-
Soros Funds Anti-‘Torture’ Report
May 17, 2013 | 113 comments
-
Transsexual Flights from Reality
May 3, 2013 | 91 comments
-
State Funerals and Christendom
April 23, 2013 | 12 comments
-
The Hero of Star Wars
April 19, 2013 | 45 comments
-
Margaret Thatcher the Methodist
April 9, 2013 | 38 comments
Special Report
Trendy Episcopalians and the Dakota War
Romanticizing a grisly time and some ugly atrocities.
Recently a blog for liberal Episcopalians commemorated the 150th anniversary of the 38 Dakota Indians hanged on December 26, 1862, on the orders of President Abraham Lincoln. Titled: “Remembering the martyrs of Mankato,” the blogger rued how these Indians were executed in Mankato, Minnesota, for their role in the Dakota War of 1862. Originally 303 were scheduled to hang. But Lincoln personally reviewed their cases and reduced the number by nearly 90 percent. On December 26, 2012, several hundred gathered in Mankato to dedicate a memorial to the 38 who were executed.
The liberal Episcopal blogger pondered the irony of Lincoln the Emancipator ordering these executions. Of course, the blogger did not acknowledge the horrific atrocities that prompted the hangings. Instead, he described the reverent crowd for the new monument. And he quoted an Episcopal priest and artist of tribal background named Robert Two Bulls who blogged in 2011 about his painting of Minnesota’s first Episcopal bishop, who had intervened for the condemned Dakota warriors with President Lincoln. The painting was part of a Minneapolis exhibit about the Indian response to the 150th anniversary of Minnesota’s statehood several years ago.
Rev. Two Bulls recalled that the 1862 hangings are still “painfully felt and remembered in my Dakota brothers’ and sisters’ hearts and minds.” And he lamented how executions in that era were often a “cheap form of entertainment.” He called the hanging of 38 men “still mind-boggling, frightening, and is probably a world-record.” Two Bulls wondered whether the weeping Episcopal bishop portrayed in his painting, Henry Benjamin Whipple, was “hero or villain” for persuading Lincoln to intervene but not rescuing all of the convicted from hanging. Rev. Two Bulls asked: “As a man of the cloth, should Bishop Whipple have lobbied harder with Lincoln to have all 303 sentences commuted?” Two Bulls also asserted that 37 of the 38 hanged were baptized in Christian churches, some Episcopalian. “And contrary to popular belief, as they walked to the gallows they sang a Christian hymn in the Dakota language and not a ‘death song,’” he recalled. “Might we now consider them to be Christian Martyrs and Saints?”
Looking towards the 2012 commemoration of the hangings, Rev. Two Bulls wrote that a “few of us in the clergy are beginning a process of reconciliation between both Native and non-Native peoples in Minnesota and in the Episcopal Church.” After all, “as Episcopalians we cannot sit back and do nothing, as it is part of our history that needs to be addressed and understood more clearly today.” And he concluded: “It is my vision, as both artist and priest, that only good things will emerge as we do this work of reconciliation together.”
The current Episcopal Bishop of Minnesota wrote a couple weeks ago of the 150th anniversary of the Mankato hangings. Citing the “guilt, many still feel, or the shame,” Bishop Brian Prior urged “honoring those who died — and remembering the place that our own US Government played in these deaths.” Like Rev. Two Bulls and the Episcopal blogger, the bishop declined to describe for what the condemned men were hanged, instead assuming they were not just hapless victims of a cruel U.S. Government but also seemingly “martyrs” who deserve “honoring.” In his blog, the bishop did not mention any victims of the Dakota warriors.
Dakota warriors began attacking Minnesota settlements in August 1862 as they resisted assimilation and suffered hardships. Payments that the U.S. Government owed the tribe according to treaty were late, thanks partly to the Civil War. The subsequent Dakota War, which started when Dakota warriors killed five Minnesota settlers, lasted a little more than a month. According to the Minnesota Historical Society website, more than 600 Minnesotans were killed by the Dakota, of whom just over 70 were soldiers and another 50 were armed civilians. “The others were unarmed civilians—mostly young men, women, and children who were recent immigrants to Minnesota.” An estimated 30 percent of the civilians were children aged ten and under.
The outrage from U.S. persons was of course intense. General John Pope, whom President Lincoln dispatched to Minnesota after Pope’s disaster at Second Bull Run, wrote: “The horrible massacres of women and children and the outrageous abuse of female prisoners, still alive, call for punishment beyond human power to inflict.” Pope, often intemperate in language, urged regarding the Dakota “maniacs or wild beasts, and by no means as people with whom treaties or compromises can be made.”
In November 1862, a military commission tried 392 Dakota warriors, awarding death sentences to 303 and prison terms to 16. Of about 6,500 Dakota in Minnesota, an estimated 1,000 participated in the war. President Lincoln later reviewed the cases and explained he was “anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak on one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other.” He agreed to the hanging of Dakota guilty of “violating females” or murdering civilians. His sparing so many Dakota warriors was hugely unpopular, prompting him to explain: “I could not afford to hang men for votes.”
The stories of Dakota atrocities during this conflict included this account: “The daughter of Mr. Schwandt, enceinte [pregnant], was cut open, as was learned afterward, the child taken alive from the mother, and nailed to a tree. The son of Mr. Schwandt, aged thirteen years, who had been beaten by the Indians, until dead, as was supposed, was present, and saw the entire tragedy. He saw the child taken alive from the body of his sister, Mrs. Waltz, and nailed to a tree in the yard. It struggled some time after the nails were driven through it! This occurred in the forenoon of Monday, 18th of August, 1862.”
Political correctness, religious and secular, seems to offer little to no sympathy for the mostly immigrant farmers whose families were debauched, tortured and massacred in late 1862. They had left Europe to risk everything on a distant and windswept frontier. And for the most part, they were not complicit in U.S. Government failures towards the Dakotas. Evidently liberal Episcopalians are only sympathetic to immigrants of 2012 but not of 1862.
As to calling the Dakota warriors hanged for atrocities “Christian martyrs and saints,” it’s not clear if this exaltation is based on a belief in their complete innocence of atrocities or justification for those crimes. If the hanged 38 Dakota did not murder and mutilate hundreds of civilians, then who did? Was any punishment appropriate? Would liberal Episcopalians defend as “martyrs” modern U.S. soldiers guilty of torturing and murdering pregnant women and children? Or does political correctness only excuse atrocities by indigenous people while demanding punishment for European-influenced cultures?
Ignoring atrocities against the victims of the Dakota War does no favors to history or the Dakota people. Liberal Episcopalians and other warriors for political correctness seem more interested in their own ideological crusades than genuine reconciliation or remembrance.
About the Author
Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C. and author of Methodism and Politics in the Twentieth Century. You can follow him on Twitter @markdtooley.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (153) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Mark Tooley
More Articles From Special Report
http://spectator.org/archives/2013/01/11/trendy-episcopalians-and-the-d
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
Appleby| 1.11.13 @ 6:46AM
The Episcopal church is rapidly turning Canadian and has now reached the stage where the Indians can do no wrong. Wait until it gets to the part where the police are commanded to stand idly by and do nothing as the Indians rampage through a community of law-abiding citizens. You can google "Caledonia First Nations" if you want the details.
