Other Indian Tribes of Interest

[tbw]

Courtesy of: ipoaa.com/iroquois_constitution_united_states.htm

It is truly a revelation as a student of history to study the impact that Native America had in the development of the United States of America. The fact that the Native Americans preceded the settlement of the Europeans and were a part of the innate character of the New World must logically affect the development of the new settlers. It is the ultimate irony that by the initial assistance given to the entering immigrants by the Native American population that they were in fact aiding in the ultimate decimation of their people, and the diminishment of their land and their mythological based form of government.

As the Indians were standing along the shore watching the Puritans arrive, the Indians carried with them a tradition of meeting and democracy, of free speech, of free thinking, of tolerance for each other's differences of religion, of all those things which got attached to the Bill of Rights. White leaders watched the method of government that the Iroquois utilized and they learned union and democracy from it. Historians are now beginning to admit what they must have been aware of, that the government of the United States is not patterned after something across the ocean where there was a belief in the divine right of kings and where the people had no voice, but it is patterned after the government of the People of the Long House, where all people, including both men and women were respected and took a part in their government.

Benjamin Franklin met with both Colonial and Iroquois delegates at Albany New York in 1754 to create a plan of unity that was in part derived from some of the tenets of the Great Law of the Iroquois. During the discussions at Albany Franklin addressed the assemblage in words that freely acknowledged the Iroquois Confederacy as a model to build upon:

It would be a strange thing...if Six Nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming such a union and be able to execute it in such a manner that it has subsisted ages and appears indissoluble, and yet that a like union should be impractical for ten or a dozen English colonies, to whom it is more necessary and must be more advantageous, and who cannot be supposed to want an equal understanding of their interest.

When Franklin proposed his plan of union before the Congress it had a 'Grand Council," a "Speaker," and called for a "general government... under which... each colony may retain its present constitution" all nomenclature and concept derived from the (Iroquois) Confederacy. Franklin's writings indicate that as he became more deeply involved with the Iroquois and other Indian peoples, he picked up ideas from them concerning not only federalism, but concepts of natural rights, the nature of society and man's place in it, the role of property in society, and other intellectual constructs that would eventually be called into service by Franklin as he and the other American revolutionaries shaped an official ideology for the soon to be founded United States of America.

[joewiggs]

Your wonderful acknowledgment of the true legacy of the Native American is exemplified by your personal compassion for all who are misunderstood and your extensive awareness of American history.

Too many Americans have learned all that they know of their Indian brothers by the garbage offered by Hollywood script writers who depict them as smelly, ignorant, savages who lived only to skin "white" captives alive and, rape "white" women.

The understandable, if not condoned, crazed reactions of the warriors whose families were violently slaughtered were reconstructed into alleged acts of unmitigated, senseless, and inexplicable attacks.

I am not advocating a philosophy of "Lo" the poor Indian; what I am suggesting is that three positions of reality exist that explains the historical truth of the Plains Indian Wars: the Indian side, the "white" side, and the truth.

[tbw]

The following was published in a book titled: The New Indians by Stan Steiner in 1968. I have little doubt that what was told is true, but one never knows. I however present it to show a side of the story that many today never see. [Warning not necessarily PG-13]

One hundred years, almost to the day, after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the New York Times reported on July 7, 1876, that there were those in the War Department, mostly “high officers,” who advocated “the policy of extermination of the Indians and think the speedier, the better, its accomplishment.” The Indian Wars were “wars of annihilation” to these officers, wrote the Times.

Upon the battlefields the results of this military policy were ghastly. Two instances will suffice.

Lt. James D. Connor, of the New Mexico Volunteers, has described what happened to the Cheyenne at the Battle of Sand Creek. His testimony before the U.S. Senate said: “In going over the battlefield the next day I did not see a body of [an Indian] man, woman, or child but was scalped, and in many instances the bodies were mutilated in the most horrible manner -- men, women, and children’s privates were cut out, etc. One man [said] he had cut out a woman’s private parts and had them for exhibition on a stick…

“I heard of numerous instances in which men had cut out the private parts of females and stretched them over the saddlebows, and wore them in their hats while riding in the ranks…”

Of the same battle, a lieutenant Cramer told the U.S. Senate: “The women and children huddled together, and most of our fire was concentrated on them… no wounded fell into our hands and all the dead were scalped.”

