I have gotta start off tonight by saying that what I am reading in "An Indigenous People's History Of The United States" has very much disturbed me. Like most Americans from my age group, I grew up with the standardized history of the settlement of this country, beginning in the early 17th century. In school I learned about the various wars with different Indian nations. I learned about Custer and Little Big Horn, and we even learned that the US Army was not always in the right. We learned about the resettlement of what remained of the Native American civilization onto reservations, and though our teachers never came out and said it, we knew that it was wrong. When I was about 10, there was a song by Paul Revere & The Raiders called "Indian Reservation" that was a hit on Top 40 radio. Youtube it if you want. I knew that song by heart, and yet I still did not know the extent of what actually happened. I am not certain it had even been told in 1970.
In the Western movies that I love, there has always been an attempt at "evenhandedness". Sometimes, in the earliest and most propagandistic Westerns, the Indian is shown as a savage, but most often he is shown sometimes as the attacking warrior, and sometimes as the victim of encroaching settlers (or other Indians), but in most Westerns he is not shown as a simpleminded, bloodthirsty marauder. This has been Hollywood's attempt to portray the American version of history in a positive light; acknowledging the wrongs done to Native Americans while placing the blame for some of the violence on certain warlike tribes (Apaches, Sioux, Comanches).
What I am reading in this book, however, paints an entirely different picture, of wholesale slaughter of the Indian people by the early Scots-Irish settlers of America, who formed militia ranger groups to go out into the countryside and eradicate Indian villages by the most horrible means I have ever heard of.
If the stories in this book are true, the Nazis have got nothing on the early Americans. I am reading about violence so atrocious that I have very nearly had to put the book aside.
I was taught in school, and in movies, that - while indeed the White Man encroached on Native land and made war, and did a terrible thing by eventually sending the remaining Indians to reservations - that it was still a Noble Struggle on the part of both sides. The Indians were portrayed as spiritual and wise, but technologically deficient and therefore "of the past", living an outdated way of life. Therefore, they had to "make way for the White Man", whose knowledge would reform the world for the better. The White Man was portrayed as entitled and sometimes arrogant, but ultimately "In The Right", because he was transforming North America for a good cause - progress - that would end up benefiting the Indian people too. That was the gist of what we were taught in school.
But now I read of the same level of unrelenting and demonic violence that the Nazis used against the Jews, and I am horrified. Reading this book horrified me today, so much so, that I ordered another book on the subject, because I want to confirm what I am reading, to make sure it's true because it is so awful.
Again, I do not feel guilty because of what my ancestors may have done. And I also believe that, due to mass human migration for much of the first two millennia of modern civilised life, I don't think it can be said that any one land mass "belonged" to any one group of people. Look at the changing native populations of the European countries, and even the names and boundaries of those countries, due to the migrations and wars of the many tribes of Europe in the first millennium. As my History teacher Mr. Sprigg was fond of saying, "There are no Germans in Germany".
My point is that, for centuries, humans migrated en masse, often for long distances, and even the Native Americans came from somewhere. No one knows for sure where they came from, but from their facial structure we can guess that they may have originated in Eurasia, and crossed over from Siberia. No one knows, but what we do know is that they migrated to North America. And we really don't even know that for certain, but it seems like the best guess.
Still, North America is a gigantic landmass, and it seems that if the English, Scots-Irish and other Europeans had migrated here to live in peace, that they would have had every bit as much right as the Indians to find a piece of habitable ground and stake out their claim. The Indians were here first for certain, but the World is God's Creation and Humans are God's Creation and therefore the World belongs to all humans (and animals, of whom we are the stewards). Therefore, in a ideal situation, even though the Indians were here first, they should have welcomed the New American settlers - even if they were less than happy about their arrival - and they should have offered to share the expansive landmass with the newcomers. There was more than enough room for everyone, after all.
Apparently, this is exactly what the Indians did. They saw the ships and technology and organisation of the newcomers, and they knew they were dealing with an accomplished and determined people. And, from what I am reading in this book, they did indeed offer to share the land, and offered to set the new Americans up with a food supply until they could grow their own. From what I am reading, the Indigenous People offered to cooperate with the settlers in every way, but the settlers would not have it.
They brought with them a cold-hearted "version" of so-called Christianity called Calvinism, and also Presbyterianism which was not much better (no offense to modern Presbyterians), and the way they saw it, God wanted the land to be theirs and theirs alone. And so the violence commenced, as ordained by their God.
I'm an American, and my lineage in America goes back to about 1620, the time of the Mayflower. I've done the research on Ancestry.com. I don't know what my ancestors believed, but I can guarantee you that my God is not the one of the Calvinists.
In fact, there is no "my God". There is only God, and no one knows what God is. The Indians called God "The Great Spirit", and though - from what I am reading - the tribal nations had their cultural and religious differences - they never let those differences get in the way of their unified belief in The Great Spirit, Who provided land, and corn, and squash, and beans, and everything they needed to live a fulfilling life. They saw the world as a majestic place, something to be shared rather than fought over.
I will leave it at that for tonight, but I must say that I feel that America as a nation must make a very public and prominent apology to the Indian people for what out ancestors did to theirs. What our ancestors did was not just wrong but was as purely evil as what Hitler and the Nazis did, if the stories in this book are true and there is no reason to think that they aren't.
We can't change the past, and we are not our ancestors. We aren't responsible for what they did. But we can acknowledge every bit of what they did, and we should do that.
We should tell the truth, as best we can determine it. Then we should apologise to the Indian people, entirely. And we should place them at the very forefront of our history and our heritage here in America.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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