Posted on 11/27/2022 6:17:46 AM PST by Eleutheria5
Alfonso Borrego is the great-grandson of Geronimo, a prominent leader and medicine man from the Bedonkohe band of the Apache people. Geronimo was known for his fearlessness – he resisted both the Mexican and American militaries when they attempted to remove his people from their tribal lands in the late-1800s.
Borrego, 66, has spent years researching what happened to his people and his great-grandfather. While speaking with EL PAÍS, he discusses the various conflicting narratives that have been pushed over the past century. Some say that the Spanish drove the Indigenous to near-extinction in the United States, while others suggest that the Anglo colonizers were far more cruel against civilian populations.
Born in El Paso, Texas, Borrego generally rejects the “official history” about the conquest that has been constructed by the United States.
“At school, they didn’t let us speak Spanish. They told us that the Spaniards were ‘the worst of the worst.’ But that doesn’t match my research.”
Borrego has also delved into the difficult final years of Geronimo, who surrendered to the American army in 1886 and, until his death in 1909, was “exhibited at fairs and parades by the gringos” in a humiliating fashion.
An engineer and historian by profession, Borrego has become a highly sought-after figure at history conferences in America and Europe.
“I’ve visited [Indigenous] reservations, I’ve met with the tribal chiefs, with Indigenous people, students… I’ve offered a contrast to what the textbooks say. There certainly was an Indigenous genocide, but while the Spaniards committed atrocities, the Anglos were the ones who carried it out,” he affirms in a conversation with EL PAÍS during his brief visit to Madrid.
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(Excerpt) Read more at english.elpais.com ...
Best guess is in 1492 there were approximately half a million to 1 million. No where the 400 million some are trying to pass off.
The original number is from the carrying capacity of the land for the number of people there in a hunter-gatherer society.
Their “historic tribal traditions “of being fantastic horsemen?
NO North American Indian tribe had any horse back tradition until the first Spanish horses escaped from their corrals and from the expeditions coming north from Mexico in the 1600s!
The tribes forced to Oklahoma were allowed to take their black slaves with them.
In 1842, those slaves revolted. It did not go well for them. Some of the tribesmen were brutal task masters.
https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=SL002
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/slave-revolt-cherokee-nation-1842/
The horses escaped during the Pueblo Revolt in 1680. “Popey” tried to have all thing Spanish killed but enough horses got away to begin the vast wild horse herds.
Like cracker, whitey or honky.
And just like all other places in the world, Indian Tribes attacked and massacred other Indian Tribes for what they had and even some were cannibals as has been documented other places. Not all of these tribes were friendly minding their own business Indians.
Not true, what is that based on?
***Anglo is a term that whites don’t like,***
Never bothered this old White Boy! And I am originally from New Mexico!
No Neolithic society practiced live and let live.
If you could defend it you did, if you could take it, you did!
We are in "such good shape"??????
Name me some things...that are in good shape.
Thank you for the map plus your explanation. Spent much time working and traveling through that northern reservation.
Thanks
The native injuns never discuss the fear of Apaches and Comanches and other tribes. The brutality and slavery are very dark.
The pathetic idea these North American tribes were all peace love and symbiotic with each other is a lie. But they sell it anyway.
“Newly rich in horses and knowledge of the Spanish borderlands, in 1720 the Comanches headed east onto the Great Plains of the Southwest, where immense horse herds could be sustained on the seemingly infinite grasslands...
In their effort to monopolize the horse and bison trade and eliminate trade competition – especially for the food sources they relied on – the Comanches went to war against their main competitor on the southern plains: the Apache.”
This is a good thread and I have not read all posts but the Comanches did adopt a “horse culture” along with the Sioux and other Plains Indians.
An Apache would just as soon have eaten the horse as ride it to a Comanche the horse was a sign of wealth and a chance for a great bride/woman.
The Comanche pushed the Apache into the badlands of far Southwest Texas, South New Mexico and South Arizona.
They ruled (fair to say) much of the Southwest until the end of the US Civil War and repeating weapons came on the scene.
The Apache were tough but could not compete with the horse culture.
I could spend all night on this topic but will stop and have supper.
I find it amusing and frustrating that so many people believe evil whites drove the saintly, peaceful tribes out of their homelands. But what WE thought were their homelands were often places they had invaded just 100 years earlier because the tribes fought and captured and displaced each other.
No one epitomizes more than the native Americans the fact that the strong take over from the weak.
The Crow Nation retained a good portion of their traditional tribal lands, avoided forced resettlement and largely avoided "re-education." The downturn in coal is hurting them, but they have by and large done well.
Regardless, the Plains Indians, especially the Comanche, became some of the most brilliant horsemen and light cavalry raiders the world has ever seen.
The Narragansets welcomed the Pilgrims to Plymouth Rock and sustained them in the winter, so that in “fighting season” they would ally with them and help them get rid of the Pequods, who were trying to build an empire. And in due course the Narragansets and the Pilgrims attacked the Pequod stronghold and burnt it to the ground, driving them out, then the Pilgrims and Narragansets celebrated Thanksgiving together.
Truth really is stranger than fact.
Borrego sorry but all you got was an oral story, nothing written by indians. Also not indigenous all tribes came from someplace else.
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