Hampton
14th November 2004, 06:10
In response to an effort by many to gain a day of recognition for the great influence American Indians have had upon the U.S., Congress designated a week of October to celebrate Native American Awareness Week in 1976. Yearly legislation was enacted to continue the tradition until August of 1990, when President Bush approved the designation of November as National American Indian Heritage Month.
"Treat The Earth Well, It Was Not Given To You By Your Parents,
It Was Loaned To You By Your Children."
Before Columbus
Most vacationers on Interstate 70 speed right by ancient Cahokia and its 15-acre ceremonial mound, the one that's 2 acres bigger than the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Only a curious few pull off to learn how a feather-crowned dictator known as the Great Sun used to kneel atop the earthen temple every morning and howl when
the real sun came up. At its peak, the town across the Mississippi from present-day St. Louis boasted a trade network that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Dakotas and probably had as many residents as did London at that time. But modern textbooks barely take notice. Cahokia's problem is that American history, in the minds of many, started just 500 years ago, back when Columbus discovered the New World. By 1492, Cahokia was an Illinois Babylon, a city that had thrived and vanished.
Link (http://muweb.millersville.edu/~columbus/data/art/LORD-01.ART)
Genocide
"Jeff: "If it is the case, actually, that, say, Columbus participated in the widespread murder of a lot of Native Americans, should that be taught or shouldn't it?"
Ms. Yecke: I think that the fact is yes, there were people who died. And it was a tragedy. Was it a deliberate act? No."
"In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue" . . . and made the first contact with the "Indians." For Native Americans, the world after 1492 would never be the same. This date marked the beginning of the long road of persecution and genocide of Native Americans, our indigenous people. Genocide was an important cause of the decline for many tribes.
"By conservative estimates, the population of the United states prior to European contact was greater than 12 million. Four centuries later, the count was reduced by 95% to 237 thousand.
In 1493, when Columbus returned to the Hispaniola, he quickly implemented policies of slavery and mass extermination of the Taino population of the Caribbean. Within three years, five million were dead. Las Casas, the primary historian of the Columbian era, writes of many accounts of the horrors that the Spanish colonists inflicted upon the indigenous population: hanging them en mass, hacking their children into pieces to be used as dog feed, and other horrid cruelties. The works of Las Casas are often omitted from popular American history books and courses because Columbus is considered a hero by many, even today.
Full Article (http://www.iearn.org/hgp/aeti/aeti-1997/native-americans.html)
The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world,? writes historian David E. Stannard.
Eventually more than 100 million natives fell under European rule. Their extermination would follow. As the natives died out, they were replaced by slaves brought from Africa.
To make a long story short, Columbus established a pattern that held for five centuries a ruthless, angry search for wealth, as Barry Lopez describes it.
"It set a tone in the Americas. The quest for personal possessions was to be, from the outset, a series of raids, irresponsible and criminal, a spree, in which an end to it, the slaves, the timber, the pearls, the fur, the precious ores, and, later, arable land, coal, oil, and iron ore ? was never visible, in which an end to it had no meaning.
Indeed, there WAS no end to it, no limit.
Full. (http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/usgenocide/IndianPeoples.html)
Government Action
"About ten o'clock in the morning, some white men came. They killed my grandfather and my mother and father. I saw them do it. I was a big girl at that time. Then they killed my baby sister and cut her heart out and threw it in the brush where I ran and hid...I didn't know what to do. I was so scared that I guess I just hid there a long time with my little sister's heart in my hands."
The 1779 Sullivan Campaign
http://www.bainbridgechamberny.org/pics/clintonsullivan.jpg
The 1779 Sullivan Campaign emerged as one of the larger of the Continental Army's offensives during the American Revolution, yet remains relatively unknown.1 It was an act of reprisal to break the Iroquois Confederation, a Native American political and military alliance that included the Seneca, Cayuga, Mohawk, Onondaga, 0neida, and Tuscarora tribes. The Iroquois, with the exception of the Oneida and Tuscarora, openly sided with Great Britain to protect their homelands. Together with Loyalists forces, they had ravaged the Pennsylvania and New York frontiers. The bloodiest of these attacks occurred in 1778 in the northeastern Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley and the Cherry Valley of New York.