North in the Sioux country the Battle of Wounded Knee was described by Private Eugene Caldwell of the U.S. 7th Cavalry: “After it was all over it was an awful sight to see. It made me sick to look at it. There were about one hundred and fifty buck and seventy five women and children killed… Some of the men went wild; they would shoot men or women.”

Wrote another soldier in the U.S. 7th Cavalry: “The women lay thick. One girl about eighteen was supporting herself onher hand, the blookd spurting from her mouth as from a pump. Near her lay two others, and all around, like patches on the snow, were dead squaws, each in a pool of blood. Colonel Forsyth looked very white as he gave orders to see in any of the women who lay thick were alive. From the blanket of one we took a boy five years old and a baby about as many months -- both unhurt, but the mother was dead. She must have been shot with a revolver held not five feet away, as her hair was burned and the skin blackened with powder.

“Of course the camp-liar (the next day) was in his glory, but who shot the squaws was not known, at least no one boasted of it.”

These men were obeying attitudes, if not orders. General George Custer expounded the commonly held belief that the Indian was “savage in every sense of the word,” and had “ a cruel and ferocious nature [that] far exceeds that of any wild beast of the desert.” The “beautiful romance [of] the noble red man” who was a “simple minded son of nature” was “equally erroneous with that which regards the Indians as a creature possessing human form.” And these “ wild beasts” need not be “judged by rules or laws [of warfare] applicable to any other race of men,” Custer wrote. (Notice this is much abridged, and I for one would like to know the exact wording…)

There is more here omitted, but I will conclude with this:

And there was an old Navajo at Fort Defiance who told of how the “Long Knives of Kit Carson,” so named by the Indians because of their bayonets, would also cut off the breasts of Navajo girls. These heroes of the West would then toss the severed breasts back and forth like baseballs. “That was a soldier’s game,” the Navajo said.

Since the land belonged to the Indians, the armies of the white man were invaders before they were conquerors. The Indians for their part had the vastness of the continent to retreat into and hide within. And the invaders could not confront and conquer the tribal wrriors when they were forever escaping into the wilderness. The brunt of the bayonets thus repeatedly fell upon Indian women and children, who were innocent targets and easily slaughtered.

It bears remembrance. It was not because the white man was a “savage” any more than the Indian was that the wars between the two were fought so cruelly. The savagery of the wars was caused no so much by the nature of the men involved as by the nature of the wars. The “revengeful” horrors of the Indians were just that. The invaders in battle after battle had to seek out, give chase, and entrap the tribesmen to force them to fight. The troops were therefore not merely invaders of what became known as “enemy territory,” but they found themselves at war with an entire people. And an enduring history has survived from all of this. The winning of the West meant the annihilation of the Indians. And the elders of tribes, remembering this history that was as recent as their youth, were understandably inhibited from speaking out, honestly and openly, to the sons and daughters of the invaders. Something else inhibited them. The Indian would not talk of his deepest emotions to those he thought had betrayed him. It was thought in the old ways that to talk of danger was to invite danger upon oneself.

The legend of the theft of Indian land has been a romantic myth. Eskimo leader William Hensley said of this vanishing land: “It was by the use of laws that our people have been deprived of their land.” Most of their land was taken from them with unscrupulous legality by treaties ratified by the Congress and signed by the government. Treaties of peace they were called. But they were little more than real-estate deals. From 1778 to 1868, in ninety years, there were 370 of these treaties signed by the federal nation with the Indian nations. The Cherokees signed twenty-two. The Delawares signed twenty-five. The Sioux singed thirty-nine. The Chippewas and the Potawatomi signed forty-seven each. There were so many treaties not because there were so many Indian Wars, but because there were so many Indian lands that the tribes were forces, or enticed, to sign away.

