The National Defense Authorization Bill: Renaming army bases.

[5fish]

You do get a little rise out of me with the 'they were killing each other anyway' trope. That can apply to everybody everywhere but justifies nothing anywhere. Conquest - empire - colonialism - assimilation are like the Four Horsemen.

Here a though you had stone age people trying to talk to an industrial society in the late 1800's. The primitive society did have the words or legal system to understand what they were dealing with the industrial society. They (Native Americans) were outmatched and playing by their adversaries rules. There is no way they could enter into treaties because they had no understanding of our legal system, from what I have seen no lawyers for the Native Americans back then. If I was modern indian tribes I argue all treaties are void because their indian forefathers had no clue what they were entering into in these treaties they signed. New treaties need to be negotiated with modern Native Americans who understand who their adversaries legal system and society...

 

[diane]

Here a though you had stone age people trying to talk to an industrial society in the late 1800's. The primitive society did have the words or legal system to understand what they were dealing with the industrial society. They (Native Americans) were outmatched and playing by their adversaries rules. There is no way they could enter into treaties because they had no understanding of our legal system, from what I have seen no lawyers for the Native Americans back then. If I was modern indian tribes I argue all treaties are void because their indian forefathers had no clue what they were entering into in these treaties they signed. New treaties need to be negotiated with modern Native Americans who understand who their adversaries legal system and society...

Stone Age people catch on quick, don't worry about that! It's often said the people in northern California entered into treaties not knowing anything at all, having never seen a white person before 1850 - but there were plenty of trappers running rough shod all over the place after beaver and otter pelts. When Reddick McKee showed up with a fistful o'treaties, the headmen had been dealing with the underhanded and shifty Hudson Bay Company for decades. The rival fur companies had no problem whatsoever in exploiting tribal differences - let's you and them fight! - then make a deal with the survivors, if there were any. Just because you sign your treaty with an x doesn't mean you don't know what you're doing. Pizarro used a little metal plate so he could trace his name - think that conquistador knew what he was doing, too.

 

[Jim Klag]

No, they had plenty of land to share...

Says someone on the side of the land stealers.

 

[5fish]

Stone Age people catch on quick, don't worry about that! It's often said the people in northern California entered into treaties not knowing anything at all, having never seen a white person before 1850 - but there were plenty of trappers running rough shod all over the place after beaver and otter pelts. When Reddick McKee showed up with a fistful o'treaties, the headmen had been dealing with the underhanded and shifty Hudson Bay Company for decades. The rival fur companies had no problem whatsoever in exploiting tribal differences - let's you and them fight! - then make a deal with the survivors, if there were any. Just because you sign your treaty with an x doesn't mean you don't know what you're doing. Pizarro used a little metal plate so he could trace his name - think that conquistador knew what he was doing, too.

They got rack over the coals... You all need to get them all thrown out of court and replace them with new ones that will reward you all better... a fairer deal...

 

[5fish]

Says someone on the side of the land stealers.

We stole no land just used unproductive land and made it productive... I ask the genocide of the North American Indian Tribes worth it for it gave birth to the United States of American. A nation that became the leader of the free world promoted democracy, free speech, human rights, capitalism and other sins some would say around the world. It gave birth to the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Gettysburg address and many other literary marvels. It gave birth to and explosion of scientific discoveries allowing us to put a man on the moon, internet, and so much more. We defended democracy and freedom in two great wars around the world, ending fascism and we saved the world from communism along the way too. I ask the genocide of the North American Indian Tribes worth it to save the mankind and the world...

 

[5fish]

@Jim Klag

Do you like your house your life style? If the Indians had rightfully kept their lands. I doubt you being living the life you have...

 

[Jim Klag]

@Jim Klag

Do you like your house your life style? If the Indians had rightfully kept their lands. I doubt you being living the life you have...

That's not just bovine scatology - it is pure bullshit. The fallacy in your argument is that you assume the Indians wouldn't share. They were interested in hunting and living on the land and freedom to live their way of life. Nothing more. We white folks needed to have it all. We had to kill all the buffalo. We had to have all the land and the resources. We had to kill all the beaver. It is we white folk who decided we could not live alongside the Indian - not the other way round.

 

[diane]

We stole no land just used unproductive land and made it productive... I ask the genocide of the North American Indian Tribes worth it for it gave birth to the United States of American. A nation that became the leader of the free world promoted democracy, free speech, human rights, capitalism and other sins some would say around the world. It gave birth to the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Gettysburg address and many other literary marvels. It gave birth to and explosion of scientific discoveries allowing us to put a man on the moon, internet, and so much more. We defended democracy and freedom in two great wars around the world, ending fascism and we saved the world from communism along the way too. I ask the genocide of the North American Indian Tribes worth it to save the mankind and the world...

Now I KNOW you don't believe that bolded scat! Good fiction book - Martin Cruz Smith, "The Indians Won". Oldie but a goldie!

 

[Wehrkraftzersetzer]

We stole no land just used unproductive land and made it productive

by ploughing it with lots and lots off verbal bullshit?

 

[byron ed]

Toddlers think "poopy talk" is great fun too.

 

[5fish]

Now I KNOW you don't believe that bolded scat! Good fiction book - Martin Cruz Smith, "The Indians Won". Oldie but a goldie!

