More September 11ths coming?

The Day White Innocence Died: An Indigenous Take on #September11

By Gyasi RossIt was undoubtedly a tragedy. But September 11th wasn’t a surprise, at least not for Native people and many people of color. No, Native people were already well aware of how destructive and evil people could be. How did we know? AMERICA TAUGHT US THAT; really, September 11th was only a surprise for white people and for those who didn’t realize that America had already perpetrated many September 11ths of its own. Native people knew that. We knew that America had a whole bunch of blood on its hands and that there was always a harvest season, always a reckoning. Sir Isaac Newton gave that harvest a name in his Third Law of Motion, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Oh yeah, that means that there will be more September 11ths as well—it’s inevitable unless America works to acknowledge and reconcile with its many victims of domestic terrorism against its own people. We see that energy right now—the current distrust of the federal government, the distrust of law enforcement and peoples’ movements of all colors that don’t believe in the legitimacy of the “powers that be,” like Idle No More, the Occupy Movement, Black Lives Matter and the Tea Party. Obviously the viewpoints of those various movements are vastly different, but the energy is largely the same.

“We don’t believe you. This Nation is build upon raw power and deceit and not freedom, equality or opportunity.”

There will be more September 11ths unless we change, folks. God forbid, but unless we do something it will happen. There will be rectification for the Marias Massacre, for the Sand Creek Massacre, for Wounded Knee, for North Tulsa/Black Wall Street, the Mankato mass hanging, the Red Summer of 1919, Joe Coe, Emmett Till, internment camps of Japanese, Chinese Exclusion Act, slavery, Jim Crow, genocide, forced tubal ligation of Native women, Tuskegee experiments, etc., etc., etc.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In the words of Ron Burgundy, “It’s science.” So, how do we stop this horrible cycle? Acknowledgment. Conversation. Painful conversation. Hell, restitution, reparations. Not punitive—just what the US owes. To wit, honor treaties with Native people and recognize aboriginal title, whether that be via monetary compensation (a disgusting compromise for many Native people, yet one that acknowledges practical realities) or specific performance. Monetary compensation for black folks for 40 acres and a mule—what is that in today’s dollars?

Formally apologize. Acknowledge. Treat us as human beings—the inhumane way that many white folks on this continent treated people of color for 400 years still influences the way they perceive us today, hence the incredibly disproportionate amount of deaths for Native and Black people at the hands of law enforcement.

Not civil rights—human rights—treat us like human beings.

Otherwise there will be more September 11ths. It’s physics. Natural law. We’re stuck with each other—none of us are going anyplace. But acknowledgment, reconciliation and restitution of America’s past crimes will move help us move to a new age, where we can get past these historical demons and actually start living in the 21st Century.

God bless the families of all who were harmed by September 11th. God also bless the families devastated by all instances of terrorism, including those perpetrated by the United States.Comment:  For more on terrorism, see America the Biggest Loser and Natives React to Charleston Shootings.

No apologies for nuking "savages"

The 70th anniversary of Hiroshima is a good time to discuss the greatest single instance of mass murder ever.

The indefensible Hiroshima revisionism that haunts America to this day

Seventy years ago this week we vaporized 250,000 civilians, and yet still view the bombings as an act of mercy

By Christian AppyHere we are, 70 years after the nuclear obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I’m wondering if we’ve come even one step closer to a moral reckoning with our status as the world’s only country to use atomic weapons to slaughter human beings. Will an American president ever offer a formal apology? Will our country ever regret the dropping of “Little Boy” and “Fat Man,” those two bombs that burned hotter than the sun? Will it absorb the way they instantly vaporized thousands of victims, incinerated tens of thousands more, and created unimaginably powerful shockwaves and firestorms that ravaged everything for miles beyond ground zero? Will it finally come to grips with the “black rain” that spread radiation and killed even more people—slowly and painfully—leading in the end to a death toll for the two cities conservatively estimated at more than 250,000?

Given the last seven decades of perpetual militarization and nuclear “modernization” in this country, the answer may seem like an obvious no. Still, as a historian, I’ve been trying to dig a little deeper into our lack of national contrition. As I have, an odd fragment of Americana kept coming to mind, a line from the popular 1970 tearjerker Love Story: “Love,” says the female lead when her boyfriend begins to apologize, “means never having to say you’re sorry.” It has to be one of the dumbest definitions ever to lodge in American memory, since real love often requires the strength to apologize and make amends.

It does, however, apply remarkably well to the way many Americans think about that broader form of love we call patriotism. With rare exceptions, like the 1988 congressional act that apologized to and compensated the Japanese-American victims of World War II internment, when it comes to the brute exercise of power, true patriotism has above all meant never having to say you’re sorry. The very politicians who criticize other countries for not owning up to their wrong-doing regularly insist that we should never apologize for anything. In 1988, for example, after the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian civilian airliner over the Persian Gulf killing all 290 passengers (including 66 children), Vice President George H.W. Bush, then running for president, proclaimed, “I will never apologize for the United States. Ever. I don’t care what the facts are.”What was our justification for the greatest single instance of mass murder since the Great Flood? Basically, that the Japanese were subhuman savages like America's Indians. We tried to exterminate one species of "vermin" so why not try it again?The president soon dropped the “military base” justification. After all, despite Washington’s effort to censor the most graphic images of atomic annihilation coming out of Hiroshima, the world quickly grasped that the U.S. had destroyed an entire city in a single blow with massive loss of life. So the president focused instead on an apologia that would work for at least the next seven decades. Its core arguments appeared in that same August 9th speech. “We have used [the atomic bomb] against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor,” he said, “against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.”

By 1945, most Americans didn’t care that the civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not committed Japan’s war crimes. American wartime culture had for years drawn on a long history of “yellow peril” racism to paint the Japanese not just as inhuman, but as subhuman. As Truman put it in his diary, it was a country full of “savages”—“ruthless, merciless, and fanatic” people so loyal to the emperor that every man, woman, and child would fight to the bitter end. In these years, magazines routinely depicted Japanese as monkeys, apes, insects, and vermin. Given such a foe, so went the prevailing view, there were no true “civilians” and nothing short of near extermination, or at least a powerful demonstration of America’s willingness to proceed down that path, could ever force their surrender. As Admiral William “Bull” Halsey said in a 1944 press conference, “The only good Jap is a Jap who’s been dead six months.”

In the years after World War II, the most virulent expressions of race hatred diminished, but not the widespread idea that the atomic bombs had been required to end the war, eliminating the need to invade the Japanese home islands where, it was confidently claimed, tooth-and-nail combat would cause enormous losses on both sides. The deadliest weapon in history, the one that opened the path to future Armageddon, had therefore saved lives. That was the stripped down mantra that provided the broadest and most enduring support for the introduction of nuclear warfare. By the time Truman, in retirement, published his memoir in 1955, he was ready to claim with some specificity that an invasion of Japan would have killed half-a-million Americans and at least as many Japanese.Comment:  The only good Indian is a dead Indian and the only good Jap is a dead Jap. Could Halsey have made the connection any clearer?

Neither the Indians nor the Japanese were good white Christian people like us. Therefore, it didn't matter to us if they lived or died.

That's been the core of the Euro-American mindset since 1492, if not earlier. We see it today as the police beat and kill brown people while Republicans slash their health and welfare services and Obama bombs and assassinates them. Many Americans simply don't care whether brown people live or die.

For more on the subject, see Whites Destroy Other People's Homes and Mass Murder in Gaza and Hiroshima.

Typical "Wild West" confrontation

Here's a typical 19th-century confrontation in the "Wild West."

1) White settlers move into Native territory and set up permanent residence without permission.

2) Someone, perhaps a young Native warrior, steals a settler's horse.

3) Military commander demands other Natives return the horse. Natives understandably refuse.

4) Commander sends posse of men to arrest Natives for horse theft. Gunfight ensues. Several Natives and one white man are killed.

5) Settlers demand vengeance. Commander sends troops to arrest Natives for the white man's murder.

6) Soldiers massacre 10-20 Native men, women, and children while arresting "killers."

