Dear Ones,
Since first writers of American "Indian" history presented only one side of this original culture, the following documentation gives the other side.
Mame
AMERICA'S ORIGINAL TRIBES
–First Nations Within One Nation
Helene Smith
"If
you're not just brought up in your own tribe but interact with people through
journalism and literature, you see what life is like from another point of
view."
–Steven Pinker, Canadian scientist
The word tribe means common ancestry,
family, traits and politics. One analyst compared government partisan
opposition to "Primitive tribes strongly opposing one another just because
there is another side." Tribal relationships are also defined as ancient
society and pre-literate communities. However, visual literacy is the ability
to understand and communicate through sign language and graphics.
There are around 566 federally listed
First Nations and 250 unrecognized ones in the United States. Personally I
prefer to identify present indigenous people as nations rather than
"tribes" because these First Americans, since 1924, are US citizens
who were civilized. But upon the arrival of Columbus they experienced savage slaughter from primitive European
conquistadors. Alarming uncivilized corporate governments are continuing to
demolish Earth through ruthless predator weaponry causing man-made industrial
war pollution, what indigenous people have endured for centuries.
Germany and other nations, too, were
tribes at one time. However astute people no longer refer to First Americans as
backward states or three world nations any more, a connotation that has picked
up negativism in modern times. By the way, does any one know what the first and
second world nations are and who wants to be in third place? The term
developing nations is more civil than tribe. Since a cultural lag remains in
our western society still stigmatizing First Nations as tribes, my essay in
depth describes the history of how the original sovereign peoples from North,
Central, and South America have been suppressed, and oppressed, although the
general topic concentrates on First Nations of the United States.
Call them what you may, but in truth
it was Spanish and British Crowns that started colonization in the Western
world as these empires attempted outright extermination of human beings with
inherent rights. This atrocity began in simple methods and in time erupted into
genocidal nuclear bombs, supersonic missiles and their toxic chemical,
radioactive waste from man's killer machines, in the bogus name of
"defense," even though the wisdom of Virgil, born in 70 BCE,
states–"There is no safety in war"–what I have been researching and
observing for over 65 years.
When I was a child in Canada on
fishing trips with my parents one of the
"Indian" guides presented me with a copy of the Lord's
Prayer a device
missionaries used in
proselytizing First Americas since they thought they needed to be saved–ignorance
that oppressed them and attempted to erase their original ancient spirituality
that never caused a war as dogmatic, subscription religions do as they tax
their members. The publication was
written in Ojibwa and I eagerly memorized the book, not for its message but because
I wanted to learn the language. I
still have the booklet today.
The original name of the guide's
people was corrupted to Chippewa, just as the Apsalooka culture was corrupted
to "Crow" by French
trappers through First American sign language–hands flapping like wings of a
bird–with Europeans thinking they represented crows. But these natives called
themselves ancestors of an ancient raven.
The Sioux Nation (derived from a long term) has different dialects
commonly called Dakota, Lakota or Nakota, all of which have been defined by
non-members confusing the languages.
Deep into primeval woodlands and
along pristine lakeshores on indigenous land I became acquainted with uranium
from conversations of "Indian" fishermen. Deforestation through strip
mining of this radioactive, toxic metal has for years been contaminating and
deteriorating precious water supplies not only in western reservations but also
around the world from Earth-destroying cancer-causing reactors. First Nation
property is also poisoned from other industrial war activity–mining of coal and
oilrigs for petroleum products as the government takes the proceeds.
In Ontario I can remember dipping a
tin cup into the fresh water for drinking. But the plight of world's rivers and
oceans has been ignored for so long toxicants are now destroying Earth our
mother as seen in air pollution and oil sands in Edmonton, Canada, especially
affecting indigenous people–despite raised voices protesting generational,
genetic atrocities along with poisoned fisheries and wetlands. Polychlorinated
biphenyls (PCBs) are also lethal agents killing bottlenose dolphins at
Brunswick, Georgia, land of the mound builders and the Creek
"Indians." Today industrial weapons of massive devastation and their
lethal wastes turn nature into oily wastelands devoid of trees and vegetation,
a monotone gray atmosphere. Here
International Law, Geneva Protocols and ordinances protecting children's
rights are ignored and not enforced, as they are worldwide.
