Interesting stuff, Ray. When it comes to Native peoples, Canada's
history is not quite as violent as that of the US, though it's bad
enough.
A few years ago, Angela Slaughter, and young Micmac, and I wrote a piece
on the history of white/Native relations in Canada. If you're
interested, take a look at:
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 4:15
PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Manifest
Destiny?
Ed and Harry
Harry asked?
> As oil is the lifeblood of the US - does
it have a right to defend itself
> against interruptions in the
supply?
Did the Irish Peasants have the right to raid the
warehouses of the wealthy in order to feed their families?
What about the families and towns of India where
people are starving when there is plenty of grain?
There is an interesting article in the NYTimes today
called
In this situation the Pope is a kind of Central
Government and these conservative Catholics have talked themselves into
hating all Central Governments. The issue of the rule of law is
a problem to say the least. I suspect the next
answer will be to try to do away with tithing (as taxes).
In the past, America's "Nazi" period was
called "Manifest Destiny" It furnished the "Final Solution"
rational that Hitler was to use later on the people he didn't like or want
either. Consider the following article by the poet
and intellectual Suzan Harjo for Indian Country Today newspaper:
American Indians see media’s
bias
Historically, press has been our critic, writes columnist
Suzan
Shown Harjo
INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY
March 3 — Mainstream press had a
bumper crop of anti-Indian articles last year. The Wall Street Journal
seemed to be on a holy mission to portray Indian people and issues in a
negative light. So did myriad print and broadcast reporters and
commentators in Connecticut and at least half of the shouting heads on cable
television. The capper for 2002 was TIME magazine’s coverage of Indian
casinos in two December issues.
As a result of TIME’s articles,
“members of Congress are calling for hearings” on gaming and federal
recognition, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, told delegates at a Feb. 24
Washington meeting of the National Congress of American Indians. Senate
hearings will take place in the Committee on Indian Affairs, which Inouye
has led in one of the two top positions since the 1980s and now serves as
vice chairman.
“The magazine articles pose a
question: What is a tribe for the purposes of conducting gaming,” said
Inouye. While “personally against gaming,” he said that Indian gaming monies
“meet the long unmet needs of decades of broken promises. As long as those
promises are not carried out, you’ll find me marching with you for
gaming.”
Inouye said Indian ancestors
would say, “You’ve done well, you’ve stood tall…you’ve succeeded.” But
success has come with a “whole legion of critics,” he said, counting TIME
among them. “Don’t let the critics tell your story.”
Historically, the American
mainstream press has been our critic, missing and ignoring our story, or
deliberately getting it wrong.
Newspapers’ Role
Greed for
Indian land, rather than Indian success, was the trigger for negative
reporting in the 1800s and 1900s. Most newspaper families - such as the
Hearst publishing empire that was built on Black Hills gold - owned the
mines and railroads and were an integral part of westward expansion. True
believers in the manifest destiny of whites to own the “new world,” they
advocated and instigated violence against Indian people who stood in their
way.
Newspapers were essential to the
federal government’s 1880-1934 “civilization” campaign to eradicate Indian
religions, languages and traditions, including ceremonial dancing. Most of
the stories were written in what one federal circular promoted as a “careful
propaganda” to “educate public opinion against the dance.”
The Army and the Smithsonian in
the late-1800s used newspapers to advertise for “collectors” to “harvest
Indian crania” and “grave goods.” No papers reported on these activities,
but occasionally they reported on Indian skulls of local interest.
One in 1890 in the Rocky Mountain
News appeared under these headlines: “A Bad Ute’s Skull/An Indian’s Brain
Pan in a Denver Gun Store/Tab-we-ap Was a Redskin of the Worst Type/His
Career of Deviltry Was Brought to an End by the Avenging Bullet of a White
Man.”
Newspapers of the day publicized
bounty notices on current “uprisings.” A 1922 article in the Rocky Mountain
News reported a $25 reward for those who defeated “efforts to sign the roads
into the Navajo reservation ... The redskins are said to tear out or carry
away all sign-boards.”
The Rocky Mountain News had
political and proprietary interests in the Colorado gold and in clearing the
territory of Indians to get at it. The newspaper started a drumbeat against
Cheyenne Dog Soldiers and other “hostiles” that culminated in the Sand Creek
Massacre of a peace camp of Cheyenne elders, pregnant women and children on
Nov. 29, 1864.