7) Native "killers" are condemned for murder without a trial and hanged.

8) Settlers are finally satisfied that they've received justice for the stolen horse.

Repeat until the Army sends in a massive force to hunt all the Indians in the territory and confine or remove them.

The above scenario comes courtesy of Blood and Thunder, a book I just finished. It offers a revealing look at life on the southern frontier of New Mexico.

P.S. Sometimes just a dispute over a horse race was enough. Unbelievably, a stolen horse was not the worst excuse for a massacre ever.

"America, nation of torturers"

America, nation of torturers: Stop saying “this isn’t who we are”—here’s the real truth

Terrible findings in the torture report "are not who we are," John Kerry claims. Well, here's a U.S. history lesson

By Charles DavisIt’s comforting for those whose actions are not aligned with their stated values to believe that what one does in real life is not what ultimately defines who one really is. It’s nice to think who we are is determined not by the things we did the day before, but by the stated ideals we hope to aspire to fulfill, starting tomorrow. In a nation-state founded by settler-colonial Protestants, the argument is familiar—it’s what’s deep down inside that gets one up into heaven, not the good or genocidal nature of what one does down here on Earth—and as with any half-decent lie, it’s relatable: as fallible human beings, we’d all rather like to believe that we’re not as bad as we are but as good as we say we would like to be.

While founded on the ethnic cleansing of the continent’s original inhabitants and the enslavement of its African workforce, the news—or rather, confirmation—that the CIA employed a revolting range of “enhanced” torture techniques in the wake of 9/11 is being portrayed by some as a vile exception to the United States’ otherwise exceptional history; a “stain on our values and history,” in the words of Senator Dianne Feinstein, whose committee released the report detailing the agency’s use of near-drownings and mock executions and sexual abuse to humiliate and demoralize a foreign “other” under the guise of gathering intelligence. These practices, the terrible things this country has again and again been shown to do, “are not who we are,” added Secretary of State John Kerry. Indeed, “the awful facts of this report” do not even “represent who they are,” he said of those awful people described in that report (“its important that this period not define the intelligence community in anyone’s mind,” he continued).

“Some of the actions that were taken were contrary to our values,” President Barack Obama chimed in, crediting his government with, as always, correcting its own mistakes (“They aren’t picking up prisoners anymore,” Senator James Risch explained to CNN. “What they do is when they identify a high-value target, the target is droned.”).

As a rhetorical ploy, it’s understandable: Saying the United States has always been garbage is not going to be terribly popular in a nation that still fondly refers to a group of sadistic slave-owners as its “founding fathers”—so politicians savvy enough to know that openly embracing torture is not a good look for the world’s leading state-sponsor of holier-than-thou rhetoric, appeal to a history and set of values that never was and never were in practice, as a way to give political cover to their middling, public relations-minded critiques of the national-security state’s least defensible excesses. It’s entirely false, this narrative of extreme goodness marked by occasional self-correcting imperfection, but it satisfies our national ego to think the American phoenix rises from a store of ethically traded gold, not a pile of rotting trash.Comment:  For more on genocide, see Colonists Wanted Indians Dead and Lord Amherst's Genocidal Intent.

"Hands up, don't shoot!"

Some tweets on the connections between the different forms of violence perpetuated in America:

"Hands Up, Don't Shoot" chant of Ferguson protesters was the same message conveyed by "peace chiefs" at Sand Creek. http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_27069460/link-between-sand-creek-ferguson

Blacks say, "Hands up, don't shoot!" Muslims say, "Hands up, don't torture!" Natives say, "Hands up, don't massacre!" #TortureReport #USA

Women to angry spouses, frat boys, athletes, cops, soldiers, etc.: "Hands up, don't rape!" #HandsUpDontRape #rapeculture #waronwomen

The Geneva Conventions on torture are like Indian treaties--i.e., guidelines to be followed except when they're inconvenient. #TortureReport

Comment:  For more on Ferguson, see Our Broken Justice System and Grand Juries Won't Indict Killer Cops.

Expulsion of the Acadians

Here's an early and little-known example of warfare against Indians. It may have been the first large-scale forced relocation in America, and a harbinger of things to come.

Expulsion of the AcadiansThe Expulsion of the Acadians, also known as the Great Upheaval, the Great Expulsion and Le Grand Dérangement, was the forced removal by the British of the Acadian people from the present day Canadian Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island—an area also known as Acadie. The Expulsion (1755–1764) occurred during the French and Indian War (the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War) and was part of the British military campaign against New France. The British first deported Acadians to the Thirteen Colonies, and after 1758 transported additional Acadians to Britain and France. In all, approximately 11,500 Acadians were deported.

After the British conquest of Acadia in 1710, the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht allowed the Acadians to keep their lands. Over the next forty-five years, however, the Acadians refused to sign an unconditional oath of allegiance to Britain. During the same period, they also participated in various military operations against the British, and maintained supply lines to the French fortresses of Louisbourg and Fort Beauséjour. As a result, the British sought to eliminate any future military threat posed by the Acadians and to permanently cut the supply lines they provided to Louisbourg by removing them from the area.

Without making distinctions between the Acadians who had been neutral and those who had resisted the occupation of Acadia, the British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council ordered them to be expelled. In the first wave of the expulsion, Acadians were deported to other British colonies. During the second wave, they were deported to Britain and France, from where they migrated to Louisiana. Acadians fled initially to Francophone colonies such as Canada, the uncolonized northern part of Acadia, Isle Saint-Jean and Isle Royale. During the second wave of the expulsion, these Acadians were either imprisoned or deported.

Throughout the expulsion, Acadians and the Wabanaki Confederacy continued a guerrilla war against the British in response to British aggression which had been continuous since 1744 (see King Georges War and Father Le Loutre's War).

Along with the British achieving their military goals of defeating Louisbourg and weakening the Mi'kmaq and Acadian militias, the result of the Expulsion was the devastation of both a primarily civilian population and the economy of the region. Thousands of Acadians died in the expulsions, mainly from diseases and drowning when ships were lost.Attempted genocide of the Acadian and Mi’kmaq Nations

By Daniel N. PaulMany Acadians went into hiding among the Mi’kmaq and remained with them until the British and French ended their hostilities in 1763. A group of several hundred were hidden by the Mi’kmaq in the area known today as Kejimkujik National Park. The Expulsion order was almost universal. Even individuals who had sworn allegiance to the British Crown and been promised the right to live peacefully in their ancestral homes were included. Professor Jeffery Plank, University of Cincinnati, states:Everyone involved understood the conflict to be a race war…. During the 1750s the politics of Nova Scotia centered on issues of national identity. At various times during the decade, the British engaged in combat with several different peoples who inhabited, or passed through, Nova Scotia: The Micmac, the French… and the Acadians… The British governors of Nova Scotia generally believed that they were surrounded by enemies, that the Acadians, the Micmac and the French would soon find a way to cooperate and overthrow British rule. One of the principle (sic) aims of British policy, therefore, was to keep these people separated, to isolate the Micmac, the Acadians, and the French. To achieve this goal of segregation, the colonial authorities adopted two draconian policies. In 1749 the governor began offering bounties for the scalps of Micmac men, women and children. The aim of this program was to eliminate the Micmac population on the peninsula of Nova Scotia, by death or forced emigration. In 1755 the British adopted a different but related strategy: it deported the Acadians, and relocated them in safer colonies to the west. Viewed in the abstract, these two programs, to pay for the deaths of the Micmac and to relocate and absorb the Acadians, represented very simple thinking. The colonial authorities who endorsed these programs placed the inhabitants of Nova Scotia into two categories, Europeans and savages, and treated them accordingly.In retrospect, I don’t believe that the Mi’kmaq and Acadians could have ever escaped their fate. The paranoia and racism harboured by the British would never have permitted it. Today, the Acadians have in hand a half-hearted apology from the Crown for the horrors committed against their ancestors. However, the Crown stubbornly refuses to apologize for the horrors committed against the Mi’kmaq by Governors Edward Cornwallis and Charles Lawrence. Cornwallis, as the record witnesses, attempted Genocide, yet he is still widely honoured. A blot on this society that no decent human being can ever defend.The Acadian Miracle
Acts of unbelievable cruelty to Acadians and Indians by the English CH. XXV

By Dudley LeBlancIn the "Letters and Memoires on Cape Breton" (Pichon) we read:

"Towards the end of July 1749, when the news of the truce between the two Crowns had not yet reached New France, the Indians had taken some English prisoners on the Island of Newfoundland; but these prisoners, having informed them of the truce signed the previous year at Aix-la-Chapelle they believed them on their mere word, treated them as brothers, released them from bonds; but in spite of so much kind treatment, these perfidious guests massacred, during the night, twenty-five Indians, men and women."

