I was reminded that Friday (25 June) was the anniversary of the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
The battle site is one of the historical sites that I have managed to visit. It is not precisely easy to get to: get to Bozeman, Montana, and drive 5 hours east and then South. If you go in summer, it is hot and dry. Thankfully, the battlefield is far away from any nearby towns (it is a national cemetery, actually) and so in a great many respects remains similar to what the land was like 145 years ago.
The battle was a host of characters that have gone down in history: Sitting Bull, Chief of the Lakota; Crazy Horse, Battle Leader; Gall, a foster brother of Sitting Bull and Battle Leader; and the now-belongs-to-the-ages, George Custer.
The battle has come to resonate in my mind, not just because of what occurred, but because of what it represents: the last great victory of the Native Americans against the invading Americans. Of all the things I am least proud of in American history, how we treated the Indians is one of them. There could have been a wonderful synergy of civilizations. Instead we got war, destruction, and in a great many ways, the virtual extermination of a people. However, it also serves as an instructive event.
The ultimate message of the so-name "Indian Wars" is that an entity, the US Government, wanted a people that lived differently and had different beliefs and did not want to live according to the accepted government way to conform or be exterminated. To accomplish that, they were willing to starve, brutalize, and kill an entire population.
I remember this every day now, as I read of the current government willing to effectively demonize and dehumanize its opponents. To pretend a government is not about anything but compliance is to pretend that gravity does not function or the sun will not rise. And I find it noteworthy that those who decry such barbarity against Native Americans of the past so willingly speak that it needs to happen for their fellow citizens now.
Perhaps - and only perhaps - we who now exist have learned better.
Spare me. The Indians attacked white settlements and farms and treated any taken alive hideously. you had a clash of cultures so diametrically opposed no amount of negotiation could have bridged the gap. And they aren't anymore native than anybody else here. Their genome is a third European and two thirds Asian.
ReplyDeleteAlso your arrogant and (in the end) hapless nonsense about Armstrong (nobody ever called him George) is a good 40 years out of date
This is a great lesson for today. A government that doesn't want to pay for ammunition and shipping costs issues Springfield Trapdoor .45-70s. Another part of the government issues lever action .30-30 "for hunting" purposes. Seems to me that an armed group of natives could meet the government and prevail. Maybe a bad analogy but you get the point. The Army was defeated due to ego. Never underestimate an adversary. After retiring from the Army, I went with a group of friends that pack trained from Ft Abraham Lincoln in ND to the battlefield in MT. Approximately 450 miles and just over 3 weeks. What an experience. I think there's a tour company that does the trip now.
ReplyDeleteJim, another interesting and historical oddity is that Custer had three Gatling guns but left them behind due to the expected difficulty of the terrain and (I believe) the time he wanted to make to get there.
DeleteIt certainly was a wake up call and in a sense a Pyhrric victory for the assembled Sioux - Within a year, it was over and all were confined to reservations (except those that fled to Canada).
That sounds like an amazing trip. We had to drive from the West to get there, so the scenery was not quite as amazing undoubtedly as what you saw.
In point of fact, history does speak from time to time of the power of less well equipped to achieve victory in a battle. In some other cases, it may even be enough to win a war.
Edutcher - Thank you for taking the stop by and leave a comment.
ReplyDeleteWhile the use of Armstrong may be out of date, I will note that that such is implied in the 1892 description of Custer's Last Battle by E.S. Godfrey. Dated is not necessarily incorrect, (but duly noted and I have corrected).
In terms of hapless, and arrogance, I can only point to the fact that Custer was warned by his scouts that there was a significant assembly of the tribes there, more than anticipated. He chose to attack anyway. And the fact that the point of his attack, to destroy the women and children of the assembled tribes - in other words, not even traditional war, but total war. That, for me at least, will not raise a great deal of sympathy.
As to the nomenclature: at this point in my personal and work life, I have any number of friends from the country of India. I find helpful and clear to refer to people as I have indicated, although I suppose using the names of the tribes would also have been appropriate.
It was in fact a clash of cultures and events were as you say, but neither is completely fair to say it was a one sided event. The events occurred because of tensions caused by the continued breaking of the 1874 treaty by settlers and gold seekers for which the U.S. government (apparently) had the lack of will or inability to stop. One wonders if the US government had provided a greater cordon around the territory of the Sioux or had acted in a way similar to the moving of the Tribes onto reservations. The government could not have, of course - imagine the hue and cry if the U.S. Government had limited white settlers to a very specific section of territory and enforced it with guns.
I suppose I would simply argue that had things been done a different way, a great many people would not have had to die and perhaps - maybe - our history would have different. But governments tend to use force to impose their will on anything the seem to disagree with or not understand or appreciate.
I have been very close to that site but haven't made the stop yet. I should. I have read several books on it over the years both from Custer's and the Indian's points of view.
ReplyDeleteI try not to look back at things like how "Americans" treated the native population (or vice versa) through modern lenses. Yes by modern day standards some of the treatment was abhorrent, but by the standards of the day, it was readily acceptable. We as a society now enslave millions of cats and dogs for our amusement and perhaps 100 years from now, wearing different lenses, it will be seen as cruelty to those animals we call pets. I would hate to be judged badly by future civilizations with their future set of morals.
Ed, I would really recommend it. The interpretive center is very good (the movie they have has some celebrity voice overs) and they have a pretty awesome bookstore.