TLP| 1.11.13 @ 9:48AM
What is it with some people?
This was 150 Years ago. Get over it. This is an entirely different wold, now. Hell, now the Indians are selling US the Firewater, and Stealing OUR Wampum, at their Heap Big Casinos.
We're still hearing from "Black Leaders" about Slavery. SHUT UP! Everybody has been Sold into Bondage, somewhere along the Historical Timeline.
GET OVER IT!
The Indians lost their Land. I get it. Those were different times. Everybody has Lost their Land - again - somewhere along the Historical Timeline.
It's time to Shutthehellup@dosomethingwithyourlivesandMoveon.com/
And, you Episcopalians.
Enough with all the Gay Stuff, already.
Midlandr| 1.31.13 @ 2:56PM
Thanks, I did "google" and read about it.
Jack in Wi| 1.11.13 @ 7:08AM
How many indians were massacred by the whites over the century's? I remember reading in Catholic school about Father Desmet, the apostle to the indians and how he tried to save these indians as well. Lincoln hung a lot of northern soldiers over the course of the war. Many southern civilians were killled in northern war crimes. He put thousands in prison, leveled the South, and closed up hundreds, of newspapers who disagreed with him. He also imprisoned their editors and thuosands more dissenters, without indictment or trial. He threatened the Chief Justice with arrest for doing his Constitutional duty. He gave us the first draft and income tax. He was a tyrant who destroyed the old Republic. He made up the law as he went along. He was the inspiration of guys like Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR. Truman, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, the Bushes, and of course Obama. The Presidency has gone from a very limited Constutional office to a Fuherer type leader. Is it any wonder the liberals and Neocons love Lincoln? When Obama starts grabbing your guns and using drones on you, if you resist, remember it was Lincoln who started it all. In my opinion this country would have been far better places, if the right to peacefully seceede had been implimented. The South would of had to solve it's race problems like Brazil, Spanish America, the Carribean, and South Africa. In other words mostly peacefully. Lincoln set the stage for the leviathon we have now.
Jack in Wi| 1.11.13 @ 7:15AM
Because of Lincoln we may have to fight a far worse civil war in the future if we are to retain any kind of local control and freedom. Lincoln like Julius Caesar was the destroyer of the old Republic and giving us the idea of the indespensible leader. When you look at the tyrant Obama remember the tyrant Lincoln. In my opinion, this country would have been a far better place if Steven Douglas won the election of 1860.
Jack in Wi| 1.11.13 @ 7:37AM
I just read the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia account of Father De Smet. He truely was an extemely remarkable man and a great apostle to the indian people. He worked with many tribes from Iowa to the Northwest coast. The government called on him many times to resolve disputes with the various tribes. The indian tribes themselves called on him as a mediator in their tribal disputes. His story is one of the most remarkable frontier stories I have ever read. No wonder I remember him from my grade school readings. He did try to save these indians and he had a lot more pull with both the indians and government then the Episcopal bishop.
TLP| 1.11.13 @ 9:51AM
Ya know, that's really weird, Jack, cause I was just talking to somebody about smegma. Is that the word I'm lookin for?
Is that the same as De Smet?
Jack in Wi| 1.11.13 @ 10:53AM
TLP is a typical 5th columnist, disrupter of a foreign conspiracy. Notice how he uses nonsense and disgusting sexual language to disrupt the forum in most everything he puts up. Remember the USS Liberty. Demand justice for them. Our government sold them out to a disgusting criminal regime. Pray for Peace and an end to abortion. Praise be Jesus Christ my Lord God and Savior.
CJW| 1.11.13 @ 4:34PM
Jackie,
You really do enjoy arguments about Israel, right? Need your daily fix.
Your prayers for peace and end to abortion would be more credible if you drop the hate Israel routine.
Israel is not going away. It is the only democratic free country in the ME, and is a much more reliable ally than any Arab-Muslim country that you favor.
Jack in Wi| 1.12.13 @ 2:50AM
I didn't bring up Israel today in any ot my comments until provoked by you Fifth Columnists. I talked about the topic, the brutal execution of the Indians in Minnesota. Both sides committed atrocities. There was the Black Hawk war here in Wi. where over a thousand indians mostly women and children were massacred as they tried to flee at the Battle of Bad Axe. It is a site near the Mississipi in Western Wi. I have been there. Western Wi. is a very beautiful area. Lincoln was involved in the war but not the killing of those people. Almost all treaties with the indians were broken. I advise everyone to read about Fathe De Smet. It is a remarkable story of heroism and an attempt to bring peace to both the indians an whites. He also tried to bring intertribal peace to the various tribes.
Amillennialist | 1.16.13 @ 5:27PM
Because of our shared culture and common enemy, Israel and the United States are natural allies.
Bill8472| 1.11.13 @ 11:19AM
You had a conversation with another person about smegma? That's a bit odd in a TMI kind of way.
Occam's Tool| 1.11.13 @ 7:43PM
Bill: there are a number of MDs who post on this site.
But read more of Cheesehead Jack's comments, and you will understand more about why TLP would have a discussion with another person about smegma.
Occam's Tool| 1.11.13 @ 7:43PM
By the way, Bill---love your posts.
Bill8472| 1.11.13 @ 10:29PM
Thanks, kind of you to say so. I take note of your posts, too.
TLP| 1.13.13 @ 9:41AM
Get a Room!
Occam's Tool| 1.11.13 @ 7:17PM
De Smet was where "Little House on the Prairie" was set in reality. "Over the centuries," Jack. That's not even a typo. Where do you get to the USS Liberty from this?
Native American culture pre-white was NOT idyllic. Anything but.
Episcopalians, like most liberal "Christian" denominations, are dying out. I prefer whatever denomination Dr. Right belongs to.
And TLP is correct in noting that "smegma" precisely describes Jack's arguments. Further, he is hard to read because he is so damn illiterate.
Finally, Jack, I'm the Native American expert here, son, not you. Further, I treat Native Americans from the Chippewa tribe, three bands of them. Fairly close to the Dakota border.
Amillennialist | 1.16.13 @ 5:26PM
Claiming that a pro-slavery racist would be better for the country is immoral and deranged.
Ryan| 1.11.13 @ 9:06AM
Lincoln wasn't the saint we were led to believe, but you're not including the whole story. The motivations and culture then were radically different. The problem I am finding with a lot of Lincoln critics is the inability to put his actions in context.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 9:26AM
Lincoln was obviously the right man for the right time, the opinions of anti-semites, neo-nazis, and anarchists notwithstanding.
Miles Glorious| 1.11.13 @ 9:39AM
I quess Judah Benjamin was a anti-semite and a neo-nazi.
Quartermaster| 1.11.13 @ 9:51AM
You have to condition everything that Crisler, TLP, The Tool, and "the Saint" say by the fact they are Fascistic faux conservatives. If you dare disagree with those morons then you are all those words Crisler uses above that he has utterly no idea of what they mean. They are simply what knee jerk leftists use on anyone winning the argument.
TLP| 1.11.13 @ 10:15AM
Wow.
Will ya look at all the $5 Words.