Numerous acts of unbelievable cruelty to the Indians by the English are of record:

"Towards the end of the month of December 1754," says another document, "Mr. Gorham, commanding a detachment of the English troops found in a lonely place, near Annapolis, two huts of Micmac Indians. In these huts were five women and three children, two of the women being pregnant; but despite the feelings of humanity that such persons were likely to excite, the English not only plundered and burned these huts, but also massacred the five pregnant women and three children. It was even found that the pregnant women had been disembowelled."

"A certain Captain Lovewell," says Hannay, a pro-British historian, "emulous of Harmon’s fame as taker of scalps, and with the patriotism fired by the large bounty offered for this kind of article, gathered a band of volunteers and commenced scalp-hunting. They killed one Indian for whose scalp the company received 100 pounds. He started next year with forty men, surprised the Indians whose scalps netted 1000 pounds. In a subsequent fight he lost his own scalp, as did thirty-four of his men."Comment:  If you ever wondered where Cajuns came from, here's the answer: They were expelled from Acadia.

I'm not sure if the Expulsion counts as genocide. The English were attacking several groups of people, not just one. And they deported their enemies with no evident thought of exterminating them completely.

Still, this incident shows the Europeans' desire to crush, kill, or destroy the opposition. They wanted it all for themselves, even though they had no right to the land and its resources.

Below:  St. John River Campaign: "A View of the Plundering and Burning of the City of Grimross" (1758). Watercolor by Thomas Davies.

Phony gun image still circulating

Because of the continuous splatter of dead bodies caused by gun nuts and their guns, people are still talking about the need for gun control. Therefore, people are still posting this image:



The problem isn't just conservatives trying to score points by falsely linking gun control to massacres. It's also liberals who aren't paying enough attention and think they're saying something about Wounded Knee.

As you may recall, I dissected this image in Phony Pro-Gun Indian Image. Now another site has chimed in with a debunking:

Was There an 1890 School Shooting Worse than Sandy Hook?Bottom Line

The Wounded Knee Massacre was a terrible tragedy in which nearly 300 mostly-unarmed Indians were killed. To categorize it as a school shooting, however, is completely without merit.To help the idiots who want to forward this false or misleading image, I created an accurate version:



Any questions?

About Alone Yet Not Alone

With its Oscar nomination for best song, people are wondering about the obscure film Alone Yet Not Alone. I hadn't heard of it either, so I did some research. Here's the story:

Introducing 'Alone Yet Not Alone,' the year's most obscure Oscar nominee

Yet again, the Best Original Song category turns up a shocker

By Guy LodgeIf you already knew what the movie was when the nomination was announced, give yourself a pat on the back, since it doesn't seem a stretch to call this Christian drama the most obscure feature film nominated for an Oscar this year. As I scoured the Internet to find out what exactly it was, not a whole lot came up: there is no trace of the film's existence on Metacritic, while its Rotten Tomatoes page features not a single review. Okay, so it's not the critical radar, but how about commercially? I'd like to tell you, but Box Office Mojo hasn't heard of it either.

Turns out the film received a limited release in September, specifically within the Christian market. Production company Enthuse Entertainment describes themselves as producing "God-honoring, faith-based, family-friendly films that inspire the human spirit to seek and know God." A true-life historical drama set in 1755, it tells the story of two young sisters captured by native Americans during a raid on their family's farm. As the poster informs us, a "forced marriage" and "desperate escape" ensue. (I really hope this isn't as politically dubious as it sounds.) Cue the titular song, a family hymn that provides them with solace and inspiration during their ordeal.Christian Movie 'Alone Yet Not Alone' Receives Surprising Oscar Nomination

By Morgan LeeReleased in theaters in late September 2013, "Alone Yet Not Alone," is based on a book of the same name, and tells the true story of two German settler girls who attempt to hold onto their Christian faith after being kidnapped by Native Americans.

Since its nomination was announced, some critics have criticized the movie, claiming that it gives a negative and demeaning depiction of Native Americans.Sources for the movie

The ads say Alone Yet Not Alone is based on a true story. Well, sort of. It's apparently based on a novelization of a true story:

Alone Yet Not Alone: Their faith became their freedom

A reviewer didn't think much of this novel:From School Library Journal

Gr 4-6. Barbara and Regina Leininger were from a family of German immigrants who were living in the Blue Mountains of Pennsylvania in 1755, and they were captured by Indians during the French and Indian War. This novel, based on their experiences, focuses on the faith that sustained them during their captivity. Given to different tribes, the sisters are separated and do not see each other again for close to 10 years. Although Barbara is treated well by Galasko, the Indian brave who wants to marry her, life is hard. She never loses her determination to escape, and after several years, she and three other captives manage to flee successfully. What could have been an interesting story of survival is diminished by the book's simplistic tone and lack of nuance. The settlers are beautiful and compassionate, while many Indians are unattractive, cruel, and troubled because they don't believe in one god. The depiction of them is beyond biased and there is no attempt to provide any historical background or explanation for their actions. It will be difficult to find an audience for this book.I guess the novel is based on the following historical narrative. It seems to be a pamphlet of the girls' adventures as told to a minister or some other official:

"The Narrative of Marie le Roy and Barbara Leininger, for Three Years Captives among the Indians"

If the pamphlet is accurate, the movie isn't totally off-base. The girls weren't hurt but did witness others being tortured, and they suffered from privation, primarily hunger. They never accepted captivity and dreamed of escaping, but thought they'd be "roasted alive" if the Indians recaptured them.

Of course, the pamphlet's accuracy is a big "if." The girls could've exaggerated their travails, or the official could've exaggerated them. I wouldn't give much credence to a settler's account of Indian life.

The actual events

Here's the massacre in which the girls were taken captive. The Wikipedia entry is presumably more neutral than accounts by the participants. It provides some background but doesn't tell us what the captives endured:

Penn's Creek Massacre

Even the background is lacking. Did the British and French have any legal right to settle on the Indians' land? Were any agreements ratified by the whole tribe or just a friendly "chief"? How many Indians were killed by the settlers' guns and diseases? Etc.

Without more information, we have to wonder if the movie is more false than true. Indians did commit crimes, but they were defending their land, not rampaging for no reason. It was a like an early version of "Stand Your Ground": They had the right to kill anyone who threatened them.

Wounded Knee museum rises from ashes

Wounded Knee museum rises from the ashes

By Andrea J. CookJust one year after a fire destroyed the Wounded Knee Museum in Wall, it has reopened in a new location with new stories to share.

It was on the night of Sept. 2, 2012, when museum co-founder Steve Wyant saw a dream that had lived on for 10 years go up in flames. An electrical malfunction was blamed for the fire that also took 30 exhibits linked to the Wounded Knee massacre on Dec. 29, 1890.

"Insurance never even came close," Wyant said of the daunting task of bringing the museum back to life.

But there were precious items that did survive the blaze that today fill a new museum in downtown Wall. They also instill a sense of awe in Wyant, who marvels that they survived a fire that spared so few items.

"I'm always touched by the thought of it," he said of the collection of nearly 300 simulated eagle feathers suspended from a Lakota Medicine Wheel. Each feather represents a one of the 300 men, women and children killed by Seventh Calvary soldiers on that day.Comment:  Apparently Wyant gave no thought to moving his museum closer to Rapid City, Pine Ridge, or Wounded Knee. I.e., the places anyone interested in Wounded Knee would go to first. Too bad.