Centuries of accumulative lethal
explosive bombardment of military chemical explosives have increased global
heat from nuclear munitions, thus triggering earthquakes. During WWII and the
Vietnam War indigenous people of "yellow skin" were demonized as
tribal gooks, insinuating that they were demons, an excuse for easier
annihilation. Laos became the nation bombed for the longest time in the history
of the world. Military climate warfare caused seeded clouds to prolong the
monsoon season in order to prevent transportation of opposing supplies to get
through to the Ho Chi Minh trail running through Laos. Millions of shrapnel
cluster bomblets rained own until a national metal recycling industry became a
necessity nearly 50 years after the war. Women teams are still detonating dud
bombs on land also covered by shells reading, USA, throughout Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia. Even battles using simple saltpeter gunpowder can alter the weather.
In a gun shell, climate warfare has
now escalated into a force even more sinister than the deadliest modern explosives.
HAARP–pertaining to high-frequency radio waves, electromagnetic power and laser
beams or "death rays"–is potent enough to destroy foreign
agricultural and ecological systems through political tribalism–including our
own–all in the name of irresponsible chilling war against Earth, capitalized
for respect. This worst possible weapon has not only made its appearance on the
horizon, but it is screwing world weather. Are these "sky heaters"
warming Earth and vibrating enough energy through transmitters also affecting
tectonic plates–the innards of Earth–the foundations of continents and islands?
Are Alaskan military bases together
with those in Russia affecting Siberia and Alaskan Eskimos and animals with
cancer and diseases as holes are intentionally blown into the atmosphere and
zapping life on Earth–described as "fried"–a new cold war in which
the controllers experiment and tamper with the ionosphere? Those in power when atomic and hydrogen
bombs were tested and exploded in the atmosphere and underground, didn't
consider the radiation killing all forms of life especially among indigenous
peoples. Some were concerned whether Earth would be set on fire by nitrogen
exloding from the genocidal super bombs.
But the officials did it anyway! When men gamble and
risk Earth and all all forms of life for the sake of the biggist bomb power,
they become the most dangerous bombs of all. Is history now repeating itself
with electromagnetic and laser beam technology more interested in the power
than the people? This competitive weather manipulation and exploitation of
climate warfare is mighty enough to not only trigger horrendous earthquakes,
but also floods, droughts, tornados, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.
Those knowledgeable about this
Earth-shaking information are rising in numbers. The entire corporate
government system hiding shocking facts and alarming secrets from the populace
as global military plays "God" with everyone looking at one another
in spy-glass cartoon graphics. Meanwhile taxpayers are unaware of the price
being paid for unaccountable, reckless climate warfare.
Traditional people living on
reservations, the last remnants of their sacred lands, continually endure many
adversities to survive what has happened to them ever since the first "Spanish
Armada" arrived in the West Indies in 1492–what it looked like through the
eyes of the original people, even though the 1558 invasion of Spain against
England proved to be more dramatic with firing of cannons and explosions within
a much larger armada. Invasion and
attack is never a welcome roar no matter how one hears it, especially in Iraq
and Afghanistan where women are afraid to get pregnant from all the
child-deforming munistions.
Christopher Columbus and his fleet
the Mina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, with original names pertaining to
saints, were viewed in awe at first as these ships sailed into San Salvador,
what was known as Guanahani to the natives for thousands of years. But the errant navigator changed its
original name to mean "Holy Savior" with no one's consent other than
his own. If he had run
aground in Japan, as he thought he had, he would have behaved with the same
disrespect of original Asians completelyaghast
by a newcomer wiping out their sacred name. Columbus later explored Cuba and
Hispaniola, the latter now Haiti and the Dominican Republic, under billowing
sails all bearing one persuasive logo that proved to be demonic to tribal
natives from the start. Although horses had been extinct for thousands of years
on western lands, the conquistador Spaniards in the sixteen-century
reintroduced them to the world of the original people. Natives were astonished
by what they saw. They envisioned each horse and helmeted rider as one
uncivilized creation, a strange half-man-half-horse bearing a shiny metal
javelin ready to spear them!
If space aliens landed on planet
Earth, would we welcome them or nuke them? Some people think highly intelligent
aliens are already here as we ponder incredibly made mysterious stone monuments
and serpentine mounds of original peoples everywhere. These constellation
patterns reflect celestial stars as well as equinoxes and solstices.
