Posted on 08/10/2009 11:40:34 AM PDT by yoe
The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs passed a resolution by voice vote last week apologizing "on behalf of American people" to all Indian tribes for the mistreatment and violence by American citizens.
Senate Joint Resolution 14, sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), states that its purpose is “to acknowledge a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the Federal Government regarding Indian Tribes and offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States.”
In Section 1A, No. 4 of the resolution states that the apology is on behalf of U.S. citizens for harm they have done to “Native Peoples.” In the resolution, native peoples are defined as people who “inhabited the land of the present-day United States since time immemorial and for thousands of years before the arrival of people of European descent.”
“Apologizes on behalf of the people of the United States to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native Peoples by citizens of the United States,” the resolution reads.
Requests by CNSNews.com for clarification of the language in the bill were not answered by Brownback’s office by press time, but Brownback issued a statement on Friday about the passage of his resolution.
“I am pleased that my colleagues have decided to move forward with a formal apology from the federal government to Native Americans," Brownback said. "This is a resolution of apology and reconciliation, and is a step toward healing divisive wounds.
“With this resolution we have the potential to start a new era of positive relations between tribal governments and the federal government,” Brownback said.
“For too much of our history, federal-tribal relations have been marked by broken treaties, mistreatment and dishonorable dealings. With this resolution, we can acknowledge past failures, express sincere regrets and establish a brighter future for all Americans,” he added.
Neither Brownback’s statement nor the resolution says whether the apology is on behalf of U.S. citizens who are alive today or U.S. citizens who lived in the past.
Co-sponsors of the resolution were Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.),Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).
Thanks for the laugh!
That commercial is “deeper” than it looks.
I'll talk to my Senator.
;^)
Can we please move on to the 21st Century?
I hear what you’re saying I really do
all this sorry though is too much .
all races have done wrong from the Greeks to to day but the lesson is learn from it not to dwell on it
LOL.......beat me to it by hours.
Heard a woman on TMZ (she is Black) talking about her American Indian Ancestry.
She had applied for some sort of official AI designation. She didn’t have 25% (really!) AI ancestry. So was denied.
Another person said, “You mean American Indians actually have a RACE Card” Everyone started laughing.
I am a descendant of Myles Standish and I do not apologize for anything that my blessed ancestors did. Or, for that matter, any miss-wording on my part.
“I didn’t know that. My grandmother on my mom’s side was Cherokee. On my dad’s side, it was the grandfather.
I knew Houston was friendly with the Indians, and tried to keep Texas more along the coastline, but didn’t know that he’d promised three counties to the Cherokees.”
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I have a copy of that treaty with Houston...some where in these boxes of papers! No, I’m not diggin’ it out. lol
Here’s an article I just wrote, which mentions the ‘Texas Cherokees’...which by the way, no one could ever get the US government to recognize them as a ‘tribe’, partly because the Oklahoma Indians fought that idea tooth and nail.
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Regarding: The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs passed a resolution by voice vote last week apologizing “on behalf of American people” to all Indian tribes for the mistreatment and violence by American citizens.
The Pins, Useful idiots of the 19th Century
History repeats itself, over and over, and over and over we seem to not learn.
What follows is a perfect microcosm of our current political life.
Cherokee Tribe, No. Georgia, c. 1830 - all one ‘tribe’ , right?
About a third of the tribe became ‘civilized’ in the late 1700’s/early 1800’s, becoming Christian, educated, aristocratic, prosperous. The other two thirds progressed, embraced the Church, but remained ignorant and more intrenched in ‘traditional’ ways and jealous of their more successful neighbors.
I won’t go into the historic events of the Trail of Tears, Indian Removal, or Andrew Jackson. The Cherokee Tribe did as much to destroy itself, as any of those events or people did.
An ambitious, soon to be proven power hungry man was elected as ‘Chief’ under a Constitutional government of Executive, Legislative and judicial branches,
along with a few simple laws that were easily understood and executed.
As the tribe fractured over the question of progress and forced or voluntary Indian Removal, alliances and factions grew more antagonistic. The poor, uneducated masses were easily bribed with power, money, status, whatever and were urged to distrust the ‘others’, the leaders of their tribe who had brought them all to prosperity and peace.
First public discourse became scarce, either through intimidation or by ‘vote’. Then the executive, proclaiming an emergency, cancelled the next election and set himself up as a dictator for the next 35 years.
The Chief convinced the people to ‘hold out’....that the US would not remove them, that somehow ‘he’ would save them, if they just ignored the inevitable.
And ignore it, they did, as they watched one family after another being moved to stockades, being moved at bayonet point out of their homes....not huts, but modern homes of the time, much better than the white settlers. Thousands of them died, and ALL of them suffered.
