h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The indigenousness people prefere to be called native americans not indians. See

http://www.nativeamericans.com/TrailofTears2.htm

The Cherokee Trail of Tears can be found @

http://www.yvwiiusdinvnohii.net/articles/princes.html

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

>and claim for his Queen.

The Catholic monarchs, Isabela and Fernando of Spain, sponsered Columbus.

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

yes I see the typo now, thanks. and actually you make a very good point, which is why originally I did not include so many "dated" details. But they were asked for. And with each clarification I make the scope of the piece grows. In the beginning I intended to discuss Mount Rushmore, as the main topic. I meant to include a abbreviated history to show why this was indeed adding insult to injury. I'm afraid I don't really know how to go about making that happen any more. Maybe I just need to think about it a while and see if anything comes to me.

the ones I know refer to themselves as Indian quite often. They have a very popular website called Indian Country Today. The name of one of their orginazations is The American Indian Movement. I think it is just a term mostly for the benefit of white people, who don't know about tribal affiliations. I believe they would actually rather be called by their tribal names. But since most of us don't even know what those are, I end up using a mixture. I certainly don't mean to be disrespectful to anyone. If there are any Indians around here who could give me a first person perspective of what is the proper term, that would be great.

You could ask Rita @ U203958

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

I know Rita. She is Lakota. Titawun Lakota if I am not mistaken. I have seen her refer to herself as Indian, many times. I will ask her, to clarify, but we've had the discussion before. When an Indian talks about another Native American, if they do not use their tribal designation, they generally call them Indian, or so has been my experience.

Alji (Join The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

I believe I should completely revamp this whole thing and narrow the focus. I have confused myself so I know it can't help but be confusing to anybody who reads it. It will probably be a couple of days before I have time to do that. I hope all of you who have been so kind to help me with this will check back then and give me your opinion again. Hopefully it will be something much more to the point, and easier to read.

paulie, take it out of Peer Review, make the changes then resubmit it.

Alji (Join The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

or why not stick it in the writing workshop Writing-Workshop and carry on with this converstation there, getting some feedback and working it into shape.

er, oops, I didn't mention that I am actually Spiff in disguise!

I think the historic stuff is more interesting.

Well, I think the history stuff *is* interesting. I just felt that it was trying to be two different things. It becomes clear later in the piece that the focus is really on Mt Rushmore, not on providing a global history of the native population by and subsequently the US government and people.

Maybe it could be divided into two parts. One for historic background in the edited Guide and an aritcle in the Post that's more editorial.

Hello
I found this an interesting subject, and I must admit I haven't read all the debate. However as I understand it what we have here is a case of the new Americans destroying a site of religious significance to endelebly brand there national identity on the land.

Anyway, to cover this subject you have given a potted history of the systematic ethnic cleansing of the land, in order to give the final kick it's full impact. I came across the same problem when I tried to write my entry on Anne Frank, I ended up having to give a potted history of the holocaust as it related to the Frank's. And I think this was the right thing to do, it made the impact greater, as it should be.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is you need the beating before the final kick in order to give the final kick it's true context. So I think a potted history is needed in the entry, and removing all the context would be wrong.

Researcher PSG

2Bit said:
>> I would make it clear that this is dealing soley with the United States. Canada had an entirely different relationship with its Indian population. <<

Still working thru the backlog and may have more to say, but I couldn't let this pass without comments. Two of them.

1. (a personal note to 2 Bit)
You seem to be adjusting well to the notion that 'my country right or wrong' is a flawed perspective ! But don't go too far with that thought. I get a little nervous reading your admission that you assumed it was about America because of the title 'Monumental Arrogance'. Was it the word 'monumental' that brought a rushmore of stars and stripes to your eyebones ?

2. (in a more general way but also an extension of my concern that 2 Bit may be bearing more guilt than is due any American, especially if he is under any delusion that Canadians are somehow 'nicer' - it's a myth!)

The British insituted a policy of ethnic cleansing almost everywhere ever they settled in North America. The exceptions were a very few privately funded and independently established trading posts and 'utopian' farming settlements. A 5 pound bounty was paid for Indian scalps at British military posts throughout the pre-Revolutionary colonies.

Here in Nova Scotia it was the basis of many future fortunes and the first 'honest' money ever earned by the thousands of 'ex-convicts' and other indentured labourers who came along to build the early forts and settlements.

Once fortifications were established these persons were 'free' to exploit 'the resources of the land'. Once they'd 'earned' enough they could buy land. The racially prejudiced notion that only Indians cruelly 'scalped' their victims is a failure to see that practise for what it was, a tit-for-tat retribution of a heinous crime conceived by some insane British quarter-master-general as 'proof of kill'.

Later, when the US began resisting British colonial rule, it was much in the interests of British North America to 'befriend' the aboriginals and use them as cannon fodder in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. They established 'alliances' with several tribes who had a common cause against 'expansionist' America. The Redcoats promised to establish and defend a separate and independent Indian Nation from around the Great Lakes to all points westward, as reward for fighting the young US armies. Most of these native allies were slaughtered and the promise was never fulfilled.

Other than sheltering Sitting Bull (as a potential ally) for a few months after the Battle of Little Big Horn, Canadians have never treated 'the Indians' any better than Americans have. The last of the Beotucks of Newfoundland died nearly a century ago. The Huron were also completely wiped out. The M'iq Mak (of Nova Scotia) and most other tribes were forced onto unwanted land called 'reservations', and as recently as the 1970s we were still bulldozing our way into previously unknown native villages and cutting highways through virgin forests with no concern about the consequences.

