NATIVE AMERICANS
Where did all the indigenous people go?
When I was growing up, Cowboys and Indians was a popular child's game. Children also enjoyed dressing up in cowboy and Indian costumes. At Thanksgiving, we decorated our classrooms celebrating the colonial myth of the first Thanksgiving being a peaceful and plentiful feast shared between Pilgrims and the indigenous people. The word "discover" was often credited to Christopher Columbus, even though no one disputed the fact Native people had already been living here for tens of thousands of years before a single European ship arrived. The only Native American "Indians" I had seen were not in the flesh, but were cartoonish characters created by white men, and played by actors on T.V. and in movies.
Whatever happened to the 570 or so tribes of 600,000 indigenous people who had occupied their ancestral land from coast to coast for tens of thousands of years - on the land that became the U.S.? Had we been taught our U.S. history, rather than lightheartedly enjoying the horn of plenty version of Thanksgiving, and delighting in cowboys and Indians child's play, the truth would have filled us with horror, sadness and shame.
Only one example of the loss of sacred lands of Natives and the injustices they've suffered under the U.S. government is the construction of Mount Rushmore.
In the Treaty of 1868, the US government promised that the Black Hills, including the Thunkasila Sakpe (Meaning Six Grandfathers in the Sioux native language), were included in the Sioux territory, for Natives to keep in perpetuity. That lasted only until gold was discovered in the Black Hills.
The U.S. government broke the treaty by forcing the Sioux to relinquish the Black Hills portion of their reservation. The Wounded Knee Massacre took place in 1890 between the U.S. Army and the Native Americans, where hundreds of unarmed Sioux women, children and men were shot and killed by U.S. troops.
The permanent desecration of the sacred mountain, known to the Lakota Sioux as Six Grandfathers, began in 1927 when the carving of the faces of four white men began.
Who are the four white men chosen to be carved on Mt. Rushmore? We know that all four supported the extermination (genocide) and forced removal of Native Americans from their land. Three of the four men were slave owners, and the fourth, Lincoln, had signed his approval of the largest mass execution of native Americans in the history of the United States. Sixty years earlier, Thomas Jefferson had spoken these chilling words.:
"... If ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated ... They will kill some of us; we shall destroy them all." - Thomas Jefferson to Henry Dearborn, 28 August, 1807
Nearly years later after the treaty, in an 1886 lecture, Theodore Roosevelt let it be known that the frontier anti-Indian sentiment that began centuries earlier with the arrival of the first Europeans was still festering and as violent as ever.:
"I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth." - Theodore Roosevelt, 1886
Going back to what ever happened to our indigenous people … For over a hundred years, starting before, and including our first president, George Washington, the US government used every lowly and cruel stratagem against Native people – including slavery, ethnic cleansing, warfare and germ warfare.:
“Could it not be contrived to Send the Small Pox among those Disaffected Tribes of Indians? We must, on this occasion, Use Every Stratagem in our power to Reduce them.” - Sir Jeffrey Amherst's July 7, 1763 letter to Fort Pitt.
In 1776, the U. S. Declaration of Independence simultaneously announced to the world our separation from Great Britain, while revealing a nation founded on a dehumanizing attitude against indigenous Americans.:
"He (the King of Great Britain) has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions." - U. S. Declaration of Independence, 1776
The die was cast, and territorial expansion of the United States continued, with old and new European immigrants justifying their policy of conquest and subjugation of Native people having dismissed them as “merciless Indian savages”.
Photo: Detail of US History (forgotten).
Oil on canvas and mixed media.
Whose Four Faces are Carved on Mt. Rushmore?
Stars and Stripes
By M Susan Broussard Installation (Oil on canvas triptych, granite, wood, hemp) 5 x 9'
All Four Supported Native Genocide. Three were Slaveholders.
Lincoln Signed the Largest Mass Execution of Natives in US History
President Abraham Lincoln's legacy is a complicated one. His entire presidency, from 1861-1865, was marked by civil war along with the violence and division that accompanies it. It was truly a civil war with all three groups - white settlers, African Americans and Natives - fighting on both sides of the war. Lincoln was and still is beloved by many for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, on September 22, 1862, which freed more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans. But not all Americans supported the end of slavery and this noble act may have eventually cost Lincoln his life.
