Native American History and Ethnic Cleansing

People in this group make a real effort to be fact based in their discussions of general themes in history.

What I am wondering about is whether or not there is an element of Ethnic Cleansing policies in Native American History.

"Ethnic cleansing is a euphemism referring to the persecution through imprisonment, expulsion, or killing of members of an ethnic minority by a local majority to achieve ethnic homogeneity in majority-controlled territory. It is sometimes used interchangeably with the more connotatively severe term genocide." Wikipedia

I cite three different incidents:

1- "The only good Indian is a dead Indian" is a saying often attributed to General Phil Sheridan. In January of 1869, General Sheridan was in camp at Fort Cobb in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) shortly after George Custer's fight with Black-Kettle's Cheyennes. Turtle Dove, or Toch-a-way, who was a chief of Comanches, trying to impress the General, struck himself in the breast and said "Me, Toch-a-way; me good Indian". The General smiled and answered "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead."

Phillip Sheridan repeatedly denied ever making such a statement, but several eye witnesses agree that he said it. Sheridan was well known as a bigot and Indian hater, and few that knew him doubted his agreement with the statement. In any case, the statement attributed to Sheridan evolved into the more generalize and powerful proverbial form "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." and became synonymous with the Indian policy of most of the military at that time. This opinion lingered on, and another infamous, Indian fighter made the following incredible remarks at a speech in January of 1886 in New York: "I suppose I should be ashamed to say that I take the Western view of the Indian. I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth." These words were spoken by Theodore Roosevelt less than 15 years before he became President of the United States.

2-The Sand Creek Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Creek_Massacre

3-Choctaw Trail of Tears, On February 25, 1831, U.S. President Andrew Jackson began the forced marched of 15,000 Choctaw out of their ancestral lands, 2500 died of starvation and exposure along the way. This being contrary to the Supreme Court that said the Choctaw had a right to their land.

So are genocide and ethnic cleansing policies part of American history or was it something else?

Urquhart, you like this topic. :-)

But I think you're looking for a definitive answer that does not exist.

You certainly can make a case for the state of Georgia ethnically cleansing within their borders (Trails of Tears), but the Wounded Knee massacre of 1891 could better be described as revenge than ethnic cleansing.

The most salient point for me is that the Native Peoples have been under pressure from European invaders since long before the United States existed, and the United States has had many policies and many executors of policy. So many motives and goals with regard to Native American relations have come and gone that ascribing a single motive, Ethnic Cleansing, to all of them would be a task frought with difficulty, if not impossible.

Daniel

Urquhart said:
"So are genocide and ethnic cleansing policies part of American history or was it something else?"

Daniel said:
"American relations have come and gone that ascribing a single motive, Ethnic Cleansing, to all of them would be a task frought with difficulty, if not impossible."

Points:

1-I believe the two quotes suggest a communication problem.

2-My underlying point behind it all.
What strikes me as ultimately so interesting is that America / Americans so often intervene to prevent injustice and killing and genocide -such as in response to the massacre of non-Serb Muslims at Srebenicia; and public outrage over Tibetans being wiped out by the Chinese- however America's history of its treatment of indigenous Indian tribes both past and present seems to be erased from the collective memory bank of its peoples.

At least as far as the courses we teach our children up through high school.

Up through high school, American children are studying European history with only a token amount of history re the indigenous Indian tribes of North America.

Am I wrong? Have history classes in k>12 changed?

So in summary it seems that the historiography or school of history that is taught in this country has this big whole re the indigenous Indian tribes of North America? And yet America goes though out the world acting as protector in other countries where genocide and ethnic cleansing take place and continues to not take action to protect its own Indian minorities.

What am I not understanding?

Ur.

ps: as i write this my sister is serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Botswana; which is indeed estimable but causes me to wonder...

Not long ago I took a college course about Native America, taught by a Native American woman. I was horrified when I learned just some of the gory details of my country's treatment of the original Americans. The only possible description of what I heard is "ethnic cleansing."

1-It is wonderful that Obama is President and that Sotomayor is nominated to the Supreme Court, but does anyone ever think re a Native American and that their time is now?

2-Native Americans are just not on the radar screen of Americans' conciousness when it comes to providing funding, political power, etc.

3-By teaching history in the class rooms relative to Europe and other countries America denies and covers up the history of the Native American.

4-I and my ignorance are part of the problem of which I speak. That is what shocks and embarrasses me. If I were of the Chaney/Bush part of the spectrum it would be understandable, but I am not.

I am in the middle of a summer class on Native American culture. It is intense, partly because of the content and partly because of squashing a semester long 4 credit hour class into six weeks.

What I am getting is that we (the US government) were more interested in extermination their culture then in genocide. US corporations always need more groups of low-wage workers to set against each other. Jefferson was for elimination through interbreeding, he thought it would do us all some good.

