What follows below might need a frame of reference. While many here
have provided that, myself included, I refer those without such to the
following World Wide Web site: <http:www.sover.net/~jsd/FirstNations.html>
Wounded Knee. December 29, 1890.
A keg of whiskey. Hotchkiss guns.
Retribution for Custer's demise. A King of Thieves.
Issues, names so common almost a cause to ignore.
Enough...
Enough?
Move on, along.
Enough.
Chief Spotted Elk. The one of Big Feet. Pneumonia. A peaceful
man...certified by Wasichu!
The Ghost Dance. A peaceful dance...certified by Wasichu!
Anger felt! How to cope?! To deal? A clenching, gritting, tooth on
tooth?
Suicide? Despair? Ah...poor Richard Cardinal.
Dewey Beard. Wasee Maza. Zintkala Nuni. Stolen children.
Note:
"The general's presents of food in great quantity opened a path
that led to the Wounded Knee orphan. When they found the child, the
disguised general stepped forward. Black-haired, dark-complexioned,
standing erect, eyes hypnotic with conviction and pride, Leonard Colby
spoke through an unknown interpreter:
"I am a Seneca Indian - my grandmother was a full blood Seneca. I
have brought food on behalf of my tribe for your children. I rescued the
child who survived the massacre at Wounded Knee. Take pity on me and my
wife. We have no children of our own. I want to give this child to my wife.
We will take good care of her...
"When Colby reached for the child in the Grandmother's arms, she
resisted and cried out, 'Zinkala Nuni! Zinkala Nuni!' [Lost Bird, Lost
Bird] But she finally released her hold on the sleeping child. Colby looked
Indian. He did not appear frightened and ill at ease like a white man with
one eyebrow raised. And perhaps it was better to let here go...just to make
sure she had food and clothing...The grieving people turned away." Lost
Bird of Wounded Knee, Renee Sansome Flood, ISBN 0-684-19512-7
Mass graves. Lost land. Hearts broken. A shattered hoop.
A healing proposed by those that caused and continue to honor the
assault? Their medals? Their honors? Their rights of war? And, now their
gall?
A statue. White. Wasichu born the sculptress. No. Their hand no
more. No right, no Justice to that. No more must be...ought to be, for
whatever reason. No!
On what foundation this Park? Whose land to provide such? 1,800
acres. So much so stolen. Theirs of course...the theft continues. In trust?
Creator help us.
Build the park, on blood, on bones. Solve the problem...a gun to
the head, Janklow said. Never forget.
A never ending story. Theft. Betrayal. Continuing assaults on The
People. Subtlety. Silence. Apathy. Infighting.
In the Fort Laramie Treaty of April 29, 1868 it was pledged by
Wasichu that the "Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, would
be 'set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the
Indians named herein...it established the Great Sioux Reservation, a tract
of land [comprising most of South Dakota west of the Missouri River] in
addition to certain reservations already existing east of the Missouri. The
United States 'solemnly agree[d]' that no unauthorized persons 'shall ever
be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in [this] territory."
But there was gold in the Black Hills. So the Army went in under
Custer, Son of the Morning Star (a great book by the way), and as a result
of his "descriptions of the mineral and timber resources of the Black
Hills, and the land's suitability for grazing and cultivation...," the
Wasichu masses started chomping at the bit, wanting in.
On the one hand Wasichu attempted to enforce the Laramie Treaty, on
the other Congress was petitioned to "open up the country for settlement,
by extinguishing the treaty rights of Indians." The Army then backed off on
trying to keep prospectors out of the Black Hills, in effect giving them
the green light to swarm where they had no right to go.
Note [as provided by Wanbli Sapa]:
Confidential ...Nov. 9th, (187)5
My dear Gen. Terry,
At a meeting which occurred in Washington on the 3rd of November
[1875], at which were present, the President of the United States, the
Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of War and myself, the President
decided that while the orders heretofore issued forbidding the occupation
of the Black Hills country, by miners, should not be rescinded, still no
further resistance by the military should be made to the miners going in:
it being his belief that such resistance only increased their desire and
complicated the troubles.
Will you therefore quietly cause the troops in your Department to
assume such attitudes as will meet the views of the President in this
respect.
Your truly (signed)
P.H. Sheridan, Lieut. General
SOURCE:
Supreme Court Briefs, Petition for Writ of Certiorari at 59, U.S.
vs. Sioux Nation, Citation 488 U.S. 378 (1980).
Lt. General Philip H. Heridan, Commander, Division of Missouri, to
Brig. General A.H. Terry, commander, Department of Dakota, November 9, 1875
(Letterpress copy. Confidential), Sheridan MSS., Library of Congress
An attempt to purchase mining rights was made. The Sioux rejected
an offer of an annual rental fee of $400,000 per year or a one time payment
of $6 million for absolute relinquishment of the Black Hills. They wanted a
minimum of $70 million. Negotiations failed...