Roger Jourdain, the tribal chairman of the Chippewas of Red Lake, in Minnesota, reflected upon the duplicity of history: “Lincoln -- the “Great Emancipator?” Jourdain scoffed: “He emancipated the slaves and he emancipated ten million acres of our land at the same time.” The “Great Emancipator” not only signed the Homestead Act of 1862 that opened the West for settlement of Indian lands, Jourdain said. It was during Lincoln’s presidency that the Treaty of Red Lake was signed, which stripped the Chippewas Tribe of much of their ancestral land.

An Oklahom Cherokee joked about this. His humor was trenchant: “’Course, in the Historys, Wars always start ’for patriotism’s sake,’ but you read on, then get down to the Peace Conference and you find that the historian has to write pretty fast and veil things over very cleverly, or the reader is apt to discover what changed hands at the finish besides a mere satisfying of honor. You look at all Wars and you will find that there is more new deeds for land signed at these peace conferences than there is good will.”

The caustic humorist was Will Rogers, “ So, you see, in Wars the Slogan is Honor, but the object is Land, “ Rogers said, “They are always fighting for Independence, but at the finish they always seem to be able to use quite a snatch of the defeated opponent’s land to be Independent on.”

Rodgers was born on a ranch of Claremore at a time when Oklahoma was still Indian Territory. He was, he once said, “ an ornery Indian boy,” who grew up when the Cherokee Nation still ruled: “We then had our own Government and the name Oklahoma was as foreign to us as Tooth Paste.” So there was more than a touch of personal historical comment: “I doubt if there is a thing in the world as wrong or unreliable as History. History ain’t what it is; it’s what some Writer wanted it to be, and I just happened to think ours is as cock-eyed as the rest.

“It is funny, what a respect and National Honor a few Guns will get you, ain’t it?
Rogers added. “It all depended on which end of it you were -- on the sending or receiving end.”

By the time the Congress had halted treaty making in 1871, the Indians had about 140 million acres left-- of the nearly two billion. And it was the worst land that was left to them. The Branch of the Soil Conservation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs has estimated that the reservation lands consist of 14 million acres that are “critically eroded,” and 17 million acres that are “severely eroded,” and 25 million acres that are “slightly eroded.” Little good for anything but grazing nearsighted cows, some 61 percent of that acreage is scrawny grassland.

My comments:

The moral to this story, (if it can be called that) as with any ‘war story’ is as complex in its simplicity as it is simple in its complexity. It has been said that “War is hell”. That there is no honor in doing the acts committed upon the field of battle, for all is by its very nature is inhumane. Any man or for that matter woman who has taken up arms for one’s country will tell you, that there isn’t honor felt in what they have to do. There is no decency, righteousness nor morality within killing another that would lead anyone to believe that it could be honorable. The stark reality of this war, or for that matter any other, the atrocities that was perpetrated by both sides comes full circle here with that realization. And even those who fired upon the women and children at Wounded Knee didn’t feel “honor” at what they had done. For not one of them who had killed that day stepped forward in “honor” and proudly proclaimed that they had been one of those who had killed a woman or a child.

The baseless acts mentioned at the beginning of this work, those not PG-13, were not acts of honor. And like scalping gave what honor to those that did it? To have these as one’s prize in war should have meant something to those who came long after. And should have been preserved in honor for generations after, but are they? Whose descendents now possess such honors that they would be willing to share in glory that prize? The simple truth is that these men committed those acts not for any honor or glory, but just like those men at Wounded Knee who fired on the women and children could not bring themselves after to admit their crime.

We today have a warped sense of honor, mixing with it a sense of duty. The Medal of Honor is awarded for acts of Bravery and Courage. It isn’t awarded because a man or woman necessarily killed to achieve it, and this is best exemplified by those men who risked their lives to carry water to the wounded on Reno Hill. Honor isn’t something worn on a sleeve by every man or woman who serves. They may feel a sense of pride and duty to their Country, and rightly so. True honor is earned, just like the Medal, and this they all know.

