I would like to use the opportunity to have us think about the history of our great country and some of the not so great things our ancestors were involved in. When our ancestors settled here in America they just claimed the land and ignored the existing residents. Are we any better than those we now try to change?
For example, it was not unusual for people in our territories to attack the native American Indians to stir up trouble so the federal government would send assistance. This assistance was always accompanied by the benefit of soldier payrolls which were spent locally and helped the economy. There were even reports of attacks on settlers made to look like Indian raids so that the soldiers would come and protect the populace. Relate this to our criticism of Iraqi citizens.
In 1513 Ponce de Leon landed in North Florida, left a marker and named the land Le Florida relating to the many plants and wild flowers. He claimed for Spain all of the land which went North and West so this area became the headquarters of the future America. In 1565 the Spanish founded the city of St. Augustine and it has continued as the oldest European settlement in the new America. The Spanish were not harsh on the native Americans, the Timucuan Tribes but the diseases that the Europeans brought killed all of them.
Frank Waters was a historian of early Native American history and in the “Book of the Hopi” he describes some of the events of the settling of the country and the massacres of the American Indians. In 1620 the English founded the Plymouth plantation and in section 4 of this book Waters relates the writings of Cotton Mather about the Pequot massacre shortly after the arrival. The woods were cleared to make room for a better growth. (Could not confirm the ref.) It is even claimed Benjamin Franklin wrote about expurgating the savages to make room for the cultivators.
In 1641 New Netherlands began offering bounties for Indian scalps. This was adopted in 1704 by Connecticut, then Massachusetts, Pennsylvania in 1764 offered bounties for Indian bucks, squaws and boys under 10 years of age. In 1814 a fifty dollar reward was offered for scalps by the territory of Indiana. In Colorado the bounty was offered and by 1876 Deadwood, Dakota Territory offered 200 dollars. Then Oregon posted a bounty and women were clubbed to death and babies smashed against trees to save the expense of lead and powder.
You will find additional information on the internet about bounties and I am sorry to have to relate such a gruesome history.
Our ancestors were also involved in slave trading. Africans sold slaves and these poor folks were shipped to various countries including the United States. Native Americans were also enslaved and sold here or shipped to other countries. There was also trade in white slaves captured during wars in Europe.
I can proudly state my Great Grandfather, John Rusby joined the grass roots movement that formed the Republican Party and elected Lincoln to stop slavery. The first slaves were freed using the president’s wartime powers to sign the emancipation proclamation. (If you overturn some of the Bush wartime actions will you affect the freedom of those earlier actions of Lincoln?)
I have a message for all of us. We grew out of these horrible practices and recognized the wrongs and we have learned to treat others with love and compassion.
But as we preach to others, remember that we cannot hold our heads so high that we have the right to condem the rest of the world without being humble. We avoid talking or teaching about the atrocities in our past. You can be positive our enemies have studied our past and might have the right to give some condemnation. That does not excuse them or excuse us from trying to save others.
We know what is right and we know our religious roots have helped to show us the way.
We must help others and we could start by reviewing our treatment of the native American Indians and ask ourselves if we are doing the right things for them today. Are we imposing our standards or imposing our traditions without respecting their traditions?
What do you think?
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3 comments:
Prior to European contact, Native American tribes migrated constantly as they deplenished natural resources. As they migrated, the waged incessant genocidal warfare against. The purpose of this warfare was to exterminate or drive rival tribes for their lands. As a percentage of population, casualites were higher than during the European wars of the 20th century. For example, as the Lakota Sioux migrated from the Great Lakes area to the Black Hills, they massacred tribes that lay in their path. At Mandan village near the Missouri, they murdered and mutilated 400 men, women and children.
To offset their combat lossess, Native Americans tribes practiced polgyamy and raised children captured from other tribes as their own. Today, the Native American population is much larger than it was prior to European contact, in part because the Europeans stopped inter-tribal warfare.