That the abrogation of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie was a farce
is no secret. As per Federal Indian Law-Cases and Materials, Getches,
Wilkinson and Williams, Jr. pp.359-360: A commission "headed by George
Maypenny, arrived in the Sioux country in early September [1876] and
commenced meetings with the head men of the various tribes...The
commissioners brought with them the text of a treaty that had been prepared
in advance. The principal provisions of this treaty were that the Sioux
should relinquish their rights to the Black Hills and other lands west of
the one hundred and third meridian, and their rights to hunt in the unceded
territories to the north, in exchange for subsistence rations as long as
they would be needed to insure the Sioux survival. In setting out to obtain
the tribes' agreement to this treaty, the commissioners ignored the
stipulation of the Fort Laramie Treaty that any cession of the lands
contained within the Great Sioux Reservation would have to be joined in by
three-fourths of the adult males. Instead, the treaty was signed by only 10
percent of the adult male Sioux population.
"Congress resolved the impasse [read that as patently illegal act]
by enacting the 1876 'agreement' into law as the Act of Feb. 28, 1877. The
Act had the effect of abrogating the earlier Fort Laramie Treaty, and of
implementing the terms of the Maypenny Commission's 'agreement' with the
Sioux leaders. "The passage of the 1877 Act legitimized the settlers'
invasion of the Black Hills..."
Note:
..."First, it is not a clear proposition that savages can, for any
consideration, enter into contract obligatory upon them. They stand by the
law of nations, when trafficking with the civilized part of mankind, in the
situation of infants, incapable of entering into contracts, especially for
the sale of their country. Should this be denied, it may then be asserted
that no monarch of a nation (that is, no sachem, chief, or headmen, or
assemblage of sachems, etc.) has a power to transfer by sale the country,
that is, the soil of the nation, over which they rule." History of
Maryland, p. 569
..."There are moralists who have questioned the right of Europeans
to intrude upon the possessions of the aborigines in any case and under any
limitations whatsoever. But have they maturely considered the whole
subject? The Indian right of possession itself stands, with regard to the
greatest part of the country, upon a questionable foundation. Their
cultivated fields, their constructed habitations, a space of ample
sufficiency for their subsistence, and whatever they had annexed to
themselves by personal labor, was undoubtedly by the law of nature theirs.
But what is the right of the huntsman to the forest of a thousand miles
over which he has accidentally ranged in quest of prey? Shall the liberal
bounties of Providence to the race of man be monopolized by one of ten
thousand for whom they were created? Shall the exuberant bosom of the
common mother, amply adequate to the nourishment of millions, be claimed
exclusively by a few hundreds of her offspring? Shall the lordly savage not
only disdain the virtues and enjoyments of civilization himself, but shall
he control the civilization of a world? Shall he forbid the wilderness to
blossom like the rose? Shall he forbid the oaks of the forest to fall
before the ax of industry and rise again transformed into the habitations
of ease and elegance? Shall he doom an immense region of the globe to
perpetual desolation, and to hear the howlings of the tiger and the wolf
silence forever the voice of human gladness? Shall the fields and the
valleys which a beneficent God has framed to teem with the life of
innumerable multitudes be condemned to everlasting barrenness? Shall the
mighty rivers, poured out by the hands of nature as channels of
communication between numerous nations, roll their waters in sullen silence
and eternal solitude to the deep? Have hundreds of commodious harbors, a
thousand leagues of coast, and a boundless ocean been spread in the front
of this land, and shall every purpose of utility to which they could apply
be prohibited by the tenant of the woods? No, generous philanthropists!
Heaven has not been thus inconsistent in the works of its hands. Heaven has
not thus placed at irreconcilable strife its moral laws with its physical
creation." John Quincy Adams, December 22, 1802
Long before the Laramie Treaty farce, Wasichu had established that
it was his law that mattered. A law that was arbitrary, convenient, and
entirely concocted to serve the interests of the colonizers:
I quote Chief Justice Marshall [again!], generally regarded as the
foundation layer of Federal Indian Law. This from Johnson v. M'Intosh,
1832, 340 years after the Admiral of the Ocean Sea (Columbus) hit the
beach..."On the discovery of the immense continent, the great nations of
Europe were eager to appropriate to themselves so much of it as they could
respectively acquire. Its vast extent offered an ample field to the
ambition and enterprise of all; and the character and religion of its
inhabitants afforded an apology for considering them as a people over whom
the superior genius of Europe might claim an ascendancy. The potentates of
the old world [and the new] found no difficulty in convincing themselves,
that they made ample compensation to the inhabitants of the new, by
bestowing on them civilization and Christianity, in exchange for unlimited
independence."
Of course, inherent here is the "given" that "civilization and
Christianity" were filling a void and that the "compensation" and
legitimacy of the "bestowing" was anything other than a fantasy, which of
course it certainly was.
The dear Justice goes on:
"But as they were all in pursuit of nearly the same object, it was
necessary, in order to avoid conflicting settlements, and consequent war
with each other, to establish a principle, which all should acknowledge as
the law by which the right of acquisition, which they all asserted, should
be regulated, as between themselves. The principle was, that the discovery
[of America] gave title to the government by whose subjects, or by whose
authority, it was made, against all other European governments, which title
might be consummated by possession. The exclusion of all other Europeans,
necessarily gave to the nation making the discovery the sole right of
acquiring the soil from the natives, and establishing settlements on it.