Current plans to damn several rivers that flow into James Bay (the bottom bit of Hudson's Bay) in order to sell hydro-power to America, are going forward in spite of UN condemnation that the flooding will displace thousand of square miles of native homes and hunting grounds in Quebec. The baby-faced Eskimo papoose may be the classic 'symbol' of Canada in children's geographies all over the world, but there are only 30,000 of them left and now they all have sugar rotted teeth and drug abuse problems. Their parents were beaten and sexually abused by government agents and church-sponsored teachers in every remote village from St. John's Newfoundland to Alaska.

No sir, with notable exceptions such as the Trail of Tears (which can be blamed solely on Jackson, who remains the only President to ever defy a direct order by the US Supreme Court) and some of the more brutal western clearances by the 7th Cavalry (like Wounded Knee) Canada cannot claim to have been any more fair, just or even 'human' in dealing with the 'savages'.

Only the earliest French settlers (1500 to 1750 - essentially pre-industrial-revolution neolithic hunter-gatherers themselves) ever developed a rapport with, or bothered to learn from, native North Americans. And of course their Jesuit brothers who followed, screwed up that hard-won relationship sufficiently for the Brits to make their first 'allies' in a series of wars against France in the mid 1700s, before America got revolting. Until 1776, fighting the French was the only hope an aboriginal had that he might possibly, maybe, perhaps, if he was lucky, escape being scalped for 5 pounds by some scum from a British debtors prison.

~jwf~

First up, good article, especially the Rushmore bit. I had no idea that Rushmore was the same as the Black Hills. This is going to be a shopping-list of points, but please don't let that distract you from the fact that I did like this article. Here goes:

The only big concern I have is that you tend to generalise quite a bit. All Indians and all Europeans seem to have the same views. For example, there's this line:

"Indians do not comprehend the concept of glorifying men by defacing naturally magnificent mountainsides."

Aw, come on, not one single Indian (remembering we're talking 1940s here) can understand the 'white man's' view?

Also, you raise a few questions in my mind at the start - what Queen? Where WAS Columbus, if not America? (There was another but it's slipped my mind.)

I don't like the title, it's too long.

Contrary to what others have said here, many bison were killed by the Indians. Suddenly armed with firearms and horses, and (apparently) without a clear understanding that bison breed like humans rather than just appearing like weather, Indian hunters could slaughter entire herds, rather than ambushing one or two individuals as the herd passed. Apparently even settlers were shocked to see vast herds slaughtered for their tongues (which were a delicacy) and the rest of the animal left to rot. I don't have a reference for that, so check it before you put it in though. Actually, it's probably not that relevant anyway.

Also, as well as the gold rush, did some of the pressure to expand not come from the terms of Independence from Britain, something to do with only 'occupied' areas being granted to the new nation?

Gif

I've never had the veiw, 'My country right or wrong.' There are several places that I think the United States has messed up. I was under the impression that the Canadians were easier to deal with than the Americans. I recall the Nez Peirce were trying to reach Canada when they were blocked by the US Army. I think that's were that impression mostly came from.

I assumed Monumental Arrogance meant the United States becausse of the way many (if not most) h2g2 members feel about it.

I don't think that President Jackson was soley to ballme for the Trail of Tears. From what I've been reading, the Georgians had been pressing for their removal pretty hard. He just let them do it. When the Supreme Court decided for the Cherokee, President Jackson, like a typical democrat, ignored the law and did what he wanted to.

I don't care much for 'Native American;' it's too confusing. I'm a native American, and my Indian heritage is questionable (The theory in my familiy used to be that we were part Cheorkee; now the speculation is that we're part black).

Now the Indians weren't as innocent as everyone likes to believe either. They enthusiatically engaged in war and the Cherokee had a clear idea about whose land belonged to whom. I've been reading some about the Cherokee to do a couple of entries about them.

They liked to gamble when they played a ball game that was a cross between lacrosse (without the horses), hockey (without the ice), and low-intensity warfare. For one game, they staked a vast tract of land, a Indian (I forget the tribe) boy captured from another tribe, some black slaves, blankets, and a newly captured white boy on the outcome of the game.

It seems that human beings are human beings regardless of how they dress.

Well I have rewritten it, and I did not include every single little fact about the history of the American Indian. If it is necessary for me to do so I can include references where a person can find all those facts, but to try to do that in the scope of one article is just impossible. I hope I have all my details straight and terms acceptable and all that, because truthfully the idea is not to have a concise account of what happened when, but to bring attention to the big picture. How things got this way, a place to start changing them. Things, all things have to be done in small manageble increments. Anybody with further knowledge of this subject could write entries that would compliment this one and fill in some of my gaps. Or they could join me in making this entry factual enough to be fit for the guide while maintaining the "feeling" that it will have to have to move anybody at all. Maybe to you it's all just about what gets in the "edited guide" and whether it follows the guide lines, but to me it's about creating enough interest in the story to bring about more active support from the white community in general. You may argue that this is not the place to do that, but then I may argue that any place where it may happen is the place and I certainly have the right to try it. What use would be a guide to anything, much less a thing so all inclusive as the universe, if it only took into account those things that could be relayed with hard cold facts? Shouldn't it be useful to all travelers to know that you can not go around with complete disregard for your fellow humans without a huge price to pay?

Thank you, Two Bit, for the even handed response to my rant. I do get a bit narky when folks perpetuate the "Canadians are nice" myth. When my country's wrong, I like to be among the first to say so, because we like to think we're honest and just and willing to speak up for what is true and right. You may have heard our Prime Minister is refusing to support Bush's Iraqnophobia. Yep, call us the True North Strong and Free but don't let anyone call us 'nice'.


>> It seems that human beings are human beings regardless of how they dress. <<

Ah yes, even Canadians.
But the girls do love a man in uniform!
Especially if he's packing heat.

~jwf~