What Affects Have

Abstract

WHAT AFFECTS HAVE “DISCOVERY” “WESTWARD EXPANSION” AND “MANIFEST DESTINY” HAD ON THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF NORTH AMERICA AND MUSEUM CULTURES TODAY? Abstract Museums have always shaped the observations and perspectives of the people who visit them and the communities that rely on them to enlighten and educate. Not only do they act as a point of reference for academia and scholarly studies, they are also institutions of education for the general public. Whether the focus of museums are the sciences or the arts, natural or social history, they educate the people who visit them. A museum’s responsibility is to promote knowledge without bias and to represent its collections without personal preference or prejudice. Society depends on the academic and scholarly communities to take the lead in opening our minds to the realities, and separate our fantasies and misconceptions from romanticized versions of popular truth and myth. Science, archeology, anthropology, and written records can tell us volumes about the world’s races and cultures from the past. It is always an eye-opening experience when a new piece of evidence is validated and gives the world a clearer view of a past culture and civilization, or even when misconceptions are realized and corrected, giving us an accurate representation of that civilization’s culture and existence. Today many museums struggle with and or ignore representing America’s Indigenous peoples in “Discovery,” “Westward Expansion” and “Manifest Destiny” in telling of our country’s history. By omission, this lack of storytelling tends to leave a romanticized, stereotypical view of the colonization and settlement of North America by Europeans. If these misconceptions are to be corrected and attitudes about Indigenous peoples and their relationship with American-European settlers and the country’s government are to be understood, museums must stand in the gap and act as the bridge from illusion to truth.