Link (http://earlyamerica.com/review/1998/sullivan.html)
Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was a law passed by the United States Congress and signed by President Andrew Jackson to force the removal of 60,000 members of Native American tribes in the United States living east of the Mississippi River to lands farther west. The law was enacted on May 26, 1830.
The act in words. (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/removal.htm)
From Andrew Jackson's Second Annual Message to Congress:
"Toward the aborigines of the country no one can indulge a more friendly feeling than myself, or would go further in attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits and make them a happy, prosperous people." -- Andrew Jackson
Third Annual Message to Congress, December 6, 1831:
"It is pleasing to reflect that results so beneficial, not only to the States immediately concerned, but to the harmony of the Union, will have been accomplished by measures equally advantageous to the Indians. What the native savages become when surrounded by a dense population and by mixing with the whites may be seen in the miserable remnants of a few Eastern tribes, deprived of political and civil rights, forbidden to make contracts, and subjected to guardians, dragging out a wretched existence, without excitement, without hope, and almost without thought." -- Andrew Jackson
Link. (http://www.synaptic.bc.ca/ejournal/jackson.htm)
Trail of Tears
http://www.learner.org/biographyofamerica/prog08/maps/images/map_08_a.gif
http://www.fatherryan.org/TrailofTears/Trail-of-Tears.jpg
Cherokee had long called western Georgia home. The Cherokee Nation continued in their enchanted land until 1828. It was then that the rumored gold, for which De Soto had relentlessly searched, was discovered in the North Georgia mountains.
In his book Don't Know Much About History, Kenneth C. Davis writes:
Hollywood has left the impression that the great Indian wars came in the Old West during the late 1800's, a period that many think of simplistically as the "cowboy and Indian" days. But in fact that was a "mopping up" effort. By that time the Indians were nearly finished, their subjugation complete, their numbers decimated. The killing, enslavement, and land theft had begun with the arrival of the Europeans. But it may have reached its nadir when it became federal policy under President (Andrew) Jackson.
The Cherokees in 1828 were not nomadic savages. In fact, they had assimilated many European-style customs, including the wearing of gowns by Cherokee women. They built roads, schools and churches, had a system of representational government, and were farmers and cattle ranchers. A Cherokee alphabet, the "Talking Leaves" was perfected by Sequoyah.
Link (http://ngeorgia.com/history/nghisttt.html)
http://www.peaknet.net/~aardvark/CHOCTAW.GIF
On September 15, 1830, at Little Dancing Rabbit Creek, the Chiefs of the Choctaw Nation and representatives of the U.S. met to discuss the impact of a bill recently passed by the Congress of the U.S. This bill, with all the same good intentions of those today who believe they know better than we how to conduct our lives, allowed for the removal of all Indian peoples to the West of the Mississippi River.
It had been made clear to the Choctaw, that the Whites in Washington cared little for our situation, that either we willingly moved, or by military force we would be moved. We were not ignorant savages, but industrious farmers, merchants, and businessmen of all types. We were educated people, many were Christians. We had an organized system of government and a codified body of law. Some of these people were not even Indians, many strangers and orphans had been taken in over the years.
Link. (http://www.peaknet.net/~aardvark/thetrail.html)
Wounded Knee
http://www.lastoftheindependents.com/wounded01.jpg
http://www.indianerwww.de/indian/ind/n_wound5.jpg
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~rhernand/woundedknee%20map.jpg
1890-
The Massacre
December 15
The Military was arresting the leaders of Indian nations and leaders of the Ghost Dance movement by 1890. Sitting Bull was killed while soldiers attempted to arrest him on the Standing Rock reservation. Many of Sitting Bull's people fled the
reservation to Big Foot's Miniconjou Sioux village.
December 23
Big Foot and 350 of his people fled the village and headed to the Pine Ridged Agency. The trek was in the middle of winter and would take a week and a half to walk. They were headed for the protection of Chief Red Cloud.
December 28
The 7th Calvary, under the leadership of General Miles, cornered the fleeing band on the banks of Wounded Knee Creek (Cankpe Opi). The Sioux were ordered to discard their weapons. They stood on the banks through the night and were told they were going to be taken to a camp. Some of the Sioux began performing the Ghost Dance. It was at that time that firing broke out. The first shot is still disputed. The fight that ensued was between 350 unarmed Sioux and 500 heavily armed soldiers. The casualties are also disputed, but it is believed that 300 Sioux men, women, and children were killed, along with 29 U.S. soldiers.
