The Chronicle of Native Americans
The Chronicle of Native Americans
~ Robert McElroy
The Native Americans are a people whose longevity and antiquity is as long as a thread of stars draping the Milky Way. Some of the Native American nations have very interesting creation stories, which are far more poetic than the Biblical creation story of the "Book of Genesis." The Iroquois believe they are descended from the Turtle Shell and one clan of the Choctaw from a Crayfish! When the English first colonized, they thought the Native Americans were either the Lost Tribes of Israel or Trojan descendants!
Photograph: Nora Moore Lloyd All Rights Reserved
It was the Native Americans who became associated with the pastoral, sustainable, earth-based lifestyle. Central to this was a nomadic lifestyle, respecting Mother Earth and interconnecting with it, as part of what could be called a Symbiosis; the Buffalo Hunts on the American Plains, out of necessity - not for pleasure or greed - so much a part of the White settlers lifestyle.
The iconic imagery of the canoe meandering its way along some of the great rivers like the Mississippi or The Great Ohio river or Lake Superior reverberates like an eternal vista implanted in one's mind; the hypnotic, calumet pipe-induced dances around the midnight fires; their mystical chants to Nature; their dualistic approach to life - as in Father Sky and Mother Earth - capture the imagination like the way Celtic tales do; and finally the sound of the snake rattle percussion sounding in rhythm to nature!
But this way of life would change for evermore in the early seventeenth century. A system that had survived and endured for millennia was about to change. In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh had first attempted a white colonization of North America but it failed. Then in the year 1607, the first successful white, 'Anglo-Saxon' settlement and conquest began - the Jamestown, Virginia settlement.
In 1620, the first Puritan 'settlers' in the 'New World' settled at Plymouth, Massachusetts on the 'Mayflower' Ship under Miles Standish. These events have been immortalized in 'White' homes every November as 'Thanksgiving'. But what they really celebrate, is the beginning of a horror story for the Native Americans: disease, small pox, measles (thousands dying in the next 100 years).
The Signing and Violation of Treaties
From the year 1787 up until the signing of the last treaty in 1871, the American government signed 650 Treaties with many Native American tribes. These treaties included hunting, fishing and agricultural rights, land rights, delineation of borders and limits of Native American lands. One such had the very poetic language: 'As far as the grass grows and the river flows.......'
Yet, as the leader 'Little Elk' once said: 'The White man promised many things; so many... I can remember but one - he promised to take our lands and he did.' For these rights and treaties were continually violated by the Federal Government. Yet many legal experts still contend the treaties were legal binding. To quote the Pacific News Service:
"Indian treaties may seem like historical documents, but the courts have consistently ruled that they retain the same legal force they did when they were negotiated. Despite frequent challenges and intense opposition, courts have upheld guaranteed specific tribal rights, such as hunting and fishing rights. Often disputes over treaty rights arise from conflicting interpretations of the specific language of treaty provisions. In general, there are three basic principles for interpreting treaty language. First, uncertainties in Indian treaties should be resolved in favor of the Indians. Second, Indian treaties should be interpreted as the Indians signing the treaty would have understood them. Third, Indian treaties are to be liberally construed in favor of the Indians involved. Courts have consistently upheld these principles of treaty interpretation, which clearly favor the Indians, on the basis that Indian tribes were the much weaker party in treaty negotiations, signing documents written in a foreign language and often with little choice. Liberal interpretation rules are designed to address the great inequality of the parties' original bargaining.”
One case was the Santee Sioux's loss of 9/10's of their land from two deceptive treaties in the pre-Civil War years; when in 1862, they went to claim their annuities, they were told they hadn't arrived and they had been used for other purposes! The primary consequence of the cessation of treaty signing by the US Government was: Native Americans were no longer regarded as sovereign nations.
