Oh, Sarah...

So this reading, "Poor Sarah", has been by far the only reading that has actually bothered me. I am still not too sure as to whether Boudinot or someone else wrote this story, but to me, it was very negative toward Native American's traditional beliefs. The entire story made Native Americans looks like neglective, stealing, abusive people (Sarah's family and lack of community), and it also made it very clear that only by being Christian can anyone truly "be saved". Although there was never any reference to Sarah's past beliefs, its obvious that to her these ideas were not good enough. I just think its very sad that this is the first real Native American text work and it also happens to be one of the most degrading ones. I cannot think what is the purpose to this story, but so far the only one i see is the negative one just described. If this was written by Boudinot, its strange how this is not like his other texts. The other readings in this class by him were somewhat degrading to Natives but it was more of a way for Whites to accept them as people. In this story, I dint feel it is even about that; it is more about telling Native people that they have bad hearts and the only way to reach salvation is by converting. Sad stuff...