Did you know that all of the still existing Indian tribes displaced or committed genocide to claim the land they're currently claiming as their ancestral homes?
You know, places like the "sacred" Black Hills? So sacred that the Sioux are just the 3rd of 4 people to claim it? The USA being #4.
They moved west and did to the people already there what they whine about white people doing to them.
The Sioux still exist. They didn't wipe the Cheyenne out, but there's at least one tribe of native American who didn't survive the Cheyenne moving into the area.
Can we talk about existential conflicts?
Almost all of the senior leadership of the US Army during The Indian Wars were veterans of The US Civil War.
Union veterans.
Do you think that slavery might have been a triggering item for these officers?
The plains Indians were slavers.
ALL OF THEM.
No. ALL of them.
Hitting the neighbors to steal women and children for slaves is part of their culture.
It's a reason that several Army officers felt that genocide, though the term had not yet been coined, was the only way that peace would ever be achieved.
That peace was eventually achieved without killing every last Indian is a testimony to the compassion of The United States.
The history isn't even difficult to find, despite active revisionism being done at some universities.
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To be fair, pert near all native Americans were slavers, and dealt with using slaves, capturing slaves, selling slaves.
ReplyDeleteIn the Northeast? Slavery.
In the Northwest? Slavery.
Southeast? Slavery.
Southwest? Slavery.
Dead Center of the continent? Slavery.
North of the US area (where the First Nation people disavow the existence of Canada?) Slavery.
South of the US area (as set by the Mexican-American war some years before the ACW?) Shite-loads of slavery amongst natives and imports dealing in natives and imports as slaves along with the cross-pollinated native-imports and imports-natives.
Subtle clue. In reality, the Euro-American nation, after the ACW, as represented by both settlers and the Army (as you pointed out) had just had enough of all things slavery and the continued capture and slaving of white people by native people that continued until, well, the US Army smacked the dogsnot out of the Indians.)
For the most part, the Natives were not peaceful, eco-loving, free-love people that everyone tends to think of them. Just look at where the Pilgrims landed. A place, sure of disease, but three tribes had been warring over that area for years, until one tribe died of some sort of plague (that may or may not have had anything to do with Whites showing up. Plenty of evidence for small plagues (just like in Africa) wiping out this place, that place, the other place, evidence in native folk-lore that this place, that place, the other place are 'bad places to live' and 'much death' and 'nothing good there, stay away.')
Interesting analysis of the motives behind the Army's extermination program. You have made a confusing issue somewhat clearer. Is this your theory or is this an existing theory you subscribe to?
It's my theory. It's the phrasing of stuff I've read in some of the dispatches I've read to get the feel of writing fictitious dispatches for my stories.
DeleteYou get the impression that if the Indians would just refrain from stealing and taking "captives" there'd be no need to fight at all.
The way that the word "captive" is worked into these reports implies something darker than mere imprisonment. It makes me think that Alen Le May was reading the same dispatches the same way I am.
I think the picture is even bigger than that. I think slavery goes back as far as records go in just about every society on the planet. And I'm weasel wording that with "just about" because there might be one society that never did, but I've sure never read about one. I'm just not a real history buff.
ReplyDeleteI know for sure if I go far enough back, my mom's ancestors were slaves. I'm not quite as sure about dad's but I also haven't really dug into it. They're just plain, boring, supposedly white-privileged Europeans.
And even if you don't find slavery, you find something that we'd recognize as "Jim Crow".
DeleteAs far as I can tell, the Finns didn't do the slave thing, but fought like hell to be left alone.
DeleteTheir neighbors, though, just couldn't leave them alone. Looking at you, Sweden/Vikings and Rus/Soviets....