Posted on 09/08/2017 11:35:05 AM PDT by Javeth
We are witnessing a growing trend of angry attempts to erase past racial injustices through attacks upon Civil War monuments, those symbolically associated with a tragic era of slavery.
Inflamed by violence leading to a death characterized in the media as a "white supremacist rally" protesting removal of a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia hundreds of other statues, markers and other symbols memorializing important Confederate figures and events are now also under siege throughout the nation.
If we are to erase evidence and symbols of historical injustices, where does this end? After all, why stop with Confederate leaders when great blame for racial intolerance and misery can be attributed to Northern leaders for terrible oppressions directed to indigenous Indian populations?
Injustices against people like my great grandmother’s Winnebago tribal members who were forcibly relocated to reservations in Minnesota and Nebraska, for example.
So if we’re really serious about removing public memorials to "white supremacists," shouldn’t those who perpetrated devastating racial assaults upon true Native Americans be included? And why not begin with Grant’s Tomb in New York, N.Y.?
I’m referring, of course, to President Ulysses S. Grant, whose administration transferred vast tribal lands to private pioneers, land speculators, and railroad and mining companies.
If not actual genocide, his solution to the "Indian problem" certainly influenced a cultural genocide. As he explained, "I see no substitute for such a system, except in placing all the Indians on large reservations, as rapidly as it can be done."
As white settlers continued to push Indians off their tribal lands, those on reservations experienced increasing poverty and desperation. Meanwhile, Grant’s administration oversaw the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad and the great slaughters of the Plains buffalo which destroyed their traditional ways of life.
Rebellions against Grant’s Indian "peace policies" led to tragic massacres and military conflicts. Included were the Modoc War in California, the Red River War in Texas, the Nez Perce conflict in Oregon, and the Black Hills campaign and Battle of the Little Bighorn led by George Armstrong Custer.
Efforts by great chiefs such as Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, Geronimo and Cochise who led battles to preserve their lands and ways of life were ultimately defeated. They were no match for frontier generals commanding ever-growing armies and devastating weaponry.
As Oglala Chief Red Cloud told Grant upon visiting the White House in 1870, "The riches we have in this world . . . we cannot take with us to the next world. . . . "Then I wish to know why agents are sent out to us who do nothing but rob us and get the riches of this world away from us."
Grant predicted in 1874 that "a few years more will relieve our frontiers from danger of Indian depredations." Assisted by another Union leader, his prediction was provident.
General William Tecumseh Sherman who began his military career under then-General Grant in the first Battle of Bull Run of 1862 worked to bring about a "final Indian solution." In 1865 Sherman assumed command of a campaign against the Plains Indians in support of powerful politically-connected interests, including corporations involved in building the transcontinental railroads.
Following the War Between the States and his 1864 "scorched-earth" torching of Atlanta and pillaging of civilian properties which laid waste to lives and livelihoods along a large swath of Northern Georgia, Sherman renewed his Indian extermination conquest. In 1865 he was given command of the Military District of the Missouri which commenced a 25-year-long war against the Plains Indians.
As Sherman wrote to Grant in 1867, "We are not going to let a few thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress [of the railroads]." He clearly described his assigned Indian extermination objective as being "to prosecute the war with vindictive earnestness . . . till [the Indians] are obliterated or beg for mercy."
Sherman assured his subordinate General Philip H. Sheridan, "I will back you with my whole authority, and stand between you and any efforts that may be attempted in your rear to restrain your purpose or check your troops." This referred to prior authorization to kill as many women and children that Sheridan and his subordinates thought necessary when attacking Indian villages.
Both Sherman and Sheridan are forever associated with the slogan "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." So let’s also schedule the two large Washington, D.C. equestrian monuments dedicated to Sherman and Sheridan for demolition too.
Alternatively, we might heed some advice offered by Texas Governor Greg Abbot in an American Statesman article, "We must remember that our history isn’t perfect. If we do not learn from our history, we are doomed to repeat it . . . instead of trying to bury our past, we must learn from it and ensure it doesn’t happen again." He added that "tearing down" those symbols won’t change the past, nor will it help the nation’s future."
When the Comanche chief Tosawi surrendered and was presented to Philip Sheridan, he said to him, “Tosawi, good Indian.” Sheridan replied, “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.”
That he was, in a number of wars it would seem. Even his own commanders in the March to Sea found that he had flagrantly violated a number of rules of war, especially since his avowed enemies were already starting to sue for peace and come to the negotiating table.