20 medals of honor were awarded by Congress to the soldiers of the 7th Calvary.
Full (http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/WKIntro.html)
A Massacre Survivor Speaks...
"At eighteen, Beard had been among a group of warriors who had crossed the Little Bighorn in the final moments of the battle. [Now] at thirty-three, he and his family were camped in Big Foot's village. Years later, the last Lakota survivor of both Custer and Wounded Knee talked at length about the fight inside the council grounds, about the flight from the Miniconju village into the ravine. Beard spoke through an interpreter, who both summarized and quoted him directly.
Link. (http://www.dickshovel.com/DwyBrd.html)
http://www.iwchildren.org/wknee/deathhunt3.jpg
[b]Battle of Little Bighorn
In late 1875, Sioux and Cheyenne Indians defiantly left their reservations, outraged over the continued intrusions of whites into their sacred lands in the Black Hills. They gathered in Montana with the great warrior Sitting Bull to fight for their lands. The following spring, two victories over the US Cavalry emboldened them to fight on in the summer of 1876.
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/images/cu04.jpg
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/images/cu02.gif
An Eyewitness Account by the Lakota Chief Red Horse:
Five springs ago I, with many Sioux Indians, took down and packed up our tipis and moved from Cheyenne river to the Rosebud river, where we camped a few days; then took down and packed up our lodges and moved to the Little Bighorn river and pitched our lodges with the large camp of Sioux.
Full Story (http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/six/bighorn.htm)
Sand Creek Massacre
1864, November, Sand Creek massacre, Colorado. A camp of six hundred Cheyenne and Arapaho is attacked by Colonel John M. Chivington with a force of Colorado militia, despite of assurances of safety from Major Scott C. Anthony and Major Edward W. Wynkoop. 105 women and children are killed, with 28 men. The effect of the massacre is to destroy the position of chiefs such as Black Kettle who wanted peace with the United States; it also paves the way for a treaty the following year which effectively means the abandonment of all Cheyenne and Arapaho claims to Colorado Territory.
http://www.nps.gov/foda/Fort_Davis_WEB_PAGE/Assets/Sand%20Creek.jpg
Link (http://www.univie.ac.at/Anglistik/easyrider/data/The%20Sand%20Creek%20Massacre.htm)
Documents on the Sand Creek Massacre (http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/four/sandcrk.htm)
Men and Women
http://www.spiritwalk.org/images/blackelk.jpg
Black Elk (http://www.spiritwalk.org/blackelk.htm)
One of the Greatest Spiritual Leaders of the 20th century.
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/images/joseph1.jpg
Chief Joseph (http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/chiefjoseph.htm)
The man who became a national celebrity with the name "Chief Joseph" was born in the Wallowa Valley in what is now northeastern Oregon in 1840. He was given the name Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, or Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain, but was widely known as Joseph, or Joseph the Younger, because his father had taken the Christian name Joseph when he was baptized at the Lapwai mission by Henry Spalding in 1838.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5a/CrazyHorse.jpeg
Crazy Horse (http://www.emayzine.com/lectures/CRAZYHOR.html)
"All we wanted was peace and to be left alone."
Celebrated for his ferocity in battle, Crazy Horse was recognized among his own people as a visionary leader committed to preserving the traditions and values of the Lakota way of life.
De-Ka-Nah-Wi-Da and Hiawatha (http://www.indigenouspeople.net/hiawatha.htm)
"The Great Peacemaker" and Hiawatha created the Confederacy known as the Haudenosaunee, which means "People of the Long House." This Iroquois Confederation is now more than 500 years old.
http://members.aol.com/Nowacumig/banks.gif
Dennis J Banks (http://members.aol.com/Nowacumig/biograph.html)
This leader, teacher, lecturer, activist and author is the co-founder of AIM and the Director of the Sacred Run Foundation.
Gall (http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/d_h/gall.htm)
Gall was Sitting Bull's strategist. These two and Crazy Horse were the three main Native American leaders at the Battle Of The Little Big Horn.
Leonard Peltier (http://www.leonardpeltier.org/)
"My name is Leonard Peltier.
I am a Lakota and Anishnabe
And I am living in the United States penitentiary,
Which is the swiftest growing
Indian reservation in the country ..."
