Posted on 11/21/2015 8:50:16 AM PST by Kaslin
It goes without saying our history with Native Americans is not our nation's finest hour.
Native Americans lost right at 98 percent of their land in about 200 years as Manifest Destiny took hold. They now account for about 1 percent of the population about 3 million people scattered across 566 recognized tribes.
About a quarter of Native Americans live in poverty the overall rate is about 14 percent. Their rates of alcoholism in particular and drug and alcohol abuse in general are significantly higher than the population at large, and their educational attainment, life expectancy and income levels significantly lower.
Over the last century, they have become immigrants in their own countries shuffled into reservations that amount to refugee camps and which only concentrate the problems of poverty and substance abuse.
In recent years, tribal leadership has tried to integrate their reservations and nations into society overall and the economy specifically. The first forays have come in areas traditionally worked by immigrant groups staking their economic claims, such as entertainment and capital resources. Casinos serve both functions; payday lending, another prominent income stream for tribes, serves the latter.
Out West, the Crow Nation, headquartered in Montana, is attempting to take things in a new direction. It has entered into a deal to build the Gateway Pacific Terminal at Cherry Point in Whatcom County in northern Washington state not far from the state's largest oil refinery.
The county issued a permit for "substantial shoreline development" in 1997, but changes to the size and scope of the project necessitated another round of environmental impact statements. Today, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Washington state Department of Ecology and the county are jointly assessing the environmental impact of the project, which would enable the export of 54 million tons of dry bulk products per year mostly coal.
Public comment periods have accompanied every stage of this review since it began in 2012, and more than 100,000 stakeholder comments have been produced. Yet another opportunity for public comment will occur when the Environmental Impact Statement is produced in 2016.
Now, another tribe, the Lummi Nation, seeks to stall the process indefinitely. Leaders and others appeared at a sparsely attended rally two blocks from the White House last week asking Congress to order the Corps to delay the study still further. The Corps is said to be considering the request, and the Crow and its co-investors in the Gateway project have stepped up to oppose any further delays.
Crow officials point to the 9,100 jobs that will be created in the construction phase of the project and the 2,100 permanent jobs, with an annual payroll of more than $150 million, and $1.5 billion in promised private investment that would follow. Crow tribal chairman Darrin Old Coyote says this project is "quite literally, the difference between potential prosperity for the Crow people and dire poverty."
The Lummi say they are acting out of concern for their tribal rights and possible environmental damage to what they consider tribal lands. But sorting out tribal claims is part of the Corps of Engineers review.
They say they've "concluded that the impacts of significant increases in rail and vessel transportation cannot be mitigated to any level that would protect tribal treaty rights." That's also part of the Corps' review.
But they're not shy about admitting there is more to this than concern for tribal lands.
"We're taking a united stand against corporate interests that interfere with our treaty-protected rights," Tim Ballew II, chairman of the Lummi Indian Business Council, said at the Washington, D.C., rally. "Tribes across the nation and world are facing challenges from corporations that are set on development at any cost to our communities."
Why would corporations being set on development that involves tribes be a "challenge?"
On one reservation in nearby Montana, unemployment for working-age men is 69 percent. Alcoholism rates are twice the national average, and fetal alcohol syndrome is four times the rate of the rest of the country. A corporation offering good-paying jobs would not be considered a challenge to most of these people. Building trades in the area have suffered unemployment as high as 40 percent the last three years – those workers certainly are not complaining.
If the facts were on the Lummis' side, they would want the process completed. If the tribal claims are as they assert, they would want that to come out. If they were confident the project will fail its environmental tests, they would urge a quick and transparent resolution.
But they're not. They're throwing sand in the gears. They're trying to game the system, although all indications are the system is working as planned.
Most Indian tribes sided with the British in the American Revolution.
So f*ck them
I’m close friends with someone who works with one tribe. She’s sick to death of their infighting, their paranoia, their absolute obsession with bloodlines that would make a Nazi happy. And don’t you dare say a word wrong - they have learned all the jargon of political correctness and will use it to batter you to death.
Of course, I have no interest in Indian culture myself - although another friend is always extolling its virtues. Indians bring out the pc-ness in even conservative types.
I recognize that Americans started some of the problems -- but certainly not all the problems. The Indians opposed us every step of the way, and they paid a price. And anyway, look at history: thousands of years of people in conflict. Some folks won, some folks lost. It's just the way it goes, and the Dacians are no longer upset with Rome about how they were treated.
The Indians lost. It happens. I don't worry about them.
Some Indians assimilated and many “white” folks and some “blacks” have Indian blood in them. I’m one of them and so is my daughter in law. I had a client several years ago who had the features and hair of an Indian but the color of an African. She said her grandmother was Indian, I forget which tribe. It’s one of the blood lines that makes this country great but its the ones who assimilated who thrived.
