I hadn’t thought of the unmarked grave sensibility. But I was in New Harmony, IN, once and the cemetery of the original settlers is all unmarked. So I can see how that could be a sticky issue.
As far as the apathy goes —I do a lot of genealogical work, and I run into a lot of people whom no one has researched and no one has bothered to remember. They pop up once or twice and then vanish from the records. I value the past and the every-day people who inhabited it, and I do what I can to document that those people lived. Practically nothing would exist for some of my own direct relatives if I hadn’t done the work.
Some are listed elsewhere; most are not. Things didn't settle down until the 1620s ~ finally the death rate dropped to an early 17th century norm of something nearer 10 to 15 percent per year, give or take 5%. Indian rates tended to be about the same ~ led to a lot of raiding for children.
North America was a really rough place to live in.
Marking a grave tipped off surrounding enemies of your ability to put armed men on guard or on the march. That went on long enough that the early Euro-Americans simply adopted that as a rule and thought up reasons to justify it.
A gentleman for you to look up is Ebenezer 'Indian' Allen or Allan. He was the first permanent white settler known in Rochester NY area. Originally from some unknown place in New Jersey he was quite a rugged guy. I think he had a black wife, an Indian wife, a blond wife and a red head wife. The red head demanded her own cabin ~ she had 6 children by Ebenezer.
He's not my relative. At roughly the same period of time one of my ancestors, who was born earlier at an Iroquois village not far from where Ebenezer Allen moved in, did what seems to be a trade route up and down the Mississippi and up the Oregon trace. Our last count was he had about 24 different wives, all different sorts too ~ just like this Allen guy.
These men were the fathers of our nation. When we marked our ancestors site people popped out of the woodwork upset about that ~ they just didn't do that!
Wouldn’t you think that Obozo, as a Chicago Demonrat, would have more respect for the dead as a core constituency group in every election?