I keep gravitating back the the "founding" of the
Americas in the West Indies–a farce from the start, as the United States still
celebrates one man who is honored annually for desecrating the continent of
Americas for a special holiday. Society completely forgets to even remember
First Americans who say they have been on their lands from the start of
humanity–about 250,000 years.
Jesus of Nazareth is attributed with the words, "You can't be a
prophet in your own land." First Americans, whose own prophets and culture
were disregarded from the first by immigrating proselytizers, have complexions
resembling one tone of mineral clay–as all people do–from bronze to shades of
brown and light tan pigment depending upon inherent geography. In the Hebrew
Bible the author of
the book attributed to Job wrote, "I also am formed out of clay." This
metaphor may go deeper than we think. We are all one people with mineral roots
starting out in Pangaea 200 million years ago before it separated into
landmasses called continents and the Great Circle. This Equator distinguishes
the Northern and Southern hemispheres from one another to indicate where humanity started as it
passes through South America and Africa, perhaps in duel evolution with early
inhabitants having dark complexions from being closest to the rays of the sun.
Columbus and his conquistadors,
ignorant of Leif Erickson's and other Norsemen's voyages in the 11th century,
thought they discovered a new land in the spice islands of East Indies, or
Japan or possibly China that have been flourishing for thousands of years.
Little did they know that an enormous untold amount of inhabitants were also
living on the lands of future Americas where they actually landed. Here early
tribal nations traded and communicated with one another in sophisticated trade
routes.
The Spanish explorer and conquistador
Bartolome' De la Casas exposed the cruelty of Columbus and his crews who were
responsible for killing thousands of natives during four voyages to the Bahama
archipelago. There in the Greater Antilles including Cuba the Spanish Crown
appointed Columbus governor. He and his men significantly reduced the native
population during their rampage and frenzy to find gold, silver and spices
assuming they were in the Far East. In the West Indies they also raped women
and children as they transmitted sexual diseases into the New World that had no
immunity to European venereal ailments and other maladies. In documented words
of Columbus he wrote these tribal people "are well-built and handsome
looking. . . . With fifty men we could easily subdue them and make them do
anything we want." And they
did, including innocent children forced into slavery, with even more thousands
of first natives dying.
De la Casas felt that slavery should
incorporate Africans instead of First Americans since the former lived closer
to the equator. He falsely deduced western Indians would better endure intense
heat on southern plantations. Although Casas sought tribal human rights in the
Americas, he took the same inherent rights away from American Africans. We all are products of our times–but
that is no excuse. From history men and women have risen above the status quo,
as they become courageous heroes in risking their own lives for other people's
rights. President John Adams was
against slavery and Queen Isabella of Spain was aghast at Columbus and his
crews bringing back tribal natives in chains for slaves. She ordered for Columbus to be
imprisoned, but magnanimously let him out for his fourth and last voyage. His
most infamous claim to fame is introduction of colonization and slave trade to
the Americas. In further reading of his daily log Columbus admitted the Arawak
tribe was "gentle and trusting . . . hospitable and sharing that made them
easy prey for enslavement and exploitation."
Columbus was noted for torture and tyranny to please the
Spanish Crown. So he resorted to a scheme to cut off noses and ears of tribal
natives as if human beings were wild beasts. He then sold the mutilated people
in bondage–militant strategy to control people as they terrorized them into
obedience. He also marched a native woman naked through the streets before
cutting off her tongue because she called him a product of low birth.
This mentality was typical of
imperialist authoritarians. Elmina Castle in Accra, Ghana still contains
dungeons where thousands of African tribal members waited before being shipped
like cargo to America and European nations during overland transport and middle
passage of the Atlantic Ocean free slave trade that required no tariffs, quotas
or restrictions. Here each successive governor had women in bondage parade naked before him as he eyed them
after buckets of soapy water were poured over them. Sitting in the balcony
tower overlooking the women, the governor would then choose which one to rape.
Pregnant women suffering morning sickness chained in slave galleys became especially
ill in the bottoms of boats rocking back and forth as galley slaves rowed them
away from their beloved land.