Red Cloud (http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/i_r/redcloud.htm)
As a warrior and a statesman, Red Cloud's success in confrontations with the United States government marked him as one of the most important Lakota leaders of the nineteenth century.
Russell Means (http://www.russellmeans.com/)
The L.A. Times has described him as the most famous American Indian since Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Russell Means is a natural leader. His fearless dedication and indestructible sense of pride are qualities admired by nations worldwide. His vision is for indigenous people to be free... Free to be human, free to travel, free to stop, free to trade where they choose, free to choose their own teachers ~ free to follow the religion of their fathers, free to talk, think and act for themselves and then they will obey every law or submit to the penalty. The most difficult lesson of all is to respect your relatives' visions.
Roberta Blackgoat (http://www.migrations.com/blackmesa/blackmesa2.html)
"There is a great loss on the mountains, ... the wildlife people are living there, and the people that fly, they live on the trees, and they all are losing their homes, and the food of the wildlife four-legged people, ... And even the water, ... the people that live in the water are struggling with all the pollution, and the sickness in the spirit of the water, and also all the human beings, ... us Indians, ... all the different tribes, ... they are all facing the same struggles with their land and their food,... they are suffering also, not just the Navajos are suffering, it's all Indians living in this Indian Country are suffering. I do hope to be having a great help from all you people who are aware, by having you write to President Clinton, and also Senator McCain, and Bruce Babbitt. Please let them have their hearts to be touched" (from a letter by Roberta Blackgoat, April 14, 1999).
Satanta (Set'tainte,White Bear)
SATANTA (ca. 1820-1878). Satanta (Set'tainte, White Bear), Kiowa chief, was born around 1820 somewhere in the Kiowa domain, probably in what is now Kansas or Oklahoma, during the zenith of Plains Indian power and cultural development.
Link (http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/SS/fsa33.html)
Sitting Bull (http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/sittingbull.htm)
A Hunkpapa Lakota chief and holy man under whom the Lakota tribes united in their struggle for survival on the northern plains, Sitting Bull remained defiant toward American military power and contemptuous of American promises to the end.
Tecumseh (http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/ohc/history/h_indian/people/tecumseh.shtml)
He was a member of the Shawnee Indians and eventually became one of their greatest leaders. Tecumseh's father died at the Battle of Point Pleasant during Lord Dunmore's War.
Winona LaDuke (http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/1996/01/laduke.html)
In 2000 she was candidate for Vice President of the US, (with Ralph Nader for President) she also ran for VP in 1996, was the recipient of the 1989 International Reebok Human Rights Award and in 1995 was named as one of "50 leaders" for the future by Time Magazine.
Columbus Day
by Jimmie Durham, Cherokee
In school I was taught the names
Columbus, Cortez, and Pizzaro and
A dozen other filthy murderers.
A bloodline all the way to General Miles,
Daniel Boone and general Eisenhower.
No one mentioned the names
Of even a few of the victims.
But don't you remember Chaske, whose spine
Was crushed so quickly by Mr. Pizzaro's boot?
What words did he cry into the dust?
What was the familiar name
Of that young girl who danced so gracefully
That everyone in the village sang with her--
Before Cortez' sword hacked off her arms
As she protested the burning of her sweetheart?
That young man's name was Many Deeds,
And he had been a leader of a band of fighters
Called the Redstick Hummingbirds, who slowed
The march of Cortez' army with only a few
Spears and stones which now lay still
In the mountains and remember.
Greenrock Woman was the name
Of that old lady who walked right up
And spat in Columbus' face.
We must remember that, and remember
Laughing Otter the Taino who tried to stop
Columbus and who was taken away as a slave.
We never saw him again.
In school I learned of heroic discoveries
Made by liars and crooks. The courage
Of millions of sweet and true people
Was not commemorated.
Let us then declare a holiday
For ourselves, and make a parade that begins
With Columbus' victims and continues
Even to our grandchildren who will be named
In their honor.
Because isn't it true that even the summer
Grass here in this land whispers those names,
And every creek has accepted the responsibility
Of singing those names? And nothing can stop
The wind from howling those names around
The corners of the school.
Why else would the birds sing
So much sweeter here than in other lands?