Yes a oldie before alternate history became a thing... You see how pricy it is....



Here are fan reviews...

Spectacularly successful (although Cruz Smith deprecates it in his preface). I paid $20 for my copy, which is a shame because this book cries out to be in print. It's perfect for high school and college history courses; a great discussion starter. It's fantasy of course, but as alternative history it is comprehensive, well-informed and readable. It is set in the tumultuous decade of the 1870's, when America was wracked by political corruption and a depression rivaling that of the 1920's. Cruz recreates this national crisis beautifully. And then, in this precarious setting, he imagines how American history might have turned out if only the great Native American chiefs like Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, Sitting Bull and Geronimo had had resources the needed in order to unify all Native Americans against the vastly outmanned and largely ignored (by Congress) U.S. military. Cruz makes a hero of Wovoka, the Paiute visionary whose Ghost Dance (of the 1880's) movement actually aspired to do just that: unity all Indians against white America. The resources they needed were weapons and food, and these are quite plausibly supplied in this book by a cabal of evil European colonialist tycoons bent first on weakening the US and then on ultimately stealing, from the victorious Indians, all of their food and mineral resources.

Cruz Smith is half Cherokee. I've read a fair amount of Native American history and he sure did some good research for this book. He knows his stuff. In 200 action-packed pages he gives a sharper and fuller historical picture, tribe by tribe and leader by leader, of Native America in the 1870's than I've seen elsewhere. For some reason he doesn't mention Black Elk, which saddened me. Apart from that, a great book by a gifted writer. To be REPRINTED!

snip...

I almost didn't read this book because I thought that the premise was too unbelievable. I thought that any story of the American Indian tribes building a self-sustaining independent nation after the Battle of the Little Big Horn must be laughingly unrealistic and simplistic. I could not have been more wrong. This story is almost too believable and packed with plausible, realistic detail. It could have worked. Hell, you want it to have worked for they build a better sort of nation.

What if the Lakota and Cheyenne (Tsistsitas) had not broken up into traditional hunting bands that winter? What if a shadowy group of European investors who were resentful of rising U.S. influence had supplied weapons, canned meat, and blankets to keep them together? After all, the logistical mechanism already existed- the Service Canadien (Metis.) There were huge numbers of Winchester model '73's available on the world market (as demonstrated by their use in Turkey, India, and China.)

Then what if an appeal had gone out to all the tribes- North, South, East, and West? It is pointed out that the tribes had come together before under Metacomet, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Blackhawk, Osceola... What if Wovoka had come forward with his great vision at the same time. Finally, what if the Mormon Legion had signed on?

Each chapter is split between happenings after 1876 that lead to the founding of an Indian nation on the Great Plains, and the culmination of that nation's dealings with the United States government in 1970. I'm sure that back then when the book was written it was considered absurd that a smaller nation could develop its own fission weapons- but in 2006 this has been proven all too plausible.

 

[5fish]

Says someone on the side of the land stealers.

You know they did not have the concept of Property rights...

 

[5fish]

ploughing it with lots and lots off verbal bullshit?

No, the Native American did not have property right laws...

 

[Jim Klag]

You know they did not have the concept of Property rights...

Not in the European sense of the term, because they believed the land was for everyone. That was the problem. White folk HAD to own the land for their own private purpose.

 

[Wehrkraftzersetzer]

No, the Native American did not have property right laws...

why should they land was common

 

[Wehrkraftzersetzer]

Not in the European sense of the term, because they believed the land was for everyone. That was the problem. White folk HAD to own the land for their own private purpose.

not really, there was common land in Europe too, especially the German Allmende

 

[diane]

You know they did not have the concept of Property rights...

We do now!

The old concept was we live here but you can use it when we're somewhere else, just pay us a fee. Wealth wasn't measured in gold or anything useless like that. My gggrandfather was a very, very rich man - he had six salt licks.

 

[rittmeister]

We stole no land just used unproductive land and made it productive... I ask the genocide of the North American Indian Tribes worth it for it gave birth to the United States of American. A nation that became the leader of the free world promoted democracy, free speech, human rights, capitalism and other sins some would say around the world. It gave birth to the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Gettysburg address and many other literary marvels. It gave birth to and explosion of scientific discoveries allowing us to put a man on the moon, internet, and so much more. We defended democracy and freedom in two great wars around the world, ending fascism and we saved the world from communism along the way too. I ask the genocide of the North American Indian Tribes worth it to save the mankind and the world...

... and gave donald j trump to the world - 'nuff said

 

[Jim Klag]

not really, there was common land in Europe too, especially the German Allmende

Most northern American towns had common land, too. The Boston Common is where Bostonians used to graze their sheep and cattle. The same use was made of the open land around the White House and the Mall. Central Park in NYC had a sheep meadow.

 

[diane]

Out west there were open range laws but only a couple states still have them, and some more still have them on the books. Mostly the land has to be leased from the government, which owns most of the formerly open range land in the West. The rancher is liable if his cows get through a fence or cause damage to another's property, or if they get into a roadway. They're particularly firm on that - as fast as people go on back roads, if they hit a half ton of cow it's them and him all over the place!