Getting back to Columbus, it is a
disgrace to have an American holiday named for any ogre full of malice. I just
recently heard poet activist Jimmy Page singing lyrics on TV–"I'm never
going to celebrate Columbus Day"–as I was taking a break from writing this
paragraph for my essay. It felt like an unseen hand leading me to these words I
had never heard before. It is not too late to change the national holiday of
Columbus Day to Amerigo Vespucci Day and add First Nation's Day as well,
honoring original Americans instead of a man who did not even know what land he
had discovered until his dying day.
In 2014 a high school in Georgia went
through a name change. It no longer commemorates General Nathan Forrest, a
millionaire dealing in tribal slaves, cotton and land. He was the first Ku Klux Klan Grand
Dragon dubbed "the wizard of the saddle." His deplorable reputation
led to the naming of a school for a Civil War tyrant who violated American
African civil rights as he from time to time took off his military uniform and
donned a sheet and pointed hat with holes in it for eyes. Some things never
change.
Vespucci was the first explorer to prove Brazil and the West
Indies did not border the outskirts of China and the Far East. In 1492 he was already planning on his
first voyage after researching and indulgently marking out itinerary for his
journey. This scholar who was an avid reader collected books and maps instead
of gold and natives sold into slavery. In 1499 his route took him to the mouth
of the Amazon River, the longest river–not the Nile–with both rivers now
contaminated by industrial war toxicants and human debis. On the Amazon Vespucci explored its
magnificent route as well as the culture of tribal natives. His travel letters
were later published.
More nitty-gritty details include
First Nations soon discovering the strangers from the sea were not friendly and
fixated on one thing–stealth of what would reap wealth–with Columbus keeping
much of the gold for himself. It did not take long before the original people
found the rush for gold to be a lasting trait, a pattern of immigrants not
educated in the cultures of the Americas. Europeans trying to exterminating the
original inhabitants also cut cutting off native fingers if not digging up
enough precious metals to send back to Catholic Spain under royal orders, with
gold now embellishing European cathedral. Following the first encounter with strangers,
American tribal members were shocked and shattered as their infants were bashed
against trees just as natives under Governor Columbus in Cuba lost 7000
children in a few months of cruelty. From the start the entire Columbian
invasion was deceitful, all hidden by historians who were called
"white."
The first people who scalped others,
a "hair-raising experience," lived around the Black Sea and the
Caucasus Mountains (Duquesne University Forum research paper with this title in
parentheses). In revenge natives fought back with similar brutality. Colonists scalped and stripped skin
from indigenous "Indians" in Massachusetts and elsewhere. Harvard's
Peabody Museum, one of the oldest in the world displaying aboriginal cultures,
reveals "Indian scalps that had hung on the walls of the courthouse."
At Falmouth, Maine clergymen and parishioners were often recipients of scalp
bounty. An Englishman, Henry Hamilton nicknamed "the hair buyer
general" in 1775 was Superintendent of Indian Affairs at Fort Detroit
during the French and Indian Wars in Quebec in which the British won. From
there word got out that Hamilton encouraged First Americans to scalp or capture
colonists to receive rewards in Canada. This explains why many newcomers to the
New World were forced to go to Canada by foot.
The British and its New World
colonists carried out the first biological warfare in America when blankets
were taken from smallpox hospitals and insidiously given to the original people
as "gifts"–a disease that also diminished their tribes in great
numbers. This annihilation was made when the government also attempted to
exterminate them by killing off their buffalo (American bison)–mainstay of the
First Nations' existence. US founding fathers encouraged eugenics in an attempt
to justify extermination of tribes pegged as being inferior. Early mass murder
orders were issued under George Washington, soon to be president, during the
Sullivan-Clinton Campaign of 1779 to "not only overthrow the Peaceful
Iroquois League of nations, but to
destroy these tribes–Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca, Mohawk and Tuscarawa.
President Jefferson took the side of forceful elimination, too. President
Abraham Lincoln in 1862 ordered 38 Dakota prisoners hanged in Mankato,
Minnesota–the largest one-day execution in American history after First
Americans rebelled against treaty violations and unfair dealing causing hunger
and hardships in order for migrating settlers to take over the West. This
atrocity resulted in the Dakota War with warriors killed on both sides.
President Andrew Jackson ignored Supreme Court Law under Judge John Marshall
declaring indigenous people had inherent rights. Jackson unmercifully sent
Cherokees and Seminoles to the territory of Oklahoma as he promised them an
"Indian" state, with many of them hiding in Tennessee Smoky Mountain
caves and Florida Everglades.