Fascist faux conservatives. Fascist? Really?
How very Unsophisticated. Don't you know that only Fascists, call other people - Fascist.
But of course you do. You're an Intellectual. You're the Indespencible Man.
As I recall, it's YOU that wants to BAN PEOPLE that you don't like. People with Spelling Deficiencies. People who use too many ,,,,,s. People who make whatever hair you've got left, stand up on the back of you pompous neck.
Quartermaster wants to take us back to the days of yore, when Conservatives were as rare as an Interracial Couple, and the Republicans minded their manners and kept their mouths shut, if they wanted to be invited to one of the Good Parties.
A time when there was ZERO OPPOSITION to the Big Three "News" Channels. When that Leftist Puke - Cronkite - said: "And that's the way it is", he was right. That WAS the way it was. There was no Opposition to the Liberal Spin, and Quartermaster close his eyes and touch himself, as Connie Francis played on the Victrola.
What a Guy.
CJW| 1.11.13 @ 4:37PM
Tim
QM once wrote here that he was upset about church burnings, EVEN if they were Catholic churches. Enough said.
Rhoetus| 1.13.13 @ 4:20PM
Only imbeciles and naive fools trusted Walter Cronkite. And that's great writing TLP!
Occam's Tool| 1.11.13 @ 7:20PM
QM: do you know the difference between logistics and logic? I mean, you seem to have no clue about logic.
Miles: Lincoln slapped down US Grant for his antisemitic order, immediately. Interestingly enough, in later life Grant was quite philosemitic.
Judah Benjamin is not the guy I would claim as an example of best Jewish morality.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 10:15AM
Benjamin was a Confederate. I was referring to current anarcho-Paulistas, neo-nazis, anti-semites, you know those who regularly use the term "zionist" or "neo-conservative" or constantly insult Jews and wish for the destruction of Israel. Does that include you?
Jack in Wi| 1.11.13 @ 10:41AM
Chisler: Lincoln was a hero to people you love like Marx and Trotsky. You are nothing but a Fifth columnist for a criminal regime. Why were most of the Soviet agents from your tribe.? You belong in the same place as your pal Jonathon Pollard. I am a real pro-life conservative. You will notice that I made no mention of Chisler's homeland. Yet this flunky of tyranny starts the name calling. Pray and work for Peace and the end of abortion. Praise be Jesus Christ my Lord God and Savior.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 11:40AM
Marx & Trotsky were anarchists like you. Withering away of the state and all that. Lincoln rejected anarchism.
I certainly hope those who claim the name of Christ aren't as much of a hater and anti-semite as you are.
Amillennialist | 1.16.13 @ 5:37PM
No Christian can be an anti-Semite:
Jesus is the King of the Jews, the Messiah promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;
The Apostles were all Jewish;
The first Christians were nearly all Jews;
The entire Bible is Hebrew/Jewish;
Much of traditional Christian worship comes from Jewish tradition.
Saints Paul and Peter refer to Christians in terms associated traditionally with Israel.
RCV| 1.11.13 @ 7:00PM
Your Lord and Savior was from that same tribe, too, you moron.
Seek| 1.11.13 @ 1:43PM
And Thomas DiLorenzo notwithstanding.
irish19| 1.12.13 @ 11:55PM
Okay, you lost me with that reference.
Occam's Tool| 1.13.13 @ 7:55PM
Thomas DiLorenzo: historian of questionable intelligence but definite judenhass, seek.
RCV| 1.11.13 @ 11:56AM
Abraham Lincoln was a great, great man, a giant of American history. Jack is a little tiny anti-semetic piece of ...smegma. (Thanks TLP for pulling the right word out that I was looking for.)
Jack in Wi| 1.11.13 @ 1:40PM
You guys with chopped weiners sure seem to have smegma on your brains. Maybe you want to suck on a whole weiner for once. The Fifth Column here are quite religious. They don't go to the gay bars until after sundown on Saturday night. I am done here for this weekend. Pray for peace and sanity to return to this forum.
Occam's Tool| 1.11.13 @ 7:24PM
You are uncircumsized, Jack? That makes you more at risk for HIV, you know, from sex. Hmmm....explains a lot. 10% of those with HIV present with dementia as their initial symptom of AIDS, you know.
You see, I like RCV. I can argue with the guy, and I don't agree with him all that often, but he comes from a place of decency. Jack is off in a little place of Smegma all his own. (By the way, the best clothes dryer in New Zealand was from a company called SMEG, and it WAS a piece of smeg.)
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 11:27PM
Hah, you are funny OT. Also, I agree with you about RCV, even though we don't agree with him on many issues.
Occam's Tool| 1.13.13 @ 7:56PM
Jack: the 49ers fudge-Packed the Packers this weekend.
Dai Alanye | 1.13.13 @ 12:47PM
Without Lincoln the land we now inhabit would resemble the Balkans, full of competing minor nations--because the principle of secession, once started, would never cease. What kind of fool would prefer that?
Amillennialist | 1.16.13 @ 5:43PM
Liberty is preferable to coercion.
I am not convinced that President Lincoln intended to use force to reunite the Republic (despite what a current Supreme Court justice whom I respect might claim); his use of force initially was in response to an act of war by the Confederacy.
If the Union was entered into voluntarily by the States in order to protect their Liberty, then how can they have surrendered their Liberty in doing so?
How is the Constitution a suicide pact?
Rhoetus| 1.13.13 @ 5:10PM
I think that there would have been a civil war regardless of who became President in 1861. The tyrants in government would have seen to it. Do you think that the shelling of Fort Sumter would have been avoided and if not that the Union would not have responded?
Mike Giles| 1.13.13 @ 6:45PM
Sigh. If the South doesn't like the way it turned out the they shouldn't have fired first. I'm also sick and tired of the South being portrayed as some stalwarts for States Rights. The South had controlled the Federal government from the start of the Republic to the beginning of the Civil War; and were happy to use Federal power when it served their purposes. Witness the Annexation of Texas, the Mexican American War, Fugitive Slave Act and Dred Scott. In any case, Lincolns Civil War measures ended with the war and are in no way connected with our current situation. That's the doing of Southerner Woodrow Wilson and Southern supported FDR. And it was Lincoln's Constitutional duty to suppress rebellion. If the South had wanted to leave, they should have done like the New England states had attempted to do during the War of 1812 - ask for an amendment.
Amillennialist | 1.16.13 @ 5:48PM
Secession is not rebellion.
"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccesful rebellions indeed generally establish the incroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medecine necessary for the sound health of government." - Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, Paris, January 30, 1787
Midlandr| 1.31.13 @ 3:01PM
Correct. Secession is also NOT in violation of the US Constitution either. We also did NOT fight a civil war, it was either a war of Northern Agression or a War Between the States, "we" (Southerners) didn't fight over who was going to control Washington DC (i.e. the Federal Government), we fought against an unjust invasion.
Amillennialist | 1.16.13 @ 5:48PM
Secession is not rebellion.
"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccesful rebellions indeed generally establish the incroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medecine necessary for the sound health of government." - Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, Paris, January 30, 1787
Amillennialist | 1.16.13 @ 5:57PM
(Don't know how that happened. Anyway . . .)
Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem!
Midlandr| 1.31.13 @ 2:59PM
South Carolina fired upon an invading vessel which entered its sovereign waters. South Carolina ordered the US Federal troops to leave, they refused to do so. Self defense. I'm tired of damnyankees thinking they know Squat when the do no know Jack.
Midlandr| 1.31.13 @ 2:57PM
Yep, he destroyed the "union" and invaded a sovereign nation.
Gary B| 1.11.13 @ 7:08AM
The Episcopal Church has had a marketing problem for a long time. They tried to become more Catholic, calling their priests "father" and stuff like that. Reaching out to gays is another tactic. All the stuff desperate organizations do. Perhaps they're becoming irrelevant.
Virtue| 1.11.13 @ 7:30AM
The episcopal church - now merely a shill for the looney left - would probably respond that these settlers got what they deserved for bespotting the peaceful natives in their sylvan glade....
Brubaker| 1.11.13 @ 9:53AM
Bingo!
Midlandr| 1.31.13 @ 3:02PM
Yep.
c. j. acworth| 1.11.13 @ 8:22AM
Sounds like those settlers could've used a few assault rifles.
With hi-cap magazines, of course.
Louis Jenkins| 1.11.13 @ 8:45AM
Dear acworth:
Yes they could have. But most likely they were armed with weapons comparable to what the US Federal forces were using (muzzle loaders, rifle and smooth bore, maybe a few Colt black powder). Remember, when Biden's committee is through with gun ownership those weapons will be back to pre-civil war types, and the Indians, they'll have a field day too, whether crimminals or offical ATF officers they're the ones who will have the fire power. There will be no hanging for them because they rid society of the "evil" gun owners.
c. j. acworth| 1.11.13 @ 10:41AM
Remember the photo of that Injun' at Wounded Knee? With the AK-47?
Louis Jenkins| 1.11.13 @ 3:13PM
Yes sir, I do. He was skylighted if I remember correctly. One day in the not to distant future we too may appear that way, with bodies piled up to our knees, and more of the libs attacking, slashing, and burning.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 1.11.13 @ 8:43AM
From the infernal regions, Adam Lanza hangs his head in shame.
If only he had killed children of a demographic different than his own, he perhaps could be considered a martyr in another century or so.
Gra| 1.11.13 @ 8:57AM
Jack of MI is correct about Lincoln. His legacy is a sham. If our history was taught with any reality perhaps our younger population would have a better appreciation for the liberty that has been lost over the years.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 9:25AM
There is a lot of mythology out there about Indians. Not all the tribes were monolithic and not all were hostile. On the other hand many tribes were stirred up by European powers against settlers in America, leading to atrocities.
Liberals are quick to condemn occasional white atrocities against Indians, but turn a blind eye to Indian atrocities against whites. Admission of this fact would foul up their narrative of evil white men who need to fork over huge amounts of money to "victim" classes.
Quartermaster| 1.11.13 @ 9:55AM
Most of the time those atrocities were in reaction to the fact that whites encroached on lands the FedGov has reserved to the tribes by treaty. FedGov then would shirk their responsibilities under the treaty and you get what happened in Minnesota. FedGov would then mount punative expeditions against the Indians whose grievance were ignored, but, we have to put those Indians in their place.
The whites were far from righteous in this, and other matters.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 10:10AM
Much of it was a reaction to government subsidized railroads crossing Indian lands. However, that does not excuse Indian butchery of children and women, or non-combatant men.
spike59| 1.15.13 @ 5:58AM
much of the tales of 'Indian butchery of children and women' are just that: tales...much like the stories about babies being taken off respirators in Kuwait
RCV| 1.11.13 @ 12:01PM
Mr. Crisler: You are absolutely right that there was diversity among Indian tribes, and that many, many atrocities were committed by Native Americans, both against each other in vicious, brutal wars, and against settlers, men, women and children.
It's a stretch, however, to refer to "ocassional white atrocities against Indians." Such a term minimizes the very many injustices against Native American tribes in the expansion of our nation. We don't need to make saints out of Indians to acknowledge those injustices.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 1:44PM
I was thinking of Wounded Knee, which is the one constantly invoked (because it was so rare). There were a number of atrocities committed by whites, but it is hard to quantify the number, and the tally is affected by how one defines an atrocity.
I stand by my comment: Despite occasional atrocities, whites did not make it a regular practice of killing Indian women and children. That cannot be said of Indians. Up until the 1890s those living out west weren't the nice people we know today, not by a long shot.
nathan| 1.11.13 @ 3:01PM
Try Sand Creek. It was worse and no they weren't so rare. What should appall you is the tribe that tried to escape to Canada where they were treated so much better. The army knew they were going to Canada were "emigrating out" posed no threat to any "white people" and yet pursued them EVERY FOOT OF THE WAY and killed most of them. Why? They were bothering no one.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 3:19PM
That's two. I have yet to see any evidence that whites killed women and children as a regular method of warfare, unlike Indians.
RCV| 1.11.13 @ 7:01PM
You just need to do a little reading, Vern, if you really believe that. The catalog of atrocities on both sides is long and grisly.
Occam's Tool| 1.11.13 @ 7:27PM
Yes, RCV, it was. But the point remains that Constitutional government is a better form of Governance, and Western Culture a better culture, than the Native American governance and Culture.
Even today Tribal governments are as corrupt as hell.
spike59| 1.15.13 @ 6:05AM
Western Culture a better culture, than the Native American governance and Culture.
=================================
OC, the fact that you're offering your opinion as some sort of subjective fact aside, we are entitled to impose our culture exactly WHY???????????????
------------------------------------------------------
Even today Tribal governments are as corrupt as hell.
==============================
name a Tribal government that OUR government hasn't corrupted....and try telling me OUR government ISN'T corrupt as hell...
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 11:30PM
Ok, fire away RCV; let's see the catalog of white atrocities (murder of women and children) against Indians (excluding Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, or forced marches by Andrew Jackson).
RCV| 1.12.13 @ 2:46PM
Ha - that's like asking for a list of Nazi atrocities, excluding the holocaust.
I shall get to my library and get you a short but sad list, Vern.
And Occam, you are absolutely right about the superiority of Western culture and governance, at least from my perspective. That surely wasn't the point I was taking issue with.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.13.13 @ 1:50PM
If it's a "short" list, then we are already in agreement. BTW, the comparison with the holocaust is absurd.
RCV| 1.13.13 @ 1:51PM
Mr. Crisler: Listed below are a very small sample of massacres of Native American women and children, by white Americans, all well-documented historical events, the sources for which I would he happy to provide if you want.
1. The slaughter of an entire village of Pequot Indians, mostly women and children, on May 26, 1637, by English settlers under Capt. John Mason.
2. The massacre of 120 Lenape Indians, including women and children, by Dutch settlers led by Willem Kleft on February 25, 1643 (the "Pavonia Massacre").
3. The scalping and killing of almost 100 Delaware Indians -- 28 men, 29 women and 39 children -- by American colonial militia on March 8, 1782 at Gnadenlutten, Ohio (the "Moravian massacre").
RCV| 1.13.13 @ 1:58PM
4. The Bridge Gulch Massacre in which 150 Wintu villagers were killed by a posse led b Trinity County Sheriff on April 23, 1852.