For more on the Wounded Knee Museum, see Fire Totals Wounded Knee Museum.

Below:  "Last September, an electrical fire destroyed most of the artifacts and collection in the Wounded Knee museum in Wall. A year later, owner Steve Wyant has rebuilt his museum in a new space in downtown Wall."

Museum closes Sand Creek exhibit

Denver museum closes Indian massacre display

By Associated PressColorado's new state history museum has closed an exhibit on the Sand Creek Indian massacre, one of the state's darkest chapters, after descendants of the slaughter's survivors demanded changes in how it is portrayed and complained that they weren't consulted about the display.

A U.S. Army force led by Col. John M. Chivington (SHIV'-ing-tin) swept into a sleeping Indian village along Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado on Nov. 29, 1864. Troops killed more than 160 Cheyenne and Arapaho, most of them women, children and the elderly. Officials at the time insisted the attack was to avenge Native American raids on white settlers and kidnappings of women and children.

Dale Hamilton, a descendant of Chief Sand Hill, one of the survivors, said curators of the History Colorado Center museum in Denver didn't consult tribes about the display, which opened in April 2012. The exhibit was closed in June.

Tribal historians found some dates were wrong, excerpts from letters left out crucial details, and the exhibit attempted to explain Native American-white settler conflicts as a "collision of cultures," claimed Hamilton, of Concho, Okla., where he lives with Cheyenne and Southern Arapahoe tribes.

"This wasn't a clash of cultures. This was a straight-up massacre. All we are looking for is respect for our relatives who were murdered," said Hamilton.Right call (but late) on Sand Creek Massacre exhibit

By The Denver Post Editorial BoardHistory Colorado has made the right decision by closing, temporarily at least, its exhibit on the Sand Creek Massacre while officials consult with the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. We're just sorry it had to come to this.

The clear lesson from this episode is that museum officials should have reached out earlier to the tribes and given them fuller opportunities to voice their concerns.

And their concerns, outlined in reporting by Westword's Patricia Calhoun over the last several months, were many.

First, the very name of the exhibit, "Collision: The Sand Creek Massacre," was offensive to many tribal members, who believed the event was being portrayed as an inevitable clash of cultures rather than an indefensible massacre.Comment:  For more on the Sand Creek Massacre, see Sand Creek Descendants Sue for Reparations and Sand Creek Called "Collision of Cultures."

Sand Creek descendants sue for reparations

Sand Creek Massacre descendants sue federal government for reparations

By Eric GorskiDescendants of victims of the Sand Creek Massacre have filed a class-action lawsuit in Denver against the federal government, seeking reparations they claim were never paid for the slaughter of their Cheyenne and Arapaho ancestors 149 years ago.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court on behalf of four Oklahoma-based members of the Sand Creek Massacre Descendants Trust, is the most concrete step taken in decades by descendants long frustrated by politics, inaction and divisions in their ranks.

The complaint accuses the government and its agents of lawless behavior and hollow promises surrounding one of the darkest moments in Colorado history.

At dawn on Nov. 29, 1864, federal soldiers attacked peaceful Indians camped on the ice-encrusted banks of Sand Creek in what is now southeastern Colorado, slaughtering an estimated 163—mostly women, children and the elderly—and desecrating their bodies.

The U.S. government in an 1865 treaty acknowledged wrongdoing and promised reparations of land and cash to survivors and relatives of victims.

The crux of the legal argument going forward will be whether the government ever paid that debt. Descendants claim it has not, while government officials have indicated they will argue otherwise.Comment:  For more on the Sand Creek Massacre, see Sand Creek in Iron Man 3 and Sand Creek Called "Collision of Cultures."

Holocaust museum at Wounded Knee?

Native Sun News: Wounded Knee descendants speak out

Many see museum at Wounded Knee as positive thing

By Brandon EcoffeyMargo Iron Hawk, a Mnicoujou elder who is also a descendant of Wounded Knee, supports the erection of a memorial at Wounded Knee.

“It would be good to have a memorial, for our youth to be proud of. To tell why our ancestors died and how we survived. We can see it in our youth; they need to be given something to be proud of and shown where they come from,” she said.

Support for a possible memorial, although not unanimous, has significant backing from Lakota people throughout reservations in South Dakota. Craig Dillon, Oglala Sioux tribal councilman, recently told the British Publication The Guardian that he was in favor of a museum and a place where vendors could sell what they produce.

Retired owner of Native Sun News, Tim Giago (Oglala Lakota), has recently proposed an idea to build a Native American Holocaust Museum at Wounded Knee where an accurate depiction of the plight of Native people could be told, and tribal members on social media have expressed support for a monument to those who have passed away there, if it is done in a respectful way. Joe Brings Plenty feels that it could be a chance for the Mnicoujou to show the world what really happened at Wounded Knee.

“I would support a memorial park erected at the location, with walkways and monuments showing where the teepees and events occurred. There needs to be more information available to educate the public. The American public at this point has been misled by naming this a battle; it was never a battle. It was a massacre that ended tragically with many innocent lives taken and changed forever. The historical trauma our relatives, as well as ourselves, have faced in the past years is fatal to our Nation’s health. A memorial park would assist in retelling a history and honorable struggle of our nations will to live. This would give us an opportunity to honor our relatives in a good way, to remember them and allow them to be remembered in the way we know they deserved to be remembered, with the greatness they lived and passed on through the traditional culture we continue to practice today” he said.Holocaust Museum of the Indigenous People should be built at Wounded KneeWounded Knee may have been the final chapter on this holocaust of indigenous people. It is only right that the Oglala Lakota build a Holocaust Museum of the Indigenous People right here on the grounds where the massacre of the Lakota took place on Dec. 29, 1890.

The museum could house the history of the millions who died from the tip of South America to the top of North America. Every indigenous tribe has its stories of the death and destruction that was visited upon their people. A museum of this nature would draw visitors from around the world and it would inform and educate the masses as to the true history of the Natives of this Hemisphere. But more than that, the museum would serve as a stark reminder that the hands of the invaders were not clean, but they were the hands of a people who tried in vain to destroy a culture and a people.

Whether that destruction came in the form of forced religions or in the quest for gold, indigenous people died in its wake. There are hundreds of stories to be told and hundreds of photos and artifacts to substantiate the holocaust of the Native people. It should be a priority venture for the Oglala Sioux Tribe and there should be many wealthy people and the United States government itself that would contribute money and the expertise to make the Holocaust Museum of the Indigenous People a reality.

It is time to stop talking about the genocide foisted upon us and to do something about it. This idea is one that is achievable. We now need the Lakota people of vision to cease upon it and make it happen. It is time to tell the true history of the invasion of the Americas and about the millions of deaths that ensued.

And the Lakota People should be the leaders in this endeavor because for all intent and purposes, the holocaust of the indigenous people ended on the Sacred Grounds at Wounded Knee.Comment:  There is, or was, a Wounded Knee Museum already. I'm not sure how the proposed museum would be different. I guess it might focus more on the centuries of conquest and genocide.

For more on the subject, see Pine Ridge Needs Tourism and Fire Totals Wounded Knee Museum.

Sand Creek massacre in Iron Man 3

'Iron Man 3' Villain Invokes Sand Creek MassacreThe villain in the blockbuster action flick Iron Man 3 has a list of grudges against the United States -- and one is a historical event that only periodically gets attention outside of Indian country.

The Mandarin, played by Ben Kingsley, is a terrorist mastermind who interrupts TV programming to rail against injustices and broadcast acts of violence -- a Denver Post reviewer says that the character "definitely conjures the ghost of Osama bin Laden" and "swings his ideological ax wildly."

One of the crimes The Mandarin uses as justification for his own mayhem is the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, in which some 700 Colorado Territory militia led by Col. John Chivington killed over 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho people, most of them women, children and elderly.

The reference has been noted by many viewers, perhaps none more prominent than University of California-Davis professor Ari Kelman, author of A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling Over the Memory of Sand Creek.