Thousands of them died along the way as prisoners who had to supply
their own food–The Trail of Tears, now a revealing annual outdoor drama.
The promise of an all American "Indian" territory
in Oklahoma was broken when that land became a state in President Theodore
Roosevelt's administration–as the US also broke over 400 treaties, the highest
law of the land! Roosevelt said "Manifest Destiny" was extremely
beneficial"–to those stealing land and natural resources. Every year the
media reports theft of millions of indigenous money with nary a blinking public
eye, except from the victims. Roosevelt believed "tribal savages"
were weak and inferior, as he advocated good breeding of desirable people"
(Caucasians) to improve humanity. Animal lovers in humane societies would say
this "humanity" of the "Teddy Bear" lacked respect for
wildlife he shot for trophies, as well as human beings targeted for elimination. Sculptor
Gutzon Borglum, who designed Mount Rushmore's presidential busts, was a
powerful member of the Ku Klux Klan, He was especially eager to have Roosevelt
included with presidents Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on the mountain in
South Dakota among the Black Hills belonging to the "Sioux" Indians–due
to Roosevelt's and the other president's political views. In bold contrast, President John Adams
did not sanction slavery as he called it "a colossal magnitude" of
injustice against American Indian tribal nations and those of American
Africans. He believed in human rights, yet being the first US vice president
and the second president, he was not chosen to be monumental for obvious
reasons.
The most dangerous
pollution on indigenous lands happened during nuclear bomb years where testing
took place along borders of western reservations where lack of respect for
different cultures took on more combustive meaning. This nuclear age genocide
infiltrated lands soaked in toxic radiation and an atmosphere of poisonous
chemical emissions. Over 1000 bombs exploded in the air sending fallout back
onto indigenous people targeted for extinction, as well as affecting the entire
planet with gross excess of radiation. These sites were marked in red in early
atlases, now removed– military-posted signs reading DANGER ZONES, not to warn
"Indians" and ranchers who knew they were sick from contamination,
but for local tourists passing through their lands. Again, the hazardous sites
are easy to find, intentionally located next to First American lands. These
militant proving grounds resulted in sterile craters on Earth with all life
affected.
I stood beside a
stream with the son of one of the western chiefs. He pointed out to me how the government had killed much life
on his land through chemicals making it a dead zone. Now lethal pesticides
pollute ground water and aquifers all across Earth. The Shoshone-Bannock
Sundance Poisoning involves
cancerous chemicals and radioactive raffinated fertilizer often made from waste
products of petroleum products used on "Indian" lands.
At the time of the
Sundance ritual, only the corporation responsible for the toxic chemical was
interviewed. First American victims were not even consulted. This resulted from
the dysfunctional irresponsible Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). As the
investigator journalist threatened by non-Indian sources, I received a letter
over ten years later from the BIA that took control of the investigation, a
blatant conflict of interest. They concluded there was no harm done by the chemical
fertilizer corporation in cahoots with the government. But a decade later the
US Environmental Protective Agency admitted the people were poisoned during the
sacred Sundance through cancerous fumigants. And there was no word sent to the victims or to the
researcher who had corresponded with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
On lands of First Nations non-Indians
are allowed to move in among the original people and take over everything they
can. Helen Walker Jackson wrote a book published in 1881. The First Century
of Dishonor"–A Sketch of the United States Government Dealing with Some of
the Indian Tribes.
(see 1992 Second Century of Dishonor, aka Apsalooka, the Crow Nation Then and Now, with copies presented to all
members of Congress, the president
and vice-president as was Walker's book.) Jackson called for reform among
Indian nations, too, but what Congress ended up doing provoked tremendous harm
against the first people. She meant well, also through her book Ramona pointing out government abuse of
First America's tribes. But reform turned into deformation of Indian lands–with
feds arrogantly breaking up land already native owned into designated plots
that brought on poverty to the people who from the beginning are creative
artists, musicians, conservative hunters and resourceful gatherers of berries
and natural organic plants. Yet the government divided "Indian" lands
among the inhabitants with no agricultural education offered the hunters who
were not used to a different way of life.
