Where did all the Indians go?

Screw the minutia..white man came and he took..thats how the real history came down..indeans were considered savage/ less than human brute beasts...the u.s. gov. that wants to renig on all its treatys with them..after the civil war they shot them down like dogs...it was all but over for them by 1914..this is a good thread to study if you want to know what its like signing a treaty with the u.s. gov...will take all your real estate..give you rotten pork to eat and small pox infected blankets...ta-da! end of story..

posted by wittleryouth
Screw the minutia..white man came and he took..that’s how the real history came down..Indians were considered savage/ less than human brute beasts...the U.S. gov. that wants to renege on all its treaties with them..after the civil war they shot them down like dogs...it was all but over for them by 1914..this is a good thread to study if you want to know what its like signing a treaty with the U.S. gov...will take all your real estate..give you rotten pork to eat and small pox infected blankets...ta-da! end of story

I’ve heard the small pox blankets story but I doubt it’s authenticity. For one reason, I do not believe those who would have been carrying the blankets to the Indians would have wanted to expose themselves to small pox. It seems more likely the Indian Agents were paid for new blankets but bought used ones and pocketed the difference. I accept the putrid meat story but I remind it was hard to store any food in the 19th century. Even an Indian Agent with good intentions might end up forwarding tainted food. I recall reading that both Union and Confederate soldiers frequently complained about rotten food. Bad food was not invented to kill Indians although it may well have contributed to that outcome.

Do not forget that much of what you complain about Mr W/Y, was the direct consequences of duplicitous conniving and self serving Christian missionaries who worked hand in glove with the Indian Agents to destroy the Indian’s culture. Missionaries who claimed they were trying to save the Indian’s souls. Dangerous work. Spiteful work, saving souls. All the more so for the non-responsive putative beneficiaries of the Christian’s largess. Many a missionary had both concubines and huge profits to show for his or her zeal for the Lord.

I have long argued that missionaries ought to be outlawed. Failing that, then to be banned from departing their home country until they have achieved 100% conversions at home. Half the wars in the world and three-fourths of the economic and cultural exploitations of native peoples in the world by “superior” cultures i.e., technologically advanced, have been either instigated by or facilitated by missionaries.

[edit on 6/26/2007 by donwhite]

True donwhite, considering what conquistador Hernan Cortes did to the Aztecs with the help of missionaries and priests. Granted, some priests did disagree with Cortes, but he basically used them to start a false war with the Aztecs, which eventually lead to the fall and conquest of the Aztec empire.

Same thing with North America. They "used" God as a pretext to take land, murder, and "cleanse" the Native people of their "savageness". "Manifest Destiny" as they would say. 90% of this stuff doesn't even make it into high school history books, surprising isn't it?

Originally posted by donwhite

posted by wittleryouth
Screw the minutia..white man came and he took..that’s how the real history came down..Indians were considered savage/ less than human brute beasts...the U.S. gov. that wants to renege on all its treaties with them..after the civil war they shot them down like dogs...it was all but over for them by 1914..this is a good thread to study if you want to know what its like signing a treaty with the U.S. gov...will take all your real estate..give you rotten pork to eat and small pox infected blankets...ta-da! end of story

I’ve heard the small pox blankets story but I doubt it’s authenticity. For one reason, I do not believe those who would have been carrying the blankets to the Indians would have wanted to expose themselves to small pox. It seems more likely the Indian Agents were paid for new blankets but bought used ones and pocketed the difference. I accept the putrid meat story but I remind it was hard to store any food in the 19th century. Even an Indian Agent with good intentions might end up forwarding tainted food. I recall reading that both Union and Confederate soldiers frequently complained about rotten food. Bad food was not invented to kill Indians although it may well have contributed to that outcome.

[edit on 6/26/2007 by donwhite]

I'm sure that there was plenty of honestly accidental cases of bad food. I'm also just as certain that whenever the local fort cleaned out its larders of spoiled stuff, it would be sent off to the nearest village.

And of course, even if all of this wasn't the intent, it certainly was the intent to exterminate bison to starve the plains indians. To put fences up and tear trees down ion the East to "civilize" the land for farms, rendering game in that area into nothing more than vermin to be exterminated.

posted by TheWalkingFox
I'm sure that there was plenty of honestly accidental cases of bad food. I'm also just as certain that whenever the local fort cleaned out its larders of spoiled stuff, it would be sent off to the nearest village. And of course, even if all of this wasn't the intent, it certainly was the intent to exterminate bison to starve the plains Indians. To put fences up and tear trees down in the East to "civilize" the land for farms, rendering game in that area into nothing more than vermin to be exterminated.

The most infamous story - and entirely truthful - is the case of the Cherokee Indians who went to court to prevent Georgia from taking their lands and putting the land into a lottery for “whites only.” The US Supreme Court found for the Indians. Pres. Jackson had signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and favored removal of the eastern Indians to be resettled in the west. This Federal policy completely ignored the well-known even then and fully anticipated horrendous destructive effect on Indian culture. We call that genocide today. Calculated destruction - obliteration - of a whole people.

Jackson is often quoted (regarding the court’s decision) as having said, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!" The US Army put the Cherokees on the notorious “Trail of Tears” to Oklahoma. By the bye, more Cherokees died on that march - a series of marches - than died in the Bataan Death March of 1942, 3,200 to 5,000 +. We still condemn the Bataan march today. But we never mention the Trail of Tears. I’m a regular visitor to Dahlonega GA where the gold rush of the late 1820s began it all. One inside wall of the restored court house clearly shows gold flecks in the bricks.

So, Mr T/W/F, do you think the US Government OWES the descendants of Native Americans indemnity? Reparations. Should the current citizens be forced to pay compensation for the wrongs done nearly 2 centuries ago? There is a principle of our law that stolen property is always the property of its rightful owner. If a Native American can prove he or she is the lineal descendant of a person whose property was taken wrongfully, should he or she not have it back?

[edit on 7/9/2007 by donwhite]