The News celebrated the “Battle”
of Sand Creek, lauding the Colorado Volunteers’ “Bloody Thirdsters” as
having “covered themselves with glory.” By contrast, the U.S. Army officers
on site reported it as the Sand Creek “Massacre” and described the soldiers
as “barbaric” and “covered with gore.”
The Chicago Tribune ran a 20-year
retrospective on the Sand Creek “Battle” on Aug. 8, 1887, with subheads:
“Wholesale Slaughter of Indians on the Plains, An Account of the Bloody
Fight by Col. William M. Chivington, the Leader of the White Forces - About
Eight Hundred Redskins Killed in the Engagement - Savage Atrocities Which
Provoked the Fearful Retribution.”
A Senate Special Committee on
Indian Affairs investigated federal-Indian relations and reported in 1867
that white aggression was the cause of most armed confrontations with
Indians. Most editorials dismissed the important report. Newspapers
continued to demonize Indians and aggressive whites took more Indian land
and murdered more Indian people.
The Washita Massacre
Lt. Col.
George Armstrong Custer, on Nov. 27, 1868, invaded Cheyenne land that had
been secured by treaty only one year before in what is now Oklahoma. He
attacked Cheyenne Peace Chief Black Kettle’s camp along the Washita. Black
Kettle and many of his people had barely escaped being killed at Sand Creek.
Custer’s soldiers killed most of them and all the ponies, and raped the
surviving women, girls and boys.
”The End of the Indian War and
Ring” was the way The New York Times announced the Washita Massacre. Calling
it “a fortunate stroke which ended his career and put the others to flight,”
the Times editorialized: “The truth is, that Gen. Custer, in defeating and
killing Black Kettle, put an end to one of the most troublesome and
dangerous characters on the Plains.”
The American press typically
proclaimed massacres of Indians as battles and actual battles Indians won as
massacres, wildly inflating the number of “redskins” and “hostiles.”
The Battle of the Little Big Horn
on June 25, 1876, was widely reported as the “Custer Massacre.” The Denver
Post headlined one of its stories on Captain Benteen: “Major’s Men Were
Lured into Ambush by Fleeing Redskins/Force of 5,000 Hostiles Surrounded
Pursuing Troopers Who Galloped into Huge Village; Desperate Retreat
Prevented Annihilation.”
Reporters today, even after
Congress apologized in 1990 for the Wounded Knee Massacre, continue to refer
to it as the “Battle of Wounded Knee” and the “last battle of the Indian
wars.”
L. Frank Baum
L. Frank Baum
wrote about Wounded Knee for The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, a paper he
edited and drove into bankruptcy. Best known as a writer of children’s books
and creator of the Wizard of Oz, he first penned editorials calling for
genocide of Indians.
His anti-Indian writings in
1890-1891 were so virulent that organizers of a Baum conference in Aberdeen,
S.D. a century later apologized “to the Lakota people for the part that our
community and nation played in the killing of their relatives.”
The Aberdeen planners said, “Baum
and other editors in the area contributed to the climate of fear and hatred
that led to the massacre at Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890.”
Weeks before the Massacre,
Hunkpapa Chief Sitting Bull and his half-brother, Chief Big Foot, were
placed on the federal hit list of “fomenters of dissent,” ostensibly for
violating the ban against dancing. Sitting Bull was killed on Dec. 15 by
federal Indian Police who were arresting him. His people escaped to Big
Foot’s camp and they all then fled to the Pine Ridge Sioux
Reservation.
At Wounded Knee, they were
disarmed by the 7th Cavalry. As Big Foot was dying of pneumonia, he and most
of his relatives were mowed down by Hotchkiss and Gatling guns.
In one editorial, Baum built up
the murdered Sitting Bull, in order to tear down the living Indian people as
“a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them.” Sitting Bull
was, Baum wrote, “an Indian with a white man’s spirit of hatred and revenge
for those who had wronged him and his.
“The proud spirit of the original
owners of these vast prairies inherited through centuries of fierce and
bloody wars for their possession, lingered last in the bosom of Sitting
Bull.”
Baum’s white supremacist
editorial continues: “The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of
civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of
the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the
few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their
spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the
miserable wretches that they are.”
Baum’s Jan. 3, 1891 editorial on
Wounded Knee is another call for genocide: “The PIONEER has before
declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination (sic) of
the Indians.
“Having wronged them for
centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up
by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the
face of the earth. In this lies safety for our settlers and the soldiers who
are under incompetent commands.
“Otherwise, we may expect future
years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the
past.”