I was shocked at one thing I learned. Their creation myths have them living (at least before contact) in the land the Creator made for them. Western Christianity however has a creation myth where they are thrown out of Paradise for sinning against the Creator. Something like that can really change a peoples world view.

Message 6: TLCrawford

1-Please do share with us what you learn in the course. I have so much to learn.

2-Could you expand on the implications that you find in the different creation myths of the two cultures?

3-Re a Policy of Exclusion-of all the things I have learned so far, what fascinates me most is how people use a Policy of Exclusion to express one point of view when in fact if the full measure of facts was known the facts of a situation would look entirely different.

Or put another way, it's pretty much the 'tile in the mosaic' strategy. If one surrounds the tiles with different tiles the color and meaning of the tile can appear differently.

When it comes to my education up through high school, all the really 'bad' stuff was never taught. Native American history was 99% ignored except for the usual. And the tests for NYS Regents certainly never tested for it.

That is what is so fascinating. No one ever lied; rather they just employed a Policy of Exclusion of certain facts. Result is that most Americans, like myself, are oblivious to the real history of their country.

Which just makes me believe all the more that teachers and students of history matter so very much and are critical to shaping of public opinion.

Anyone out there read 1491 yet? I am in the process.

I think 1491 is one of the most important books I've read in years. It's a remarkable work.

>8

That seems to be the general consensus on the book. It seems any person who has read it believes it is a tremendous work of history, and I agree. Very few books can change an entire outlook on things, and this is one of them.

Urquhart,
So you're saying that the issue for you is not necessarily the practice of History and the availability of historical data relative to whether or not the United States, in the form of the federal government, has purposely practiced ethnic cleansing; but that the issue is whether the depredations of the Native Peoples of North America and the depravity of the various governments in North America (US Feds, states, colonial, etc.) is being taught in American K12 classrooms?

If that's "yes," then the issue exists outside of historians' hands and in the hands of textbook adoption committees in large states.

As a community college instructor all I can do is reiterate, we have (in my case) 16 weeks to teach 400 years of American History. Some of it is going to get ignored, and your ability to cite example after example does not refute that point. Really, it only underlines my point.

respectfully,
Daniel

> 6
TLCrawford,
Most Native American creation myths also include the feature of a flawed creator who must be defeated, banished, or corrected in some way to keep the people he created safe. To be sure, they are belief structures at opposite ends from the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Best to all,
Daniel

By way of comparison (regarding education), I wonder -- how much of Aboriginal history do (non-Aboriginal) Australian primary students learn? How much Ainu history is taught to Japanese primary students? Etc.

Ok Essa, thanks for joining. I am going to try to be a bit more 'pithy' now that you are here.

Message 10: JFCooper

I believe the points I would like to make are:

1-Daniel, I am not criticizing you. You sound like a teacher who trully cares about history and does fine. Your students are fortunate.

2-Yes, there have been many instances in American history when the government policy was clearly one of genocide/ethnic cleansing.

3-Yes, textbooks* and high school courses do leave out the vast dark side of our govt's treatment of the Native Americans.

4-Yes, textbooks* focus on other topics not so embarassing to the American conscience and thereby more supportive of the America's self image of wanting to be John Winthrop's 'city on a hill' with all it implies to the American psyche.

5-Yes, the scary thing is that as you say 'the issue exists ..... in the hands of textbook adoption committees in large states.' S..c..a...r..y.

textbooks*-Yes, I am totally ignorant of what textbooks contain today re the past 400 years, but the Native Americans were certainly here for it all.

Respectfully, and hoping to learn,

Ur.

Interesting discussion.

My two cents worth:
The UN can't decide to a common definition on genocide, which explains why they frequently sit on their hands, as in Rwanda.

Perhaps the US gets involved in places like Serbia because of the less noble things in our past.

I used to work as a state park naturalist at a park that had a bison herd. During programs about bison and their connection to Native American history, I would quote Gen. Sheridan. For most, it was the first time they had heard such a thing.

Along the line of a different topic I do not think we can hold historical actions to today's standards. What happened in the past was done in the mindset of the times. I am not saying that such things should be ignored or that we can't be appalled by past atrocities.

History should be taught with all its blemishes.

We, the currents residents of the US, are not responsible for what happened in the past. We were not there, nor can we go back to rectify the situation.

Of course this is just one person's opinion.

You are one eloquent person, and I agree with what you say. Especially the part about:

"History should be taught with all its blemishes."

12>
Urquhart, I don't feel personally criticized. :-) But I do think you're making assumptions (and apparently have objections) about a subject with which you may not be entirely familiar. So I feel ...i don't know... "compelled" I guess is the right word... to provide some perspective.