"...Conquest gives a title which the courts of the conqueror cannot
deny, whatever the private and speculative opinions of individuals may be,
respecting the original justice of the claim which has been successfully
asserted. "...The title by conquest is acquired and maintained by force.
The conqueror prescribes its limits."
What's my point here? Well, it's just to underline that the very
legal foundation of the Wasichu/First Nations relationship is based upon
the opinion that "...the tribes of Indians inhabiting this country were
fierce savages, whose occupation was war, and whose subsistence was drawn
chiefly from the forest. [That] to leave them in possession of their
country, was to leave the country a wilderness; to govern them as a
distinct people, was impossible, because they were as brave and as
high-spirited as they were fierce, and were ready to repel by arms every
attempt on their independence."
Because there was no way in hell Wasichu could deal with such
people, because there was no precedent...he resorted to a "new and
different rule, better adapted to the actual state of things..." Simply
put, he rewrote the book.
We're talking perspective here. Cut in stone with blood as
lubricant. Acts never to be forgiven. Facts. Never to be wiped away.
Never. No. Never.
Note:
"On a day so bright it seemed to hide no secrets, the 500 or so
landless men, women and children of Santa Elina thought they had won in
their occupation of a virgin forest belonging to an estate more vast than
Manhattan and the Bronx combined. Faces painted with coal, brandishing
sticks, slingshots, sickles and chain saws, they had faced down the
military police sent to evict them, and drawn hope from a hint that they
might win the soil of their common dreams. Euphoric after 24 days together,
the homesteaders hugged, lit firecrackers and raised their hunting rifles
to the sky. But the scene just a mile away would have stopped their
celebration cold. Soldiers were pitching tents and unloading ammunition and
tear gas. Some strolled with machine guns on their shoulders.
"That night, the military police, bolstered, witnesses said, by
hired guns working for local landowners and a special forces team wearing
black ski masks, stormed the encampment in a surprise attack.
"The police battered and killed the squatters, using women as human
shields and torturing, executing and stomping on prisoners, according to
victims and medical and autopsy reports. They shot a 6-year-old girl dead
as she tried to walk to safety by a towering tree, forced one prisoner to
eat soil mixed with his blood and another to eat the brains spilling from a
battered corpse they had ordered him to carry, the victims said....The New
York Times,Date: Tuesday, 19 September 1995
Pain. Despair. A People - THE FIRST PEOPLE! - devoid of Justice,
Rights. Gone. Wiped away as cleanly as one might wipe images from a slate.
A People rolled over, and on, as a bug might be by the stomp of a
heavy boot. Each not understanding the impedus of the other.
The pain..., the loss...
The First Nations/First Peoples stood no chance. Never. Ever. Not
from that first outstretched hand fair taken in good will. Oh Creator, we
rue that day!
Who's to know?
Who's to care, til time numbs? Til time allows the truly
"righteous" and deserving their day in that Sun provided by the Lord of
Lords? Til that time when Justice might prevail and His will be done?
Note:
"On the eight of November, 1519, Hernando Cortes and four hundred
Spanish soldiers...approached the Aztec Byzantium-Tenochtitlan, Mexico
City." The city was scattered with "great aviaries where thousands of birds
- white egrets, energetic wrens and thrushes, fierce accipiters,
brilliantly colored parrots - were housed and tended. They were
captivating, as fabulous, as the displays of flowers: vermilion
flycatchers, coppertailed trogons, green jays, blue-throated hummingbirds,
and summer tanagers. Great blue herons, brooding condors.
Three months later, because of "Cortes's psychological manipulation
of Montezuma and a concomitant arrogance, greed, and disrespect on the part
of the Spanish military force had become too much for the Mexicans, and
they drove them out." Eleven months later a vengeful Cortes returned to lay
siege to the city.
"On June 16 [1521] in a move calculated to humiliate and frighten the
Mexican people, Cortes set fire to the aviaries."
I say again...and do remember these words:
...the First Nations/First Peoples must come to grips with the
reality of life in the Wasichu Sea. I suggest that one must define terms
and establish a fresh legal environment within which Wasichu can be held
accountable for past and present fictions:
"Today, principles and rules generated from this Old World
discourse of conquest are cited by the West's domestic and international
courts of law to deny indigenous nations the freedom and dignity to govern
themselves according to their own vision. Thus as a first step toward the
decolonization of the West's law respecting the American Indian, the
Doctrine of discovery must be rejected. It permits the West to accomplish
by law and in good conscience what it accomplished by the sword in earlier
eras: the physical and spiritual destruction of indigenous people." The
American Indian in Western Legal Thought, The Discourses of Conquest, Rober
A. Williams, Jr., paper, ISBN 0-19-508002-5
Oh Creator...The People need an avalance of Justice, a rolling of
the ground such as Wovoka predicted, a cleansing, a return to the Right...
a Justice recovered, long lost.
We need...we need.
Oh Creator, we need...
Nvwhtohiyada...
http://www.pobox.com/~jsd
(Best viewed w/Netscape)