Has mainstream coverage of
Indians and Indian issues improved since those days? Of course it has. But
far too much of it reflects Baum’s disdain masked by this century’s make-up.
The only stories where the Baums of today can really be comfortable are
those that ask, “How ‘bout them redskins?”
As the good Senator from Hawaii
says, “Tell your story, speak in one voice, take on your critics. You have
one good weapon: truth. Truth is on your side.”
Suzan Shown Harjo, Cheyenne and
Hodulgee Muscogee, is president of the Morning Star Institute in Washington,
D.C., and a columnist for Indian Country Today.
So Ed and Harry,
What I find appalling is that these old "Manifest Destiny"
arguments are still being raised. There is no excuse for
cultural destruction. There is no rationlization for
genocide. There is no place were the destruction of a
million years of human evolution and cultural knowledge is efficient,
economic or intellecually tenable. If the West can't come
up with a better rational for public action, then the West has not evolved
and is still the Monster that it was when it arrived on these
shores. And that's my opinion.
Ray Evans Harrell
PS: 30 years ago the fraudulent Castaneda books
opened the door to considering that Indians had a viable spiritual
life. The Freedom of Religion Act of 1978 opened that door
further for scholars to prove the truth if not the specific of Castaneda's
claims. Recently the Scientists have been studying Indian
languages and finding 21st century scientific breakthroughs in the ancient
languages. Forestry and Agricultural methods have also
proven another area of advanced thinking from peoples who were considered a
little above the animals in intelligence by the European. Now
the issue of whether there was Indian Law is being approached as well.
Here is a good use of that Casino money. But the
Universities will not like what they find for what it says about them, their
history and their culture:
American Indian law is key to
intellectual defense
Posted: February 10, 2003 - 9:00am
EST
American Indian sovereignty is a way of being; it
is a way of thinking; it is a political and intellectual structure of great
meaning that deserves the most serious consideration, from its national
ethnogenesis to its most studied cultural dimensions.
The thinking and conceptual framework of the
traditional languages, cultures and governments of American Indians, as
presently studied and discerned, are beginning to provide excellent
perspectives. Theoretic and practical approaches, in the prism of the
ancient teachings, about many disciplines and topics, including the study of
humanity in the natural world, are increasingly being assessed based on
pragmatic results.
Harvard University got the Indian prize last week,
and deservedly so. The Oneida Nation in New York donated $3 million to endow
the Harvard Law School with a professorship devoted to American Indian law.
It did so to signal to the academic community, starting with the august Ivy
League university in Cambridge, Mass., that tribal economic power intends to
support the proper study and research on the richness of Native peoples’
histories and legal realities in the North America. Oneida Nation
Representative Ray Halbritter, a Harvard graduate, steered the gift of the
nation, to "help create a better understanding of the complex legal issues
faced by all American Indians today and in the future."
The depth and range of experience found in American
Indian cultures is only beginning to be understood and discerned. Many
disciplines have overlapped studies of and about American Indian peoples,
but a basis of studies that transcends specific disciplines is most desired,
most useful and effective. We salute the signal sent by the Oneida Nation
(parent corporate owner of this newspaper) in its endowment of an academic
chair at Harvard University. Endowment is forever when it comes to offering
a programmatic base. This Harvard deserves, after years of sustaining a
number of creative Native initiatives. At a time when other universities are
cutting back American Studies programs, Harvard is defining itself with its
best efforts in law and business development.
The gift supports the establishment of a secure and
quality-guaranteed position that will contribute to the long-term
intellectual study and advancement of American Indian law. The fact that
Native nations, which are doing well through self-determined business
enterprises, are moving to directly support improved scholarship and
education of Native legal, social and historical topics is of considerable
common value as a model and strategy of tribal philanthropy. Ultimately,
more and more scholarship and research needs to emerge from the Indian
experience, from the cultural logic, from the Native intellectual bases. The
idea of "the people," is one required principle. Respectful assessment of
human interfaces with the natural world is another. Woman as the center of
family and family as center of nation has great durability in the cultural
thinking as well. There is of course much more.
The picture is this: Indian sovereignty as a base
of legal reality for some 562 Native nations and communities in the United
States, with its central argument of politically and culturally distinct
bases within the American nation state, must be continually analyzed,
understood and lived. Sovereignty, always a goal, is not always practiced at
its desired level. The quest of Native nations to strive for
self-sufficiency and for self-reliance is to persist in the world as
peoples. This inspirational and innovative endeavor to endow a chair at an
institution of higher learning, signaled by Oneida leadership, challenges
wealthy tribes to also endow programs that will support teaching and
research positions, in university and college programs at major
institutions, including tribal colleges, throughout the country. We hope it
starts a trend.