Yep, the irony that so many liberals still kneel to Sheridan as a hero, just shows what hypocrites they are. They don’t really care about the moral or social causes they supposedly champion, instead it’s about political vendettas and settling scores, with supposed virtue signaling and righteousness as a tool. In American liberals’eyes, Red State whites are the most hated enemy so much that they’ll worship a genocidal killer if he’s identified with “sticking it” to Red States that thwart the social justice warriors. The tribes themselves are hardly amused but the libs don’t care, they never really cared about the Indians they’re just tools to the libs. It’s a reason that a number of native American voters I’ve found are surprisingly inclined to vote for real conservatives like Trump, they hate hypocritical liberals who claim to champion them but then turn around to backstab them when it’s convenient.
Sheridan denied saying that. It may be a little too pithy to be true. Sherman might have said it. Or not.
In any case, a lot of things get said in wartime anger and frustration that may or may not reflect military policy or the best judgment of the people who say them
I doubt many liberals today even know who Philip Sheridan was, let alone kneel to him and worship him.
Reality's a nice place. Hope you find your way back to it someday.
When did the confederates ever sue for peace?
I was waiting for that. There are many on this board who wold cheer statues of Sherman being pulled down.
So your solution to this jihad against Confederate leaders is to lie about Union ones?
A whole big park and monument dedicated to him in Washington, D.C. The monument is just like the ones they are trying to pull down in the South, and built during the same era. But that is ok, whereas the Southern ones have suddenly become “Jim Crow.”
Ask nine of of ten Americans when The Civil War began and ended and they couldn’t tell you. About seven out of ten wouldn’t even know what you were talking about.
Agreed, and when they are done with the statues, streets, bases, currency and all others, they will then turn on the people who most resemble those statutes and such.
It’s not about reparations, its about revenge.
And RE Lee's family opposed rebellion (Whiskey Rebellion), while Bobby Lee himself ended John Brown's rebellion, before Lee supported the Slave-holders' Rebellion.
Funny how that worked out, isn't it?
No recognized historian has found evidence (i.e., graves, reliable newspaper reports) to support claims of Union mass genocide against Confederate white civilians.
As to what percentage of Southern families owned slaves, it ranged from roughly 50% in some Deep South states to fewer than 10% in a Border State like Delaware.
Javeth: "Grant, Sherman and Sheridan as contrast were bloody genocidal killers.
It's their statues that must come down across the states."
No genocide during the Civil War.
And such evidence as we have of Native American populations does not support claims of "genocide" during the mid-to-late 1800s.
Howdy BroJoeK! If you notice, DoodleDawg, x, and I each tried to draw several of these characters out to defend their statements. We got goose eggs for our efforts. I was going to PM you with my comments but screw it - I’m making them “public” instead.
There has been a trend of late by some southern partisans to demand that monuments commemorating northerners come down (”If we can’t have ours, then you shouldn’t get yours”). I find this disturbing and deplorable. For these many months I (and others) have been supportive of defending and keeping the southern monuments, even though we aren’t supportive of the idiocy that was the confederacy. This latest trend makes me wonder if my support was misplaced.
In the final analysis decisions regarding the disposition of local monuments (city and state) should be made locally and without interference by outside agitators. To my thinking southerners should be able to settle their own affairs. If they lack sufficient numbers (sans agitators) then let the chips fall where they may. The interference by outsiders and their obvious anti-American agenda is in part what prompts people like me - and many other FReepers - to stand in solidarity even though I have no dog in this hunt.
Federal landmarks are a different story. I don’t live in Washington DC (very few humans do) but I have the right to be part of any decisions regarding federal monuments. And so do you. Daring unhinged people to destroy property out of spite is as bad as chaining a statue to your bumper and bringing it down yourself.
This latest twist is divisive, counter-productive, and just plain stupid.
"Someone else did it too!" is not a rational rebuttal of the point.
Lincoln twice said that people had a right to gain independence if they wanted it, then he did everything he could to prevent people from gaining that independence he had previously championed. That independence he had regarded as a "sacred right."
And 9.9 out of 10 will tell you it was fought over slavery.
Comes the wisdom from the sewers.
Well said. “I do not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it’’. This is an explanation of the First Amendment that my generation(I was born in 1956) grew up with. Today this has been turned completely on it’s head thanks to fifty years of liberal and Leftist ideology. Now the liberals, through their private army of thugs, aka “Antifa’’, it’s become “I won’t agree with anything you say and I’ll beat you to a pulp if you say so’’.
Well that might be your font of wisdom, but I get my information by reading.
For example, just yesterday I discovered another instance in which Lincoln publicly supports the idea of people having a right to independence if they want it. I had long known about Lincoln's support for Texas' independence from Mexico (in a speech to congress in 1848) but I did not know about his participation in drafting a statement in support of independence for Hungary in 1852, till yesterday.
I'm still learning. Sorry about your situation.
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