So here goes, one last time. :-)

The ugly and difficult things about history should not necessarily be taught K12. Remember kids do a LOT of physical brain and mental capacity development between the ages of 5 and 18.

So there are developmental reasons for not teaching difficult topics. For example, most people do not develop the ability to analyze and interpret data (weigh data for value and accuracy to develop a coherent idea about what happened) until they are about 15 years old.

Fourth graders develop opinions or points of view based on concrete concepts. Slavery is BAD, killing is BAD. If you tell them that the United States is guilty of trying to exterminate Indians, they will not be able to hold that concept in tandem with the other, GOOD, information they get ("All men are created equal"). So it's a lousy pedagogical idea because they will be unable to reconcile the two pieces of data.

Heck, we don't teach the origins of the War of 1812 (in K12) because they're too abstract and complex. We don't teach the outcome, either, because it's inconclusive. If school kids can't get the War of 1812, how will they understand the myriad approaches that governments in North America have had toward Native Peoples?

The purpose behind teaching any history in K12 schools in the United States is to inculcate students to American values, values based on Enlightenment ideals that are illustrated clearly by much of the history of our colonial and early republic eras. Teaching the extermination of Indians would, therefore, run at cross purpose to American social studies programs.

Then also remember the textbook problem.

*None* of the above (child development, pedagogy in K12 schools, textbook adoption) is the domain of the Historian, per se. It is the domain of state departments of education and school district district administrations, public institutions. Which means that changes to their practices and goals are decisions you can influence by attending board meetings and running for office.

Which is to say, Yes, the fact that an approximate 90% reduction in the population of Native People in North America is tragic. That American governments are responsible either directly or indirectly is, Yes, born out by mountains of evidence. But teaching that to K12 students runs counter to American pedagogical practice for social studies and is a bad idea for kids k-10. It is also not an issue for Historians to address. It's an issue for administrators and parents to address.

Personally, I think hand-print turkeys for Thanksgiving and powdered wigs made of yarn for the Revolution era are just fine. But we should start asking our kids to start analyzing and interpreting data in 11th grade. And that means introducing them to difficult ideas at the age of 16 or 17.

So, in the end, I agree with you. But only for grades 11 and 12. ;-)

Best,
Daniel

Just curious......at what age in school are Anne Frank and the genocide of the Jews in WWII first taught?

http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/
Here in CA, it's taught in late in tenth grade.

Daniel

Fine, so, let's compromise and start 'in late in tenth grade.'

If they are old enough to understand the genocide of Jews they can understand the polices of genocide with Native Americans.

But the difference, Ur, is that there is nothing wrong with American students learning that the Nazis were bad. It's much different to say Americans are bad.

>15

Fourth graders develop opinions or points of view based on concrete concepts. Slavery is BAD, killing is BAD. If you tell them that the United States is guilty of trying to exterminate Indians, they will not be able to hold that concept in tandem with the other, GOOD, information they get ("All men are created equal"). So it's a lousy pedagogical idea because they will be unable to reconcile the two pieces of data.

In teaching the fourth graders that slavery is bad, do people use Native Americans as slaves? Granted this was a long time ago and my memory may be amiss, but I don't recall ever learning that during slavery, Native Americans were also enslaved. We learned that Africans were, but by not including Native Americans, children don't really learn that they suffered just as much as - and more than - Africans.

Yes, American Indians were captured and used as slaves. Unfortunately for everyone involved they caught Old World diseases and died. West Africa is such a harsh place, diseases and low nutrition, that people acclimated to there are very hard to kill.

>15 Urquhart,
You run for Superintendent of Public Education in California, and I'll vote for you!
:-)

Daniel

Am I the only one who's a tad concerned by the motivational statement in this definition? to achieve ethnic homogeneity in majority-controlled territory? I think that, in and of itself, excludes the United States which has never been ethnically homogeneous, unless, of course, you plan to reduce ethnicity to absurdly broad groups.

I'm also a little concerned about lumping all of the Indians together, but then, I like dealing with history in small chunks. (There are 7 major tribes in my state, and each of them is subdivided into smaller groups.)

And for the record, I remember learning about these things as early as 4th grade. (younger, if you count Laura Ingalls' books, which discuss it in minor detail.) That may have something to do with the ethnic makeup of the class.

I think it's fairly easy to teach children. They just have to understand it on a very personal, individual level. Each person chooses whether to be good or bad. When more people choose to be good, good things happen. When people choose to be bad... Very "one person can make a difference" of me, but there you go.

So, now for the long-winded part of my statement. Neighboring societies tend to develop military technology in tandem. So, Japanese samurai carry curving swords because that's what cuts most efficiently through the cloth armor the guy next door is wearing. It would be useless against chain mail. But good news. The guy wearing chain mail has a neighbor who knows just the thing... Anyway, you can follow the development of weapons and armor step by step, this leads to this, which in turn leads to this other thing through history. And the process keeps neighbors (the most common adversaries) pretty well matched. That's why there are countless geographies where one side conquers, and then the other side conquers it back for all of recorded history.