5. The Bloody Island Massacre on May 15, 1850 at Clear Lake, California in which about 100 Pomo Indians, mostly old men, women and children were slaughtered by whites.
6. The slaughter of hundreds of Shoshone villagers, including women and children at Bear River in Washington Territory by the 2nd Regiment California Volunteer Cavalry on January 29, 1863.
RCV| 1.13.13 @ 2:03PM
7. The killing of hundreds of Kiowa villagers on Sept 26, 1874 at Palo Duvo by Mackenzie's Raiders.
8. The slaughter of all villagers, including women and children, by 140 Tucson residents led by famed "Indian Fighter" William S. Oury, on April 28, 1870, an incident President Grant called "purely murder" at the time.
RCV| 1.13.13 @ 2:10PM
9. The killing of 20 women and children and numerous male Navajos at Fort Fauntleroy by US Soldiers in the Spring of 1858.
10. The raid on Aug 17, 1846 of a Klamath Indian village in which scores of women and children villagers were slaughtered by a force led by John C Fremont and Kit Carson at Klamath Lake, California, in retribution for the murder of 3 American soldiers by Indian warriors.
The list is "short" only because there's no point in going on and on. If you really believe there isn't much history of white atrocities against Native Americans. -- and, I emphasize, vice versa -- there's a lot of fascinating American history for you to catch up on.
Happy New Year, my friend!
Rhoetus| 1.13.13 @ 4:26PM
I'm only responsible for my own sins and not those of my father or my country's forefathers. I don't support the NCC or the WCC or the United Nations or even the Obama Administration.
RCV| 1.13.13 @ 6:20PM
Of course you aren't. At the same time, denying reality does make the historical facts any less true.
Occam's Tool| 1.13.13 @ 7:59PM
I know, RCV.
It is important to realize that most of civilized history consists of shades of grey, or shades of Black, moreover.
It is also important to recognize the beams of light that come through, too. It would be an awful thing if the United States were not dominant, unified, and whole upon the middle portion of the north American continent.
RCV| 1.14.13 @ 12:01PM
No argument from me on that point, Occam.
Hardcard| 1.11.13 @ 9:39AM
Is that the same tribe that elizebeth two tongues, pow-wowed at smokem' much gonja there with paleface episcopal sister priests, and sister bishops? little running flucke smokem' and party free around campfire with very big elk horn, they all take many turns with elk horn.
Pecos Pete| 1.11.13 @ 10:24AM
Hardcard, stop it! My keyboard runneth over with coffee.
Stuart Koehl| 1.11.13 @ 10:10AM
Lo, the poor Indian!
Of course, the Indians never hanged their prisoners, mainly because they seldom took any. But those they did were often systematically subjected to torture before grisly execution, unless they were "lucky" enough to be adopted into a tribe as a replacement for some warrior killed by the White Eyes.
Pecos Pete| 1.11.13 @ 10:24AM
Let's also ignore their tendency to own slaves.
Occam's Tool| 1.11.13 @ 7:37PM
Stuart, when you get a chance, could you tell me a good biography on Skanderbeg?
cicero| 1.11.13 @ 10:57AM
The problem we have been having with this whole narrative is that we have been getting our history from Hollywood, and a revisionist school system. There is plenty of good stuff out there that, if read, can put the puzzle together. At the time of contact, there were between 1 and 8 million indians on the north American continent. They had been warring with one another for millenia, and their culture (basically stone age) was on the decline, as was their population.
While there was a segment of the white population that thought "only a dead indian is a good indian", there was likewise a segment of the indian population that considered only "a dead white was a good white".
The indian culture, to a large extent., was based on raiding the other tribes' camps and gathering in his stuff, and the slave trade. This did not change just because the white man arrived.
I suggest "Empire of the Summer Moon", detailing the history of the Comanche nation. There is a lot of recent good stuff that gives a picture of the times and the peoples. "Prince Phillips War" is another good readd. Sorry that I don't have the authors at hand.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 11:42AM
How do you know there were 1 to 8 million Indians at the time of contact? Just curious.
Frekki| 1.11.13 @ 2:42PM
Counted 'em.
mike 3/505| 1.12.13 @ 12:44PM
Chuck Noriss counted to infinity...twice.
Occam's Tool| 1.11.13 @ 7:29PM
One can estimate from archeological digs, extrapolate from standard distance of settlements, and hell---count privies in the ruins to get an idea, Mr. Crisler.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 11:32PM
IOW, no one really knows. The official government estimate was around 500,000, but modern scholars don't like this number because it's too low to fit their preferred narrative of millions of Indians dying at the hands of white diseases.
nathan| 1.11.13 @ 3:05PM
You may be right but conceding all you say, it's still THEIR land folks. The Iroquios and others just needed better ways of dealing with those pesky illegals that brought all those ghastly diseases with them. We complain about the illegals flooding across our borders. How do you think THEY felt.
Occam's Tool| 1.11.13 @ 7:29PM
Nathan, why do you live in America? You have no right to the land, you know. How do you LIVE with yourself.
Bill8472| 1.11.13 @ 11:03PM
Nathan might be wondering, as I do, just what country he would return to; if he's like most Americans, his bloodline may well be mixed with several different national heritages.
Bill8472| 1.11.13 @ 11:17AM
The Sioux sang a Christian song instead of "death songs?" Well, I understand that among the Sioux, your death song was something that the individual person made up, and was personal to him. It would have been a bit discordant for so many condemned Sioux to be all singing their individual death songs.
But my real question is this: does it make any sense of any kind, in any rational system of thought, to be considered a Christian martyr or saint just because you sang a Christian song as you marched to the gallows? Doesn't it take a little more than that?
And were the condemned Indians even Christian at all? Were they baptized?
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 11:44AM
Also another question: Aren't Christians subject to capital punishment if they murder? It matters little in the eyes of the law whether they were "Christian" or not when they murdered children.
nathan| 1.11.13 @ 3:09PM
Probably but capital punishment has a major problem then and now. Too many innocent people get executed. How many is too many for capital punishment advocates? One is too many if it's your son/brother/father/daughter. Take the white cop put in prison for killing his wife. Everyone thought he ABSOLUTELY DID IT. Small problem. They were wrong. If he had been executed in say 2/3/4 years they kill the wrong man. (It took 10 years to exonerate him.)
Life imprisonment is better.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 3:19PM
There's no such thing as perfect justice.
Occam's Tool| 1.11.13 @ 7:32PM
I agree, Mr. Crisler, but I have dealt with too many Judges and Lawyers to want the Death Penalty in any but obvious cases (Arizona, Colorado, and Fort Hood would count.).
Otherwise, I don't trust attorneys (RCV, Anthony, Big E excepted) to be able to pour piss out of their boots properly.
nathan| 1.11.13 @ 10:38PM
Gentlemen: Mr. Crisler says "There's no such thing as perfect justice." We agree on something. Therefore we cannot continue to execute anyone in this country for any reason period. Sorry. Again, look at the Chicago 9. They "confessed" to the murder(s). But that was obtained through the domestic equivalent of "enhanced" interrogation. They weren't guilty. Look at the white cop. He positively absolutely was guilty. Except he wasn't. "Infallible" fingerprint evidence? At least 50 people have been convicted on fingerprints, several ending up on death row, except they weren't guilty. For even those cases where we're absolutely positvely totally 100 percent who are you kidding 100 people saw him kill the people he was caught on video he confessed, the DNA confirms it . . . whew let me catch my breath . . . it's not worth it.