Remaining lands of First Nations amounted to 154 million acres with
indigenous people permitted to keep 106 million acres of their original land
with nothing of value given in return except excruciating problems as each year
more land is taken from them as their trust monies are stolen.
Congress passed the General Allotment Act (leading proponent
Senator Henry Dawes) in 1887 with no one understanding the culture of original
tribal nations whose economy depended upon trade and their inherent rights.
With the newly ratified law these original peoples had to pay taxes even though
they were not citizens of the United States until 1924. It was not long before
the residents were devastated and shattered since they could not afford the
unlawful fees. The rush for lust of non-Indians getting government stolen land
left the original people in a dust storm, as different religious sects also
scrambled to get their foothold into federal run reservations through
competitive proselytizing. Tribal property on paper now looked like a
checkerboard with non-native newcomers living in between original landowners.
Of course corporate government kept
the most productive acreage. As racist, patronizing "guardians" the
feds placed original Indian lands in trust as they tried to justify this fraud
by propaganda that First American tribes were uncivilized and backward, what
led to complicit mentality of the non-native population going along with
destructive graft. This same
mindset was used against African soldiers during the Civil war when they were
placed in front line battle, with the most vulnerable killed first. Illegal
government greed also brought on welfare, what triggered even more poverty as
the feds interfered with First Nations' cultural ways, mores and customs.
The same thing happened when young
adult experts in the raising of cotton, indigo and expert were captured in
Africa, leaving behind babies and elders in an impoverished collapsed economy.
This change for the worse also introduced original Native Americans as slaves for
free labor. The very idea that
they would be confined to a foreign culture that would take away their sacred
spirituality and keep them in chains was too hard to swallow. Thus many of them
committed suicide rather than being a forced into a foreign religion, another
goal of Columbus. African people also fettered in iron chains of bondage jumped
off decks of slaver ships choosing death over bondage.
This violation of human rights is illegal under
International Law–what the military minimizes as whack attacks. Lives of
indigenous people living in poor rural conditions on polluted lands are also at
stake, as youths–mostly of dark complexioned tribal roots–are devastated in
endless youth-killing wars of terrorism and violence.
Much of warrior cruelty came straight
from Leviticus 25:44,
"the word of God" demanding slaves be taken from the heathen–the
unbelievers. These words provoked three original Semitic Abrahamic religions
still trying to annihilate one another in warfare. It did not take long for the indigenous people to understand
the meaning of the word unbelievers. There is no word for religion in
traditionalist indigenous vocabularies. The logo displayed on the sails of ship
that invaded their West Indian islands and western lands was graphic enough. The salient red cross did not represent
the Spanish flag but instead the dogmas of slave masters. There is an old "Indian"
saying, "They came with their Bibles and we owned the land. But now we have their Bibles and they own our land."
First Americans were never defeated,
what the US Army later admitted. Deceit of land occupation through
"eminent domain" has less clout than treaty. Yet Congress made
treaties to take away their land. These documents written in a foreign language
were not explained to the original people verbally. They thought the newcomers were just paying a fee for
passing through their land, not owning it!–since the original land owners
received nothing but a few
trinkets, beads or spoons of sugar from those committing the skullduggery.
Meanwhile centuries of Indian Wars
(including Seven Year Wars in Europe) took their toll during the
intercontinental wars, also with Catholics and Protestants trying to kill off
one another for centuries, such as the 100 and 30-year wars.
In Pennsylvania the English were
defeated during the 1755 Battle of the Monongahela at the junction of the
Allegheny and Ohio rivers–Pittsburgh.
During embattlement the British, under General Edward Braddock (killed
in the battle) marched along the riverbanks in salient bright red coats.
Natives stood behind trees and picked them off like rabbits in a carnival
shooting gallery. In fact, officials at West Point were impressed and eager to
study strategy of First American nations–the introduction of camouflage,
stealth and surprise attack with an added whooping yell that would even lift up
a jackal from the ground.
But there is something much better
that we learn from a First Nation culture. It is the coup, the
courage it takes in touching people, not in killing them. The first Continental Congress in
1775 was adamant about gaining First American tribal neutrality during the
Revolutionary war. Instead of Congress that formed the War Department in 1789
protecting the original landowners, they and their lands are still exploited.
During enforcement of reservations, suffering residents called themselves
prisoners in war camps, what brought back more starvation, alcoholism and
poverty.
