Give me ten minutes...

I don't want to fight for fighting's sake. Let's take a moment and let me present my case that the Indians of the colonial period were NOT the barbaric savages that so many (even today) still think they were. I'm not talking about Ryan here... I'm talking about people like Ayn Rand, Ike, and even the vaunted and much loved Reagan, who have all at some time made comments or statements hinting at the savage nature of the Native American people during the late 18th and all through the 19th Centuries.

I am convinced that the Iroquois League is the oldest extant example of a representative democracy, and that it can show a direct historic link as far back as the 12 Century (as far back as 1175 AD). Evidence that the Founding Fathers drew inspiration and guidance in drafting the original Articles of Confederation from the written laws of the League are ample and can be found HERE. These six nations formed a "union" in which people were allowed a voice, individual freedoms were recognized (even those of women and "aliens"... non-tribal members), and a "congress" of leaders met to decide issues of individual member states for all member states. This League existed for at least 600 years... longer than any other extant body of American Indian society... which tells me that they were NOT simple savages living happily off the land. They knew cultivation, metal-making skills, had a syllabic written language, and could waterproof leather containers so well that the white settlers of the 17th and 18th centuries paid top-dollar for the products because they could not duplicate the process at all.

After the formation of the United States of America, Washington, Knox, Jefferson and Madison all worked at developing Federal policies that would "incorporate" the Five Civilized Tribes into the fabric of American society as equals... and initially, it worked very well. By 1815 and the end of the War of 1812, the Cherokee people had both a phonetic written language (using the English alphabet) and a syllabic alphabet invented by Sequoyah and still in use today by traditional scholars of the tongue. Should you follow the above link, you'll find that the Cherokee nation had no fewer than four daily newspapers, and as many as 11 print and binding shops. They were renowned producers tobacco, whiskey and rye, and produced some of the richest men in the State of Georgia (Joseph Vann was a millionaire and owned more than 150 slaves on his 1,200 acre plantation before 1834... when he was forced to leave Georgia for the wilds of the Tennessee because of Jackson's Indian Removal Act). The Cherokee people fought a "war within a war" when the majority of Cherokee voted to side with the Confederacy, while a pro-Union minority took up arms (and uniforms) to fight to remain with the North. The "Yankee" Cherokee were considered by modern West Point historians to be some of the best artillery fighters of the entire century, moving batteries between distant points in such short amounts of time that even Confederate cavalry troops couldn't keep up.

The Chickasaw and Choctaw nations sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War, and paid the price when the war was decided against them. However, these nations sent more than 15,000 men to defend their homes during this war, and these men fought with bravery and distinction that even Lincoln's Administration was forced to recognize. These are the ONLY Confederate pensions to be honored by the Federal government after the war (more than 1,200 of the survivors drew their pay from Federal coffers for the remainder of their lives)... while being denied the right to own land, vote or travel freely outside of the Indian Nation that is now Oklahoma. What does THAT say about the actual degree of patriotism that the Indian people showed?

This is just a small piece of the evidence that America has come to see as truth the false statements that the Indians were uneducated savages living in teepees and wigwams because they knew no better. These people, for the most part, wanted to be Americans from the start of the nation itself... but it was the nation itself that made this process of assimilation almost impossible. This is the cause of the resentment and bias that brings about posters like the one that got this whole thread started... a myopic view of history and a biased assumption of facts that do no justice to either side of the debate and only further the ignorance and intolerance that brought about the problem in the first place.

Perhaps the poster does nothing to further such debate itself... but it isn't wrong or morally objectionable simply because it refutes modern, traditional conservative views on the topic of America's role in crimes against the Indian peoples since 1776 (or 1492... as the poster says). I'm inclined to think, though, that the poster DOES further the cause and debate, because that is exactly what is happening here, isn't it? Aren't we forcing ourselves (and anyone unfortunate enough to have to read along) to look closer at the topic? Aren't we forced by the poster itself to examine what we have all taken to be "fact" in a new light?

Isn't that a good thing... no matter how distasteful we might find the impetus?