"For almost a century and a half, different groups of people have used memories of Sand Creek to advance their political agendas," Kelman said, according to Denver Westword. "The makers of Iron Man 3 tapped into this rich historical vein, repurposing the massacre yet again, this time as an emblem of the hazards of American imperialism. A terrorist in the film seizes on the slaughter at Sand Creek as justification for his crimes ... It's a chilling scene and a grim reminder that the struggle over the meaning of the Sand Creek Massacre still haunts this nation."Iron Man 3 Blasts Sand Creek

By Dr. Leo KillsbackThe majority of mainstream Americans know little to nothing of the violent and unjust history of the colonization of Native America. Anytime such truth is revealed to the public on the big screens, it should be done fairly since these are rare opportunities to reach the masses. The brutality of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 is one of the most horrific events in American history, but it is so shameful and remains out of sight, ignored, and therefore out of the minds of the majority of Americans. Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 includes the story of Sand Creek in the first real acknowledgement of the massacre in the modern mainstream film industry, but Black miserably fails to take advantage to shed some light on the dark and shameful history of the U.S.

In the movie the villain called the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) justifies his violence in a series of propaganda videos. One video showed historic pictures of Cheyennes, even children at Carlisle boarding school, with his voice-over telling how the U.S. waited for warriors to depart on a hunt before soldiers attacked the peaceful camp. The Mandarin then asserts that this same tactic inspired his terrorist group to attack a church in Kuwait filled with the families of American soldiers. Initially, I was generally impressed that Sand Creek was actually mentioned in the blockbuster film. I was even fascinated that the fictionalized villain correlated the Sand Creek Massacre to conflicts in the Middle East. Unfortunately, by midway through the film, I was completely disappointed and deeply upset that the massacre was even mentioned.

The purpose for using Sand Creek wasn’t too clear, but results in too many wrong assumptions. Are Americans supposed to hold resentment towards their terrorists as Cheyenne survivors held resentment towards the U.S. after Sand Creek? Does the correlation promote sympathy for unjust acts of genocide committed by the U.S. in 1864, or condemn terrorists as unjust and irrational as the U.S. soldiers? Whatever the case, the use of Sand Creek further confuses the populace of crimes of the past.

If the movie had made a parallel between the U.S. atrocities committed at both Sand Creek and in modern Middle East conflicts, like the revisionist films of the 1970s, then it would actually promote sympathy for the insurgents, since they defend their families and homelands against the same imperial aggression. The Mandarin’s comparison had potential to be an intelligent reflection of the George Santayana’s celebrated quote: “those who ignore history are bound to repeat it.” But this was not the case and such parallels are likely to never happen in Hollywood. Besides this isn’t my primary concern.

What upset me the most is that when the Mandarin was captured and exposed as a fraud, and as he lost all credibility, he took the true story of Sand Creek with him. By virtue of association, the true story of the massacre was falsified, devalued, and in all likelihood, branded in the minds of viewers as nothing short of propaganda from a fictional terrorist played by a drug-addicted actor, played by Ben Kingsley. I would rather have the events of Sand Creek completely ignored than be subjugated to so many levels of fictionalization.Comment:  I haven't seen Iron Man 3 yet. If I understand Killsback's description, terrorists killed innocent Americans in Kuwait and the Mandarin justified it by saying Americans killed innocent Cheyenne at Sand Creek.

Since two wrongs rarely if ever make a right, I'm not sure how one massacre justifies another. Especially when they're separated by 150 years and more than 7,000 miles.

Is the Mandarin saying the US soldiers acted properly at Sand Creek? So his terrorists acted properly also? If he sympathizes with the Cheyenne, why wouldn't he sympathize with the Kuwait victims too?

The only way this comes even close to working is if there's a clear connection between the two incidents. For example, Columbus enslaved the Indians he met, so the Indians killed the men he left behind. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, so the US nuked Hiroshima. (Not that I agree with this one, but it shows what I mean.)

It doesn't work to say Mexico attacked the Alamo in 1836, so the US can invade Mexico in 2013. And it really doesn't work to say, oh, Al Qaeda attacked us from Afghanistan, so we can invade Iraq. That's pure criminal behavior masked as a "just" cause.

P.S. This movie also raises the issue of Anglo/Indian Ben Kingsley playing a Chinese character. Can you say "yellowface"?

For more on massacres, see "Why Do They Hate Us?" 2013 and Sand Creek Called "Collision of Cultures."

"Why do they hate us?" 2013

The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Ignoring the role played by US actions is dangerously self-flattering and self-delusional

By Glenn Greenwald"The two suspects in the Boston bombing that killed three and injured more than 260 were motivated by the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, officials told the Washington Post.

"Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 'the 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, has told interrogators that the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated him and his brother to carry out the attack,' the Post writes, citing 'US officials familiar with the interviews.'"

In the last several years, there have been four other serious attempted or successful attacks on US soil by Muslims, and in every case, they emphatically all say the same thing: that they were motivated by the continuous, horrific violence brought by the US and its allies to the Muslim world - violence which routinely kills and oppresses innocent men, women and children:

"I had an agreement with at least one person to attack the United States in retaliation for US support of Israel and in retaliation of the killing of innocent and civilian Muslim populations in Palestine, especially in the blockade of Gaza, and in retaliation for the killing of innocent and civilian Muslim populations in Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and beyond, most of them women, children, and noncombatants."

"If the United States does not get out of Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries controlled by Muslims, he said, 'we will be attacking US', adding that Americans 'only care about their people, but they don't care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die' . . . .

"As soon as he was taken into custody May 3 at John F. Kennedy International Airport, onboard a flight to Dubai, the Pakistani-born Shahzad told agents that he was motivated by opposition to US policy in the Muslim world, officials said."

When he was asked by the federal judge presiding over his case how he could possibly have been willing to detonate bombs that would kill innocent children, he replied:

"Well, the drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don't see children, they don't see anybody. They kill women, children, they kill everybody. It's a war, and in war, they kill people. They're killing all Muslims. . . .

"I am part of the answer to the US terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people. And, on behalf of that, I'm avenging the attack. Living in the United States, Americans only care about their own people, but they don't care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die."And:It should go without saying that the issue here is causation, not justification or even fault. It is inherently unjustifiable to target innocent civilians with violence, no matter the cause (just as it is unjustifiable to recklessly kill civilians with violence). But it is nonetheless vital to understand why there are so many people who want to attack the US as opposed to, say, Peru, or South Africa, or Brazil, or Mexico, or Japan, or Portugal. It's vital for two separate reasons.

First, some leading American opinion-makers love to delude themselves and mislead others into believing that the US is attacked despite the fact that it is peaceful, peace-loving, freedom-giving and innocent. As these myth-makers would have it, we don't bother anyone; we just mind our own business (except when we're helping and liberating everyone), so why would anyone possibly want to attack us?

With that deceitful premise in place, so many Americans, westerners, Christians and Jews love to run around insisting that the only real cause for Muslim attacks on the US is that the attackers have this primitive, brutal, savage, uncivilized religion (Islam) that makes them do it. Yesterday, Andrew Sullivan favorably cited Sam Harris as saying that "Islamic doctrines ... still present huge problems for the emergence of a global civil society" and then himself added: "All religions contain elements of this kind of fanaticism. But Islam's fanatical side–from the Taliban to the Tsarnaevs–is more murderous than most."

These same people often love to accuse Muslims of being tribal without realizing the irony that what they are saying-Our Side is Superior and They are Inferior-is the ultimate expression of rank tribalism. They also don't seem ever to acknowledge the irony of Americans and westerners of all people accusing others of being uniquely prone to violence, militarism and aggression (Juan Cole yesterday, using indisputable statistics, utterly destroyed the claim that Muslims are uniquely violent, including by noting the massive body count piled up by predominantly Christian nations and the fact that "murder rates in most of the Muslim world are very low compared to the United States").

As the attackers themselves make as clear as they can, it's not religious fanaticism but rather political grievance that motivates these attacks. Religious conviction may make them more willing to fight (as it does for many in the west), but the motive is anger over what is being done by the US and its allies to Muslims. Those who claim otherwise are essentially saying: gosh, these Muslims sure do have this strange, primitive, inscrutable religion whereby they seem to get angry when they're invaded, occupied, bombed, killed, and have dictators externally imposed on them. It's vital to understand this causal relationship simply in order to prevent patent, tribalistic, self-glorifying falsehoods from taking hold.

