BOUNTIES - Whites hungry for money hunted and scalped Indian men, women and children - collecting monetary payment for their scalps. On February 20, 1725 the first written account of scalping was recorded.
Captain Lovewell and his men were to be given 100 pounds per piece. Lovewell set to murder a group of innocent Natives who, unfortunately for him, killed him instead.
And the first woman to be honored with a monument in her name was Hanna Duston, also known as the `Hatchet Lady' due to her
mutilating acts that also allowed her to collect a good sum of money from the scalps of men, women and children.
* FORCED ASSIMILATION - Native Americans were denied their cultural history, traditions, religion and tribal communities - all in the name of "civilizing" them. To this day, assimilation is still being thrusted upon the Native people in a variety of ways that should be addressed in a later column.
"When the white man stops insisting that the Indian adhere to his ways and allows us to live as Indians, the Indian problem will be solved."
~John Stevens~, Passamaquoddy Tribal Governor * Even CHILDREN were considered disposable. Colonel John M.Chivington echoed the military philosophy of murdering children when he said, "Kill and scalp all, little and big... Nits make lice."
And on November 8, 1978, Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act. Prior to this act, the US government would routinely take children from their parents and community and place them with non-Native families for fostercare or forced adoption. By 1978, as
many as 35 percent of Indian children were living apart from their parents.
* TREATIES promising sovereignty, land, money, food, and peace were all created by the United States - and then broken by the United States. George Gilmer, Governor of Georgia, said in 1830 "Treaties were expedients by which ignorant, intractable, andsavage people were induced... to yield up what civilized people had the right to possess."
Treaties were often signed only via threats, manipulation and coercion. On August 15, 1876, Congress enacted the "Starve or
Sell" act denying provisions (such as food) to hungry Sioux Indians guaranteed the rations in an 1868 Treaty. They were forced to sign away their sacred Black Hills in return for the provisions already guaranteed to them.
Another point to remember is that the American government not only started the treaty-making process, they also abruptly ended it. Once they no longer needed the American Indians land, they passed a
policy stating that all treaties were invalid; the Native people had no choice or legal representation.
* LAWS were enacted to force the Native people to either confirm to the whites ideal, or to force them off their land and out of their communities. Laws such as: Native men could not testify against a
white man, allowed for many criminal acts to be perpetrated upon the Indian community, with no remedy for legal recourse; or that they had to keep their hair a certain length (though tribal customs were to keep hair long.)
On April 23, 1904, Congress passed the Practice of Medicine and Surgery in Indian Territory Act which eliminated traditional
medicinal practices and only allowed registered physicians and surgeons to treat Native patients. Herbal medicine, "Medicine
Men" and "Medicine Women" were outlawed - though "qualified" practitioners were few and far between.
* BOARDING SCHOOLS - Over 12,000 Indian children as young as 4 were taken from their parents and placed in boarding schools where their Indian names were replaced with `American' names, their religion
replaced with Christianity, their native languages forbidden, and punishment was often harsh and, some claim, deadly. Cut off from parents and tribal members for most of their childhood, these children were taught to conform to "white" rules and acts of civility.
On November 17, 1989, the United States Senate released an investigative report admitting that children at the mandatory
boarding school were often abused and/or sexually molested by their instructors.
* On November 28, 1884, US News & World Report magazine named the Bureau of Indian Affairs "The Worst Federal Agency" in
America. By 1997 the BIA admitted to "MISSING" several BILLION dollars
supposedly held in trust for Native Americans - money desperately needed.
(Note: Native Americans live in humiliating poverty far below any other racial group.)
* The withholding and displaying of Native people's REMAINS. In 1986 it was estimated that over one million Indian skeletal remains were held in private collections, universities and museums. Finally, in the 1990's, the US government honored sacred burial traditions by allowing family members to collect and bury their relatives.
* RACIST LANGUAGE - Even today, racist language is spoken against the Native people. "Indian Summer" means false summer,
"Squaw" is considered vulgar, and "Redskin" - an extremely degrading word similar to "nigger" - is the name of a sports team.
On February 26, 2001, a House Committee in Boise, Idaho, dismissed a plan to remove the word "squaw" from the nearly 100 places
that carry it. One representative, knowing that the Native people in his community are deeply offended and insulted by the words use, said "Just because people take is as offensive doesn't make it offensive."
It was also noted that it was too costly for the businesses to change their name.
* STEREOTYPING - Thousands of movies, books, plays, textbooks and songs falsely stereotype the Native peoples culture, history, ceremonies, spirituality and character. Textbooks report "savage" and
"wild" Indian men hunting the virgin land, killing innocent settlers just trying to care for their families (though most were on land known to belong to the Indians.) Until the 1970's, cowboy and Indian movies
continued this falsehood, when, abruptly, the American cinema changed direction and suddenly romanticized the honorable and nature-oriented, spiritual Indian. To this day, few movies correctly depict Native
culture, people and issues, and there are no Indian-based television shows (other than documentaries) being nationally broadcasted.
"He is ignoble--base and treacherous, and hateful in every way. Not even imminent death can startle him into a spasm of virtue. The ruling trait of all savages is a greedy and consuming selfishness, and in our Noble Red Man it is found in its amplest
development."
~ Mark Twain ~ "The Noble Red Man" (1870)
* DENIAL of CULTURE - the American government determines who is and who is not an Indian. They have a set guideline that must be met in order to say a Native person is truly a Native person. American Indians are the ONLY US group forced to prove their ethnic heritage - and to be denied the right to call themselves who they are.
* ELIMINATE LIVELIHOOD - Buffalo were deliberately killed, hunting grounds handed over to non-Natives, and fishing rights retracted. Starving people starve were forced to search for alternative food
sources, or to wait for US troops to bring food to them. In a letter to the Oregon Office of Indian Affairs, June 7,
1862, an agent reports "I regret very much to inform you that the management of said Agency is far from being satisfactory to this office. I found a large portion of the Indians subsisting on potatoes, which had remained in the ground during the entire winter, and were frozen, rotten and loathsome."
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