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.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Hmmm.. not a bad idea... - we'll have to discuss this further! (but right now I'm getting ready to head out the door - yup, I actually hold a real job) :0)

[sasquatch]

The Babbitt fiasco and the loss of billions (yes Billions) of dollars missing from the BIA is sickening

Yup, the Clintoon admin. legacy continues. I hope Norton makes it right and it doesn't take Ashcroft to do it.

[trevorjohnson]

Now now....we bought Manhattan fair and square. 24$ dollars worth of junk and the Indians were happy.

[usadave]

Reading the posts on this thread got me to thinking about the subject of slavery and of blacks making claims for reparations. Can somebody please inform me as to what piece of legislation or what amendment to the U.S. Constitution officially ended slavery and makes it illegal today. Thanks.

[muawiyah]

Actually, the guys that did the buying were cousins of mine on the Von Thyssen side. On the other hand, the payment went to some hunters just passing through. The real owners, Mohicans, or one of their subordinate tribes, never got a penny!

Many people remain disquieted with the deal, but I was talking about the whole place - not just Manhattan Island (Menhoulde, after Saint Menhoulde in France).

[petuniasevan]

Organization of conservative Indians? Don't know of one, but have you ever read David A. Yeagley's columns?

[DuncanWaring]

I'm guessing Amendment Thirteen to the Constitution:

Section. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

[usadave]

I'm guessing Amendment Thirteen to the Constitution:

Section. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation

Thanks for the information. I wasn't doubting that a law or amendment had been passed, I just couldn't recall what it was. You cleared up my confusion on the subject.

[ICE-FLYER]

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!

This is the kind of thing that I do believe is the case but what I am looking for is the proof of it. I have no doubts as to the lies that are being told by many on this issue, but what I fear is that fiction becomes fact such as in the case of the liar Arafta and his terrorist Palistinians. Thye have lied so long and have enough people believing their lies that they have become the truth to many and thus the base from which they argue and fright from. I do not want to see that kind of problem develope here thought I fear it will.

[ICE-FLYER]

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...

I agree. It is easy to see that this tripe from these people is a veil to cover what they really are. Anit-American to the core. They woul dlove the fall of America and the rise of their own power. If they can get millions to believe them then they are successful and can cause great harm to many.

[ICE-FLYER]

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.

I disagree with you here. Many of them may well have been non-christian, but that does not make them subject to any. Christ came to save all and I doubt that He would look down on them any more than He would you and I for our past. Some tribes were intorduced to Christianity and were thrilled that they found out they were right. Right in the sense that they already knew in their hearts that there was a God greater than all who is the Creaotr as well. They worshiped Him as such and I believe that they satisfied the calling of scripture as Abraham did and as the new testiment calls for. They scripture that says that God reveals Himself through nature so that "we are without excuse". So don't lump them all together here. 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.

Yes, they are living in the greatest nation ever and they do have every opportunity. However, they have their versions of Jesse Jackson and Arafat and that may also be their demise.

[ICE-FLYER]

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.

I agree with your post in everything you say. It might be that I needed to clarify further what I mean by my comparison to the Palistinians. After all, there are elements in the Indian Movement that are trying to make the same calls as the Palistinians do. No, not all and I am remiss for making the blanket statement if I did. There are millions in the past who as Indians forught for us, worked for us, believed in us. One of the best that comes to mind is the Navaho indians who by their strange yet beautiful language provided us our best code for WWI in the pacific. The Japanes could never break it and they served us all. God bless and keep them. And if it is the case that we have a treaty with them and it was broken by us then we are tragically immoral for doing so.

[ICE-FLYER]

I am a NATIVE AMERICAN

One of the best posts yet. I agree. I am an American. Native at that. Not hyphenated, not subjected, not PAST Italian thus and Italian-America, but only and purely American.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I was under the impression that the basis of the Native American Indian theology was that they are all part of the land and 'Mother Earth' is a living thing that we are all a part of.

If this is the case, then how is it possible to make a claim on the land? How is it possible to own what is un-ownable? Aren't they thinking like the white man?

