American Indans, what do you know about them and their claims on America??

Self and the American Indian Movement Org site ^ | April 21, 2002 | Ice Flyer

[ICE-FLYER]

I would love for fellow freepers to click on the above link about the demands this group is making of the United States and to tell me what you think or know of it.

For a long while now I have said that what I see happening over in Israel will some day happen here with the Indians who are still claiming lands and rights and that there are broken treaties and such. I can easily see how they will rise up and make the same demands, after all, we are oppressors, right? and we STOLE their lands, right? I at the same time I must confess that I do not fully know about many of these claims or their validity so I am putting this up in an effort to educate myself with the thoughts of Free Republic.

Please let me know what you do about this subject and what information might be out there on this that is definitive.

[Pylot]

All land is "occupied" land.

[RasterMaster]

No race should have separate status....after many generations, we are a mix of many races. Doubt there are too many indians who have not had mixed blood somewhere in their lineages by now.

[RLK]

Theoretically the native Americans still own half of maine, Chicago, Rapids City, Council Bluffs, and much of everything else. I don't believe they'll get it back.

[Tacis]

The important thing is not the "right" and "wrong" of their claims. In fact, they have very little to do with it. The important thing is, do they have the sleaziest, greediest, most rabble-rousing, bottom feeding, self-serving, scuzzy lawyers.

It isn't blacks peeing in the pool over reparations and it isn't Indians demanding New York State back. It is their scum sucking lawyers!! Those who'll get one third to one half if they win. We'll get the same claims for Mexicans wanting Texas and California back. Probably, Spain, wanting Florida back. And, I wouldn't be surpised find, probably claims against Mexico and the US, maybe Spain, for damages done to the native Mexicans, the Aztecs, etc. The lawyers don't need live benifiaries to right an ancient wrong. If they win, the money, less their 50%, will go into trust for "the common good."

Sure, the lawyers will represent the Palestinians against the Israelis. But, they'll also represent the Jews against the Egyptiians who held them in bondage for 2,000 years. Of that, we actually have documentary proof. If there is money in, the lawyers will take on the rich guys.

[america-rules]

Something must people don't know is that much of the Indian land the US now occupies was bought from the Indians. In New York the Indians didn't live in tents or surround wagon trains. They were farmers that had rock houses and were capitalists at heart.

Running Bull and his Indian Nation were the ones who got screwed by the US but not most of the other Indians in the US!

[Chad Fairbanks]

As an American Indian, I can say without prejudice that A.I.M. is a marxist, rabble-rousing, left-wing hate group who do nothing but while, complain, make stupid demands a century too late, have occasional shootouts with the feds, and have allegedly (I have no solid proof, but I hear rumours) in the past played footsies with middle-eastern terrorist types... They make me ashamed to share the same race... hope this helps...

[JFoxbear]

Some outfit built a huge sports complex, stadium/arena, parking lots etc. on my childhood hunting grounds.

Can I sue the State of NJ and the NY Giants ?

[muawiyah]

I still want New York returned. In the right hands it could show some real promise.

[Bloody Reaper]

The heathen Indians lost the wars to superior Christian whites long ago. They have no rights except what the white government has given them. There were no laws against what the white man did to them in the past. They should get over it. They are intitled to nothing.

The upside is that the American Indian is now living in the the greatest nation on the earth with every opportunity to exceed and leave the past behind.

[AdA$tra]

All land is "occupied" land.

Much of the Southwest was once the sole domain of the Anasazi. Were they Native, Native Amercians? Who did they run off when they built their 700 year-old cities.

[Arkinsaw]

I personally wouldn't compare the Indians with the Palestinians. They are indeed separate nations within a nation and we have treaty obligations towards those nations that we have not honorably met and in many cases dishonorably broke.

This is not 150 years ago either. During the Clinton administration several millions of dollars of money belonging to the Indians and held in trust by the government disappeared and Clinton administration officials in the Interior Dept./Bureau of Indian Affairs under Bruce Babbit apparently destroyed documents while under a court order to turn them over. It appears that perhaps half of the Indian's money went "poof". This is of course not all, a whole list abuses and usurpations could be listed.

