Warning: This post is graphic describing what happened to victims. Don't read if you are squeamish.
I want to reiterate that the only reason I am responding to this is 1) to show that human beings everywhere have the capacity to be cruel and do very wrong things to each other, and that it is not a characteristic of just one specific ethnic group. It is a characteristic of human nature everywhere.
And 2) to respond to the idea that the Thanksgiving holiday should no longer be celebrated or scrapped because of its association with the past. Well, Thanksgiving is one of the few, relatively secular holiday's in the US that celebrates national unity and diversity. It may well be myth, but it's one of the better myths to guide our culture in the present and future. It is certainly anyone's prerogative to not celebrate Thanksgiving if they don't want to.
I believe that I have made that point well enough below, and I'm not going to participate in this thread after this. It is not a pleasant topic and I don't want to keep talking about it.
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You are absolutely right that there is a mistake on the name of Mao Tsetung as it sound like the Chinese ruler from China which has nothing to do with this article. I don't know why Mike Ely wrote that without thinking. Like DeafBadger mentioned that he is a communist which is he interest in, I think.
Ely quotes Mao because he is a hard-core Communist who sees every event in history through that lens.
Hard-core Communists believe they have to destroy the existing culture and its customs, holidays, etc in order to put in place their new society. In the long run, they would not be a friend of American Indians, either, because their ideas would destroy American Indian culture, too.
Mike Ely's article is signature Communist strategy of fomenting controversy and division between different groups in a country, and making the largest group feel guilty about the fact they are the largest group in the country.
The article is part of a larger "Communist revolutionary" goal, which Mike Ely pretty much admits in the comments of one of the articles.
With goals like that, he is not after "truth" as such, he is after "Communist revolution," and the stuff he writes is just a tool towards that goal. One will not find "truth" in his camp; he is too blinded by his ideology.
As for DeafBadger who mentioned:
Cannibalism (done by both Europeans and American Indians)
Genocide (done by both Europeans and American Indians)
Torture (done by both Europeans and American Indians)
Slavery (done by both Europeans and American Indians)
Kidnapping (done by both Europeans and American Indians)
Excesses of Empire (done by both Europeans and American Indians)
There might be just only torture and kidnapping.
I don't really want to, but I'll go through the list.
Cannibalism
Celtic tribes (from Europe) used to practice ritual cannibalism. There is evidence of cannibalism in pre-Christian times throughout Europe. (This was a long time ago, probably fading out around 1,500 years ago or earlier.)
Iroquois and Mohawk tribes practiced cannibalism (as well as the Carib tribe (where the word "Caribbean" comes from) as well as modern-day Indian tribes in the deep Amazon jungle).
Genocide
Genocide is not limited to large, "racial" groupings of people. It includes deliberate attempts at destroying another distinct group (even a religious group). They could even be of the same "race." Most genocide, historically, is perpetrated by related peoples trying to wipe the other out.
The European record on genocide from ancient times to the Yugoslav War (in the 1990s) is known, so I don't think I need to list them here.
After smallpox weakened the numbers of the Mandan, the Sioux took advantage of it, and attacked the Mandan and effectively destroyed the tribe. The survivors had to merge with another tribe to the north. Historians giving tours at the Mandan village sites describe the Mandan as effectively destroyed by the Sioux at this point, even though, technically, there were some survivors. If that's not genocide, I don't know what to call it.
Also, the Aztecs (who had built an empire), raided the nearby tribes to collect people for their human sacrifices. These raids were so destructive that some of these tribes ceased to exist. That too, was genocide.
Torture
The European record of torture is known, going as far back as pre-Christian times, where some tribes would torture enemies captured in battle with the "blood eagle," where slits would be cut into the back and ribs and lungs pulled out. That was more than 1,500 years ago. In medieval times, torture included being "drawn and quartered." Which was a public execution where someone's belly was cut open, their digestive system and organs removed (while the victim was still alive), and finally dismembered (so their head and limbs could be displayed throughout the country as a warning to other criminals or political dissidents.
The Iroquois would torture their victims before eating them. There was a Plains Indian tribe that tortured people by staking their limbs on the ground and building a small fire on their chest, which would burn a hole into their chest and kill the full-awake victim when it burned the heart.
