A PEOPLE WHO WOULD NOT KNEEL: Panama, the United States, and the San Blas Kuna (Smithsonian Series in Ethnographic Inquiry) [Paperback]

James Howe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 1998

As they expanded, most nations in the Western Hemisphere relegated indigenous peoples to the lowest social levels, stealing their land, diminishing their populations, exploiting their labor, and flattening their cultures. Few have gone quietly, but one group, the San Blas Kuna of Panama, set their own terms. Anthropologist James Howe tells their story. 39 photos.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the years following its conquest by the Spanish, the Central American region called Panama saw a series of invasions as England, France, Holland, and other European powers sought to control it. The indigenous Kuna Indians, who had already suffered terribly under the Spanish, found themselves caught in the middle of these contending European ambitions, and they suffered still further. Their difficulties did not lessen when the United States engineered Panama's secession from Colombia in 1903. The central government waged a slow war of attrition on the Kuna and other indigenous peoples as it attempted to develop the country's Atlantic coast, while the Kuna led a powerful resistance movement.

Enter the ne'er-do-well American explorer Richard Marsh, who had heard tales of a lost tribe of "white Indians" who lived somewhere in Kuna territory, and who was determined to locate its members and secure his fame. A sometime diplomat who had earlier pressed for the United States to annex Panama, Marsh found his grail in the form of a few albino Kunas. He also helped organize a Kuna uprising, appealing for American "protection from the imposition and brutality of the Panama Gov't," as he put it in a telegram to the State Department. The American government did not extend that protection, but the rebellion bore fruit nonetheless in securing the Kuna a measure of autonomy in their homeland. James Howe, an anthropologist who has worked among the Kuna for many years, recounts this strange story: a historical sideshow, to be sure, but a fascinating one all the same. --Gregory McNamee

Product Details

• Paperback: 390 pages
• Publisher: Smithsonian (October 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560988657
• ISBN-13: 978-1560988656
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #244,425 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #17 in Books > History > Americas > Central America > Panama

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