Second, it's crucial to understand this causation because it's often asked "what can we do to stop Terrorism?" The answer is right in front of our faces: we could stop embracing the polices in that part of the world which fuel anti-American hatred and trigger the desire for vengeance and return violence. Yesterday at a Senate hearing on drones, a young Yemeni citizen whose village was bombed by US drones last week (despite the fact that the targets could easily have been arrested), Farea Al-Muslimi, testified. Al-Muslimi has always been pro-American in the extreme, having spent a year in the US due to a State Department award, but he was brilliant in explaining these key points:

"Just six days ago, my village was struck by a drone, in an attack that terrified thousands of simple, poor farmers. The drone strike and its impact tore my heart, much as the tragic bombings in Boston last week tore your hearts and also mine.

"What radicals had previously failed to achieve in my village one drone strike accomplished in an instant: there is now an intense anger and growing hatred of America."Terrorism: Are American Citizens Retaliation Victims of the Bush-Obama Immoral Wars?

By Jacqueline MarcusI realize that the media refuses to discuss the motives of political acts of terrorism. But we need to have that discussion after ten years of killing and torturing Iraqis and Afghans. The Bush-Cheney administration lied to Americans and cruelly blamed Iraqis for 9-11. The truth is that Iraqis were a kind and generous people before 9-11, they sympathized with Americans when 9-11 happened; they had nothing to do with 9-11, and did nothing to harm us. And that’s true for Afghans as well. These war crimes are now all documented and have been revealed through the work and courageous efforts of independent journalists like Jeremy Scahill and Julian Assange via WikiLeaks. Independent journals such as Truthout.org have continued to cover these stories—so that the public can distinguish between facts on the ground and corporate media lies-propaganda.

There is a simple solution to diminishing violent acts of terrorism that this government refuses to acknowledge: Leave these poor people alone! Stop invading them, stop killing them! Send drones that drop boxes of food, bread not bombs, so that the healing can begin. Of course, by now, they probably don’t trust anything that comes from the U.S. government, including food and water—they’ll assume it will all be poisoned. Can you blame them?Comment:  Attacking us because of their "primitive, brutal, savage, uncivilized" beliefs and practices is exactly what we blamed Indians for. And it's true that Indians sometimes terrorized and murdered "innocent" settlers who had "done nothing" to them.

I put those words in quotes because the settlers were the vanguard of genocidal policies that intended to push the Indians into the desert or the ocean. And the Indians knew it.

The Indians were fighting for their way of life, their very existence. They couldn't strike at the generals in their forts or the politicians in the statehouses. So they struck at the frontline purveyors of these genocidal policies.

The point is that almost no one wages "terrorism" because they're mad or evil. They're human beings just like everyone else. And they have motives and goals just like everyone else.

It may be foolish to try to stop an onslaught by killing civilians. It probably does nothing but inflame your opponents against you. That's why Jesus, Gandhi, and King preached nonviolence--and succeeded with it.

But people do foolish, desperate, even horrible things when their backs are to the wall. The Indians tried the peaceful way; they signed 400 treaties. The white man broke every treaty, interred the Indians in concentration camps (reservations) and boarding schools, and watched them die slowly of disease and hunger.

With that in mind, I can understand why the Indians resorted to the occasional massacre. When you're fighting for your people in self-defense, the unthinkable becomes thinkable.

For more on the subject, see "Why Do They Hate Us?" 2012 and Why Don't "They" Like Us?

Sand Creek called "collision of cultures"

Sand Creek Massacre Exhibit to Close for Tribal Consultation

By Carol BerryA controversial museum exhibit about the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 will be closed to the public as History Colorado consults with tribes whose ancestors were killed by U.S. Army volunteers at a southeastern Colorado encampment where they had been promised safety.

Complaints of inaccuracy in the exhibit, which opened in April 2012, and a failure to consult with the affected tribes had been lodged by the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of Montana with support from the Northern Arapaho Tribe of Wyoming. The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma also cited problems with the government-to-government consultation process.

Tribal members asked that the exhibit at the History Colorado Center in downtown Denver be closed until further consultation took place. Underlying some tribal criticism was History Colorado Center’s presentation of the massacre as part of an inevitable and neutral “collision of cultures” rather than as a major atrocity related to invasion and attempted annihilation.

“To underscore our sincerity in wishing to engage in meaningful consultation, History Colorado will close the exhibit to the public during consultation and while any agreed-upon changes resulting from the consultation are made to the exhibit,” said Edward C. Nichols, president and CEO of History Colorado in a letter to John Robinson, president of the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council.Comment:  For more on Sand Creek, see Northwestern Founder Oversaw Sand Creek and Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual Healing Run.

Below:  "The History Colorado Center in downtown Denver with the bison sculpture titled On the Wind."

Blue Dolphins begins with massacre

Debbie Reese writes about Island of the Blue Dolphins in her American Indians in Children's Literature blog:

ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS is the all-time best selling Newbery Medal winning bookIsland of the Blue Dolphins is making a lot of money for its publisher, but should any teacher be using it as though it is a reliable story about anyone who is in the book? The Aleuts? The people of San Nicolas? Learning, as Jonker reports, that it is the all-time bestselling Newbery Medal winning book helps me understand why its publisher wants it listed on CBC Diversity's Bookshelf of "diverse" books. Having a "diversity" stamp on it gives it some credibility it does not deserve.I read Island of the Blue Dolphins as a kid, but I didn't remember how it started. Wikipedia gives us two versions of the story--the book's version and the historic version:

Island of the Blue DolphinsPlot summary

The main character is a girl named Karana, and that is her secret name. Wonapalei is her common name (everyone in the village has a secret name). Her people lived in a village called Ghalas-at, gathering roots and fishing to supply the tribe. One day, a ship of Aleuts, led by a Russian named Captain Orlov, arrived and persuaded the natives into letting them hunt sea otter in return for other goods. However, the Aleuts attempted to swindle the islanders and leave without paying. When they are confronted by Chief Chowig, Karana's father, a battle breaks out, and lives were lost on both sides. The tribe was annihilated by the battle and the Aleuts left the island, leaving little payment for the otters they hunted. Karana's father and many other men in the tribe died during the battle.

Later, the "replacement chief," Chief Kimki, left the island on a canoe for new land in the East. Eventually, he was able to send a "giant canoe" to bring his people to the jujjiand, even though he himself did not return. The white men came to Karana's village and told them to pack their goods and go to a ship. Karana's brother, Ramo left the ship to retrieve his fishing spear. Although Karana urged the captain to wait for her brother Ramo to return, the ship must leave before a storm approaches. Karana jumped off the ship and swam to shore, and the ship departs without them.Juana MariaIn 1811, approximately 30 Aleutian hunters from Russian Alaska began scouring the California coast for otters, whose pelts were referred to as "soft gold." Under contract to the Russian-American Company, the Aleuts were hired to hunt for several weeks on San Nicolas. This outing grew into a year. The otter population was decimated, and a bloody conflict between the Aleutians and islanders (who opposed the hunting) drastically reduced the population of the local men. By 1835, the island's Native American population, which had once numbered 300, had shrunk to around 20. Some sources give the number as seven, all female except for one man named Black Hawk.

When news of the massacre reached the mainland, the Santa Barbara Mission decided to sponsor a rescue operation. In late November 1835, the schooner Peor es Nada, commanded by Charles Hubbard, left Monterey, California under contract to remove the remaining people living on San Nicolas Island. Upon arriving at the island, Hubbard's party gathered the Indians on the beach and brought them aboard. Juana Maria, however, was not among them by the time a strong storm arose, and the Peor es Nada's crew, realizing the imminent danger of being wrecked by the surf and rocks, panicked and sailed toward the mainland, leaving her behind.The second version sounds more bloody and brutal than the first version, which sounds a bit sanitized. But both versions gloss over the Russians' role.

