How were the american indians subjugated?

[Dis]

I admit I'm not very well versed on the history of the american indians in the late 19th century. Most of my knowledge comes from western movies .

But I can't help but see some similarities of the actions of the american indians and modern day terrorists. Both saw/see western civilization as an affront to their culture and well being. And both have attacked common civilians to try to achieve objectives. And I'm thinking perhaps there is a solution to our current problems here.

From what I understand, we used overwhelming military force to subjugate the american indians. This is often seen as an atrocity by today's standards, but it got the job done. There were occasional problems such as General Custer, but for the most part I believe the army was successful, although very ruthless.

Perhaps this is why I support overwhelming military force against terrorists. Yes it is painful, many will consider it morally wrong and even unlawful. But I still believe it is the best recourse against terrorism.

What do you think? Where am I wrong? Enlighten me. This is your thread to discuss late 19th century american history in the west. Or did problems persist into the 20th century? I do recall problems with Pancho Villa, but he was mexican, and had different motivations. Actually it doesn't even have to be late 19th century. There were problems way before that. But it was during that time period that things really began to fall in place it seems to me. Or am I wrong?

[Kuciwalker]

Disease, a lot. That and simply being displaced.

[yavoon]

kill 90% of them and occupy their land?

gotta admit, that'd be effective!

[jdd2007]

We were the aggressors 99 of 100 times.

[PeteH]

http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/may97churchill.html

is not a bad place to start. Ward Churchill has written extensively on Indian issues, I recenly finished a collection of a handful of essays "A Little Matter of Genocide" exploring the concepts and efinitions surrounding genocide, but in more direct relation to your question is the selection "Nits Make Lice": The extermination of north american indians 1607-1996

I would also recommend "American Holocost" by David Stannard.

In general though a quote from Red Cloud sums it up well: "They made us many promises. More than I can remeber. they only kept but one; they promised to take our land and they took it"

(edit: missed part of the quote)

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by yavoon
kill 90% of them and occupy their land?

gotta admit, that'd be effective!

Yup, you don't even have to worry about culture flips

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Kucinich
Disease, a lot. That and simply being displaced.

Good quote from the history teacher "If someone asks you what happened to the such and such Indians, A good bet would be disease wiped them out."

[Sava]

But I can't help but see some similarities of the actions of the american indians and modern day terrorists.

get a saw, cut your head open and check to see if you have a brain...

[PeteH]

On epoint I would like to make explicit though, is I think the fundamental comparison in your post of Indians to terrorists, while I understand many of the similarities, due to the connotations seems a bit off.

The settlers were the ones who relied on terror in their operations. Scalping and mutilation of the dead were introduced by the english, who had previously used it against the Irish. The behavior of John Mason and company at the 'Pequot Massacre' so horrified the natives who had otherwise supported them in looking to battle the Pequots that they simply left the battlefield in horror, the burning of the village and slaughter of women and children while sleeping being so far from what they woudl ever consider as 'warfare'

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Whoha
Good quote from the history teacher "If someone asks you what happened to the such and such Indians, A good bet would be disease wiped them out."

In fact, disease was a huge factor. However, some of it was part of a sort of biological warfare on our part - blankets of smallpox victims, etc.

[PeteH]

One problem with just saying "disease killed them" is it implies the deaths were accidental, or even regrettable. The killing of a population by disease was not an unknown tactic when the first settlers arrived in north america, and there are numerous explicit examples of deliberate infection, not to mention the imposition of conditions which cause what would normally be a survivable sickness into a deadly condition. Just as the totals for the jewish holocost don't have a separate category for "died of disease" due to the conditions of the death camps and ghettos, it seems to me a disservice to discount the deaths of so many native americans by making it seem accidental

[SlowwHand]

As was noted, disease culled the herd to extreme.


To give you some unrequested fact (I could go a long time on this ):

MOST movies one sees about the American Indian concern Plains Indians.
On both coast, they were slaughtered pretty handily.
Especially in California where the Spanish had already tried conversion.
They didn't convert, but they calmed.

The Plains Indians were dominant due to horses.
The Comanche and Sioux in particular.

While this aided them in war IN ONE WAY, it weakened them in that they were forced to spread out to accomade grasses for their remuda.
Each warrior had at least 6 horses. That's a lot of grass.
Population depletion or not.

In the far North, up into Canada, Blackfeet were the big dog.
In the mountains of eastern Colorado, Crow.
Sioux had various individual bands, and were the enemy of most other tribes.

In the central region, Chyenne were split into northern and southern tribe, and dominated along with Pawnee.

Comanche had Texas, shoving the Apache into New Mixico and eastern Arizona.

[Pekka]

The problem is, they started scalping white women. That's when the crackers got mad. They tried to rob trains, and they needed train protectors (also known as cowboys) who were almost as good horse riders and better with the guns with accurate shooting from the back of a horse. That made the train protectors win 9 out of 10 robbing attempts.

The Indians however came with a clever plan to let them smoke what they call pipes, but as we later learned, it was their ****pumps. Now that made the crackers reaaally mad and all kinds of STDs where flying out there. Chemical warfare if you will.

But the train protectors came up with a brilliant idea and developed the deceases to another level and started making peace with the Indians and opened up a trade market. Now, in their food they got it back but way nastier and killing. Chemical warfare they started, crackers ended it.

They offered the Indians a cure for the decease in exchange for peace and friendship, that's all they had to do, but this one war chief called Scalping Warrior, he just had to scalp one extra white woman who was the duaghter of the new mayor of the new town near Indian camps called Peaceville. They just didn't get the message, and this made the train protectors decide NOT to build the next railways through that city, it being too dangerous.

It later on collapsed the whole economy of Peaceville, because no shipments were coming in and they couldn't give the cure because the trains didn't come in, because they wanted to help the Indians anyway.

So, Indians thought that they should now get the cure and because they didn't, rightfully so, they retaliated and slaughtered the town of Peaceville, including all the children, women and old people.

The postman from Pony Express came to deliver the new message from the President himself, declaring peace with all means necessary with the Indians but there was no mayor or anyone else in the Peaceville to take this message. He got lost and rode next to the Indian camp where Scalping Warrior was eating the dead babies and was feasting on the mutilated sex organs of the white women and this was a big trauma to the postman.

He rode back like a wind, and told what he saw to the President. He had no choice, but to call off the peace.

And this is what happened.

[Kuciwalker]

Pekka, that's biological, not chemical warfare

[Pekka]

Oh you're right.. my mistake. I got this history book I'm writing. I'm thinking if the govs want them to be used in schools. I think it would make a huge success.

History - And what really happened
by: Supercitizen