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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 13, 2007 10:33:13 GMT -5
I don't know how many here are members of the History Book Club, but I ordered the first 2 titles in this new series and wholeheartedly recommend them. "The Shawnees and the War for America", and "The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears" are the first two volumes released. I found them both to be concise and informative. Quick reads that provide a good overview of the travails of these two tribes. I'm looking forward to more upcoming releases. Jim
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Post by Herb on Aug 13, 2007 10:50:34 GMT -5
So you'd recommend them?
The flyer looked rather one sided to me and I hesitated to order them.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 13, 2007 11:21:31 GMT -5
So you'd recomment them? The flyer looked rather one sided to me and I hesitated to order them. I'd recommend them, but I'd also admit that they view the issue from the Indian perspective and are sympathetic to the plight of the tribes. It's hard not to sympathize with the Georgia and NC Cherokees, who pretty much every one admits got a royal screwing. Jim
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Post by Allen Wiener on Aug 13, 2007 12:27:10 GMT -5
If there ever was a clear case in favor of a tribe that offered no threat to anyone being totally screwed, it is the Cherokee case. Obviously, different circumstances existed where the various tribes came in contact with whites and few stories are totally one-sided, but the Cherokee case comes close. The government wanted their valuable lands, especially after gold was discovered, and no one wanted to allow an independent Indian (or any other) nation within the contiguous states. And don't rule out a healthy dose of racism an Manifest Destiny at work here.
AW
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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 13, 2007 12:32:09 GMT -5
One of the greatest injustices done to both these tribes was the goverment's continual reneging on signed agreements that guaranteed certain areas of land to the tribes. Even after removal this happened repeatedly. Jim
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Post by Herb on Aug 13, 2007 12:42:10 GMT -5
Yeah, I won't debate that. But, even the Cherokee issue isn't totally one-sided; their last action against white settlers was 70 year previous to their forced removal. This truly is a pretty one sided issue in the 1830s but in the 1760s it wasn't quite so.
Not trying to justify the removal, but true scholarship, today, shouldn't be one sided, but try for balance.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 13, 2007 12:50:15 GMT -5
I think these books are an attempt to tell the other side of the story, assuming that the government's side has already been told. The Shawnee were far more warlike and unbending for a longer period of time than were the Cherokee. The duty of an author to tell all sides of a story would make for an interesting philosophical discussion. If one side of the story has been told to the detriment of another, is it the responsibility of the author providing a corrective to restate his opponents case? When does correction start to be seen as revisionism? Jim
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Post by Herb on Aug 13, 2007 13:04:41 GMT -5
Don't get me wrong, the "hidden" side needs to be told and perhaps emphasized, but if we're talking history, it must be put into context with the more familiar side.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Aug 13, 2007 14:54:31 GMT -5
I think one of the problems in studying the white-Indian relations is that little of the history was very balanced. For a long time Indians were viewed as vicious savages who got what they had coming at the hand of civilization, which swept them from the land and made room for better people. When I was in school, no one ever mentioned Indians in history classes, other than Squanto, Pocahontas, or the so-called first Thanksgiving.
Those relations were always difficult and typically led to violent confrontation, but you can't escape the root cause being the arrival of whites (think of them as European wetbacks) on land that was already occupied by other people. This has happened elsewhere, too, I'm sure and I can imagine scenarios where the two sides found ways to co-exist peacefully. Sometimes that was tried between Indians and Europeans and did work for a while. But in the end, there were always more and more whites who wanted the Indian land and its resources. It was an irreconcilable conflict that could only end with one side taking the land, and given technology, numbers and diseases, the whites nearly always won.
Wolf is quite right that we should reconstruct the full history of how such relationships and events began and progressed, and all of the factors that were involved. There was always a degree of racism on the part of whites, although they were agreeable to dealing with tribes on a more or less equal basis in the earliest years of settlement. Later, when the Indians were seen as nothing more than an obstruction in the path of progress and civilization, racism became a more prominent rationalization for removing them, one way or another. Indians were cajoled into selling land or ceding it in exchange for treaty guarantees that always evaporated.
All of these things predate the removal of the Cherokee. For them, the wars with the whites were long over and they had clearly chosen a path of peace and adapting to the ways of the white man. They were Christianized, held individual plots of land and farms, created a dictionary of their own language, a tribal government that mirrored the U.S. government, and were like their neighbors in holding slaves. Thus it wasn' much different than most of the states in things that mattered. They certainly were no longer a threat to anyone. In fact, where many tribes simply declared war when the government pulled this stuff on them, the Cherokee sought only legal remedies and even argued their case successfully before the Supreme Court. Since Jackson had little regard for Constitutional powers and limitations, he didn't care what the Court (or anyone else) said or thought.