"Savage" vs. "savage"

As Reese notes, the Aleuts were Natives too, so Island of the Blue Dolphins describes a war between two groups of "savages." But a basic familiarity with history tells us the Russians probably pressed the Aleuts into servitude. No way did the Russians treat them as equals and let them act independently. Any conflict with the islanders happened because the Russians wanted it to happen.

A posting confirms this supposition:

1743-1867 Era of Russian ViolenceFugitive serfs, ex convicts, debtors--along with a few sailors--made up the crews of vessels in the new fur trade. All in all, the men heading to the Aleutian Islands were rough and brutal. They soon clashed with the Aleut inhabitants of the islands who were at first friendly but later attempted to repel the intruders.

As the fur fever increased, so did Russian violence and oppression. The fur seekers forced Aleut hunters to provide them with sea otter skins. Often they took the hunters' wives and children hostage to ensure the safe return of Russian overseers. The use of hostages had been common in Siberia at one time, but Tsarina Catherine outlawed the practice after she came to power in 1762.

She told her subjects to treat the Aleuts well, but enforcement of her decree was non existent in the new, far, corner of the Russian Empire known as Russian America. In 1763, the Aleuts rebelled against the Russians. Four of seven Russian ships wintering at Unalaska were destroyed and their crews were killed. In revenge, the Russians demolished Aleut villages on Umnak, Samalga, and the Islands of Four Mountains. They killed all of the villagers.

Other rebellions such as the one at Unalaska were also punished harshly. Disturbances became rare. As time passed many of the Russian promyshlenniki took Aleut women, had children, and adopted a Native lifestyle during their time, in the islands. When British navigator James Cook sailed into Southwest Alaska waters in 1778, he recorded in his journal that Russians and Aleuts at one of the outposts he visited prayed together and shared the same large barracks built in Aleut style." Russian control, however, resulted not from this but from three other factors. The Aleut population was dispersed in small villages on separate islands. The villages were on small islands vulnerable to ships' cannon fire. The Aleuts had no weapons adequate to resist the Russians' firearms. The Russians soon enslaved the Aleuts.Reese's conclusion:One reason the book is a best seller is that it fits with what most people "know" about Indigenous people as warring savages who killed each other as a matter of course, but that's not the case.

There's always more to the story.For more on massacres, see Northwestern Founder Oversaw Sand Creek Massacre and Putting US-Dakota War in Context.

Phony pro-gun Indian image

Perhaps because of the 40th anniversary of Wounded Knee II, this image was floating around Facebook recently. I didn't pay attention to it until someone asked me about it. Then I reposted it with the following comments:



1) Wounded Knee wasn't a school shooting. 2) The massacre happened while the troops were disarming the Lakota, not after. 3) More guns wouldn't have made a difference since the US had more or less won at that point. 4) Gun nuts are stupid.

Also, no one's proposing to take away people's guns. The right-wing hysteria on this point is...hysterical.

Let the discussion begin

This posting led to the following discussion with a Facebook friend:I don't get it. Is the claim of this a stretch, a misleading half truth, is that what you're saying? Confusing. Why then the wording "the US gov shot 290 unarmed Indians at School," emphasis on "at School"?? Context here would be good as the words Wounded Knee are absent from the message, and so is anything that would indicate a school. Then the comparison to Sandy Hook which is named, though the location of this pic is not. Very confusing. And yet being 'shared' like crazy, as usual on Fb, so it's appealing to people for some reason. Why do you think that is?

Let me guess: there was a school at the site of WK in 1890?The year and the number dead makes it clear this refers to Wounded Knee. No, there was no school involved in the massacre. The Lakota were camping in a field, not at a school. I doubt any of the people killed had ever attended a white man's school.

The massacre did occur while the Army was taking the Lakotas' guns. Gun fanatics are using this fact to argue against gun control.

I presume they're trying to arouse liberal sympathy by pretending that gun confiscation was behind Wounded Knee and other Indian massacres. As far as I know, a lack of guns wasn't a significant factor in any battle or massacre, so the claim is false.Why then is this being 'shared' by people, NA people and supporters, with sentiments like "Aho!" and "Never forget, and seemingly without thinking what this meme really says??They aren't as sharp as I am. They're probably not paying attention to the final line. Superficially, the message is, "You think Sandy Hook was bad? Wounded Knee was much worse." But the real message is, "The government kills people after taking their guns, so don't support gun control."A person doesn't have to be sharp to realize this pic is USING Indian people in a message, yet Indian people are sharing it like crazy. It's insidious.If they're sharing it without thinking about or commenting on it critically, they aren't that sharp. The "290 unarmed Indians at school" line is patently false.

I'm pretty sure the picture isn't from Wounded Knee either. The two guys in front look like white men leading a prayer service. Why would people be lined up to pray just before a massacre when they were surrounded by machine guns?You saying people can't read? Can't see the distortion of facts here? To me, there'd be nothing wrong with posting the pic alone with "never forget (WK)" and sharing/reposting that. But the text part of this, the message re guns and schools or is CLEARLY out of context. And false.I've told you my theory. People are missing the obvious because Facebook encourages mindless sharing. They may do things mindlessly, but I don't.

If you disagree with this theory, what's your explanation for why people are sharing it? You think they know something about the Wounded Knee massacre that I don't? What, exactly?

Image = propagandaSo why the association to WK? And why this week / today when the 40th anniversary of WK is being observed? INSIDIOUS is what I'm saying. Native people sharing this shit all over Fb breaks my heart, it really does. So much for the "respect" NA people are fighting so hard for, and by not THINKING a simple thought... i.e. "Hey, was there even a school at WK?" or "Where was this pic taken?" In essence, NA people--mostly Democrat leaning people--are sharing R-wing propaganda....against themselves and against credibility. *SMH. Insidious.As I said, you theoretically arouse liberal sympathy for guns by painting the government as an evil killer of innocent unarmed people. Of which Wounded Knee is the most famous example.

Never mind that this same government used force to integrate the schools and safeguard other civil rights. It's silly to think the government still wants to massacre civilians 123 years later.

As for why now, it could be just a coincidence. It's a little farfetched to think anyone's making a connection between Wounded Knee II, which happened in 1973, and this image. Wounded Knee II happened in the same area but it wasn't about the massacre 83 years earlier. Not directly, anyway.

People may be sharing this because everyone's talking about Wounded Knee II today, and it reminds them of Wounded Knee I. But I doubt someone created it to be shared today. I bet it's been floating around for weeks or months, and just gained currency today.Yea "reminds" of WK (insidious) but is this not obvious distortion to ANYONE who reads it? A school has nothing to do with WK, ought to be the first clue. And this to Indian people who are so proud of KNOWING their history. This is bullshit.The sepia-toned photograph of Indians is meant to remind you of Wounded Knee. But pictures of mangled bodies might not arouse the same sympathy. Perhaps more important, you couldn't pretend Wounded Knee involved a crowd gathered at a school. Showing the poor defenseless "school shooting victims" before the gun-taking government slaughtered them increases the propaganda effect.

As for whether it's obvious, ask people who shared it without commenting on the pro-gun message. Let's see what they say.

P.S. This is a good case for your Word of the Week "insidious." <grin>Yea har har W.O.D= insidious, I'll laugh later, right now I'm just stunned at the stupidity of people.The photo's origin

Another Facebook friend found the original photo online:



It's labeled "Kamloops Indian Residential School Priest Parents Indian Children."

Kamloops is in British Columbia. And what exactly is this school? Wikipedia provides the answer:

Kamloops Indian Residential SchoolThe Kamloops Indian Residential School was part of the Canadian residential school system and one of the 130 schools for First Nations children that operated in Canada between 1874 and 1996. The Kamloops School was opened in 1893 (initially as the Kamloops Industrial School) and continued operation until 1977. Hundreds of Secwepemc children attended the school, often forcibly removed from their homes once attendance became mandatory by law.I thought those were tipis in the background of the cropped version. But they may be planks from a cedar house, and pine trees, in the Pacific Northwest. Had I seen the original photo, I might've guessed that.