Right after Sept. 11 National Public Radio went into the Pine Ridge Reservation and talked with Indians on the street. Pine Ridge is the most famous Indian reservation and known for its severe problems and poverty. NPR stopped two Sioux men in a truck and asked them what they thought of Sept. 11. Both men were literally ready to put on war paint and go to Afghanistan immediately.

Indians also served in World War II, a total of 44,000 out of a population of only 350,000 served. Most notably the Navajo code talkers who made a major contribution to US code security and probably protected the security of many operations and saved many American lives. They served both in the US and Confederate armies during the Civil War with one serving as a chief aid to U.S. Grant and present at the surrender and another group serving as the last organized Confederate force to surrender. Three Native Americans earned the Medal of Honor during the Korean War.

We should abide by our treaty obligations. We should protect the money that we hold in trust. We should seek out those who have stolen Indian money during the Clinton administration or covered up its theft and hold them accountable. Doing these things has nothing to do with Indian demands but instead has to do with our treaty obligations that we ourselves swore to.

The sad thing is that Native Americans are becoming seduced by the "victim mentality" which naturally leads them to cast their lot with liberal civil rights hustlers. Conservatives ought to lead the way on dealing with these treaty obligations in order to keep the Indians from having to make the unfortunate mistake of getting further involved with the Democratic plantation.

[muawiyah]

Professor Carl Buhley wrote several definitive works that included the payoffs. One of the biggest happened in Chicago. Something like 50,000 Indians (and assorted swindlers, conmen, early arriving Romany) met. The payments were made. New titles issued for properties in the West, away from white folks, and that was that.

This was not a consequence of war, or of simple greed. It had been determined that for some reason the presence of white people was deadly to Indians. The relocations were performed to enable the Indians to survive.

Once the germ theory of disease was worked out, it was readily determined that Indian people died of childhood diseases whites and blacks usually did not!

Another century of scientific analysis has found that the observations of the late 1700s and early 1800s were valid and the only prophylaxis at the time was relocation of one group or the other.

The Kickapoo Tribe developed a political and cultural philosophy that called for total separation. They actually sent out missionaries to all the other tribes to propagate this doctrine before all the Indians had died of white diseases. The Brotherton Indians who had decided to become like Europeans in the early 1600s, changed their mind by the early 1800s, after observing the connection between white diseases and the death of Indian children. They participated in the relocation.

Several families stopped at Weedpatch Hill in what is now Brown County Indiana. After 4 or 5 generations they had interbred with enough whites to have developed immunity. They then came down off the hill and moved throughout Indiana.

[Arkinsaw]

There would be less of a problem with AIM if the US fulfilled treaty obligations and hadn't let the Clinton administration plunder the BIA funds. I'm not an American Indian, but I know that a treaty obligation is something you are supposed to fulfill.

[Cleburne]

The Native Americans Europeans met weren't native: they subdued other peoples, either other Indian tribes, or, quite likely, a previous, earlier people group that arrived considerably well before the present day Indians. We should run genetic testing to determine if any of these people are still around- almost certainly not. Thus, nobody alive today has any sort of moral claim to the land. But the facts shouldn't bother anyone. However, I am quite certain that the Indian "tribes" will not try to drive white men off to badly. Who would come to the casinos? And I say this as a descendant of Native Americans. The current state of Indian affairs in the US is dismal. Only a willingness to do hard work and not rely on thieving casinos and the handouts they provide will improve the Indian community. Sadly, such an attitude- that does not treat honest labor as a white man folly-is not terribly prevelant today, at least in my state.

[tubebender]

PING...

[Arkinsaw]

They have no rights except what the white government has given them.

Reaaaaaallly? Thats funny, I though that all men had certain inalienable God-given rights and that a government cannot "give" rights. I must be reading the wrong stuff to make a mistake like that.

[AdA$tra]

somewhere in their lineages by now.

If we tried to fill in all the words that go before my -American we would be up all night. By morning I would have full blown minority status: How many Scotch-Irish-English-German-Native American-Born Protestant-Turned Catholic-Pale Ale Drinking-fellow RasterMaster-Lightwave using-AMERICANS do you know?

[Ditter]

You beat me to it. The tribes that the first white settlers displace, had themselves, displaced earlier tribes & taken the land from them. I was going to say that they should 'put some ice on it', but that would be rude.

[blam]

SPIRIT CAVE MAN (Died:Fallon Nevada at age 45, 9,400 years ago)