Well-to-do tribes are urged to consider the model.
One of these endowments provided annually or as appropriate for the rest of
the decade seems a great goal. By funding these types of endowed chairs, and
by funding endowments for the tribal colleges and for policy think tanks,
the line of defense on Indian rights can hold. The country needs to hear
Native perspectives. Indian country needs to entertain new ideas and know
how events and trends affect our home communities. Endowments for American
Indian legal scholarship; for education and for research; for communication
and expression of the American Indian standing; these are great and
sustainable gifts to the generations.
This article can be
found at http://IndianCountry.com/?1044810992
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2003 1:05
PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Manifest
Destiny?
>
>
> Ed,
>
> Very good post!
>
> Something I would like comment on - from everyone, if
possible.
>
> Does a country have the right to take steps to
handle a perceived danger in
> the future.
>
> As oil is
the lifeblood of the US - does it have a right to defend itself
>
against interruptions in the supply?
>
> Harry
>
----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Ed wrote:
>
> >Some of you may have read the Mother
Jones article by Robert Dreyfus. I
> >posted the URL the other
day. It suggests that what is going on, and has
> >gone on, in the
Middle East is part of long-term strategy for global
> >dominance
that Washington hawks have developed over the past few decades.
>
>I've argued something like this in earlier postings, pointing out that
> >both the location and resources of the Middle East are
enormously
> >strategic. The power that controls the Mid East may
dominate the world
> >during the next few decades.
>
>
> >Thus far I've tended to think of this need for dominance in
terms of the
> >economy (energy) and power (keeping a lid on
terror, etc.), but it also
> >has more idealistic origins. Since
its beginnings as a nation, America, in
> >various ways, has been
in a state of continuous expansion. During the
> >earlier parts of
the 19th Century this expansion was mainly confined to
> >carving
and filling out the continental United States. As settlers moved
>
>westward from the original colonies, vast tracts of lands were taken
from
> >the Indians, Louisiana was purchased from the French, and
parts of the
> >southwest and far west were forcibly taken from
Mexico. Expansionism
> >continued during the later part of the
19th Century and into the 20th with
> >the Spanish-American War
and the building of the Panama Canal. It
> >continued throughout
the 20th Century in Central America, Korea and
> >Vietnam. Where
it was not militaristic in nature, it was economic. Often,
> >it
was both. However, by then it was no longer confined to the American
> >continent. It had gone world wide.
> >
>
>While this expansion was at times brutal and typically exploitative, it
> >had to be dressed up in the highest of ideals and principles.
During much
> >of the 19th Century, it was part of the nation's
"manifest destiny" -
> >something that simply had to happen
because it represented a superior way
> >and quality of life. In
the 20th Century it was about progress and keeping
> >the world
safe for democracy. Currently, though it is most likely about
>
>oil and dominance at a material level, it is given the idealistic
clothing
> >of constructing global democracy.
> >
>
>I heard a commentator on the radio this morning express concerns about
> >what America is doing and where it may be taking us. One
of the points he
> >made was that people dream their own dreams
and cannot easily dream
> >someone else's. Global democracy
may be a fine concept for Americans but
> >may be difficult to
export because others have different concepts of how
> >to govern
themselves. Authoritarianism at the top does not necessarily
>
>preclude democratic institutions at the village or regional level, as
was
> >demonstrated in Czarist Russia. Nor does democracy at
the top guarantee
> >democracy at the village level, as is
illustrated by the re-emergence of
> >regional warlords in
Afghanistan. Democracy is almost certainly not a
>
>one-size-fits-all phenomenon, and people have to have to decide how much
> >freedom versus authority is tolerable at all levels of society,
and then
> >they have to figure out how to practically achieve the
appropriate
> >balance. And we may have to accept the
possibility that some people will
> >take a very long time to
figure it out.
> >
> >Intervention in the affairs of other
nations should not be based on giving
> >them a particular model
of democracy, but on giving them the means and
> >breathing space
to figure out what model might best suit them.
> >
> >Ed
Weick
>
>
>
>
******************************
> Harry Pollard
> Henry George
School of LA
> Box 655
> Tujunga CA 91042
>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Tel: (818) 352-4141
> Fax: (818) 353-2242
>
*******************************
>
>
>
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