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Thomas King The Indian Ethos Pathos Logos

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For the longest time, Americans have celebrated Columbus day, commemorating the admiral’s supposed discovery of America. But, in “The Inconvenient Indian”, Thomas King shatters this idea and develops a new thought in the mind of the reader about natives. By using excellent rhetoric and syntax, King is able to use logos, ethos and pathos in his chapter “Forget Columbus”, where he develops the argument that the stories told in history aren’t always a true representation of how it actually happened. Thomas King’s chapter “Forget Columbus” surrounds the idea that the preconceived notions that Americans have about their own history, and the Native Americans who have resided here for centuries, are wrong. Columbus never discovered America. The …show more content…

In many spots, there are no sources for his claims. But, the purpose of logos is to persuade. His claims are made in order to do so, and they work quite well. “Sure, during the 1813 Fort Mims massacre, in what is now Alabama, Creek Red Sticks killed about four hundred Whites, but that’s the largest massacre that I can find. The Lachine massacre on Montreal Island in Quebec killed around ninety, while the death toll in nearby La Chesnaye was forty-two”. This rapid showing of massacres (the list goes on) provides the perfect evidence for his argument. He wanted to display how history wasn’t always as it is told to be. By showing his audience that the Natives committed massacres just like whites did, King almost lightens the load on the negativity whites from that time period receive. Natives were savages, remember? Not quite. The author goes on, explaining how the whites also did quite a bit of massacring, actually more than the natives. “In 1598… Juan De Onate and his troops killed over eight hundred Acoma… In 1637, John Underhill led a force that killed six to seven hundred Pequot…”. See? Whites were simply brutal in this time period. They had no remorse. King then goes on to explain the Almo

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