There are still people for who this was in living memory rule

BartsBigBugBag@lemmy.tf to 196@lemmy.blahaj.zone – 284 points –

People always talk about the oppression as ancient history, but it has been perpetual for many groups, not just limited to indigenous. Allotment ran until 1934, giving away native lands. After that they moved to Termination, where they tried to dissolve reservations and negate treaties.

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The Native American genocide is Americas favorite thing to pretend never happened

Oh, yeah. I distinctly remember reading in my textbooks in the 4th grade how they were the pilgrims' good friends and agreed to move. This was in the late 90s. That same year, we went to the nearby burial mounds on a field trip. 8yr old me did not put a lot of thought at the time into how the lecturers and their exhibits seemed to depict all of this as happening in the blindingly distant past, as if they'd gone the way of the neanderthal. Adult me only started assessing how it had been presented a couple years ago when I was telling someone else about it, and I am still horrified.

Stuff like this flyer, I never saw until today. That the state of Tennessee is entirely the result of Americans setting up shop on land that still legally belonged to the Cherokee at the time, and that everyone just sorta went along with that except for, increasingly, the Cherokee, was not something I ever heard until I was doing some semi-related reading on my own at the start of this year.

I literally live in this area.

We do?

Yeah this was beaten do death in American history classes in middle and high school in the 1980s along with the internment camps during WW2 for Japanese and German citizens.

They taught me some things, but they left out most of it. I was still taught the pilgrims and Indians thanksgiving in the 90s. In high school they talked about the Trail of Tears, but not allotment and termination periods. We were also taught that the US “tried to civilize” the indigenous.

We weren’t taught about the attempts to systemically murder and enslave them. The towns destroyed, the crops burned, all were left out. We did learn about the eradication programs for the Bison, but that was presented as an aberration rather than the norm it had already been for decades by that point.

I’ve not met anyone who’s heard about this letter from Washington to Major General John Sullivan, or the policies around it.

The expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the six nations of Indians, with their associates and adherents. The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible…I would recommd. That some post in the center of the Indian Country should be occupied with all expedition, with a sufficient quantity of provision; whence parties should be detached to lay waste all the settlements around, with instructions to do it in the most effectual manner; that the country may not be merely overrun but destroyed …It should be previously impressed upon the minds of the men when ever they have an opportunity, to rush on with the warhoop and fixed bayonet. Nothing will disconcert and terrify the Indians more than this… But you will not by any means, listen to any overture of peace before the total ruin of their settlements is effected…Our future security will be in their inability to injure us; (the distance to wch. They are driven) and in the terror with which the severity of the chastizement they receive will inspire them… When we have effectually chastised them we may then listen to peace and endeavour to draw further advantages from their fears.

Residential schools were mentioned in passing, but not their lasting legacy. Any missteps that were presented were always justified as the US trying to the do the right thing and just missing the mark. That things like that could never happen again. As if the Americans showed up, had a few fights, and then the Indians just moved into reservations and everything was peachy.

Source:

https://aigenom.org/document/washingtons-letter/