CONSIDERATIONS
I can always tell when something I write strikes a nerve with
readers - when it does, I get LOTS of e-mail and mail.
A week ago, I posted a lengthy article about the Scottish
Highland Clearances, a 270-year-old campaign to remove the
indigenous peoples of northwestern Scotland from their
ancestral homes to make way for sheep. My e-mail box has been
filled with kind comments from many people; I've learned a lot.
Some messages have contained interesting undercurrents that
I wanted to address.
UNDERCURRENT 1: "Why did you publish the article?"
Most "white" people know nothing about the privations suffered
by their ancestors and relatives. I certainly had no idea that
my forebearers were slaves, and I suspect many other people have
no idea that racism has touched their lives.
I didn't go looking for some terrible tragedy in my family's
past, nor am I interested in playing a game of tit-for-tat in
regard to historical wrongs. My goal was a very simple one: to
enlighten members of the dominant society, and to let native
people know that the battle is NOT against the "white" race, but
against a society that devalues the importance of tradition and
independence.
My wife believes that the today's conflicts are actually the
continuation of the Holy Roman Empire. Indeed, many of
philosophies inherent in the world-wide "dominant" society stem
from the remnants of the old Roman empires. Conflicts between
tribal and federal, Protestant and Catholic, bucolic and
industrial - all of these (at least in the Western World) grew
out of the Roman conquests. Look to the conflicts in the British
Isles, where the Roman (i.e., English/Norman) group is opposing
the Celtic (Irish/Scots) group. In the United States, the dominant
society is largely white and Christian, while the opposition
maintains a tribal, Earth-oriented spirituality.
UNDERCURRENT 2: "But you left out..."
History is based on perspective; no issue is completely one-sided
or black-and-white. In the case of the Highland Scots, many young
men, faced with poverty and loss of family, joined British-led
regiments. You'll find Scottish soldiers participating in the
English invasions of India and Ireland. And much of the current
conflict in Northern Ireland is based on the emigration of
lowland Protestant Scots (and Protestant Englishmen) into
Catholic Ulster.
Sadly, history is replete with conflicts between members of
related groups. The Highland Scots and the indigenous Irish are
essentially the same people; before the Anglicization of
Scotland, Scottish folklore and tradition was quite similar to
that of the Irish. That the two people should fight is, to me,
a great tragedy.
American history also provides numerous painful examples of
oppressed people becoming oppressors themselves. Black Army
regiments - the so-called "Buffalo Soldiers" - were formed from
freed slaves to make war on the natives of the Great Plains and
West. Scouts from one indigenous group would help the U.S. Army
hunt down traditional enemies from other groups.
What disturbs me most is that ancient feuds continue between
people who share much in common. Some time back, I was eating
lunch with the leaders of a Native American nation; their
struggle against the United States is compelling. But toward
the end of the meal, these Natives began saying blatantly
racist things about a neighboring indigenous nation, talking
about "kicking butt"! This isn't an isolated incident; it's
not difficult to find people angry at blacks over the Buffalo
Soldiers, or at another tribe that provided scouts to the enemy.
CONCLUSIONS
Inhumanity and bad choices are not the sole province of the
dominant society; we all, I think, can find both tragedy and
atrocity in the actions of our ancestors. But rape, murder and
dispossession do not justify more of the same in revenge.
Our children depend on our ability to grow as a society. And we
won't create a better world by maintaining ancient rivalries and
artificial divisions. We must know our history, in our minds and
our hearts, and decide that we will not allow such things to
happen again.
And that is why I'm trying to educate people. We need to find
our common ground if our grandchildren have any hope of seeing a
better world.
--- Scott Robert LaddScottRobertLadd@juno.com 957 Empire Street voice: +1 970 387 0271 P.O. Box 617 fax: +1 970 387 0277 Silverton, CO 81433 USA
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Comments from NativeNet listowner, Gary Trujillo (gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us):
The following text comes from pp. 54-55 of _A People's History of the United States_ by Howard Zinn (Harper Colophon, 1980 - HarperPerennial, 1990, ISBN 0-06-090792-4 [paperback]):
...Might blacks and Indians combine against the white enemy? In the northern colonies (except on Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Rhode Island, where there was close contact and sexual mixing), there was not much opportunity for Africans and Indians to meet in large numbers. New York had the largest slave population in the North, and there was some contact between blacks and Indians, as in 1712 when Africans and Indians joined in an insurrection. But this was quickly suppressed.
In the Carolinas, however, whites were outnumbered by black slaves and nearby Indian tribes; in the 1750s, 25,000 whites faced 40,000 black slaves, with 60,000 Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw Indians in the area. Gary Nash writes: "Indian uprisings that punctuated the colonial period and a succession of slave uprisings and insurrectionary plots that were nipped in the bud kept South Carolinians sickeningly aware that only through the greatest vigilance and through policies designed to keep their enemies divided could they hope to remain in control of the situation."
The white rulers of the Carolinas seemed to be conscious of the need for a policy, as one of them put it, "to make Indians & Netros a checque upon each other lest by their Vastly Superior Numbers we should be crushed by one or the other." And so laws were passed prohibiting free blacks from traveling in Indian country. Treaties with Indian tribes contained clauses requiring the return of fugitive slaves. Governor Lyttletown of South Carolina wrote in 1738: "It has allways been the policy of this government to create an aversion in them [Indians] to Negroes."
Part of this policy involved using black slaves in the South Carolina militia to fight Indians. Still, the government was worried about black revolt, and during the Cherokee war in the 1760s, a motion to equip five hundred slaves to fight the Indians lost in the Carolina assembly by a single vote.
Blacks ran away to Indian villages, and the Creeks and Cherokees harbored runaway slaves by the hundreds. Many of these were amalgamated into the Indian tribes, married, produced children. But the combination of harsh slave codes and bribes to the Indians to help put down black rebels kept things under control.
It was the potential combination of poor whites and blacks that caused the most fear among the wealthy white planters...
[ Howard Zinn is professor emeritus in the history department at Boston University. ]