Quote:
Originally Posted by Graytop
Two eagles,....OK,......but I wouldn't be too ungrateful to our European ancestors. You are enjoying the fruits of their so called "progress and greed". If they hadn't conquered the existing inhabitants of this land we certainly wouldn't be here enjoying the fruits of it today,....and we certainly wouldn't be living in The Villages enjoying our lifestyle. I know it's a popular to criticize our ancestors and somehow think that we would have been more upright, or different, or done things differently,....I wonder?
Laws have been enacted to protect and reverse harm and abuse that was done early on in this country. The eagles have come back. Maybe you'd rather just move back to Europe? You may not like it but we unfortunately live in a world that is governed by the aggressive use of force. It was true when Europeans moved to this land and it's still true today. I'm not saying it's right but it's the way it is. If they hadn't driven the Indians out we certainly wouldn't be driving our golf carts around here today enjoying The Villages lifestyle.
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Let's see what "conquered the existing inhabitants" and "driven the Indians out" means. Here are only a handful of bits of American history: The Trail of Tears, in which the Cherokee were forced out of their homes and off their land on a moment's notice without the chance to take anything in the middle of winter, and thousands died in the forced march in the cold and snow. (We don't hesitate to lament something very similar that the Japanese did to U.S. prisoners of war during World War II!) Bosque Redondo, where the Native Americans were virtually used for target practice. Wounded Knee, not the 20th century takeover but the 19th century massacre of hundreds of Native Americans, many of them women and children. Visit Canyon de Chelly out west and read the historical plaques. Native Americans being given the blankets of soldiers who had died of smallpox, one of the earliest examples of
biological warfare, except that the Natives were not at war but instead were being victimized. (And today we focus on "dirty bombs"!)
Even legal treaties were not honored (and many so-called "treaties" were illegal) and countless promises broken. Land was literally stolen from the Seneca Nation in western New York to create the city of Buffalo, and ironically today's Senecas notice that they have turned their nation around, while the upstate cities across New York are turning into a "rust belt." The Mashantucket Pequot in central Connecticut were accepted by the local Ledyard community when the reservation consisted of one old wooden house with no plumbing occupied by a elderly women and her seven children, but when the nation became so successful with Foxwoods, how much they were resented! Let's also remember that many Native American nations fought on the side of the Colonies against Great Britain in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Others gave their lives, some to the North and others to the South, during the Civil War. The only military communication code developed during World War II that was never broken was created by Navajos using their native language.
Locally, in the southern end of Sumter County (Bushnell), the battle that started the Second Seminole War took place at what is now Dade Battlefield State Park. At the time of the annual reenactment of the battle early in January this year, the
Daily Sun ran a feature about "Our Fallen Heroes," referring to those U.S. soldiers who died in the battle while citing none of the details about the Seminoles having attacked because they had already been told that they were going to be forced from their ancestral homes and land. Yes, to make way for our eventual golf carts! Tell me, would you lie down and cave in if you were told you would be forced out of your Villages home and lose your golf cart? I offered "the other side of the story" to the
Daily Sun, but there was no interest on their part. Why can't we at least be honest and look at the whole picture?
Let's see again: Crossing the Bering Strait and so-called "minority groups." Canada has a history of tolerance toward minority groups in its recognition that every single group has contributed--and continues to contribute--to its society. Some years ago a
National Geographic reporter was given an assignment to interview representatives of the various groups, and to do so he had put together a specific set of questions, including "When did your people first begin to arrive to Canada?" When he asked the representative at Kanawake, a Mohawk reservation just across the river from Montreal, the man looked at him blankly. "When did we begin to arrive to Canada? We've been here for many millennia, long before Canada even existed!"
And sacrificing two eagles (no longer on the endangered species list!) for religious purposes is such a big deal? Look at how many human beings were killed by Western society in the name of God and religion. How about the Crusades, one of whose shouted cries was "Kill them all! God will know his own!" The torture racks of the Spanish Inquisition. Right up into our lifetimes with the rise of Nazi Germany. I don't agree with the rationalization of "it's the way it is" as an attempt to justify this kind of behavior. How many Americans feel "it's the way it is" about 9/11? I certainly don't!
We do look at things differently when the shoe is on the other foot, don't we?
Nothing I've written is intended to be sarcastic, since sarcasm reflects a measure of insecurity and desperation on the part of those who use it as a communication tool. If anyone is honestly interested in getting a picture of the daily life within a Native community in the 19th century and its destruction by the coming of
our European ancestors, I suggest you read James Welch's
Fools Crow. And if you're not interested, then please ignore this recommendation--and this whole long post.
I'm getting off my soap box of history!