Looking Glass For The White Man Analysis

William Apess, a Native American writer in the 1800s, wrote an essay called An Indian’s Looking Glass for the White Man. In this section, Apess speaks about how the Native Americans felt robbed of their life and were ruined as a race because of the colonist who came in and destroyed them. The whole section generally, is making the white men think about what it would be like to be a Native American at that time. He wanted the rights and justice for his race of people. Apess shows how what the white men did to the Indians was immoral and degrading of a race. This is seen throughout the passage with the many questions he poses that will make people think morally and logically about the situation of the colonist and Indians and he uses Christianity
He proposes questions that are made to make people think about what is happened and if it is right or not. One of the best questions he mentions is, “I would ask you if you would like to be disfranchised from all your rights, merely because your skin is white, and no other crime?” (CR, 28). He is forcing the white people who are reading this to put themselves in the shoes of the Natives. Lawfully it is not right of what the happened to the Native Americans. They were stripped from their property because they were not of the European descendants. “With the proverbial shoe now firmly on the other foot, Apess proceeds to place Euro-Americans into the role American Indians had been forced to occupy.” (Danver, 2016). This is from an analysis of An Indians Looking Glass of the White Man and again here Danver is saying that Apess is making the white men think about the actions they pushed upon the Native Americans. This is intentionally setup this way to make the white men realize what they were doing was completely immoral and illegal is their system of law, but that did not make a difference. The colonist believed and were never told otherwise that they are the best race there is and all others are subject to them. This is not his biggest which involves the use of Christianity and
The colonist where there also to convert people to Christianity, but their methods of doing so made the natives think that Christianity was a bad thing and that they should be afraid to join this religion. The quote that brings the most power showing this is, “Did you ever hear or read of Christ teaching his disciples that they ought to despise one because his skin was different from theirs?” (CR, 29). This quote brings light to the fact that they were not teaching natives the true Christianity, but an altered form that was favorable to the white men. There is also another part where he says that God would be disgracing himself by making fifteen different other races to live alongside his powerful white image. He notes this at the beginning of the essay by proposing the idea that Indian and white people are both children of god (Danver, 2016). Any another line of questions that connect the impracticality of the white men with Christianity, “But I would ask, how are you to love your neighbors as yourself?... Now to cheat them out of their rights is robbery. And I Ask, can you deny that you are robbing the Indians daily, and many others?” (CR, 31). He is showing how the colonist did not treat the natives with love or any care whatsoever, but instead with power and deterrence.