Native American Women (http://www.ewebtribe.com/NACulture/women.htm)
Music (http://www.ewebtribe.com/NACulture/music.htm)
Poetry (http://www.indians.org/welker/poetry1.htm)
Great Sioux Nation (http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/WKsioux.html)
Alcatraz (http://www.pbs.org/itvs/alcatrazisnotanisland/activism.html)
American Indian Movement (http://www.aimovement.org/)
Cointelpro and AIM (http://www.wakeupmag.co.uk/articles/yankindians.htm)
Feel free to add on....
"Treat The Earth Well, It Was Not Given To You By Your Parents,
It Was Loaned To You By Your Children."
Before Columbus
Most vacationers on Interstate 70 speed right by ancient Cahokia and its 15-acre ceremonial mound, the one that's 2 acres bigger than the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Only a curious few pull off to learn how a feather-crowned dictator known as the Great Sun used to kneel atop the earthen temple every morning and howl when
the real sun came up. At its peak, the town across the Mississippi from present-day St. Louis boasted a trade network that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Dakotas and probably had as many residents as did London at that time. But modern textbooks barely take notice. Cahokia's problem is that American history, in the minds of many, started just 500 years ago, back when Columbus discovered the New World. By 1492, Cahokia was an Illinois Babylon, a city that had thrived and vanished.
Link (http://muweb.millersville.edu/~columbus/data/art/LORD-01.ART)
Genocide
"Jeff: "If it is the case, actually, that, say, Columbus participated in the widespread murder of a lot of Native Americans, should that be taught or shouldn't it?"
Ms. Yecke: I think that the fact is yes, there were people who died. And it was a tragedy. Was it a deliberate act? No."
"In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue" . . . and made the first contact with the "Indians." For Native Americans, the world after 1492 would never be the same. This date marked the beginning of the long road of persecution and genocide of Native Americans, our indigenous people. Genocide was an important cause of the decline for many tribes.
"By conservative estimates, the population of the United states prior to European contact was greater than 12 million. Four centuries later, the count was reduced by 95% to 237 thousand.
In 1493, when Columbus returned to the Hispaniola, he quickly implemented policies of slavery and mass extermination of the Taino population of the Caribbean. Within three years, five million were dead. Las Casas, the primary historian of the Columbian era, writes of many accounts of the horrors that the Spanish colonists inflicted upon the indigenous population: hanging them en mass, hacking their children into pieces to be used as dog feed, and other horrid cruelties. The works of Las Casas are often omitted from popular American history books and courses because Columbus is considered a hero by many, even today.
Full Article (http://www.iearn.org/hgp/aeti/aeti-1997/native-americans.html)
The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world,? writes historian David E. Stannard.
Eventually more than 100 million natives fell under European rule. Their extermination would follow. As the natives died out, they were replaced by slaves brought from Africa.
To make a long story short, Columbus established a pattern that held for five centuries a ruthless, angry search for wealth, as Barry Lopez describes it.
"It set a tone in the Americas. The quest for personal possessions was to be, from the outset, a series of raids, irresponsible and criminal, a spree, in which an end to it, the slaves, the timber, the pearls, the fur, the precious ores, and, later, arable land, coal, oil, and iron ore ? was never visible, in which an end to it had no meaning.
Indeed, there WAS no end to it, no limit.
Full. (http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/usgenocide/IndianPeoples.html)
Government Action
"About ten o'clock in the morning, some white men came. They killed my grandfather and my mother and father. I saw them do it. I was a big girl at that time. Then they killed my baby sister and cut her heart out and threw it in the brush where I ran and hid...I didn't know what to do. I was so scared that I guess I just hid there a long time with my little sister's heart in my hands."
The 1779 Sullivan Campaign
http://www.bainbridgechamberny.org/pics/clintonsullivan.jpg
The 1779 Sullivan Campaign emerged as one of the larger of the Continental Army's offensives during the American Revolution, yet remains relatively unknown.1 It was an act of reprisal to break the Iroquois Confederation, a Native American political and military alliance that included the Seneca, Cayuga, Mohawk, Onondaga, 0neida, and Tuscarora tribes. The Iroquois, with the exception of the Oneida and Tuscarora, openly sided with Great Britain to protect their homelands. Together with Loyalists forces, they had ravaged the Pennsylvania and New York frontiers. The bloodiest of these attacks occurred in 1778 in the northeastern Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley and the Cherry Valley of New York.