But the European Nations and the Indian Nations were not neighbors. Their technology did not develop in tandem, and therefore, there were significant disparities. Then, you add scarce resources (forgive me for sounding like a Marxist) and a rapidly expanding population, and it would take a hell of a lot of self control for the technologically advantaged group not to nudge the other group a few hundred more feet to the west.

That's my rough overview. Two (or a few thousand) technologically disparate societies come together, and one loses. Massively. There are precedents, but you'll have to come up with your own. My brain seems to be caught in a less-than-flattering prehistoric rut. The end result in most cases seems to be annihilation or complete assimilation, which begs the question. Why are there any Indians left at all? After five hundred years, there certainly wouldn't have to be. The survival rate is actually higher than I would expect it to be, but then, I've always been a bleak pessimist.

There is, of course, also the micro-view. What happened to specific groups, and how, and why. And that's where that nasty motivational statement in the definition of "Ethnic cleansing" gets particularly problematic.

Phillip Sheridan certainly had friends who were killed in battle, and at the time of his statement, probably quite recently. So, you do have to sort out anger, revenge, and ethnic cleansing. And even if he were acting on a personal policy of killing all the Indians, the opinion of one officer hardly suggests the official policy of an entire nation. His use of scorched earth in the Civil War may suggest another alternative: maybe he was just a smart psychopath getting his kicks. Maybe he just enjoyed it. It is definitely worth mentioning that he had an Indian mistress. However, there is always the possibility that she was a bad, bad girl;) I certainly hope she wasn't dead at the time, since that would completely recolor my views of American History.

You also say that he denied this more than once, and that means that there was someone who cared enough to make it worth denying. Interesting. And in the Roosevelt quote, we again appear to have defense of his view against the *other* side.

And now, I seem to have gotten back around to "scarce resources." Land. And I think there's ample evidence that "scarce resources" will be appropriated one way or another when possible no matter how similar or dissimilar the people who are being dispossessed of them. If you mug a little old lady, is it because a.) she's not a 400 lb line back b.) She just walked away from an ATM or c.) she's ethnically dissimilar. "C" hardly seems worth it without "A" and "B".

And frankly, Anne Frank in the curriculum seems to me like the biggest dodge in academia. You have a tough problem like the Holocaust, something of significance, and you avoid talking about it by reading a fifteen-year old's diary which stops cold before she ever gets to the problem. (From which she was sheltered as much as humanly possible) I'm terribly sorry, but Anne Frank's fifteen-year-old masturbatory fantasies are absolutely not relevant to the issue. Neither are her Tales from the Secret Annex. Either talk about the issue, or don't, but let's at least be honest about which one we're choosing.

Daniel

1-I appreciate your vote but that would never happen.

2-Isn't it very major to this whole issue the fact that Native American history is missing from the textbooks even in the 11-12th grades? At least in my days it was missing. Have things changed?

I don't know about textbooks, per se, but I can tell you that if you follow the link I provided in message 17 you will discover that California standards with regard to Social Studies/History include the study of American Indians in Grades 1, 3, 4, 5, 8 (including treaties, Indian removal, Indian wars, and federal policy), and 11 (addressing the American Indian Movement in the context of the civil rights movement).

Personally, I'd wait until 11 grade for lots of the 8th grade content. But that's just my opinion.

Daniel

Message 24: JFCooper

Ok Daniel I went to the link you posted and I confess that I owe you an apology big time. I had no idea so much material is being covered on Indian history in the schools.

If Calif. teachers are really teaching all the material that is listed, then I am 1)woefully behind the times in my understanding and 2)very glad to hear it.

I promise you that when I was growing up in NYS that we never had anything close to what is currently in California.

So I live and I learn and this the reason I need this History group to help me learn what I gotta learn.

Thanks again.

Ur.

Message 15
I must fully agree with JFCooper on the development bit having just taken an educational psychology and development class this past semester. It is extremely difficult for, as JFCooper said, young children to hold multiple, conflicting ideas on one subject. Developmentally, they're brains aren't able to do that kind of abstract and contradictory thinking (America is good, but can be bad).*

Of course, that doesn't mean the issues should be ignored, and I know in Illinois (where I grew up) and Wisconsin (where I go to school) there is an effort to give a more balanced or nuanced version of American history, to younger children especially, in general, not just in regards to Native Americans.

*Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development touches on this if I remember correctly.

I recommend that anyone interested find this documentary in a library and watch it. It is about a treaty dispute.

http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/amout.html

Here is the treaty that is in dispute.

http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/shoshone/ruby_valley.html