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The Use of Racial and Ethnic Terms in America: Management by Manipulation

1995; University of Minnesota Press; Volume: 11; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1409097

1533-7901

Jack D. Forbes,

Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies

The continent of America, also known as Middle Continent or Western Hemisphere is subdivided into North America, Central America and South Indigenous peoples have a bit of a problem, however, in that: (1) United States and its dominant Europeanorigin citizens have attempted to pre-empt terms America and American; and (2) there has been a strong tendency, especially since 1780s, to deny to Indigenous right to use name of their own land. As a matter of fact, there is a strong tendency to also deny Native People use of name of any land within America, such as being Brazilian, Mexican, Canadian, and so on, unless term is also attached, as in Brazilian Indian (as Indian is used instead of American). Some people believe that America as a name stems from mountain range known as Amerique located in Nicaragua. Others believe that it stems from a word common to several languages of Caribbean and South America, namely Maraca (pronounced maraca, maraca, and mbaraca). This word, meaning rattle or gourd, is found as a place name in Venezuela (Maracapana, Maracay, Maracaibo), Trinidad (Maracas), Puerto Rico (Maracayu, etc.), Brazil (Maraca, Itamaraca) and elsewhere. Many very early maps of Caribbean region show an island located to northwest of Venezuela (where Nicaragua is actually located) called tamaraque which has been interpreted as t. amaraque standing for tierra or terra (land) of Amaraque. All of this is before America first appeared as a name on mainland roughly in area of Venezuela. Most of us have probably been taught that America as a name is derived from that of Amerigo Vespucci, a notorious liar and enslaver of Native people. Strangely enough, Vespucci's first name is more often recorded as Alberico rather than Amerigo. It may well be that name America is not derived from his name, but we know for sure that it was first applied to South America or Central America and not to area of United States. From early 1500s until mid-1700s, only people called were First Nations People. Similarly people called Mexicans, Canadians, Brazilians, Peruvians, etc., were all our own Native People. In 1578, for example, George Best of Britain wrote about those and Indians by which he referred to our Native ancestors as and people of India and Indonesia as Indians. In 1650 a Dutch work referred to Algonkians of Manhattan area as the or Natives. In 1771 a Dutch dictionary noted that the are red in their skins and so on. As late as 1845 another Dutch dictionary defined mestizos (metis) as being children of a European and an American parent. English usage is very little different. John WVesley, in 1747, referred to First Nations People of Georgia as the Americans. The Quaker traveler, William Bartram, after a lengthy tour among Creeks, Cherokees, and Choctaws in 1770s, refers to them as the Americans. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary (1827 edition) has: [from America]. An aboriginal native of America; an inhabitant of America. The dictionary then quotes Milton (Such of late/Columbus found American/so girt/with feather'd cincture....), and Addison from Spectator (The believe that all creatures have souls, not only men and women, but brutes, vegetables, ... stones). In 1875 Charles Maclaren in a British encyclopedia wrote of the race, the color of Americans, the natives and the Americans by which he meant the of indigenous races. More recent-