Two years ago I had a
post explaining why I could not, in good conscience, celebrate the 4th of July.
Based only upon the one facet of the US treatment of native peoples on this continent, my mind has not changed since then. Anyone who has taken a real and honest look of our history in this area can plainly see the unbroken timeline of cruel, unjustified, and unapologetic horrors inflicted upon Native Americans.
Recently, my mind was further opened on these matters when I watched the PBS series called
We Shall Remain. I shed tears and felt absolute rage for what was done, not only by our own government, but for those who sold out to their own tribes. I now know how much of a bastard Andrew Jackson really was when it came to ignoring the established
legal treaty of 1789 and their borders (pictured in the map above) and destroying the Cherokee Nation, facilitating the
Trail of Tears.
How I wish that human beings were better at spreading peace than they are with spreading violence!
If these enslaving, impoverishing treatments (reaching into the present day) beset upon the Native Tribes of North America are the policy of the place I happen to call home, for this reason alone, I must clearly admit that I am ASHAMED to be an American. I am also ashamed of our judicial system that gives little to no recourse for reparations. I am ashamed that our government has rounded up these people into paltry little reservations, stripping them of their identities/sovereignty, and basically setting them up to fail.
Long live the native peoples of this land. A land that deserves no borders or its current tyrannies. A land that deserves to be free from the people who only take from it, and refuse to give anything back. I think our country would have been better a far place to live if these populations were simply left to their peaceful ways, were listened to, and respected. But in the clashes of cultures both past and present, clearly it is the "white man" who proves to be the savage time and time again.
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