The Coda at the end of 1491 is a brilliant cap on a work that presents ideas perhaps unpalatable to many. The dominance of Europe both technologically and culturally is greatly challenged by the revelations in 1491. The histories that we have all been told are to a great degree incorrect. And the pristine wilderness we once had is revealed to be largely a human invention. But at the end, Mann presents a beautiful theory, that the distinctively American liberties we cherish and seek to spread around the globe are largely a Native American invention.
I don’t want to elaborate too much on this idea because it is more eloquently developed by Mann than I could manage here. But here’s the basic idea, it was The Great Law of Peace, a codified document of the rights and liberties of the members of the Haudenosaunee that inspired the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. The Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iriquois, were a nation Indians peoples that traced their government back to the middle of the 12th century. Within the Haudenosaunee nation, individuals are sexes were treated equally in a way we may not even today replicate. The government was loose, and individuals frequently moved from sect to sect within a tribe if any given leader proved too onerous. The free Native was a powerful ideal for a people seeking to escape the stifling politics of the Old World. As an anecdote: Why did the participants in the Boston Tea Party dress as Mohawk Indians? It wasn’t to obscure their identities as our middle-school histories tell us, but rather it was to state that the American Colonists were free people.
Again, Mann presents his theory far better than I could, but if you would like to read it, please read the entire book. 1491 is important because it dispels myths, updates history, and provides all of us a window into our cultural and ecological heritage that we did not previously have. Not too many books have completely altered my perspective of the world, and even fewer so dramatically as this one. Even if some of the things that Mann presents are eventually found to be incorrect, the questions he raises and the issues he presents are so deep and important that the book should still be read. Only be understanding our history correctly can we intelligently discuss the future; we have to know who we were in order to understand what we seek to become.