A recent President once said, “We should honor them for their service.” One supposes he meant the dead as well as the living, and is a great patriotic statement at a time of war. And Indeed we should honor them for their “service“ to their country. But honoring them for their “service” to their country, and honoring them for acts which are not honorable is in and of itself a huge misnomer. For as has been so ineloquently described above, many do despicable acts that do not share the name, honor. This is the very nature of mankind and war. The savagery of wars, are caused by the nature of the men involved as by the nature of the wars themselves.

If General Custer’s words above were paraphrased correctly, and his feelings were as described above, then is it any wonder that Lt. Varnum proclaimed his famous “scalp” statement as he rode toward Reno’s skirmish line in the valley? We today cannot fathom this, nor perhaps even begin to understand it as anything honorable. And yet, we have those today who say that we should “honor” those men because they served their country. These same people proudly proclaim that we should not call into question their integrity, nor defame them by calling into question their statements nor actions. One supposes this also applies to the soldiers at Wounded Knee or at Sand Creek. As we seek to understand our history, perhaps its best to remember what Will Rogers said of “honor”: “Wars always start ’for patriotism’s sake,’ but you read on, then get down to the Peace Conference and you find that the historian has to write pretty fast and veil things over very cleverly, or the reader is apt to discover what changed hands at the finish besides a mere satisfying of honor. You look at all Wars and you will find that there is more new deeds for land signed at these peace conferences than there is good will.”

[joewiggs]

What is the final answer? I don't have a clue. Should "progress" supersede Man's Humanity to Humanity allowing man's in-humanity to reign supreme ?" Why is it that only races and Countries who lag behind in technological advancement, who are no threat to those who would dominate them, are deemed "Okay" to be remove from the equation who is to be or who is not to be.

The native Americans were a sociological aberration to the "Whites" who initial contacted them and, despite the "Redman's" efforts to succor the struggling newcomers, they were eventually condemned to extermination because they dressed and spoke differently.

The only thing I am sure of is this; if the native American has possessed the same weaponries and, military mindset as their adversaries, results would have been very different.

Lastly, why do we fear those we perceive as strong and despise those we see as weak when love for all would immediately destroy all hate, war, and greed.

[joewiggs]

When we speak of the nobility of the native American we must also acknowledge their plebeian elements as well as all races consist of the best and worst. For example:

"'In northern Texas, between Salt and Clear Forks of the Brazos River, lived the remnant of the Tonkaways, a once powerful people. Of their origin nothing is known beyond vague traditions sometimes recounted by the old men. According to them, a long time ago the Tonkaways lived neas the shores of the 'great ocean', supposed to be the Gulf of Mexico.

In many bloody wars with their neighbors they became greatly reduced in numbers, and at length were driven north to the vicinity of the Arkansas River. Here again they were surrounded by hostile neighbors, and were finally driven into northwestern Texas.
When living in their original home on the shores of the sea, their neighbors claimed that they were cannibals; that their chief object in battle was to secure prisoners rather than kill the enemy; and that these prisoners were subsequently killed and eaten. The Pawnee tribes were especially embittered against the Tonkaways, for they declared that they had at one time and devoured a favorite child of the Chief of the Pawnee Nation."

Thus, Strange, if this information is true, knew what in the hell he was talking about!

[strange]

Mr Wiggs,

Mind you to refresh me on what it was I was talking about? I'm rather lax very often.

[joewiggs]

Cannibalism and Blood Drinking! Remember the oddity of your post yet, all agreed that you were odd in a perfectly good way.

[strange]

Aha!

Thank you then. Though I pretty much thought that everyone knew about cannibals and blood drinking. My main theory was to whether cannabalism and blood drinking would cause obesity.

[joewiggs]

It would depend upon the fat content of the meat and blood of the person(s) you ate and, whether you ate them after 6PM. ;Dl

[stumblingbear]

Just found this. What a gross concept!!!

[whitebull]

No kidding! Strange was very Strange!

[joewiggs]

Nov 15, 2013 13:56:20 GMT -5 whitebull said:

No kidding! Strange was very Strange!

But only in the nicest of ways. I sincerely hope he returns one day. I miss his witticisms!