From a Christian perspective we have outreach ministries that go into prisons. As long as these people are alive they have a chance of accepting Christ and making it home. We should give them that chance. (And yes, they should get that chance. God see all sinners before they accept Christ as equal in His sight and all bound for hell. He doesn't make distinctions like humans do.)
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 11:37PM
If we follow your logic, we shouldn't punish anyone for anything, for the simple reason that we can't guarantee they are guilty.
The Bible is clear: anyone who murders shall have his own blood shed.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 11:37PM
That was for Nathan.
Occam's Tool| 1.13.13 @ 8:02PM
And I agree in the Death Penalty when the evidence is overwhelming: Arizona and Aurora massaces come to mind, as well as Fort Hood.
But Nathan engages in tedious pilpul that does not have a 1:1 correspondence with reality. Nonetheless, he's more fun to argue with than Jack.
By the way, the correct translation of the Biblical phrase is "Thou shalt not Murder."
arlo price| 1.12.13 @ 10:00PM
Thou Shalt NOT Kill
dominic1955| 1.11.13 @ 12:34PM
Episcopalians are just leftists who play "church", they have made irony redundant. Blurt out the craziest batsh!t idea (ordaining dogs, for instance) and the Epos either have done it or will do it in the near future. They are a complete joke, or would be if they were actually funny. Mrs. Schori and the rest of her Gaystapo Episcopal organization at 815 are anything but Christian and haven't been for some time.
If I could convince them of the injustice committed by a patriarchal, homophobic, racist, greedy, oligarical society against the descendents of the offspring of the Moon people and Big Foot, they'd go and do sand paintings, and centering prayer, and enneagrams, and whatever else to "atone" for the atrocities commited against this peaceful race who only wanted to drive Subarus, eat organic tofu, drink organic coconut milk and show their love in alternate-orifice ways. Gaia, show us the way to happiness and spirit-rising oneness with the noosphere.
Norman Conquest| 1.11.13 @ 1:09PM
Anyone born in the United State is, by definition, a native American. Calling aboriginals "natives" is as absurd as calling American blacks "African-Americans". Both of these inane locutions are just further examples of pathetic white liberal guilt.
Bill8472| 1.11.13 @ 10:32PM
Well said. Thank you.
arlo price| 1.12.13 @ 10:08PM
If you're sired by a Kenyan and born of a Kansan wouldn't that make you an African-American??
Midlandr| 1.31.13 @ 2:53PM
Yes, BUT, more accurately a Kenyan American if you like to hyphenate. I prefer the term illegal alien.
cicero| 1.11.13 @ 2:00PM
C Vern = There was a book published about 10 years ago out of the U of Colorado. It was supposed to the first of a series on the history of the native American. It was titled "The Long Winter's Count", I believe. It covered the period from pre-history until Lewis & Clark. There have been several others written recently dealing pretty well with the same subject, in the last 15 years or so. I have read that particular stat more than once. The indiginous population from the Asteca south were much more populous, but were also in a constant state of war. That was how Cortes and the Spozaro brothers, with their roving band of thugs were able to do so much with so little. The beaten tribes lined up with the Spaniards to overthrow those who just conquered them. Out of the frying pan . . .
There is also a series about the Indian wars after 1867 to 1892, that is a compilation of articles and writings by both soldiers, newspaper reporters, and the indians on the scene, that make good reading. Gives a perspective a bit different than our Hollywood take.
Recently read a new biagraphy on Champlain - again, different insights relative to the Huron/Iroquois matter. Finally, just read a book about a fellow that posits that the Chinese established a way station on Prince Edwards Island in the early 1400's. The Chinese mixed with the Micmac tribe when their home country apparently abandoned them.
nathan| 1.11.13 @ 2:24PM
I hate to do this but . . .
Lincoln first. The 1866 Supreme Court finally ruled on his actions in prosecuting the war. I believe the following the be part of the ruling:
"The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, EQUALLY IN WAR AND PEACE, [emphasis mine] and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times under all circumstaces." They continued: "No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that of any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism . . . "
Basically they said, you, the president/government have to play by the rules war or no war. (TLP the rest of you pay attention.) Madison had warned about things like this "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." (Like maybe the war on terror?) Sooo they weren't buying HIS "good intentions" when he threw people in jail without court oversight etc. (As we see nothing new here, right?) Great man? Probably not based on this ruling.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 3:23PM
It was an insurrection, not a conventional war (US vs. foreign power); and if not for Lincoln, the Supreme Court would not have been able to sit in its self-righteousness self-complacency and condemn Lincoln's actions.
nathan| 1.11.13 @ 3:39PM
I'm sorry, didn't like the Madison quote either? How about another? "Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other." I can quote Madison a few more times on this subject if you like? Should I? And if it wasn't a "foreign" fight it sure looked like it? That duck quacked really loud back then. Lincoln treated the south like a foreign power. The blockade is something you don't do against yourself? And the British and French noted that. Or am I missing something here? But if you want to make the "good intentions" argument here like everyone else does for all the excesses of people like Lincoln and Bush and Reagan (the contras) then please don't be surprised when people like BHO do the same for their good intentions. No folks the SCOTUS of 1866 was right no one is above the law FOR ANY REASON.
TLP| 1.11.13 @ 4:42PM
So, why wasn't Bill Clinton thrown out of Office?
Occam's Tool| 1.11.13 @ 7:40PM
He messed up on "the blockade." Should have used the term "quarantine."
Lincoln saved this country and the feasibility of Republican self-government. I can write this knowing that a Liberal like RCV and an excellent Conservative like Mr. Crisler will agree.
Nathan, Lincoln had a comment about emetics that summed this up. The War Power of the President is pretty damn strong in areas that involve war. That SCOTUS decision was an anomaly.
nathan| 1.11.13 @ 10:51PM
Hey he used the term blockade not me sir.
Again all you're doing is a "good intentions" exercise here. You like his "good intentions" you liked Bush's, you liked Reagan with regards to the contras (blatantly illegal but who cares right?) and so give them a pass because all these guys are breaking the law ignoring the Constitution, violating their oaths to do things YOU approve of. But now Obama comes along with a whole bunch of HIS good intentions, in his mind and in the minds of people like you on the other side just as valid, and suddenly you and others here are screaming PLAY BY THE RULES! You suddenly insist on absolute line for line obedience to that document that in the previous administration you and others here were silent when YOUR guy was trashing it.
