Playing Indian | Episode 2
6/29/202644 min
Did you know that when colonists threw tea into the Boston Harbor they dressed up like Native Americans? Rebecca goes to Boston with historian Phil Deloria (Dakota descent) to try and understand Americans’ obsession with playing Indian. In the early republic, pretending to be Indian symbolized freedom and helped the colonists form a new, national identity. From boyscouts, to new agers, to sports fans, the American tradition of white people dressing up like Natives never went away.
Resources:
- Phil Deloria's book Playing Indian is a fantastic resource on this subject
- Not In Our Honor is working to change the name of Kansas City's football team
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsJacob Goldstein0:00
Hey, it's Jacob Goldstein from Business History. In our new series, American Genius, we tell the stories of three great writers who changed the way business works in America. Our first episode is about Benjamin Franklin, who, among many other things, was a best-selling business writer. Take a listen. He's writing this much later in his life, consciously creating this image of himself. And I do wanna emphasize how unusual this model is at the time, this self-made man myth, because you don't wanna be self-made. It's low class to be self-made. You know, this idea that we have today is the opposite, right? And it comes from Franklin. Today, there is the derisive term nepo baby.
Speaker 20:45
Well, exactly right. And these days, if you are a billionaire, you had better have a Benjamin Franklin story about starting in a garage, coming up with the idea from nothing.
Jacob Goldstein0:56
And here is Benjamin Franklin inventing it right before our eyes. This has been brought to you by Odoo. To listen to more of our American Genius series, listen to Business History. New episodes release every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 31:13
We spend hours deciding what to buy, but there's a split-second decision that can make or break a sale. Do you have the trust to hit buy now? Agentic commerce is testing that moment more than ever, and that's where PayPal comes in. With twenty-five years of checkouts,