SOME BLACKS ARE DEMANDING “REPARATIONS” for their great-grandparents slavery.
They already GOT “reparations.”
The people who DESERVE reparations — sans quote marks — are the American Indians, “Native Americans” if you prefer.
North America was populated by indigenous peoples when the Europeans discovered the continent. Who was the first European to land on North American shores is open to debate, and, frankly Scarlet, this scrivener doesn’t care.
What is a fact — and the truth, too — is that the Europeans
* Could not have survived a year sans native assistance
* Brought diseases with them that decimated the indigenous population
* Came to despise the people who taught them how to survive.
The Europeans used the Indians to fight the wars between England and Franch, and introduced the Indians to scalping their enemy as an early “body count” practice. Scalping was not a native invention.
As the Europeans gained control of the land, they forced the Indians out.
Most American school children of my generation know about the Cherokee Trail of Tears that cost the lives of thousands of Indians.1, 2
The Cherokees had an established democracy, they had a spoken and written language, and the land they occupied was coveted by the Europeans. To free up the land, the Cherokees were rounded up and marched to Oklahoma.3
The Oklahoma Historical Society4 recorded the Indians “removal” from the east and south.
- The expansion of Anglo-American settlement into the Trans-Appalachian west led to the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830, forcing all eastern tribes to move to new homelands west of the Mississippi River in the Indian Territory. The Five Tribes purchased new lands in present-day Oklahoma, but some relocated farther north. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 led to renewed white settlement in these territories, and the immigrant tribes located there were soon under pressure to move on. Texas, too, forced out all remaining tribes in 1859. The Civil War ended the removals temporarily.
Source - Denver Public Library Digital Collections
The Northern Plains Reservation Aid site5 concurs, adding
- The removal concept was further refined after the mid-century when it became evident that U.S. expansion planned to claim the West as well as the East. U.S. government officials concluded unspecified tracts of “Indian Territory” needed to be more sharply defined into reservations. Those opposing westward expansion were rounded up and forcibly confined to the reservations. This instigated the Great Plains wars of the 1860s-1880s.
Not all Indians were driven west.
The Seminoles moved into Florida’s swamp land where they were joined by other Indians and escaped slaves.
Since the federal government was (wisely) unwilling to do battle in the swamps, it used lies and deception to capture some Seminole leaders.
The Indians fought several wars with Federal troops before finally moving where the Federals would not go.6.
Today, the Seminole nation and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida own large chunks of Florida real estate.
This was not always the case.
According to the Miccosukee site7
- As soon as the United States acquired Florida, it began urging the Indians there to leave their lands and relocate along with other Southeastern tribes to the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River, in what is now present-day Oklahoma.
In the spring of 1832 the Seminoles were called to a meeting at Payne's Landing on the Oklawaha River. The treaty negotiated with the U.S. government called for the Seminoles to move west, if the land was found to be suitable. A delegation of seven chiefs toured the area for several months and, on March 28, 1833, signed what they believed to be a statement that the new land was suitable for consideration.
Upon their return to Florida, however, there was disagreement as to the terms of the treaty. Many of the chiefs stated that they had not committed to move their people to the new territory and that they had been coerced, through force and misinterpretation into signing. Even some U.S. Army officers claimed that the chiefs had been "wheedled and bullied into signing." Others noted evidence of trickery in how the treaty was phrased.
Giclee Print - F.M. Sargent @ AllPosters.com
Until the Indians “discovered” gambling and until the Federal government allowed the Indians to use the independent nations’ lands as they saw fit, most indigenous Americans lived in poverty. There were exceptions, but they were few.
Today, most western reservation Indians remain on federal handouts or charity.8.
In order to succeed, Indians must leave the reservation and face racism from the non-Indian population. Even in Hollywood, the bastion of liberalism, movie “Indians” usually were “white with color added.” This despite some having outstanding war records.
The Indians, like blacks and other minorities, have their own “movement.” In the past it got some press for blocking roads, but the American Indian Movement (AIM) remains, if not nationally active, still in business.9. HOWEVER, unlike Black Lives Matter (BLM) it’s members generally refrain from destroying small businesses on which they depend or disrupting political sessions with which they disagree.
- An aside: I lived in the Inter-Mountain West where “BLM” meant “Bureau of Land Management.”
IF ANY MINORITY deserves “reparations,” it is the indigenous American Indian.
They were here before the Europeans arrived on the east coast and via Mexico.
They were murdered by the Europeans in search of ore or simply fertile land.
They were force-marched from their lands to reservations and then from there, when the land was coveted by the government, to other reservations.
The Federal government consistently lied to the Indians and often cheated them out of the promised assistance.
I am not an Indian. I have no Indian relatives. I am not beholden to any Indians.
I am a native-born U.S. citizen who wonders why black Americans are demanding reparations when the Federal government has provided programs (i.e. “reparations”) at least since LBJ’s Great Society was unveiled in 1964 to help blacks, and others, to get an education, to improve job skills, to get off the dole. As I key this, the year is 2020 — that is at least 55 years ago. Paying “reparations” will do most of the welfare recipients only temporary succor at best, just like the Covid 19-related handouts (that we’ll have to pay for later).
Sources
1. Trail of Tears (US History.com): https://tinyurl.com/y5xe9wef
2. Trail of Tears (Cherokee Museum): https://tinyurl.com/yawqbobe
3. Brief Cherokee history: https://tinyurl.com/ydz4by7a
4. OHS: https://tinyurl.com/ybpsw9bc
5. NPR: https://tinyurl.com/z5nbjkn
6. Seminole Wars: https://tinyurl.com/ybwsyrl8
7. Miccosukee Tribe: https://tinyurl.com/y84es9xy
8. Plains poverty: https://tinyurl.com/y8kwevg7
9. AIM: http://www.aimovement.org/ggc/index.html
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