As noble as the Emancipation Proclamation is, its glory overshadows the memory of many of Lincoln's speeches and deeds which spell out his clear lack of concern for the well being of indigenous Americans. An extremely dark time in our history, our young nation was simultaneously fighting a civil war over slavery, and fighting Native Indigenous people to remove them from their ancestral land. The Lincoln administration's policy towards indigenous nations, his administration's corrupt Indian office (the precursor of the Bureau of Indian Affairs), The Homestead Act and the construction of the transcontinental railroad all contributed to the coast to coast genocide of Native Americans.
Just three months after signing the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln signed off on the largest mass execution in US history - the execution of 38 men of the Santee Sioux of Minnesota (aka the Dakota Nation). The native tribes were condemned to death after their land was taken by the US and the tribes were ordered by the US to live on reservations. As the federal government turned its attention to the Civil War, the Dakota were confined to reservations without food and were literally staving while corrupt US agents failed to provide food, white settlers stole horses and timber, and White settlers refused to trade with Natives.
The sentencing of the condemned men did not following the rule of law. Rather than taking place in a court of law, the Native defendants were not allowed to offer any defense. An unauthorized military tribunal which lacked the lawful authority to try the Santee Sioux / Dakota had been hastily assembled. The tribunal was biased and the commander who ordered the commission trials lacked the authority to do so. Rather than an appellate court conducting the review, Lincoln, who at the time was the President of the US, reviewed the cases. Originally, 303 men had been sentenced to death, and President Lincoln commuted the sentence of 264 men, leaving 38 to be hanged. The last efforts of these 38 Dakota to prevent their tribes from starving and keep their ancestral land from being claimed by the US government had cost them their lives.
This largest mass execution in US history was so popular, and Native Americans were so hated, that on December 26, 1862, the day after Christmas, an estimated 4,000 spectators gathered in Mankato, Minnesota to witness the mass hanging of 38 Dakota men.
One haunting documentation from the largest mass execution in US history, is the heart wrenching letter from one of the condemned men, Hdainyanka, to Chief Wabasha begging the chief to care for his family after his execution. Chief Wabash had convinced his tribe the the US would be good for their word, would abide by the treaties and would be fair and just. Hdainyanka's trusting the Chief's assessment and that the US shared the indigenous people's desire for peace resulted in Hdainyanka being sentenced to death with 37 other Dakota. In a letter written the night before he was hanged, Hdainyanka expresses his innocence, along with his regrets for trusting the Chief's assessment that the US would honor their word of fair and just treatment.:
"You have deceived me. You told me that if we followed the advice of General Sibley, and gave ourselves up to the whites, all would be well; no innocent man would be injured. I have not killed, wounded or injured a white man, or any white persons. I have not participated in the plunder of their property; and yet to-day I am set apart for execution, and must die in a few days, while men who are guilty will remain in prison. My wife is your daughter, my children are your grandchildren. I leave them all in your care and under your protection. Do not let them suffer; and when my children are grown up, let them know that their father died because he followed the advice of his chief, and without having the blood of a white man to answer for to the Great Spirit."
Countless wars were fought to steal their ancestral land from indigenous nations, but this was the first time that the US applied criminal sanctions to punish those defeated in war. The Dakotas were convicted, not for the crime of murder, but for killings allegedly committed in warfare. Adding insult to injury, the Dakotas were tried for the wrong crimes. Being a sovereign nation at war with the US, the Dakotas should not have been tried for civilian crimes of murder, rape and robbery. (Evidence of these crimes was sparse, not to mention, the defendants did not speak the language so could not offer any defense.) The Dakotas who fought the war did so in an effort to simply defend their homes, their ancestral land. They were entitled to only be tried on charges that they violated the customary rules of warfare, making few of the convictions supportable.
President Lincoln’s commutation of all but 38 of the 303 sentences may have been his attempt to correct the verdicts of the rogue tribunal, but with so many flaws in the proceedings, even his judgements are questionable. Lincoln later explained to the US Senate:
"Anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak on one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other, I ordered a careful examination of the records of the trials to be made, in view of first ordering the execution of such as had been proved guilty of violating females."
When all but two men who were found to be innocent of rape, Lincoln expanded the criteria to include “massacres” of civilians.
2 ½ years after the Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, on April 11, 1865, actor John Wilkes Booth attended Lincoln’s speech at the White House, becoming enraged when Lincoln promoted voting rights for African Americans. Booth said,
“That means nigger citizenship … That is the last speech he will ever give.”
On April 14, 1865, Booth assassinated Lincoln.
Three years after Lincoln's death, the US signed the Treaty of 1868 promising the Sioux Nation could retain their territory, including the Black Hills, in perpetuity. What was supposed to be perpetuity only lasted three years, when gold was found in the hills. In 1927, a sculptor with Ku Klux Klan ties began carving the faces of four white men into the Black Hills, which was renamed Mt. Rushmore. This monument, carved into land the US government had taken from the Sioux Nation, celebrates four white men who were responsible for the killing of Native Americans and the appropriation of their land.
