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emills · Joined: 05 Jan 2010 Posts: 19

There were two things that i found... intriguing. One was how people from the government, like the senator, were going out of their way to save the park and stop the trains from going through it. This stood out to me because for some reason i have always looked at he government as sort of a force against things eco-friendly. I'm not sure why. But i feel like environmental activists are always fighting for the government's attention. Another thing was how the people at yellowstone who were supposed to be enforcing the "no native" rule were not because they knew the natives needed to be able to hunt to feed themselves. But it feels like this is often the case, that the people in charge do not spend enough time around the people and land they are in charge of to be able to see and care about the consequences of their actions.

ellawm · Joined: 05 Jan 2010 Posts: 12

In response to jays about if the government knew...i think they did. the reason most likely they allowed it to happen or put a blinder up was because im just guessing they were white..and that they would of course be against the indians.

this class has really gotten me to think about who is writing each reading and if the readings give off a different vibe or whatever....

i coudnt really think of any questions because i 2nd a lot of what people said and/or questioned.

mlong · Joined: 05 Jan 2010 Posts: 22

Okay, so... I'm not sure if I totally understood this. But, if I'm right, the U.S. conducted wars with the Indians in order to move them outside of the park limits. That seems pretty radical... The reading said that they didn't have much use for the touristy parts of the park anyway and that they hardly visited them at all- especially before they converted to Christianity. In fact, it says that "Native peoples did not avoid Yellowstone, however, but simply abandoned the more heavily visited areas..." (267). Even after the full-impact of Christianity hit the tribes, it seemed like they still came out to the tourist areas fairly infrequently. So what's the big deal? So there are a couple of conflicts... That's bound to happen with anyone who has tourists put right next door to them. I don't think leaving them alone would have really impacted the influx of tourism. What really affected the tourism was when the U.S. became involved and turned "nature's playground" into a "yearly battleground"

I think its ridiculous for them to have cared that much about it in the first place, but if they did, why couldn't they have just asked the Native Americans to move? According to the text, the Native Americans had no use for this particular land. "Defining the value of wilderness in terms of animals and trees led advocates of preservation to view Indians as inherently incapable of appreciating the natural world." If this is true, then they should have had to run them off of their land in the first place. they could have just tried asking them to move a little. I'm sure they would have preferred that than to have been run out of their homes without notice.

I also understood why Naomi is upset with this reading. In several parts of it, I sort of got the feeling that we weren't being told the whole story. Like with the thing about the conflicts between the Native Americans and tourists, it very well could have all been the fault of the tourists. Though, the reading made it out to seem as though the Natives were the bad guys.

To respond to Peter- good question, I was sort of wondering the same thing. I think it would be hard to make sure that you're not just trying to justify your actions- especially when dealing with a topic such as this. It seems as though for the white Americans, there was a very thing line between thinking and justifying their actions with the Natives. Because, a lot of the time, I think that what they were told (like propaganda and other negatives) about the Natives would have swayed their thoughts. And this may not have been them trying to justify it to themselves. When presented with such information, it could have seemed very reasonable to draw upon certain conclusions. And some of the time maybe it just so happened that they were justifying their actions at the same time. It's a really tricky subject...

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