But it doesn't work that way. Basically that SCOTUS ruling was right. No president can ignore the Constitution when THEY feel like it. Defend the country? Sure but do it within the boundaries established by the document they swore to uphold and defend.
nathan| 1.11.13 @ 10:57PM
And I simply don't agree with the premise that gets advanced here day after day after day that we have to break the rules, that Bush had to authorize the torture of the detainees to defend the country. I don't believe Padilla needed have his Fifth Amendment rights violated. I don't believe for a moment that the Patriot Act was at all necessary. I don't believe what we did to KSM was necessary or gained us any actionable information. I think we can defend ourselves within the bounds of the Constitution with the bounds of Geneva which means no waterboarding, no sleep deprivation no nothing. I think Lincoln didn't have to violate the Constitution to win the war. Not at all. That sir is where maybe you and I really part company.
Occam's Tool| 1.13.13 @ 8:08PM
Nathan: the possibility of a Confederacy existing and slavery continuing up until the 21st Century bothers you not at all, I see.
Lincoln won the war, and it was a damn near run thing. He has a monument and everything, and you will die, as I will, without a real ripple. The nature of greatness does not encompass us.
On a smaller scale, the guy who won the Nobel in Medicine for cardiac catheterization TIED his assistant up so that she could not interfere with his going up the stairs to take the photos that would win for him his Nobel in Medicine. The winner in Medicine for discovering H. Pylori essentially told the entire Australian medical profession to stuff it and swallowed a mixture containing the bacteria to prove his point regarding the etiology of ulcers.
Nathan: you have no clue, poor man.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 11:48PM
Good points OT.
RCV| 1.13.13 @ 2:14PM
Agree.
Bill8472| 1.11.13 @ 11:01PM
Sure, quote Madison all you like. I'm for it.
Do me a favor, though, will you, and cite the source for the quote; I'd like to read any quote you use in its proper context.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 11:47PM
The reason Lincoln engage in "war" with the South was because it was the only way to have soldiers treated decently. He regarded Southern secession as rebellion and refused to recognize the South as an independent power (save for humanitarian reasons).
Madison also wrote in Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution: "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
Jack in Wi| 1.12.13 @ 9:01AM
You forgot to mention that only Congress can suspend the Writ, not the President. Lincoln refused to call Congrs back in session. I don't think they ever did suspend it formally. Just another usirpation by Lincoln which the Chief Justice tried to stop but Lincoln ignored.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.12.13 @ 11:28AM
Presidents have prerogative powers (e.g. Washington's neutrality proclamation) especially during emergencies. When Congress came back in session, they could have easily repudiated Lincoln's actions, but they didn't. On the contrary, the allowed his policies to stand.
RCV| 1.13.13 @ 2:16PM
A legislative body is ill-suited to run a war or put down an insurrection. That's why such executive powers are vested in the Executive.
Occam's Tool| 1.11.13 @ 7:34PM
Nathan:
and the Supreme Court was around and the ruling could be enforced because Lincoln did what he did. Recall my comments regarding the idiocy of 99% of attorneys.
Again, keep in mind that you justified the firebombing of Tokyo as a legitimate war act. So do I, but that is logically consistent with my world view, not yours. Ever see a burn ward?
nathan| 1.11.13 @ 11:10PM
Well I "explained" Tokyo more than justified it? LOL (If you are familiar with Martin Caidan you know where I'm coming from. I really like his books. His book on the Hamburg fire raid was amazing. Trivia: What is he most famous for?)
You will recall that I said the raids the British conducted which were strictly against the cities and civilians were, contrary to what people "think" they know now, more controversial than is commonly understood. (I really like Hastings as a writer. Eminently quotable. Maybe the best current writer on the war? Maybe.) LeMay, coming over from Europe, who was confronted by a jet stream not seen there which made Eighth Air Force let's go after the heavy industry bombing at high altitude impossible, and knowing a lot of truly legitimate targets WERE in the residential areas (I'm probably getting this from one of Caidan's books) acted accordingly. The two approaches aren't really comparable. That clarify a bit?
Occam's Tool| 1.13.13 @ 8:17PM
Caidin is most famous for the Six Million Dollar Man. I loved his work on the P-38.
Nathan: I happen to agree with you that the Tokyo bombings were necessary. I'm simply stating that from the point of view of an overly fastidious fellow, the degree of torture involved in the firebombings greatly exceeded that of anything you protest. And I am unfairly using my medical expertise to push that point.
Sooner or later, nathan, you will run into that which your philosophy cannot sustain, where your overly fastidious nature will allow a huge calamity to occur to stop a minor infraction. I think Lincoln was a better judge of what he needed to do to win the Civil War than you or Jack.
Bomber Harris' warfighting has been greatly condemned in many books. My disagreement with him is that he could have shortened the war by knocking out the electricity grid in Germany, but he thought it was a panacea.
However, Harris' work was instrumental in transforming Germany into the most pacifistic state in the world. Furthermore, it will need to be eventually copied by us with regards to the Islamic world. Eminently forseeable.
Hastings is nowhere as good a writer as Beevor on Stalingrad or Andrew Roberts on anything Andrew decides to write on. (Mr. Roberts also has a delightful sense of humor; I know this personally. You see, I write people, and they write back.)
nathan| 1.11.13 @ 2:35PM
Indians. First and foremost their land from the beginning. Did the settlers have a right to "take" it? NO. If we talk legally/morally/ethically, n0. Were there areas that were unsettled and maybe up for grabs? Perhaps. But most of the east coast was "owned". If the Indians had better immigration control regarding illegal immigrants which basically those folks were . . .
We look back at those times for this reason. Lessons learned. And those lessons are? . . . That it can happen here. The Indian population in our part of NA is probably 5/6/7 million in 1607. By 1900 it's around 1 million. (My numbers are maybe a bit off but you get the picture.) Why such a dramatic decline? Measles and other things they lacked immunity for was certainly a factor. But one generation or so deals with that.
But if we're honest with ourselves we have to use the "G" word here, genocide, ethnic cleansing all of it. Cherokees in Georgia in defiance of a SCOTUS order. The "reservations" out west that were far too much like the WWII ghettos. The language used (Sherman/Sheridan they're animals exterminate them they sure tried) all of it.
What is shows is that like the Soviets/the nazis WE are capable of being just as bad and we have to be very careful and we can't be disarmed. That's the lesson. And not a pretty one. But we can't be unduly holier than though either.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 3:25PM
The Indians did not own the land. They fought with each other and with settlers over it.
nathan| 1.11.13 @ 3:32PM
They had a better "claim" to it than those illegals did. Possession is 9/10ths right? Or let me put it to you this way. You're the Seminoles in Florida. You have been there for what 3/4/5 hundred years or more. Now these folks of another race come and say hiya we're new here, you're savages, animals actually and we've come to kill you and take your land. How should THEY have responded and were the noble "civilized" white folk here doing the right thing in your judgement? Or were they just genocidal land grabbers taking what they had no right to?
Bill8472| 1.11.13 @ 10:46PM
To be "illegal" carries with it the necessary implication that one is violating the law. What law regarding people intruding into their land (leaving aside the obvious false sentiment that says that Indians didn't see themselves as owning the land they used) did the Indians have?
As best as I can tell, the Indian "law" was along the line of "come on to my land and I'll kill you; bring your tribe with you and we're at war. If I come on your land, we'll fight over it." So how was the Indian status quo different just because it was Europeans instead of other Indians who were trespassing?