I don't know if there is another case comparable to the Cherokee's. They tried to do it the white man's way, sought non-violent solutions, won their case, virtually became white people, and still got the same treatment as other tribes that were unjustly driven out of their land. The only explanation is that whites wanted the land, which was too valuable to leave in the hands of Indians (and thus deny whites the huge profits to be made on its sale). And, as I said earlier, I don't think anyone was warm to the idea of allowing a separate Indian nation exist within U.S. borders.
On balance, I'd say it is the Indian side that has been under-represented in history and has finally been getting a hearing over the past 40 years or so. I realize that some literature attempts to sentamentalize the Indians and their way of life, leaving out all of the unpleasant things that many Indian groups were capable of doing. I recal hearing that when Daniel Boone once bought legal title to some Cherokee land, the Cherokee warned him that, legal or not, he'd have trouble with the Shawnee, who had similarly plagued the Cherokee.
AW
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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 13, 2007 14:59:26 GMT -5
Some of the new texts gloss over inter-tribal conflict, but not all. These 2 new titles go into the difficulties between the different tribes as well. While these books do look at the issues more from the Indian's perspective, the don't romanticize them. Jim
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Post by Herb on Aug 13, 2007 15:14:36 GMT -5
Romanticism, is a good way to put it.
I live in the heart of Chief Bowles and the former Cherokee homeland in Texas, and there is a great deal of romanticism about that, including an annual "healing" ceremony at the Battle of Neches Site where Chief Bowles was brutally killed and mutilated by Republic of Texas Troops.
No denying that, nor is there any denying that Texians coveted the Cherokee lands and that President Lamer wanted all tribes removed from the Republic.
But, what does not get mentioned anymore is the Cherokee conspiring with a Mexican Agent sent to forment war against Texas, and the massacre of a white family just a few miles south of here, that provided the spark that ignited the War.
Yes, Lamar, and the Texians were looking for an excuse, and yes a large part of their actions bordered on the obscene. But, the Cherokee played a role in bringing on the conflict, too.
While up until the 1970s, the Cherokee side never got told, today the part that the Cherokee played in bringing on the war is not told. That's not history, the popular story told today is just as wrong and quite frankly racist as the pre 1970s version.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 13, 2007 15:27:13 GMT -5
The Shawnee suffered at the hand of Lamar as well. At one point they were granted lands in Texas too. Jim
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Post by Allen Wiener on Aug 13, 2007 17:35:15 GMT -5
Wolf, you've put your finger on one of the most difficult things to explain to people about past relations with Indians. First they were cast as sub-human savages; in the 60s they were romanticized, idyllic people, living off the land, the world's first environmentalists, never hurt a soul, etc. Each sterotype was equally ridiculous and both did a terrible disservice to Indians.
They were real people, and beneath the surface differences one finds in any foreign people, no different from anyone else. If John Smith's accounts are to be trusted, he may have been the first European to understand this. Smith's experiences in foreign countries (the Mid East, Netherlands and America) resulted in him seeing all peoples as similar when you are a stranger in their land. They all have things they'll trade for, they can all use a new ally, they all have traditional enemies and those rivalries could be exploited. Smith was right and he operated accordingly. I daresay that the whites would have found progress in the new world near impossible had they not been able to exploit those inter-tribal rivalries. The idea that the Cherokee you speak of would make alliances with other parties is perfectly normal for any people who thought they needed an ally. They're no worse or better than anyone else for doing that. I think it was the fact they did operate like most countries, trying to form alliances with parties that shared common enemies, which pitted tribes against each other (against the French, the British, the Americans; in the end, they all lost).
The realistic view of Indians -- as a large and diverse assortment of some 500 different societies, many of them quite different from one another, with thousands of years of history and development, political, religious and social structures, languages, rivalries, wars, etc. has d**n near been lost due to the widespread use of the stereotypes.
Indians themselves have been repeatedly exploited. First as the "vicious savage" when that image could be used to justify taking their land and removing them. Then the "noble savage," dignified and doomed because he just can't adapt to the inevitable spread of civilization, which also excuses taking his land. Meanwhile, the real people got lost somewhere. Hollywood has done a lot to create these misconceptions. I think most people have gotten their impressions of Indians from movies.
AW
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Post by Herb on Aug 13, 2007 17:55:43 GMT -5
Your point about John Smith is exactly right, and one I tried to share with others in another place, about Arabs. I don't want dredge up another heated debate, but while there are very obvious cultural differences between civilizations, the basic goals (thinking of Maslow for example) are fundamentality the same for all peoples.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 13, 2007 18:19:41 GMT -5
I'll agree with Allen on John Smith as well. From all I've read, he was one of the few men of his time who seemed to understand the Indians, and did not view them with a patronizing or condescending attitude. Friend or foe, he took them at face value, and he took them seriously. Jim
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