In the Treaty of 1868, the US government promised the Sioux territory that included the Black Hills.
Wounded Knee Massacre South Dakota December 29
U.S. Soldiers putting Lakota corpses in common grave
Burial of the dead after the Wounded Knee Massacre. U.S. Soldiers putting Indians in common grave; some corpses are frozen in different positions. South Dakota. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (reproduction no. LC-USZ62-44458)
Black Elk, the Sioux Holy Man
"A people’s dream died there.”
Black Elk, one of the few Lakota survivors of the Wounded Knee Massacre, recalled in 1931: “I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there.”
Black Elk & Elk of the Oglala Lakota in grass dance regalia for Buffalo Bill's Wild West London 1887
Forced Boarding Schools
Carlisle School motto: “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.”
In the 1870s, during the decade after the Civil War ended, the US government forcibly separated children from their families and placed them in far-away government-operated boarding schools. They were not permitted to travel home or receive parental visitation. Many children went years without familial contact. The goal was to eradicate any "Indian-ness", and train them as servants. The US government paid Christian missionaries of various denominations to forcefully assimilate them into Christian culture and "civilized" society. The children were forced to abandon their Native American identities and cultures, religious and spiritual beliefs, and they were forbidden to speak their Indigenous languages. Their real names were replaced with European names to both "civilize" and "Christianize" them, and they were forced to have European-American style haircuts. In many schools they were harshly disciplined using chores, solitary confinement and corporal punishment, including beatings using sticks, rulers and belts. In the summer students often lived with local farm families and townspeople, reinforcing their assimilation, and providing labor at low cost to the families.
In 1891, the government issued a “compulsory attendance” law that enabled federal officers to forcibly take Native American children from their home and reservation.
The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was founded by the Civil War Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt. The Carlisle school's motto was, “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” Pratt said in a speech in 1892, "A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead." Despite this murderous philosophy, the Carlisle school, a former military installation, became a model for others established by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).
In 1895, nineteen men of the Hopi Nation were imprisoned at Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, Ca. because they refused to send their children to boarding school.
By 1902 there were 25 federally funded non-reservation schools in 15 states and territories, with a total enrollment of over 6,000 students. The 1928 Meriam Report noted that infectious disease was often widespread at the schools due to malnutrition, overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, and students weakened by overwork. The death rates for Native American students were six and a half times higher than for other ethnic groups.
The last residential schools closed as late as 1973. Not until 1978, did the Indian Child Welfare Act give the Native American parents the legal right to deny their child's placement in the school. Since those years, tribal nations have increasingly insisted on community-based schools and have also founded numerous tribal colleges and universities. Generations of this inhuman cruelty has left an impact to this day.
Pupils at Carlisle Indian Industrial School.
Carlisle, Pennsylvania. c.1900.
The Osage Murders
1918 - 1931
Members of the Native American tribe were killed after discovering oil on their reservation and striking it rich. The murders attracted the attention of the newly-created FBI.
The Osage Indian murders were a series of murders of Osage people in Osage County, Oklahoma during the 1910s–1930s; newspapers described the increasing number of unsolved murders as the "Reign of Terror," lasting from 1921-1926. The estimated Osage death toll is in the hundreds, though reported numbers are much less and investigated deaths far fewer. Some sources report that 60 or more wealthy, full-blood Osage Native Americans were killed from 1918 to 1931. However, newer investigations indicate that many more suspicious deaths during this time could have potentially been misreported or covered up murders, including the deaths of heirs to future fortune. The murders appear to have been committed by people intent on taking over the great wealth of the Osage, whose land was producing valuable oil, and who each had headrights that earned lucrative annual royalties. Investigation by law enforcement, including the predecessor to the FBI also revealed extensive corruption among local officials involved in the Osage guardian program. Most of the murders were never prosecuted, but some men were convicted and sentenced.
Document in the "Hale–Ramsey Murder Case", Oklahoman Collection at the Oklahoma Historical Society
Sitting Bull, Hunkpapa Lakota chief and spiritual leader
Content Under Construction
Sitting Bull, Hunkpapa Lakota chief and spiritual leader, 1884.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Sitanka (Spotted Elk)(Big Foot), Miniconjou Lakota chief and
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US assassinates Miniconjou Lakota chief and peace diplomat Sitanka (Spotted Elk)