And what law did the European settlers break that made them "illegal?"
nathan| 1.11.13 @ 11:21PM
I am to some extent "playing" here of course to make a point. A metaphor if you will? If law is what you want, natural law? If someone is sitting on some property, just because I have the force to take it from them doesn't make my taking it "right". Indians clearly had some sense of tribal possession and from an anthropology sense they were "civilized" even if they weren't building gigantic cathedrals. To some extent Americans and some of the people here are advancing the might makes right idea. No not really.
I'll raise the question again did those settlers have a moral right to come in and by force alone take land away from the Indians who were already there? In the case of the Cherokees in Georgia, THEY win in court and President Jackson tells the court you have made your decision now enforce it and then engages in what is beyond a doubt meets the definition of ethnic cleansing and forces them off what has been legally adjudicated to be THEIR land and forces them to reservations (read ghettos) out west where they've never been where in the process thousands die. When we see similar actions in Europe during WWII we consider that genocidal. You have a different explanation?
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.11.13 @ 11:50PM
Well, he was a Democrat....
Bill8472| 1.14.13 @ 12:15PM
Not a different explanation, but a different perspective.
Bill8472| 1.11.13 @ 10:57PM
In the late 18th Century, the Crows had the Black Hills. Then the Comanches and Kiowas defeated the Crows and the Kiowas took the Black Hills. Then the Cheyenne (the Southern and Northern branches of the tribe) took the Black Hills. Then the Sioux went to war with the Cheyennes and took the Black Hills sometime in the early 19th Century. The chain of possession didn't stop the Sioux for a second from claiming the Black Hills as their "ancestral" territory, though, and they sued the United States over breaking the Fort Laramie Treaty, which ceded the Black Hills to them, even though they'd only occupied it for a hald a century.
Occam's Tool| 1.11.13 @ 7:35PM
Nathan: again, how do you square your principles with continuing to live in the US? I ask this seriously. Logic does not compute.
nathan| 1.11.13 @ 11:26PM
sir: given all the talk about this being end times, this may very well be a moot point shortly? :)
a bit seriously I'm seeing more sermons on the subject than I ever had (maybe because there is such widespread and growing pessimism regarding where this country is heading?) and more and more discussion on how much of Revelation is coming to pass. We'll see.
Occam's Tool| 1.13.13 @ 8:23PM
Well, if it's the end times, modify your comments on Israeli actions. :-)
Seriously, in dealing with our current international mess, I am reminded of a Dan Jenkins' (he was another TCU grad) book regarding my alma mater in which the football coach puts up a poster outlining what pretty coeds (TCU had the prettiest) will not do with losers---in graphic detail.
When asked if the Chancellor of the University approves, the coach answers: "Of course he approved the posters. Chancellor's a good ol' boy---wants to win."
We are going to need more of that attitude in dealing with the Islamic military/cultural menace.
Really complex issues require a really complex view of ethics.
Frekki| 1.11.13 @ 2:36PM
You can't be a liberal if you pay attention.
Dobbs| 1.11.13 @ 3:47PM
These Sioux are no more Christian saints or martyrs than Karla Faye Tucker, who saw the light in her last days after murdering people. She was also executed for her crimes.
Dobbs| 1.11.13 @ 3:50PM
Stand by. Surely Robert "The Spirit of Crazy Horse" Redford is on his way to deceive many with another one-sided documentary.
And surely now, calls will grow for monuments to be erected to Saint Leonard Peltier for executing two FBI agents in South Dakota.
Rhoetus| 1.12.13 @ 11:29AM
It's about time we ex-communicated all the Reds and useful idiots from Christendom. ;-)
Alan| 1.12.13 @ 12:18PM
Its what the reality of history is. A dominent culture will overtake a weaker or smaller one, thats the just facts. Thats whats been going on since the cave people. If the central american peoples couldn't defend themselves from several hundred Spaniards, then they can't blame anybody for their demise but themselves.
Also, please drop the whole native american thing since they are imports like everyone else that came here whether 200 years ago or 20K years ago. Its been pretty well documented that American pre-europeons are ancient asians.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 1.12.13 @ 12:55PM
The million dollar question is what kind of atrocities were committed by settlers and soldiers against the Dakota indians? Often times only the victor of such conflicts gets to write the history and then only atrocities committed against the victor will be noted. I am not a liberal, but I believe that truth no matter how ugly must be always displayed if we want a balanced view of history.
Mark30339| 1.12.13 @ 10:48PM
It is a noble society that looks at its past critically and asks how can we make better decisions today. In that noble quest, some factions may assert guilt and regret disproportionately (as is probably the case with the Dakota anniversary noted by Mark Tooley).
I think the most interesting fact is the 90% clemency rate after a thorough review by President Lincoln. Perhaps he was pondering the cruel Indian policies of Presidents before him (especially Andrew Jackson), and sought to do better.
The question for today is how do we reconcile the American myth of Manifest Destiny with the fact that near genocide tactics were deployed on native peoples. I don't know that there is a fix for it, but acknowledging the burdens of these wounds is better than being in denial, or advocating a "they had it coming" posture.
Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt challenged Winston Churchill on imperialist policy toward the Indian people, and Winston replied: "Are we talking about the brown-skinned Indians in India who have multiplied under benevolent British rule, or are we speaking about the red-skinned Indians in America who, I understand, are now almost extinct?"
Occam's Tool| 1.13.13 @ 8:25PM
To which Roosevelt should have replied: "like the Maoris under British rule? And, by the way, Will Rogers is an American Indian."
Troon62| 1.13.13 @ 6:21PM
Fascinating commentary of the historical record. Our own, hopelessly biased Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper recently ran a week-long series on the Dakota War of 1862. Sympathetic in the extreme to the Indians, the paper's reporters and editors somehow failed to tell its readers about the horrific atrocities visited upon the victims. Isn't that typical of today's "advocacy media?"
spike59| 1.15.13 @ 6:00AM
...and the media of the day (in the 1800's ) was a shining example of unbiased journalism?????
SJReidhead | 1.14.13 @ 2:18PM
As an Episcopalian, and a direct descendant of the family who was massacred, and caused the eventual uprising in 1862, I find your article to be insulting, lacking of all the facts, and pathetic. I have all the records about what happened to my family. The uprising was caused because the agents Lincoln put in place were abjectly cruel and corrupt. My family had a history of trying to help the those who were in need, pushed to the brink of starvation because of Lincoln's deplorable policies against the Native Americans. The irony is that the military escort who was to take them through to their new home, was about forty-five minutes late. My great-great grandfather was impatient to leave, and reach the new house by dark, so he decided not to wait. If he had not been so impatient, the entire uprising may have been avoided.
As to Lincoln and his Indian policies, if you think what happened in that one local was the exception, I suggest you investigate the Navajo Long Walk. It was okayed by Lincoln. It is one of the darkest moments in this nation's history.
My family were NOT immigrants. They had purchased a new farm one county over, and my great great grandfather had completed the building of his new house. The family was moving that day, when the massacre occurred. Both sides of that branch of the family had been in this country since the Mayflower, with at lest a dozen patriot ancestors between them. Please, get the story straight.
SJReidhead
The Pink Flamingo
Midlandr| 1.31.13 @ 2:50PM
I cannot care about what Episcopalians think...