Link (http://earlyamerica.com/review/1998/sullivan.html)
Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was a law passed by the United States Congress and signed by President Andrew Jackson to force the removal of 60,000 members of Native American tribes in the United States living east of the Mississippi River to lands farther west. The law was enacted on May 26, 1830.
The act in words. (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/removal.htm)
From Andrew Jackson's Second Annual Message to Congress:
"Toward the aborigines of the country no one can indulge a more friendly feeling than myself, or would go further in attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits and make them a happy, prosperous people." -- Andrew Jackson
Third Annual Message to Congress, December 6, 1831:
"It is pleasing to reflect that results so beneficial, not only to the States immediately concerned, but to the harmony of the Union, will have been accomplished by measures equally advantageous to the Indians. What the native savages become when surrounded by a dense population and by mixing with the whites may be seen in the miserable remnants of a few Eastern tribes, deprived of political and civil rights, forbidden to make contracts, and subjected to guardians, dragging out a wretched existence, without excitement, without hope, and almost without thought." -- Andrew Jackson
Link. (http://www.synaptic.bc.ca/ejournal/jackson.htm)
Trail of Tears
http://www.learner.org/biographyofamerica/prog08/maps/images/map_08_a.gif
http://www.fatherryan.org/TrailofTears/Trail-of-Tears.jpg
Cherokee had long called western Georgia home. The Cherokee Nation continued in their enchanted land until 1828. It was then that the rumored gold, for which De Soto had relentlessly searched, was discovered in the North Georgia mountains.
In his book Don't Know Much About History, Kenneth C. Davis writes:
Hollywood has left the impression that the great Indian wars came in the Old West during the late 1800's, a period that many think of simplistically as the "cowboy and Indian" days. But in fact that was a "mopping up" effort. By that time the Indians were nearly finished, their subjugation complete, their numbers decimated. The killing, enslavement, and land theft had begun with the arrival of the Europeans. But it may have reached its nadir when it became federal policy under President (Andrew) Jackson.
The Cherokees in 1828 were not nomadic savages. In fact, they had assimilated many European-style customs, including the wearing of gowns by Cherokee women. They built roads, schools and churches, had a system of representational government, and were farmers and cattle ranchers. A Cherokee alphabet, the "Talking Leaves" was perfected by Sequoyah.
Link (http://ngeorgia.com/history/nghisttt.html)
http://www.peaknet.net/~aardvark/CHOCTAW.GIF
On September 15, 1830, at Little Dancing Rabbit Creek, the Chiefs of the Choctaw Nation and representatives of the U.S. met to discuss the impact of a bill recently passed by the Congress of the U.S. This bill, with all the same good intentions of those today who believe they know better than we how to conduct our lives, allowed for the removal of all Indian peoples to the West of the Mississippi River.
It had been made clear to the Choctaw, that the Whites in Washington cared little for our situation, that either we willingly moved, or by military force we would be moved. We were not ignorant savages, but industrious farmers, merchants, and businessmen of all types. We were educated people, many were Christians. We had an organized system of government and a codified body of law. Some of these people were not even Indians, many strangers and orphans had been taken in over the years.
Link. (http://www.peaknet.net/~aardvark/thetrail.html)
Wounded Knee
http://www.lastoftheindependents.com/wounded01.jpg
http://www.indianerwww.de/indian/ind/n_wound5.jpg
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~rhernand/woundedknee%20map.jpg
1890-
The Massacre
December 15
The Military was arresting the leaders of Indian nations and leaders of the Ghost Dance movement by 1890. Sitting Bull was killed while soldiers attempted to arrest him on the Standing Rock reservation. Many of Sitting Bull's people fled the
reservation to Big Foot's Miniconjou Sioux village.
December 23
Big Foot and 350 of his people fled the village and headed to the Pine Ridged Agency. The trek was in the middle of winter and would take a week and a half to walk. They were headed for the protection of Chief Red Cloud.
December 28
The 7th Calvary, under the leadership of General Miles, cornered the fleeing band on the banks of Wounded Knee Creek (Cankpe Opi). The Sioux were ordered to discard their weapons. They stood on the banks through the night and were told they were going to be taken to a camp. Some of the Sioux began performing the Ghost Dance. It was at that time that firing broke out. The first shot is still disputed. The fight that ensued was between 350 unarmed Sioux and 500 heavily armed soldiers. The casualties are also disputed, but it is believed that 300 Sioux men, women, and children were killed, along with 29 U.S. soldiers.