But did they blame the Chief? The Chief had their ear and their allegiance as he fed their misery and hate. Why would they blame him? But they had to blame someone and they became organized in their hate as they became militant with insignias of crossed swords, and became known as, “The Pins”. The ‘others’, the third who tried to save the tribe, but were not allowed to have voice or representation, were known as the “Ridge Party”.
Silencing them was not enough. Doing everything the way the Chief and the ‘tribe’ wanted to do it, was not enough. Now the ‘Pins’ wanted blood. In 1839, they assassinated Major Ridge, his son John and Elias Boudinot. Over the next few years, they killed anyone they could associate with the Ridge Party, one of them my grgruncle.
Some of the Ridge party who survived were forced from Indian Territory for years rather than face more death. They bought land and settled in Texas and called their settlement “Mt. Tabor” near other Cherokees who had settled there decades before. They were ‘safe’ but they had no voice in their government, either tribal or USA.
The killings went on for years and the story of what happened to them all after they returned to Indian Territory is fascinating, but the message of this story is about power, and ignorance and greed and how one does not survive without the other. The ‘Pins’ were just useful idiots molded to keep the power hungry, in power. The Pins loyalty to the Cheif was not in their actions unlike the SEIU, AARP, La Raza, ACORN enforcers of today. It’s ALL about what’s in it for THEM.
Most Native American tribes today are, sadly, ‘Pins’...... demanding apologies like all the other special interest group minority ‘victims’, lining up for a handout to trade favors with the politicians.
This ‘declaration’ by the senate stating WE apologize, is speaking for all of us without our representation. No one alive today owes any ‘Indian’ alive today ANYTHING. They simply use their dead ancestors, the real victims, to get something they want but aren’t responsible enough to get for themselves.
Neither my Cherokee blood, nor my Irish blood, nor my Scottish blood apologizes for one damn thing. Our blood has already been spent for this country for 3 centuries.
Shame on you,
Sam Brownback (R-Kan.)Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.),Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).
***Point two: Chivington’s men killed mostly women and children and old men as the braves were out of camp at the time of attack****
Are you confusing Sand Creek with the Washita? I read of so many battles in which the Indians were defeated and the PC claim is always “The men were all out hunting” when the attack happened.
At Sand Creek again I mention the fresh scalps found and lots of other goods taken in raids by the “peacable” Indians. Many myths sprang up around that, many were proven wrong yet still show up in articles about the battle.
At the Washita Custer followed a trail in the snow from indian raids in Kansas straight to the Washita. White captives were found there among these “peacable” Indians, also along with lots of goods that came from the burned out farmers in Kansas.
The Bannock made a raid from Montana deep into Mexico. The Piegan Blackfoot of Montana also made a two year long raid into Mexico and murdered people around Durango,Mexico.
The Iriquois made a raid from upper New York clear out to the plains of Nebraska where they killed several Pawnee.
Many years ago I researched the various infighting on the plains. I started with the Comanche who fought with the tribes of Oklahoma and Kansas, who fought with the tribes of Nebraska, who fought with the tribes of the Dakotas, who fought with the tribes of Montana, who fought with the tribes of Washington and Idaho, who fought with the tribes of Utah, who fought with the tribes of Utah, who fought with the various tribes of Apaches who fought with the Comanches.
Meanwhile the Anazazi were chowing down with each other. No whites involved.
As for brutality, years ago a dig in North Dakota uncovered a massacre site from the 1300s. the bones all showed hack and cut marks from various flint weapons and the skulls had scratches where the scalps were cut off.
The US did not fight with all tribes. Many of the smaller ones recognized the US as the big dog on the block and allied themselves with them. Poncas, Otoes, Pawnee, Crow,Osage.
The first school house massacre happened in Pensylvania when Indians attacked and murdered every student in an isolated school.
Indians also attacked and murdered the woman teacher and several students at an isolated school in Hammilton, Texas.
And the last of the Indian wars happened when? Writer Earle stanley Gardner wrote many books about Perry Mason. he also wrote books on Mexican desert history and said the last true indian attack was in Mexico in 1939 in which Mesican ranchers tracked down and killed a tribe of murdering Apaches in the Sierra Madre.
You should read Catlin’s account of how the Mandan chief Ma-ho-to-pa secretly traveled deep into Cree teritory and murdered with a tomahawk two Cree women. When Catlin asked if the chief felt anything wrong with murdering and scalping women the chief’s advisor said it was a great victory because it was done within sight of the Cree camp.
Then there is the story of the “barbarous execution of Col. Crawford”in 1782 in which is a first hand discription of torture of captives.
Count me out of the PC nonsense.
We the white Europeans taught them how to scalp em. We scalped the NA then collected a bounty on the scalps that practice was introduced by US. And by the way the frontier belonged to them they were only protecting what was theirs.
Few people attended his funeral. When he died, he feared his name might be forgotten. That's why I've always thought it was kind of cool that the first words spoken from the surface of the moon were, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."