From 1511, when colonists first arrived in what is now the United States, to the closing of the frontier in 1890, about 16,349 people died from atrocities committed by Native Americans against European Americans or by European Americans against Native Americans. About 9,156 people died from atrocities perpetrated by Native Americans while 7,193 people died from atrocities perpetrated by whites. This works out to just over 29 whites a year and just over 22 Native Americans. These figures are hardly genocidal. (By comparison, about 200,000 died in four years of fighting during the American Civil War.)
Virtually all Native American tribes, not just the Aztecs, practice slavery prior to and after the arrival of the Europeans. One of the primary purposes of tribal warfare was to capture slaves. The tribes traded Indian, white and black slaves among themselves and to the Spanish and French in exhange for European goods. The United States ended slavery after the Civil War by purchasing slaves from tribes in Oklahoma. The Cherokee were the last to give up their slaves. The Cherokee Nation recently voted to deny tribal membership to the descendants of Cherokee slaves,
[The first contact and first incident of genocide between Native Americans and Europeans, by the way, occurred outside the Americas. Around 1100 when Native Americans crossed from North America to Greenland and attacked 200-year old Scandanavian villages. It took almost 200 years, but the Native Americans finally wiped out the last Scandanavian village on the nearly continent-size island.)
Since the data does not support allegations of genocidal warfare, activist allege that European waged bilogical warfare against Native Aemricans, primarily by intentionally spreading smallpox. No mainstream historical supports this allegation.
Smallpox was a global contagion that originated in African and killed untold millions around the world. In the Americas, it devastated white settlements as well as Native American settlements. The most serious smallpox pandemic originated in the Valley of Mexico and traverfl north to Pueblo villages along the Rio Grande in New Mexico. When Plains Indians visited Taos, Pecos and Santa Fe to trade with the Pueblos, they took the virus home with them. From the Plains, the virus spread west over the Rockies and East over the Appalacians.
All the “smallpox blanket” myths but one has been debunked. Still at issue is whether British soldiers intentionally gave two small-poxed infected blankets to a tribe. In antoher incident, the Irriquois are accused of giving smallpox-inflect blankets to their bitter enemy, the Mohawks.
Even if all the smallpox blankets stories were true, infected blankets would have a insignifcant impact of the spread of such a virus as viruleant as smallpox, which is mostly spread by inhalation.
The Untied States did fund a smallpox innoculation program for Native Americans in the 1830s, but the program had little impact because both whites and Native Americans were fearful of the innoculation. Europeans did succeed in developing an efective vaccination against smallpox and eventually erradicated the smallpox virus altogether, thus saving hundreds of millions lives.
Part of the problem is that the Native American population exploded once the tribes were moved onto reservation, which provided better nutrition, health care and education while putting an end to inter-tribal warfare. Average lifespans increased dramtically. Few Native Americans would welcome a return to traditional culture. They like electricty, indoor pumbing, central heating, air conditioning, television, person computers and supermarkets. Most don't really believe that rain dances have any impact on the weather--they are just for the tourists. Few really believe the moon is a celstral incarnation of Shining Woman; they think it's a satellite trapped by Earth's gravity. They know herbal medicines work best with supplimented by antibiotics. (Even Geronimo bought a Cadillac.)
Most Native Americans live off the reservation in large cities. Some reservations are prosperous; others are poor. The reservation system trap some Native Americans in a cyle of poverty. They have the freedom to leave the reservation; its the same choice rural Americans make when they leave declining farming communities and look for work in the city.
Blair,you have left comprehensive and educational information and we thank you.
Can you add to the educational value by giving a reference where readers can verify your knowledge. You seem to be well read and educated and i am sure you understand the request I am making and will not be offended. I do not doubt your knowledge, I want to support your entry as much as possible. Thanks, Stew R.
I am trying to make a conservative digg alternative called GOP Hub (GOPHub.com). Anything you can do to help with this effort would be awesome. Plus feel free to submit any articles you write here on your blog :). Take care and have a great weekend!
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