20 medals of honor were awarded by Congress to the soldiers of the 7th Calvary.
Full (http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/WKIntro.html)
A Massacre Survivor Speaks...
"At eighteen, Beard had been among a group of warriors who had crossed the Little Bighorn in the final moments of the battle. [Now] at thirty-three, he and his family were camped in Big Foot's village. Years later, the last Lakota survivor of both Custer and Wounded Knee talked at length about the fight inside the council grounds, about the flight from the Miniconju village into the ravine. Beard spoke through an interpreter, who both summarized and quoted him directly.
Link. (http://www.dickshovel.com/DwyBrd.html)
http://www.iwchildren.org/wknee/deathhunt3.jpg
[b]Battle of Little Bighorn
In late 1875, Sioux and Cheyenne Indians defiantly left their reservations, outraged over the continued intrusions of whites into their sacred lands in the Black Hills. They gathered in Montana with the great warrior Sitting Bull to fight for their lands. The following spring, two victories over the US Cavalry emboldened them to fight on in the summer of 1876.
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/images/cu04.jpg
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/images/cu02.gif
An Eyewitness Account by the Lakota Chief Red Horse:
Five springs ago I, with many Sioux Indians, took down and packed up our tipis and moved from Cheyenne river to the Rosebud river, where we camped a few days; then took down and packed up our lodges and moved to the Little Bighorn river and pitched our lodges with the large camp of Sioux.
Full Story (http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/six/bighorn.htm)
Sand Creek Massacre
1864, November, Sand Creek massacre, Colorado. A camp of six hundred Cheyenne and Arapaho is attacked by Colonel John M. Chivington with a force of Colorado militia, despite of assurances of safety from Major Scott C. Anthony and Major Edward W. Wynkoop. 105 women and children are killed, with 28 men. The effect of the massacre is to destroy the position of chiefs such as Black Kettle who wanted peace with the United States; it also paves the way for a treaty the following year which effectively means the abandonment of all Cheyenne and Arapaho claims to Colorado Territory.
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Link (http://www.univie.ac.at/Anglistik/easyrider/data/The%20Sand%20Creek%20Massacre.htm)
Documents on the Sand Creek Massacre (http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/four/sandcrk.htm)
Men and Women
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Black Elk (http://www.spiritwalk.org/blackelk.htm)
One of the Greatest Spiritual Leaders of the 20th century.
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Chief Joseph (http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/chiefjoseph.htm)
The man who became a national celebrity with the name "Chief Joseph" was born in the Wallowa Valley in what is now northeastern Oregon in 1840. He was given the name Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, or Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain, but was widely known as Joseph, or Joseph the Younger, because his father had taken the Christian name Joseph when he was baptized at the Lapwai mission by Henry Spalding in 1838.
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Crazy Horse (http://www.emayzine.com/lectures/CRAZYHOR.html)
"All we wanted was peace and to be left alone."
Celebrated for his ferocity in battle, Crazy Horse was recognized among his own people as a visionary leader committed to preserving the traditions and values of the Lakota way of life.
De-Ka-Nah-Wi-Da and Hiawatha (http://www.indigenouspeople.net/hiawatha.htm)
"The Great Peacemaker" and Hiawatha created the Confederacy known as the Haudenosaunee, which means "People of the Long House." This Iroquois Confederation is now more than 500 years old.
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Dennis J Banks (http://members.aol.com/Nowacumig/biograph.html)
This leader, teacher, lecturer, activist and author is the co-founder of AIM and the Director of the Sacred Run Foundation.
Gall (http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/d_h/gall.htm)
Gall was Sitting Bull's strategist. These two and Crazy Horse were the three main Native American leaders at the Battle Of The Little Big Horn.
Leonard Peltier (http://www.leonardpeltier.org/)
"My name is Leonard Peltier.
I am a Lakota and Anishnabe
And I am living in the United States penitentiary,
Which is the swiftest growing
Indian reservation in the country ..."
Red Cloud (http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/i_r/redcloud.htm)
As a warrior and a statesman, Red Cloud's success in confrontations with the United States government marked him as one of the most important Lakota leaders of the nineteenth century.