Surely, sir, you jest. There was no Indian History before the Western Europeans got here. Are you seriously suggesting the Indians actually warred among themselves? I think you need an attitude recalibration. Tsk, tsk.
No, The Indians were scalping before white europeans came to north america, European settlers did not know of the practice when they arrived in the New World.
Call it a case of parallel development, Taylor. Scalping — that is, the excision of the scalp and (usually) attached hair of one's (usually) dead enemies for display, exchange, or (if the victim wasn't dead) torture — is one of those classic concepts for which no single group can take all the credit. Native Americans didn't get the idea from Europeans, but the arrivistes encouraged them to bring it to what was arguably its fullest flowering. The Seneca leader Cornplanter was perhaps the first to suggest Europeans imported scalping, in 1820, but the idea didn't become prominent till the 1960s and '70s. By then contrary evidence was mounting, but let's concede an important point: scalping has a long history in the Old World. Herodotus recorded scalping by ancient Scythians in central Asia, and archaeologists have since unearthed skulls with likely scalping marks at Scythian sites. Evidence indicates Europeans were scalping from the Stone Age till as late as 1036 in England. Still, Europeans didn't introduce scalping to America. New World peoples invented it independently, probably multiple times — it's a natural progression from headhunting, scalps being less bulky than noggins and having fewer dribbly bits. By 1492, whites remembered scalping, if at all, as a quaint defunct custom. When explorers stumbled on the practice in two separate regions of South America in addition to North America, they apparently found it perplexing and couldn't agree on what to call it, with multiple terms long competing in each European language. In contrast, some native language families possessed common and apparently ancient scalping vocabularies. Explorers described Indians scalping each other in Mexico (1520), Canada (1535), Florida (1563), and elsewhere. In 1540 Simón Rodriguez, of Hernando de Soto's party, may have become the first white man scalped by Indians. Since 1940 archaeologists have discovered hundreds of pre-Columbian skulls with scalping marks at North American sites ranging from Georgia to Arizona to the Dakotas. A few predate even the abortive Viking explorations. Many of the skulls come from a single site in South Dakota where almost 500 people were massacred and scalped around 1325 AD, refuting the common contention that scalping in the Plains arose after 1492. At least one instance of pre-Columbian artwork depicts a warrior toting scalps. Scalping wasn't universal in North America. Eskimos never scalped. Though generally quite common east of the Rockies before white contact, the practice was rare in parts of the northeast, and in the far west was encountered only sporadically. (Some nonscalping tribes did mutilate their dead enemies, collecting heads or other trophies such as fingers.) The introduction of horses, metal knives, and guns, combined with territorial pressures, probably increased warfare and scalping. But only after the white man put the practice on a solid business foundation, by offering scalp bounties, did it really take off and spread to previously nonparticipating peoples. Though the Spanish in Mexico had earlier offered head bounties, New Englanders were apparently the first to grasp the usefulness of scalps as proof of death. In 1637 they began paying their Indian allies for either the heads of their Pequot enemies or, when the return distance was too great, the scalps. New Englanders were also first to pay whites for Indian scalps (1675-76). The egalitarian French upped the ante in 1688 by offering to pay for any enemy scalps, white or Indian. High scalp bounties (up to 100 pounds in 1704) encouraged grave robbing and inspired suspicion that entrepreneurs were killing friendlies for their pelts. Even men of God couldn't restrain themselves. One chaplain scalped two Indians in the 1720s only to be dispatched by friends of the deceased before he could claim his bounty. Another enterprising minister provisioned scalping gangs in return for a third of the cut. Because they could be exchanged, captives generally commanded higher prices than scalps, but capture was a riskier proposition. In New Hampshire in 1697 Hannah Dustin and some fellow colonists killed their ten Indian captors, including six children, while they slept. Hannah had the good sense to collect the scalps, earning herself 50 pounds by some accounts. Europeans didn't take a backseat to the locals when it came to inventive brutality. Spaniards may have introduced burning alive to the southeast — at least scalping victims were generally dead first. New Englanders displayed the heads of rebel Indians, just as the English did with Irish rebels. Let's not forget the biowarfare plan to infect Indians with smallpox that I've discussed before. (The Straight Dope: Did whites ever give Native Americans blankets infected with smallpox?) European soldiers often raped female captives, whereas by reputation Indians (at least those east of the Rockies) didn't. I wouldn't make too much of this, though. Newcomers and natives had their differences, but in their willingness to butcher their enemies they found common ground.
“we treated the scalping like fur traping or cutting the tail off an animal for the bounty the same was true for scalping. “
Talk about not having a moral compass.
I don’t much care about what the Indian tribes did in the deep, dark past - or even in the present.
I’m just sick and tired of having BO, Congress and anyone with any so-called authority in the Gov’t make apologies for me to anyone. If I think they need an apology, I’ll do it myself! (Rant off and not a rant at you ought-six, just a rant.)
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