Newly introduced alcohol was used to
conceal the stress of losing a former natural way of life after millions of
years of one culture successfully having a good life of happiness. Some one
once said, "If you were treated as badly as American Indian tribal
members, who wouldn't over imbibe!" The masters of the First Nations is
comprised in the most corrupt federal regulatory agency–proved by several
Congressional investigations. The feds–in order to control Indian tribal
lands–set up a non-elected Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1824 without
authorization of Congress, followed by the mismanaged bureau transferred to the
Department of the Interior in 1849, still fraudulent to this day. Once the camel got its nose into the
tent flap he is in like Flynn. With the
federal government in cahoots with religionists, this powerful coalition would
not allow the original culture to continue except through regulated control of
reservations by adjacent US military basses leaking toxic emissions and lethal
nuclear and chemical waste, over 5,000 in the world.
Then when the original people thought
all the decimation and genocide was the final blow–leaving less than two
percent traditionalists within the United States–more tragedy struck them in
the 1960s and 70s. The federal government prevented "Indian" women
from having children without their knowledge. Whenever First Americans were
admitted to hospitals for whatever reason, under the Health, Education and
Welfare (HEW) program, they were sterilized. This organized "ethnic
cleansing" was disclosed by "Indian" doctors and a study of “red”
nation women called WARN, later exposed by Senator James Abourezk to Congress.
Puerto Rican women were victims, too, sterilized in Hartford and New Haven,
Connecticut hospitals. Dark complexioned women were also given experimental
birth control pills before they were safe for the public.
The next blow was feds targeting reservations
for dumping hazardous chemical and radioactive waste. Even the lowest radiation
is detrimental to health.
National aggression continues to take its toll in poverty
and ill health from toxic industrial war waste, with the area of Pine Ridge,
South Dakota the most impoverished.
Leonard Peltier, still incarcerated, was one of America's first
whistle-blowers. But Congress would not listen to the truth about "tribal
members." When FBI officials visited their community and provoked trouble,
several of them were shot in self defense, with Peltier, being the scapegoat.
The entire story is in Peter Mathiessen's book, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. Yet to this day Peltier remains in prison with no president
courageous enough to pardon him, what would bring him peace to the last years
of his life.
During WWI and II
Nazi-invented nerve gases were used as chemical warfare internationally, with
surplus made for commercial pesticides in the aftermath. As a result
Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's and Hodgkin's diseases plague Earth, especially
soldiers and those living on reservations?. War-torn children
suffer the longest period of time under the extreme carbon CO2 boot of
aggression and sanctions that cause starvation, with war the worst serial
killer a sad
scenario of the lives of many traditionalists naturalist trying to resist
multiple abuses and pollution on their lands. The main fixation was to keep
original owners separate from immigrant settlers–out of sight, out of mind for
theft of their land. (see Conquest, by Andrea Smith).
One
of the "dirty dozen" most lethal chemicals–dioxin Agent Orange–was first used against
American "Indians" and later sprayed during the Vietnam War that
caused defoliated vegetation and death to human beings as well. This herbicide
triggered the worst dioxin poisoning in North America among the Apaches and
other indigenous people of San Carlos, Arizona. The US Army dumped millions of
gallons of this surplus Agent Orange chemical that causes mental retardation as
well as birth defects in military bases all over the world, including thousands
of gallons in Korea.
At
Hanford, Washington Reservation, the largest WWII nuclear dump is where the
first full sized plutonium radioactive industry started, with waste dumped
there since 1943 for part of the Manhattan Project. It is called a reservation
since it is located at First Nation lands, now contaminated for hundreds of
thousands years and more. Such
nations as the US Confederated Tribes of Umatila, as well as the Yakima, Nez
Perce (pierced nose) were forced off their inherent lands to make room for 200
miles of radiated land. It is said
that "the Wanapum Tribe stayed on their land" along the Columbia
River and are immediately at risk from the results of accumulative
youth-killing wars. With imprudent
short sightedness waste tanks, only guaranteed for 200 years, are now leaking
plutonium, hydrogen and chemicals threatening to blow up, as ground water is
already polluted with high-level radiation along the Columbia River having 800
other wasted dumps that also threaten Oregon. Yucca Mountain in Nevada at the
California border has been threatened for years for future use as an even
larger nuclear waste dump than the Hanford "Indian."