Slavery
Slavery was present in European cultures since ancient times. There was serfdom and indentured servitude. And the slave trade perpetrated on Africans (who practiced their own slavery) and American Indians (who also practiced their own slavery).
There was various forms of slavery among the American Indians. Here is an excerpt from the
Wikipedia article on American Indian slavery:
"The Haida and Tlingit who lived along southeast Alaska's coast were traditionally known as fierce warriors and slave-traders, raiding as far as California. In their society, slavery was hereditary after slaves were taken as prisoners of war. Among some Pacific Northwest tribes, as many as one-fourth of the population were slaves."
Kidnapping
Kidnapping was done by both, to each other and among themselves for hundreds of years. The record is known here.
Excesses of Empire
The main one here are the Aztecs, who built an empire and used their power to dominate the surrounding tribes.
The European record is known.
All this information is easy to find from reputable books.
Genocide mostly by Europeans for the wanting lands so they pushed us further West and further North. They killed us with Chicken Pox in the blankets and give us diseases. There were too many white settlers coming on the shore from Europe that how is that possible that we can genocide them? But we did fight for our protection. The military murdered and hold hangings. Set fires on the villages.
From what I have read, it seems that the diseased blankets story distributed by the U.S. Army is false.
Did the U.S. Army Distribute Smallpox Blankets to Indians? Fabrication and Falsification in Ward Churchill's Genocide Rhetoric
There could have been diseased blankets or clothing given out by individual settlers (civilians committing murder, essentially), but there was never an official policy of genocide or distributing diseased blankets.
There were cases of genocide committed by an Indian tribe against another Indian tribe. But given how numerous Europeans were, I would not say that there were cases of genocide against Europeans by American Indians. However, there were massacres by American Indians against Europeans. But Europeans also did that to American Indians, too.
There was no Exesses of Empire on our part but Europeans got what they wanted by having the government and having presidents who had tried to destroyed Native Americans for years. They had the power while we are struggling our own. The Europeans were never satisfied and wanted us to be wipe out for good. We know that we are not the only ones as there were aboriginals in other countries like Australia, Africa, South America and India (that was years later).
The excess of empire that I'm referring to is the Aztec empire.
The United States government never had an
official policy (though in practice...) of genocide or "wiping out" Indians, but did have policies of assimilation and confinement to reservations. That does not make it right. I am not attempting to defend what happened.
As for treatment with Native American in the modern centuries like 20th to 21st century we were not better. There were women being murdered especially young girls. It was all over both United States and Canada. Native men and women don't expect to get jobs and young teenagers committed suicides because of their identities of who they are trying to understand their two worlds. They would rather stay with one identity like Natives. They were being told that they were white and they don't have status. It hurt very much. They were not being appreciated as a people. That is very sad.
Surely one must say that things are significantly better today than they were in previous centuries. In my own state there is the
United Tribes Technical College, specifically operated for the benefit of American Indians. There are American Indian businessmen through my state who have done very well for themselves and hire American Indian workers as well as those of other ethnicities. Many European-American businessmen also hire American Indians. So there are jobs. Maybe not on the reservation itself though.
The reservations, though, still have it very tough. The problems are very complex and I don't understand it fully. It doesn't help that many reservations in this area seem to be far away from Interstates and other high traffic areas that could bring in more money from travelers. They are as economically depressed as many farmland areas in the "middle of nowhere."
Where I live, I've seen many Native Americans working in jobs. It doesn't seem to be rare to me. Many have moved here from the reservations because this is where the jobs are. Many move to Minneapolis, too, for the same reason. The oil boom, though, is helping a lot. Brings in a lot of money.
There are a lot of problems yet, and I don't know how to solve them. It is very sad.
I'm sorry if this thread is distressing to you, Bebonang. Europeans have historically done great wrong (and to themselves as well), but other groups have, too. That doesn't excuse the crimes, but it shows that we are all the same when it comes to our bad and good deeds.
I hope that we, as human beings, can somehow see past this and look to the future. But that can only happen, I believe, when people around the world start to see other people and themselves as
human beings first, and
then as an ethnic group, or a religion, etc.
And all of us, of all groups, have a lot to work on. The reward for that is a better future.
