Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 1:35 am Post subject: 4/15
This reading was just everybody doing the same things over and over again. The Native Americans signed the same kind of treaties, the same kind of wars. The United States were treating the Native Americans like shit for their own benefit. The whole reading was the same except with different tribes interacting with different leaders, more people dying and being displaced. This reading just made me annoyed. The American Army felt like big bullies. They were bigger and stronger than the Native Americans but they weren’t smarter. The Native Americans used their knowledge of the land to outsmart the bullies for a while but the bigger strong bullies over powered them when they got too weak. And everyone once and while there would be a glimmer of hope for a nice American who wanted to help the Native Americans but they were also too weak to do anything to help them in the long run.
Why did the Native Americans keep signing treaties after they United States hadn’t honored so many before?
I also thought the reading was a little bland, but there was some fun stuff also. The section of the prophet who was called Handsome Lake was really interesting, and made me wonder how Christians responded to the combination of their religion and a native religion (was it the Iroquoi's?)
I also noticed that it's becoming more obvious Page is on the native's side when it comes up European/now American presence. I think it's hard NOT to be on the native's side when it comes to this part in history, but it's also good to note which side in particular a historian is rooting for. He uses some pretty vivid language. "Jackson proceeded to force a treaty down the throats of other Creeks"
That whole section in general seemed like the best of the chapter. Page also discusses the Cherokee's government which consisted of a legislature, different districts, a court and supreme court, and he also mentioned that 5-10% of Cherokee agriculturists were slave owners, which came as a big surprise to me.
How do you think Christians responded to Handsome Lake's idea of combined religion?
edit: to maggie, I think a lot of natives didn't have much of a choice when it came to signing treaties, I remember in the TV show we watched Metacom had to give up his tribe's weapons despite them claiming they weren't preparing for a battle. It was either agree or face the wrath of the Euros
When I often thought of the great plains and the plains tribe, I picture lots of wide open space with an abundance of game. Even while reading the last chapter I figured that, although the move itself would be terrible, the place the natives would end up wouldn’t be so bad. Clearly, the journey itself was only partially the worst of it. With the new much higher populations on the plains, and the drastically decreasing amount of bison, the Natives were not getting the amount of land the amount of resources they needed to live happy and healthy lives.
The section about Black Kettles people and the massacre by the US army is especially profound. It wasn’t even a war or a battle, but more of an extermination.
Why was it so hard for the Natives to put aside their feuds and work together to protect themselves from the Americans? They were able to put aside their differences with the Americans during the civil war, why didn’t it flip later?
Another sad section of reading. I can't even imagine being in the Native America's shoes through all of this- promises are getting broken all the time, land you have always lived on is essentially getting stolen from you, there are terrible massacres of your people going on all around, a main source of food is dwindling so you're starving while being forced onto new territories, and there is still a lot of conflict between the tribes themselves, not just tribes vs. the 'Americans.' I liked the earlier part of this book when we were learning about amazing cultures and interesting theories about 20,000 years ago and how people learned to adapt to their surroundings- and perhaps even cooler how they altered the land itself. While all of this new stuff is also interesting, it's super depressing. Ah well. I guess it was inevitable.
On page 292 Page wrote about a loss the American army had to a tribe, and how the consequent investigation by Congress "turned up a long list of treaty abuses but the federal government and the white settlers, and this led in turn to another round of peace treaties replete with fresh promises." Maybe I missed (or misunderstood) something in the reading but it didn't make sense to me that the government wouldn't know about their own violations of the treaties... did anyone get that?
I'll miss you all in class tomorrow! See you Mondayyyyyy. Wait. No. Tuesday? I dunno. Sometime.
Today's reading was very upsetting, even though a lot of treaties were signed, but still no one really pay attention to them. There are more treaties disobeying the previous treaty. The Native Americans were focusing too much on fighting against themselves. I always had the impression that after they have relocated, they would stick together and do something against the U.S. government. However, that was not the way it happened, they did not realize the importance of being together until the Civil War, which is sad. Maybe the difference was that the Civil War was based on location, so they would support the ones they were located in. For some tribes they even divid themselves up into North and South, I wonder how it would feel like to kill people who's in their own tribe. If the Native Americans cannot get together and fight against the ones who are being uneven to them, why would the White government help them or even treat them nicely?
I thought the most interesting part of this reading was how the death and struggle that all the Native Americans were facing, brought some tribes closer together. Just like it was amazing that Tecumseh brought many tribes together under his leadership, it was amazing that tribes who had feuds in the past could band together, at least somewhat, in order to fight the U.S. government. It seemed like the government was worried about the Native Americans becoming even more peaceful and integrated than they were. I think that despite the Americans pushing Native Americans onto reservations in order to gain their land, they also did it as a way to further isolate different tribes so that they could not band together. They did not want another Tecumseh to lead the Native Americans to revolt.
Jake Page talks about how a lot of the armies that were sent to control the Native Americans were “Buffalo Soldiers,” black men usually lead by a white leader. I thought it was interesting that these black soldiers, who had just lived through major oppression and the civil war, were helping the white people oppress the Native Americans. Why do you think they did this, when they and the Native Americans were both oppressed minorities who had some things in common?