[MJM59]

Oh, they were white alright, but their actions towards the Native American Indians were neither "Christian" nor superior. I love the way we as white americans act all high and mighty when it comes to the rest of the world, yet we are quick to forget our own checkered past.

[2Trievers]

The tallest building in Connecticut opened yesterday .... the new hotel at the Mohegan Sun Casino In Ledyard.

How the Native Americans got this land is subject to great speculation and intrigue ... best found in this book. The saga still continues, unresolved to this day.

Without Reservation

Without Reservation

author: Jeff Benedict
published by: HarperCollins
http://www.amazon.com
http://www.bn.com

Review by Amazon.com 
The Mashantucket Pequot tribe of Connecticut were nearly penniless just a couple of decades ago. Today, they are the richest tribe in America and owners of the world's largest gambling casino. And, writes Jeff Benedict, their wealth is based on a fraud. Without Reservation will remind some readers of A Civil Action, by Jonathan Harr, for its novelistic approach to nonfiction as well as its earnestness. Benedict says that Congress was essentially tricked into granting tribal status to the group--a political process that allowed it to skirt the much more stringent recognition standards maintained by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Benedict's reporting is provocative, showing, for instance, that Skip Hayward, the man who headed the tribe for many years, listed his race as "white" on the application for his first marriage license. And Benedict's narrative is character driven almost to a fault, though it makes reading about congressional hearings and backdoor politics enjoyable. 

There is convincing evidence on these pages that pols were duped by Hayward, first in Connecticut and then in Washington. The evidence is strong enough, in fact, to warrant formal congressional hearings on the decisions made in the 1980s to confer official status on the tribe, and perhaps even revoke that status or redirect some casino profits to poor Indians. In short, Without Reservation is the kind of book that can kick-start a controversy --or at least amplify an existing one to the point where the need for reform becomes urgent. If the book has a weakness, it's that Benedict didn't get to interview many tribal officials. But then it's easy to see why they might avoid a man with so many hard questions. This book needed to be written, even without their cooperation. --John J. Miller

[ICE-FLYER]

All I have to say is that we owe the American Indians so much. We did steal their land, and we also murdered their women and children, even forced the women who werent killed to have hysterectomies (sp?) and gave them blankets infected with small pocks to keep them warm as they died along the Trail of Tears.

We can all bring up the trail of tears and the inconceivable scum officers for the army at the time who did the dirty deeds with the blankets, and we can act as a nation to correct our wrongs. However, this does not mean that the other INVENTED indian nations or the other tribes concocting so-called rights to supposed lands "stolen" from them, all somehow have now the right to demand back land won or lost by right of conquest, purchase, or treaty.

Who was here before the Indians? Does it then not belong to them? There WERE peoples here before them. What about all of their so-called "legitimate" claims???

Foxwoods casino in Connecticut is on supposed soverign indian land. When did they come about? What was their claim built on? Mostly lies but who cares, after all, Connecticut as a whole did not want gambling, but some of their self-absorbed-busy-body-get-it-any-way-you-can politicians supported gambling so their way around it was supporting this "Tribe" of Indians of which we have decendants who are far removed from the tribe even by blood. Add a couple of lawyers greedy for their turn with the dice, go to DC and voila......CA$INO.

I have never been against demanding our nation act righteously in ALL matters, even when it does not give us what we sometimes want, but I detest the invented sins and the Pay-Us-Now schemes drempt up and acted upon by those who wrap themselves up as victims. They have a battle with me.

I am only 1 full generation removed from being an immigrant, yet I am afforded the status of the lowest of the low here in the US, my home and my country, that of white male. The scourge of the land, cause of all evil, sexist pig bastard who single handedly caused slavery, eco-terrorist who would gladly force all children to drink arsnic laced water, lunch stealer from the public school, drug theif from all senior citizen, and all around generilized, walking human plague. In the eyes of many I caused all of it and MUST suffer for it. Whether by forefit of land, teft of my property or confiscation of my wealth by way of taxation, I must pay........right.
Over my dead body.

I will listen to legitimate claims backed up with real proof, but I am tired of the invented claims, status's from people who are and have been suspect from day-one.