We
are now in the dump and run age, ominous recycling of filthy energy and its
toxic wastes as this deadly refuge is hauled from one place to another, all on
one planet. Nuclear waste is also used for radioactive depleted uranium (DU) bullets strong enough
to shoot through tanks, leaving lethal emissions behind. From the South Pacific indigenous
islands where some of the atolls of the Marshall Islands were blasted right off
the face of Earth, the contaminated soil was transported by thousands of tons
to Maryland waste disposals and to sites in the US.
This worldwide dumping includes
Somalia where young men turn into high-sea pirates trying to save their
families from child-deforming poisons and their lands being polluted –nations
taking advantage of a weakened government by dumping nuclear waste on foreign
shores. We may all run, but chemical, radioactive toxicants and radical war
wastes will eventually catch us–on land, in air and in shining hot seas from
shore to shore.
The primitive slingshot of biblical David has transformed into genocidal weapons of massive
devastation. Some people say "You can't put the genii back in the bottle. But war is no genii! No one manufactures spittoons
anymore. Cuspidors are a thing of
the past–now antiques that make nice planters, as war weaponry will be
displayed in museums of curiosity in the future. But it is the toxic,
radioactive munitions that are still aborting, deforming and mental
handicapping the world of infants born to combat parents handling toxicants and
non-combatants caught in the crossfire of modern war zones as they suffer fatal
diseases. This aftermath of war has reached a pandemic crisis with
quintessential need for weaning warmongers off their pacifiers of holocaustic,
deforming weapons. Bob Dylan wrote
profound lyrics for his song Masters of War, words that are heart wrenching,
"You've
thrown the worst fear that can ever be hurled, fear to bring children into the
world, for threatening my baby unborn and unnamed, you ain't worth the blood
that runs in your veins."
First
Americans, combat soldiers and all people
caught in crossfire of war zones have a history of being afraid to bring
children into the world of mutant chemical toxicants and radioactive depleted
uranium (UR) causing grotesque
deformities and genetic retardation in wombs as munitions keeps killing one
generation after another.
As
long as people are programmed to
primitive tribal members waving flags of assault and wrapping ourselves
in colors as well as our places of worship in so-called patriotic bunting, we
will never be free as modern battlefield alters offer up sacrificial lambs as
scapegoats. Musician Woody Guthrie in his lyrics wishes soldiers to sit down
together and say, "I ain't a gonna kill anybody"–no more.
"Plenty of rich folks want to fight.
Give them
the guns."
I love the beauty of America and I love
it's sweet, kind people of varied cultures. But I abhor any nation that has a history of slashing and
burning its own people, such as tribal politics killing innocent First Nation
residents. In 1872 all families–except a boy who escaped–among the
Gnadenhutten Moravian "Indians"–were massacred as they and their log
villages went up in flames. The pioneer frontier militia scalped them before
burning them alive to ashes. These Native Americans had moved to Ohio to escape
colonial encroachment. Most of the
victims were still breathing, reminiscent of Vietnam villages with residents
burned to death like Inquisitional victims burned alive, tied to a stake?
In
view of human war history nothing has changed, except weapons and munitions
becoming genetically lethal with supersonic death machines operated by masters
of war. What human being ever has such a so-called right that in war anything
goes? What monsters are in our
minds that raise hands bloodied with our taxpaying fuel geared and oiled for
wars?
In
summery, aggression against First Americans continues in the false name of God's
will–Providence directing "Manifest Destiny" against First Nations, military
style–a slogan political columnist, John O'Sullivan, concocted in 1845.
– Traditionalist
indigenous peoples are appalled as Earth-shattering toxic munitions are piling
up warfare waste still contaminating Mother Earth that First Nations have
always revered. In addition, these original people are still
persecuted even going back to religious Jesuits who abused them and called them
barbaric. But at last justice is
being served. As a result, Jesuit priests who physically and sexually abused Native
American youths under the auspices of federal government enforced religious
boarding schools, agreed to pay victims $250 million going back to the1800s when these torturous institutions
were initiated in Alaska villages and Northwest First Nations. Let the reader
decide who were the real barbarians were who robbed the victims of their
childhood with after shock affecting their entire life times.