I think I am one of the last ones so I am not going to try not to reiterate what has already been said. Quickly I will say I thought this reading was sad yet bland (no disrespect). It was still nice to read more about Tecumseh and his fight for unity amongst the tribes. I do want to address the point Pat made about Jake Pages being slightly biased in the way he presents these historical events. I thought about it and at first agreed, but later realized this class is meant to look at history from another point of view the minorities, I know people maybe like "duh felipe" but whatever. My question today is how do you get history right?? Is it possible to represent a minority (like the Indians) or all minorities? _________________ Melipe Fatho
I said this in my last post, but my Internet is down and I'm writing on my iPhone so please ignore the spelling errors and random capitilizations.
I know almost everyone has said this but I agree with Maggie that this reading was repetitive. I don't know if I thought it was particularly bland in comparison to some other readings but I do agree it was repetative. That being said it was not at all repetitive because of Jake page, but more so because of the US governments. I don't remember who asked it, but someone asked why the natives kept signing treaties if they kept trying broken. It's my understanding that the US never really admitted to breaking any treaties with the natives but instead always put the blame back on them. For example in the movie we watched about Powhatan the colononists obviously broke treaties multiple times but kept pointing out something the natives had done first to break/ nullify it already.
I found it interesting that the tribes living on the plains were able to regain a tiny bit of power and land for a brief amount of time during the civil war because the US soldiers in their area had left. When the tribes became "out of hand" soldiers were sent back in and imediatly took their power back. Hundreds of natives were sentenced to hanging for murdering or aiding murder but president lincoln stepped in and only allowed 38 to be hung (still he biggest execution in US history)
I didt really understand why Lincoln stopped the execution of hundreds of nAtives, page said that it was because he classified the murders as war crimes and not cold blooded murders... why did he give the natives a break now if they had never ever really recieved a breAk from the US before.
So Felipe's question grabbed me a lot, so I apologize if my post in mainly in response to that, and less about the reading.
I think that is one of the great things about studying history, you can never get it "right". It isn't something you can put into an equation and come up with a straight answer. You get so many accounts of history through so many points of view, each one slightly different than the other, so how can you really tell fact from fiction? By majorities just being majorities, and having greater numbers, they often have power and influence over history. There are more documents and accounts of history from the majority in an event, which places a bias on their accounts. The representation of minorities then gets swept under the rug. I think that it is almost up to yourself to represent a minority or all minorities in history by allowing yourself to get sources from all angles and points of view. People put too much pressure on history to be reliant on itself, to be able to read one thing and have that be history, and not enough on the historian, to sift through and work on revealing the truths of history. So how do we look at the history of a specific group of peoples to ensure that we can conclude the best about them?
One part of this reading that was not a very large part of the story but was a part that I found really interesting was the part about the Sand Creek Massacre. It brought up a lot of questions that I've been thinking about in regards to this class, because I found it unbelievable that it could take so long to uncover the truth about one historical event. The fact that an entire aspect of history was built on what turned out to be a lie made me wonder how much of history there is that still needs to be set straight, especially because in situations like these it seems to be the word of the more powerful person that gets set in stone as truth. I'm not saying we should doubt every bit of history, I just think that there are some things that we still might not be sure about, and we should keep our minds open, knowing that we may not ever know exactly what happened. This does not mean we should disregard history completely, but we should try to understand what we can about the people that came before us by what we do know for sure.
I know it's probably too late for anyone to answer this, but what are your thoughts? Do you think we should still use historical material even though we may not be sure that it is exactly accurate, or should we only use material that we are sure is correct?
Wow, this was such an upsetting reading! So much of what really shocked me in this reading were the pure statistics and numbers. Jake Page says, “ By 1860, akmost a million and a half whites lived in the west and in all some 350,000 Indians- of whom seventy-five thousand rode the Plains.” (Page 286). Although this is not much of a compelling quotation, it just shocked me to see these numbers.
Also, touching on what Abby said, I also found the Sand Creek Massacre interesting/ problematic. So much of what shapes a culture is what happens to them; the battles they fight and the locations that they are. I guess this is leading into my question; what can we take from this? If the basis of which we build our thoughts of a tribe become untrue, what does that tribe become? Also, I feel like this can also lead to picking and choosing truths, so who is really qualified to do that?
In response to Felipe's/Sean's/kind of Lila's question, I agree with Sean somewhat, that with the majority often times getting the priority it becomes difficult to cut through the crap to the truth. I think the answer to Sean's question then is that primary sources are the best way to ensure the truth and reliability of information. Unfortunately, as we know from examples of Europeans glorifying their experiences with the Native Americans, even primary sources can be false or misrepresent what actually happened. This is also something I agree with Sean on, that it is important to get the "facts" from both, some, or all of the perspectives. This is a way to at least ensure that you have all the bases covered. After that, some history is about interpretation. Usually with history there are forms and patterns that humans follow, and much can be seen from these patterns.
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