Russell Means (http://www.russellmeans.com/)
The L.A. Times has described him as the most famous American Indian since Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Russell Means is a natural leader. His fearless dedication and indestructible sense of pride are qualities admired by nations worldwide. His vision is for indigenous people to be free... Free to be human, free to travel, free to stop, free to trade where they choose, free to choose their own teachers ~ free to follow the religion of their fathers, free to talk, think and act for themselves and then they will obey every law or submit to the penalty. The most difficult lesson of all is to respect your relatives' visions.
Roberta Blackgoat (http://www.migrations.com/blackmesa/blackmesa2.html)
"There is a great loss on the mountains, ... the wildlife people are living there, and the people that fly, they live on the trees, and they all are losing their homes, and the food of the wildlife four-legged people, ... And even the water, ... the people that live in the water are struggling with all the pollution, and the sickness in the spirit of the water, and also all the human beings, ... us Indians, ... all the different tribes, ... they are all facing the same struggles with their land and their food,... they are suffering also, not just the Navajos are suffering, it's all Indians living in this Indian Country are suffering. I do hope to be having a great help from all you people who are aware, by having you write to President Clinton, and also Senator McCain, and Bruce Babbitt. Please let them have their hearts to be touched" (from a letter by Roberta Blackgoat, April 14, 1999).
Satanta (Set'tainte,White Bear)
SATANTA (ca. 1820-1878). Satanta (Set'tainte, White Bear), Kiowa chief, was born around 1820 somewhere in the Kiowa domain, probably in what is now Kansas or Oklahoma, during the zenith of Plains Indian power and cultural development.
Link (http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/SS/fsa33.html)
Sitting Bull (http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/sittingbull.htm)
A Hunkpapa Lakota chief and holy man under whom the Lakota tribes united in their struggle for survival on the northern plains, Sitting Bull remained defiant toward American military power and contemptuous of American promises to the end.
Tecumseh (http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/ohc/history/h_indian/people/tecumseh.shtml)
He was a member of the Shawnee Indians and eventually became one of their greatest leaders. Tecumseh's father died at the Battle of Point Pleasant during Lord Dunmore's War.
Winona LaDuke (http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/1996/01/laduke.html)
In 2000 she was candidate for Vice President of the US, (with Ralph Nader for President) she also ran for VP in 1996, was the recipient of the 1989 International Reebok Human Rights Award and in 1995 was named as one of "50 leaders" for the future by Time Magazine.
Columbus Day
by Jimmie Durham, Cherokee
In school I was taught the names
Columbus, Cortez, and Pizzaro and
A dozen other filthy murderers.
A bloodline all the way to General Miles,
Daniel Boone and general Eisenhower.
No one mentioned the names
Of even a few of the victims.
But don't you remember Chaske, whose spine
Was crushed so quickly by Mr. Pizzaro's boot?
What words did he cry into the dust?
What was the familiar name
Of that young girl who danced so gracefully
That everyone in the village sang with her--
Before Cortez' sword hacked off her arms
As she protested the burning of her sweetheart?
That young man's name was Many Deeds,
And he had been a leader of a band of fighters
Called the Redstick Hummingbirds, who slowed
The march of Cortez' army with only a few
Spears and stones which now lay still
In the mountains and remember.
Greenrock Woman was the name
Of that old lady who walked right up
And spat in Columbus' face.
We must remember that, and remember
Laughing Otter the Taino who tried to stop
Columbus and who was taken away as a slave.
We never saw him again.
In school I learned of heroic discoveries
Made by liars and crooks. The courage
Of millions of sweet and true people
Was not commemorated.
Let us then declare a holiday
For ourselves, and make a parade that begins
With Columbus' victims and continues
Even to our grandchildren who will be named
In their honor.
Because isn't it true that even the summer
Grass here in this land whispers those names,
And every creek has accepted the responsibility
Of singing those names? And nothing can stop
The wind from howling those names around
The corners of the school.
Why else would the birds sing
So much sweeter here than in other lands?
Native American Women (http://www.ewebtribe.com/NACulture/women.htm)
Music (http://www.ewebtribe.com/NACulture/music.htm)
Poetry (http://www.indians.org/welker/poetry1.htm)
Great Sioux Nation (http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/WKsioux.html)
Alcatraz (http://www.pbs.org/itvs/alcatrazisnotanisland/activism.html)
American Indian Movement (http://www.aimovement.org/)
Cointelpro and AIM (http://www.wakeupmag.co.uk/articles/yankindians.htm)
Feel free to add on....