Not a bad choice for a fraudulent photo. You have Indians from the right era--the 1890s. They're dressed in the clothing of the times. There are no clearcut cultural identifiers such as tipis or totem poles. And the people look like innocents before the slaughter.

So the photo is from a residential school. Most of the people look like parents, but a few may be children. In any case, it has nothing to do with Wounded Knee or any massacre with 290 dead. As I thought.

My correspondent was so upset by Natives sharing this image that she posted a plea asking them to stop. Perhaps they heeded her, because the image stopped showing up. Or perhaps it ran its course and people moved on to the next Internet meme.

For more on gun control, see Gun Nuts Fear "Race War" and America's Culture Based on Violence.

Northwestern founder oversaw Sand Creek massacre

Northwestern to probe founder's link to Indian massacre

Committee of professors to investigate John Evans and the 1864 Sand Creek killings

By Rex W. HuppkeResponding to pressure from a student alliance, Northwestern University has established a committee to investigate the history of John Evans, a university founder connected to one of the worst massacres of Native Americans in the country's history.

The committee will consist of four Northwestern faculty members and three additional professors hailing from Yale University, the University of Illinois and the University of Arkansas.

John Evans—the namesake of the city of Evanston—was territorial governor of Colorado in 1864 when a militia of about 700 men attacked a temporary village of Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people at Sand Creek. According to the National Park Service, the soldiers killed 165 to 200 Native Americans, about two-thirds of them women, children and elderly.

Known as the Sand Creek Massacre, it is considered one of the worst acts of genocide in U.S. history and led to Evans' removal from his governorship after a congressional investigation.

According to the Native American and Indigenous Student Alliance at Northwestern, the university has ignored that part of Evans' history. Evans continued as a major benefactor and member of Northwestern's board long after details of the massacre came to light.The details on Evans's role:

John EvansU.S. President Abraham Lincoln appointed John Evans the second Governor of the Territory of Colorado on March 31, 1862. Governor Evans and his good friend the Reverend John Chivington founded the Territory's first college, the Colorado Seminary, which later became the University of Denver. In 1864 Governor Evans appointed the Reverend Chivington as Colonel of the Colorado Volunteers and sent him with 800 cavalry troopers to "quiet" the Indians. Chivington and his men knew of the unarmed band of Cheyenne and Arapaho led by Black Kettle, seeking peace talks, camped along Sand Creek in the east central part of the Territory. On November 28, 1864, Colonel Chivington ordered his men to attack the encampment killing about 53 unarmed men and 110 women and children and wounding many more. Most of the dead were mutilated. Governor Evans decorated Chivington and his men for their "valor in subduing the savages" and fought off rumors of an unprovoked massacre. On July 18, 1865, new President Andrew Johnson asked Governor Evans to resign because of his attempt to cover up the Sand Creek Massacre. Evans resigned as Governor, but he remained popular in the Colorado Territory for his perceived toughness in dealing with the "enemies" of the Territory. Dr. Evans continued to serve as the Chairman of the Denver Seminary Board of Trustees until his death on July 2, 1897.Comment:  I don't think anyone is saying to scrub Evans from Northwestern's history. But his role in killing Indians should be part of the story. Northwestern's official history shouldn't just ignore it.

For more on massacres of Indians, see Wounded Knee Seller Should Be Ashamed and Montana Rejects Winchester as State Rifle.

Wounded Knee seller "should be ashamed"

The entitlement complex

By Suzanne AdamsThe second story involved a 75-year-old man who wants to charge the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota $4 million for a 40-acre parcel of land that sits next to where more than 300 of their ancestors are buried at Wounded Knee. The land is also the site of a trading post that burned to the ground during the 1973 Wounded Knee uprising.

According to the AP, the land was appraised for less than $7,000.

The 75-year-old gentleman recently told the tribe that if they don't purchase the land, he'll sell it to the highest bidder, regardless of whether they are a member of the tribe or not.

Tribal leaders claim the man is trying to get a portion of the $20 million settlement the tribe is expected to get from the federal government for the mismanagement of its lands.

The man claims that historical significance of the land justifies the price.

"I'm getting older now and my family and myself want to dispose of this property," the man told the AP. "We just want to see it in the hands of the Indian people rather than put it on the open market to the public."

I can understand wanting to get some compensation for selling such a large parcel of land. I can also understand that the historical significance of the property might increase the value of the land.

But to charge someone more than 560 times what a property is worth is ridiculous--especially a people who have such a horrifically tragic connection to that land.

There are some out there who will say that the guy has a right to sell his property for whatever price he can get for it. Legally he has right to do that, but I think a number of people would find it morally wrong.

When did common sense go out the window? When did it become wrong to say to someone, "I think that's a horrible idea and you should be ashamed of yourself"?Landowner asks Native American tribe for $3.9M for part of Wounded Knee site appraised at $7K

Comment:  Funny how the "free market" often resembles blackmail. If the tribe doesn't pay the exorbitant price, James Czywczynski will sell the land to someone who may destroy the site's sanctity. At the moment, the only option the tribe has is to pay the price or risk Wounded Knee's desecration.

For more on the subject, see Wounded Knee For Sale.

Wounded Knee for sale

Native Sun News: Wounded Knee site put up for sale at $3.9M

By Brandon EcoffeyWounded Knee, the site of one of the most horrific and tragic events in all of American history, is being offered up for sale by its owner.

The family of James A. Czywczynski, owners of two 40 acre sites of land where the slaughter of approximately 300 Lakota men, women, and children took place on Dec 29, 1890 has agreed to sell the land for $3.9 million.

“It is time for our family to sell the land. We would really like to see the land returned to the Lakota people and that is why I am giving them an opportunity to purchase the land before I open it up to others for sale,” said Czywczynski. “I could offer it up for public auction like the Runnels did with Pe’ Sla, but I would prefer that the Lakota people be the ones to purchase it,” he added.And:The site does not include the mass gravesite where the members of the United States 7th Cavalry piled the bodies of those who were murdered that day. However, the parcels of land do include the immediate surrounding area where the massacre took place and the area surrounding Porcupine Butte (the site of KILI radio is not included). It does include the site of the original Wounded Knee Trading Post.

The Czywczynski family has owned the property since 1968, when they purchased the property from the Gildersleeves who had owned the property prior.

During the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee by the American Indian Movement, Mr. Czywczynski had his home, all of his personal belongings, the trading post he owned (including all of the artifacts inside), and several vehicles destroyed. At the time he and his family were returning from a high school basketball game and were told by the United States Marshall Service that he could not return to their home that night.

The losses the he incurred during the occupation have been included in the $3.9 million offering.History for sale? Man seeking $3.9 million for site near Wounded Knee memorial

By Daniel Simmons-RitchieElected tribal officials said the Oglala Sioux Tribe is interested in purchasing what is considered sacred ground to the tribe but not at a price that far exceeds its actual value.

"I think the tribe should take all necessary action to purchase the land but at a reasonable price. I understand it's a historic site but that shouldn't be a means to take the tribe for a huge amount,” said Garfield Steele, who represents the Wounded Knee District on the tribal council.

Kevin Yellow Bird Steele, who also represents Wounded Knee, said the property is inflated to the point of insult and is an attempted exploitation of a dark chapter in U.S. history.

"As a representative of Wounded Knee District, I'm totally appalled," he said.

According to Shannon County records, the property has an appraised value of $7,000.

Czywczynski, however, cites a second event that brought national attention to Wounded Knee when explaining his asking price for a piece of property in a rural outpost on the reservation.

The asking price, he said, includes compensation for the damage done to his property in 1973 when the American Indian Movement and others occupied the community of Wounded Knee for 71 days in a violent standoff that drew national attention.Some background on Czywczynski's purchase of the land:

Charles Trimble: Attempting to profit from hallowed grounds

Comment:  It's kind of ridiculous to ask $3.9 million for land worth $7,000. It's a shame Czywczynski lost so much, but he should sue the people responsible. Why should anyone pay millions of dollars to make up for pain and suffering they didn't cause?

For more on Wounded Knee, see Fire Totals Wounded Knee Museum and Pine Ridge Needs Tourism.