Most of the plains tribes, except the Pawnee and Crow sided with the South in the Civil War.
My wife is part South American Indian. You should read up on what the Spanish conquistadors did to those folks...
The land of the Cherokee did not belong to the Cherokee from the beginning of time. They took it from someone who was weaker.
A very brutal crowd, for sure.
I upset the white-man-all-bad pro-Indian types when, after listening to a litany of injustices, many true, I tell 'em they ought to be glad the American white man screwed them over because at least they can be made to feel guilty. Just look at how native tribes fared in other countries - "We won - you lost. Deal with it." is what they often hear.
Let’s research your 2-banana background and see what your ancestors were doing 230+ years ago (that would be, your 500+ great, great, great, great, great, great-grands) -— and assess penalties accordingly.
American Indians include some of the most admired cultures in the world and the wilder the culture the more popular they are. Children do not play cowboys and Mayas. Children, even in Russia play Indian along the lines of Western movies or James Fenimore Cooper.
Now with casinos Whites have a new way of getting scalped (an Indian told me that one). Instead of playing victim, Indians need to look to the positive and get off the Pot, the Jack in the Black and take advantage of their heritage combined with scriptures, V8 engines, and Jim Thorpe’s ideal.
Movies like DANCES WITH WOLVES bemoan the crash of the Great Plains Indian horse culture while forgetting that horses too were brought to America by the Whites.
Indians have no one to blame for their alcoholism and drug abuse except themselves.
“Their rates of alcoholism in particular and drug and alcohol abuse in general are significantly higher than the population at large,”
That is basically true. They are under-educated and given free handouts from Big Brother so that they drink their free handouts.
Namely, the Cherokee took their lands from the Creeks and continued pushing the Creeks and the Catawba out of their vast new holdings. The Cherokee then assimilated better than any other tribe and were rewarded, when gold was discovered in Dahlonega, GA, by Andrew Jackson who literally stole the lands which the white/Cherokee assimilated families had developed. These were white people, who had plantations that produced vegetables for the all-cotton coastal cotton is king economies down the Savannah River. The families had names like Cleveland (hero of King’s Mtn.) as in Cleveland, GA and TN (one vast plantation).
No, not an apologist for Fauxahontas Liz Warren (who is not remotely a Cherokee- bogus claims). The legal land titles of GA and SC were ignored in the federal land grab for ... gold. Shameful treatment of true Americans,leading to the Trail of Tears to OK and slaughter/starvation- the story is quite sad and appalling. These were many people of substance and possessions amongst the common people forced out with them. All history is composed of these type of transitions, good and bad.
There is a distinct genetic marker in Indian tribes, certain ones more than others, for intolerance of alcohol and easy addiction. Not an excuse, because having the willpower to say no is a matter of character- and the chiefs realized this, too late. The susceptibility to alcohol noted early on by the settlers.
Not unlike the Mayan/Incan royalty controlling huge labor sources through the use of the sacred...coca leaf chewed with limestone powder— work all day at high altitudes with no hunger, and wraith thin junkies. Natural systems of control. Which apparently black lives matter types, and the pro-pot crowd do not recognize, in their zeal to “legalize”— they are signing cultural death warrant vs. having the guts to say-—”hell no”.
“...Which apparently black lives matter types, and the pro-pot crowd do not recognize, in their zeal to “legalizeâ€â€” they are signing cultural death warrant vs. having the guts to say-—â€hell noâ€...”
That is a powerful argument.
Instead of arguing over who is to blame or which tribe sided with who, let’s instead look at what happened to the American Indians. The government took a hardy, subsistence based group of peoples, and placed them on reservations. Within two generations they turned those people into welfare junkies. They are doing the same thing to the poor with the war on poverty.
Oh, I get all that. This is my observation on a particularly much maligned willing assimilative tribe.
The re-introduction of tribalizm, negro, pan-african, Native American, Aztlan (La Raza) and interminable other self-identifying “tribes” is designed by the obamaumao and his divisive America haters, to create DIVISION and constant bickering. Divide.. and conquer. The European equivalent is Balkanization. And the unifier-— the Soviet Union.
E Pluribus Unum. Break that up, and you do not have a Constitutional Representative Republic. Which is their goal— play on every nuance and hate— micronize it and fixate it into many single issues— on the instantaneous internet. And get... riots and dictatorship.
“Over the last century, they have become immigrants in their own countries shuffled into reservations that amount to refugee camps and which only concentrate the problems of poverty and substance abuse.”
Correct me if I’m wrong but Indians aren’t required to live on the reservations.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.