Indians -- Then and Now

[Realbird]

doharris said:

In this entire world there is no one more dangerous than the person who believes he knows better than you do what is best for you.

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This statement is imbued with an overwhelmingly "truth" that attests to the ultimate fall of man. No event, incident, natural catastrophe, or war has produced more misery than they who would be our "Gods." They who would force their beliefs upon us. Doharris, thou art a prophet.

[d o harris]

Thank you, Realbird, for your comment, but I'm not a prophet.
Sitting Bull was a prophet. Jeremiah was a prophet. Would you want to live next door to somebody he believed that even while in his mother's womb God/The Great Spirit gave him the power to study his people, and the authority to decide for them in all their ways?
Besides, I don't have a beard, and isn't that de rigueur for West-Civ prophet?

[bigpond]

I agree with most of what has been said above.
The vast majority of people class "Indians" as one which is totally wrong.
Each individual Nation whether it be Lakota,Shawnee or Ottawa are as seperate as Scottish,Irish or Dutch.
There was one leader who tried to unite many different nations to fight against the Americans,his name was Tecumseh.
Below is the url from the Encyclopedia of North American Indians dealing with Tecumseh

college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/naind/html/na_038300_tecumseh.htm

[custerstillstands]

"Still . . . today anomyosities still are there. The Lakota and Crow still cannot get over what took place years ago. The Crow for the Sioux taking their land and the Sioux for the Crow helping the Army fight them. There are many other cases of things like that taking place."

In fact, Crow are from the Sioux nation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we have...

Sioux lakota tetons (Blackfeet, Hunkpapas, Sans Arc... ...)
Sioux santees
Sioux mandans
Sioux Hidatsas (Crows)
Sioux Deghiha (Osages)

Kaws or Kansas are Sioux too.

We always call Sioux lakotas "Sioux" and other "Crows" or "Osages". In fact, they are members of the same family, with a lot of different groups (which were sometime at war against each other)

[woodpecker]

by god the united states is certainly guilty of cultural genocide re:native americans,and lets not forget most times they were attacked in their villages where the women and children were.So i believe it was the govt.s policy or belief that the indians would just die out over a period of decades or less,lets say genocide by attrition.

[El Crab]

How many times did Indians attack Indian camps? Not trying to start a tit-for-tat argument, because there's no innocent side here. But just reading through Cheyenne Memories I'm seeing a whole bunch of attacks on enemy camps...

Again, I'm not interested in tallying up the score to determine which side was more vicious. But the flaws in the logic are usually there, since both sides engaged in similar actions.

Are the Crow really from the Sioux? I thought they were related to the Arikara. And the Sioux are made up of the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota, with each having particular tribes under those names.

[JJM]

The Crow belong to the Siouan language family, as do the Hidatsa, to whom they are more closely related. The Arikara are linguistically related to the Pawnee.

Yes, the 'Sioux' consist of the Lakota (Teton), Nakota (Yankton and Yanktonai) and the Dakota (Santee). The Assiniboin (Nakoda) are thought to be a late offshoot of the Nakota.

[weir]

woodpecker said:

by god the united states is certainly guilty of cultural genocide re:native americans,and lets not forget most times they were attacked in their villages where the women and children were.So i believe it was the govt.s policy or belief that the indians would just die out over a period of decades or less,lets say genocide by attrition.

Absolutly not. If you judge the conflict by the parameters you quoted above, your comments could be taken against Native Americans.
Indians died mostly because of smallpox, and we cannot blame Whites of that, because they died also of illnesses. The word "genocide" has nothing to do with the Conquest of the West. It has simply nothing to do with the American history, and should I precise this, I'm not American.

[redwhiteman]

From my years of reading about the "Winning of the West" I'd say that there was no government policy/plan of genocide towards the Native American population. However, there were certainly individuals, some of whom attained powerful positions, who did feel this way. But the government isn't off the hook just yet. There was widespread endorsement of killing the Indians' "spirit" and proselytizing. The Indians by and large lost their identity. In effect, they were wiped out. The Nez Perce who lost their bitter war in 1877 (which was as much a war about religious freedom as land) and who refused to give up their traditional ways and chose to take a separate reservation when they were allowed to return to the Pacific northwest are true patriots. As "savage" as the Indians could be (by white standards), they allowed for tolerance in matters of the unknown.

[crzhrs]

The government did not have a policy of committing genocide as we know it. However they did commit "cultural" genocide, which is far more insidious.