DeleteI think it is fair to use a comparative lens when looking back at history. At the same time, I think it can be fair to judge it by the standards that society held itself to. In this case (even more so than now), the US held itself to be at least a Christian Country in principle, if not always in fact. Based on that, did the US (in this particular instance) work within what it portrayed itself to be?
In point of fact, future civilizations will always judge previous civilizations. In most cases, I cannot think of examples where they judged them as "equal to or better" than their own.
LOL... I'd hardly consider my dogs and cats "enslaved!" Who feeds who? Who houses who? Who maintains whose health and wellbeing? Who bathes and grooms who? Who deals with whose poop? Truly, Cleopatra would be envious! Heck; I believe the Egyptians WORSHIPPED cats! And all we expect from our pets is for them to bark if strangers show up at the door, or keep the house free of mice. I'd say our pets have it pretty good!
DeleteAs for being Judged, who needs to wait for future generations? As a straight, white, Christian American male, I'm being judged, convicted, and sentenced by our present society for things neither I nor anyone in my entire family, present or past, ever did...
As for the indians, they WERE overrun. They WERE treated badly. They COULD HAVE fought back. Unfortunately, they were so busy fighting amongst themselves, they couldn't mount an effective opposition. Like mice on a sinking ship, the water was rising, and they were still squabbling over bits of bread and cheese. 'Sound familiar? In the end, the indians were outnumbered, outgunned, too disassociated, and were thus conquered. This was the way of the ENTIRE WORLD at the time...
As for "equal to or better than their own;" In previous generations, there were men and there were women. There was nothing in between. There was faith. There WASN'T Welfare. Oh; and "mass shootings" were pretty much unheard of, even though the families' firearms were right above the fireplace, sitting in a drawer, or leaning against the wall., WELL within reach of the kids... Indeed, we should be learning from our ENTIRE past; not just the parts that create conflict, do away with our liberties and freedoms, or garner "free stuff" and votes...
Attempting to look at it from a different lens, people have been known to tie ropes, chains and other things around our pets necks, including collars that shock or emit chemicals to control bug populations. Without their permission, we rip them open to destroy their ability to procreate. We kill them when we deem they are worn out and suffering. Some use them in games of chance and fights to the death. I have had pets in the past and love being around them but I think there is ample fodder for future generations to look badly upon this aspect of our lives and surely many more that don't readily come to me because I can't look through a future lens.
DeletePete - You have gleaned (in part) the point of my post. The fact that the government has acted this way in the past gives me no confidence they will not act this way in the future against people and cultures within their own boundaries.
DeleteEd - Thanks for the additional explanation. It took me a bit after your first post to understand what you were getting at.
DeleteWe as a society are now enslaved by millions of cats and dogs for their amusement.
ReplyDeleteFixed that for 'ya, Ed. Keith
Ed makes a good point in a way I had not thought of before - but in our case Keith, in fact Poppy and A (and the rabbits, for that matter) are in far more of a superior position to me than I am to them.
DeleteRemember ( Custer died for your sins )
ReplyDeleteApologies, I had to look this up. AIM is something I have very little knowledge of.
DeleteMy wife and I were driving Eastward from a Yellowstone visit and detoured up to visit the Little Bighorn National Site.
ReplyDeleteWell worth the trip.
An older and somewhat wiser me agrees with your thoughts on "what could have been."
John - We went to Yellowstone on a separate part of this trip. I am really glad you got to see both places.
DeleteFrom the very beginning at Plymouth, the Indians never had a chance. The entirety of the interaction between the Indian populations and the European settlers (and later Americans) played out as a clash of cultures. One the one side, an expanding, literate and industrialized culture versus a static (or shrinking) culture of Stone Age hunter-gatherers. The Americans were unified under a single government, the Indians were a loose collection of tribal groups at war with each other as much as against the White Man. In the long run, the outcome was inevitable.
ReplyDeleteCould it have been better? Of course. Treatment of the other (on both sides) was often devious, barbaric and dishonest. The Indians, however, never had enough power to force the American government to deal fairly. They resisted admirably. There were war chiefs who would easily have been standouts in a military college, there were leaders who would have made good politicians and diplomats given the education and opportunity. But there were not enough of them to tip the balance and force a fair treatment. In the end, every year there were more and more settlers and fewer Indians to oppose them.
The obvious thing that comes to mind in the conflict is the technological and manufacturing advantage that the settlers had. What is often overlooked is the power of literacy and recorded, transmissible knowledge. I think that was as big an advantage to the White Man as the hard tech was.
NM - That seems to be a fair assessment. I might think that purely from a practical point of view, the technology and continued flow of population were most important. Also, perhaps in some cases, people of good will made the agreements, but people of less good will carried them out.
DeleteEducational reading to follow on is "Red Clouds War" The Heart of everything that is.
ReplyDeletePre Big Horn by a decade when the Army was chased from the eastern side of the Big Horns. aka The Fetterman massacre.
Dakotared - Thank you for the reference. I am always looking for a book to read (to The Ravishing Mrs. TB's Despair, I think).
DeleteGlen - Acknowledgement that I received your response and did read it. You are correct that I can choose my view of the matter but not the facts.
ReplyDeleteI thought hard about posting it; and I see that it was a mistake. I'm sorry if I have offended... but challenge you to prove me wrong.
DeleteWe are square Glen, no worries. If I am guilty of anything, I can look at everything through a rather happy set of glasses.
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