Reflection on History

The official U.S. Army response (circa 1969), to a request to investigate the incidents of Wounded Knee in the closing days of 1890, stated in part:  "To characterize Wounded Knee as a massacre – the killing of considerable number of human beings under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty, or mercilessly – overlooks the absence of premeditation, efforts to peacefully pacify the encampment, attempts to spare women and children once the melee began, and the Army’s sincere efforts to investigate charges of wanton killing of noncombatants after the incident."

Drawing on the words of Robert M. Utley, The Old Bison, a well respected historian: "Thus, the frontier army was not, as many of its leaders saw it, the heroic vanguard of civilization, crushing the savages and opening the West to settlers. Still less was it the barbaric band of butchers, eternally waging unjust war against unoffending Indians that is depicted in the humanitarian literature of the nineteenth century and the atonement literature of the twentieth. Rather, the frontier army was a conventional military force trying to control, by conventional military methods, a people that did not behave like a conventional enemy and, indeed, quite often was not an enemy at all. This is the most difficult of all military assignments, whether in Africa, Asia, or the American West. The bluecoats carried it out as well as could be expected in the absence of a later generation’s perspective and hindsight. In the process they wrote a dramatic and stirring chapter of American history, one that need not be diminished by today’s recognition of the monstrous wrong it inflicted on the Indian."

From Columbus, deSoto, the Pilgrims, the Colonists, to the frontier settlers -- the "Indian" people were considered savage and in need of "civilization" and "religion".  The fact that these "immigrant" people did not bother to even try to understand the depth of the Indian culture, their governmental systems and process, nor their religions, is unfortunate.  Had they even tried, it might have made some difference.  But, the life style of the Indian did not allow for the "white" and "black" settlers to pursue their life styles.  The "hunter-gatherer" required vast amounts of near virgin territory to support their livelihood.  Some, learned people, recognized that the only way for the Indian to survive was to "provide for them", thus the Reservation Act was established.  And, the resulting turmoil, upheaval, relocation, genocide, or massacre (what ever you want to call it) was the worst conclusion that could be imagined.

Today, we can look back in history and make judgment on the actions, it in no way changes anything.  The past is the past.  If you choose to wallow in the past---I have no sympathy for you.  If, on the other hand, you choose to become an active participant in building upon what exists today, I will stand by you, I will support you, I will champion your cause.

I may not be enough Indian to warrant recognition by today's standards, but my ancestors would have recognized my blood line and welcomed me into the fold.  I am 1/32 Cherokee and 1/32 Choctaw.  The fact that I am not outwardly "Indian", does not lessen the fact that I am Indian and damned proud of it.