I always find it amusing that apologists for the Indians routinely omit from any discussion about the Indian Wars just what happened to white captives who were unfortunate enough to survive an Indian attack. The “Noble Red Man” is a myth, conjured up by Eastern do-gooders who wouldn’t have known an Indian if one had bit them on the ass. A good case in point is James Fenimore Cooper and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Their “chivalric warriors” and “dusky maidens of the forest” are laughable when contrasted with the real thing. Indian tribes slaughtered one another with recckless abandon way before the “white man” ever stepped foot on the North American continent. The Indian tribes practiced slavery way before and even after slavery had run its course in America (capturing members of other tribes for torture and slavery was common practice; occasionally, in a spasm of compassion, a captive was adopted into the tribe to replace a member who had died). All one need do is read the accounts of the few white captives wsho survived or who were rescued from their captivity to see that the Noble Red Man was not only a myth, but an insulting one, at that. Sand Creek was bad, no doubt about it. However, I wonder what any average American’s thoughts would be if they came home to find their families, especially their wives and children, butchered in a most heinous fashion. Vengence would be just one of the thoughts that past through their minds, I expect. Let’s face it, though: in today’s environment of political correctness, the myth of the honorable and noble Indian has not only metastasized, but has got to the point where any challenge to it is considered nothing short of a social crime. Indians were brutal, cruel, and blood-thirsty people — from OUR standpoint. But that was their culture, and they knew nothing else. They saw that as the norm. They thought we were evil incarnate for plowing the land, as they saw that as the literal rape and violation of Mother Earth, which they saw as a living, breathing thing that provided them with all they needed in life. That’s why clashes of civilizations are so devestating: There is no common ground.
****They thought we were evil incarnate for plowing the land, as they saw that as the literal rape and violation of Mother Earth, which they saw as a living, breathing thing that provided them with all they needed in life. ****
This may sound strange to some but during the Nez Pierce war one of the tribal shamans agitated for war because the Whites made the ground bring forth more crops than it would naormally.
“I always find it amusing that apologists for the Indians routinely omit from any discussion about the Indian Wars just what happened to white captives who were unfortunate enough to survive an Indian attack.”
We could always study the memoirs of the POWs released after the battle of the “Little Big Horn”. (sarc)