The Policy of Dispersal and Repression by President Andrew Jackson and his successor Martin Van Buren
In 1830, the US Congress implemented the 'Indian Removal Act' which forced 70,000 Native Americans to move west of the Mississippi river. Thus began 'The Trail of Tears', where many never survived the ordeal. The tribulations of the Choctaw have been addressed but the trail also affected the Cherokees; 50 -55% of them never survived the journey. Hence a litany of 'crimes of genocide' against Native Americans which continued for the rest of the century!
Examples:
- in 1864, the Sand Creek massacre of 28 men and 105 women and children;
- the expulsion of the Arapaho, the Cheyenne, the Kiowa, the Comanche, the Jirawilla, the seven Utes nations from Colorado;
- the pursuit of the Nez Perce and Ponca Nations;
- the ending of the last Buffalo hunts of the American Plains caused by the whites;
- the destruction of the Santee Sioux at Wounded Knee in 1891; (reference: "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee");
- the extinction of the Pequod of Massachusetts in 1900;
Of course, the Native Americans were continually 'branded' as savages for 'scalping.' However, they learned this from the whites, who did it for bounty, and merely copied them.
Addison De Philleo of the Illinois newspaper, The Galena, whose nickname was 'The Scalping Editor’ during the Black Hawk War of 1832, became renowned for his 'trophies'. On one occasion, it's reported after murdering a poor, old Indian - who'd just lost his wife - De Philleo 'scalped him' and 'then did a jig of joy on his dead body.'
The Loss of Citizen Recognition
The federal Civil Rights Act of 1866, passed at the end of the Civil War by the US Congress, excluded Native Americans even as it clearly extended citizenship and "full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings" to all people. This was a continuation of the policy begun by Andrew Jackson in 1830. It could also be argued this act paved the way for future outrages.
The Shame of the Irish and Scots-Irish Settlers
Before continuing, let’s recall the crimes perpetrated by the Irish and Scots-Irish during the so-called 'Frontier Wars'. It is a dark episode of shame indeed.
- Sand Creek was overseen by General Crook;
- General Sheridan presided over one of the worst massacres against Black Kettle in 1872;
- George Gore - an Irish Landlord in the 1850's - accelerated the end of the great Buffalo Hunt of the American Plains, when he was responsible for 2,000 being needlessly butchered for sport (He spent half a million dollars for this!) along with Bill Cody in the 1870’s.
Photograph: Bill Uminski All Rights Reserved
The Situation today: Native Americans
Not given the Right to Vote until 1924, the insidious 'culling' of Native Americans has continued since the Second World War. However, new covert ethnocide tactics surfaced: population control and the sterilization of Native American women.
This was particularly prevalent in the 70's. Connie Uri, a Choctaw Physician in Oklahoma, found that in the month of July, 1974, 48 women had been sterilized a day or two after childbirth; and several hundred operations were carried out in the previous two years.
Other American physicians probed further; discovering that on Navajo Reservations between 1972-78, there was a 130% increase in abortions of Native American fetuses. In both cases, there were reports of women being threatened into signing consent forms. (reference: The Plight of the Native American Woman | Atlantic Free Press - Hard Truths for Hard Times)
Photograph: Nora Moore Lloyd All Rights Reserved
However, the Native Americans have shown they are not dead: from 1969 to 1971, an alliance called 'All Nations' occupied the Island of Alcatraz demanding it be given back (it is Native American) and this defiant act demonstrated that their spirit for freedom still burns! This was the catalyst for the occupation of Pine Wood Reservation at Wounded Knee in 1973.
Conclusion
The white man destroyed a noble way of life, an earth-based, wisdom rich, pastoral and communal template. He took the lands of the Native Americans, attempted countless acts of 'genocide' in the name of civilization. But what this encapsulated was a battle between spirituality/sharing/nature/wisdom,and material/greed and avarice. The latter won out but it begs the question: Who were the savages and who were the civilized? Who were the honorable and who were the dishonorable? Who were the noble and ignoble? The final words are left to Yellow Wolf of the Nez Perce: "The Whites told only one side. Told it to please themselves. Told much that is not true. Only his own best deeds, only the worst deeds of the Indians, has the White man told."
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