Jovitalk - Bon Jovi Fan Community - National Holiday For Native Americans

Some more info that I found:

Word of warning, this might anger some. But this is what really happened not what was/is in the text books.
There were ten million Native Americans on this continent when the first non-Indians arrived. Over the next 300 years, 90% of all Native American original population was either wiped out by disease, famine, or warfare imported by the whites."
By 1840 all the eastern tribes had been subdued, annihilated or forcibly removed to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi.
The discovery of the New World by European explorers caused endless problems for American Indians, whose homelands were gradually taken from them and whose cultures were dramatically altered, and in some cases destroyed, by the invasion.
The first contact between southeastern American Indians and Europeans was the expedition of Hernando de Soto in 1540. De Soto took captives for use as slave labor, while others were abused because the Europeans deemed them savages. Epidemic diseases brought by the Europeans spread through the Indian villages, decimating native populations.
Over the next two centuries more and more white settlers arrived, and the native cultures responded to pressures to adopt the foreign ways, leading to the deterioration of their own culture. During the colonial period Indian tribes often became embroiled in European colonial wars. If they were on the losing side, they frequently had to give up parts of their homelands.
After the American Revolution the Indians faced another set of problems. Even though it took time for the new government to establish a policy for dealing with the Indians, the precedent had been set during the colonial period. The insatiable desire of white settlers for lands occupied by Indian people inevitably led to the formulation of a general policy of removing the unwanted inhabitants.
Political leaders including President Thomas Jefferson believed that the Indians should be civilized, which to him meant converting them to Christianity and turning them into farmers. Many other whites agreed, and missionaries were sent among the tribes. But when the transformation did not happen quickly enough, views changed about the Indian people's ability to be assimilated into white culture.

"We, the great mass of the people think only of the love we have to our land for...we do love the land where we were brought up. We will never let our hold to this land go...to let it go it will be like throwing away...[our] mother that gave...[us] birth."
(Letter from Aitooweyah, to John Ross, principal chief of the Cherokees.)
National policy to move Indians west of the Mississippi developed after the Louisiana Territory was purchased from the French in 1803. Whites moving onto these lands pressed the U.S. government to do something about the Indian presence. In 1825 the U.S. government formally adopted a removal policy, which was carried out extensively in the 1830's by Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. The result was particularly overwhelming for the Indians of the southeastern United States - primarily the Cherokee, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles - who were finally removed hundreds of miles to a new home.
Perhaps the most culturally devastating episode of this era is that concerning the removal of the Cherokee Indians, who called themselves (Italicized- Ani Yun wiya.) Traditionally the Cherokees had lived in villages in the southern Appalachians - present-day Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, western North Carolina, and South Carolina, northern Georgia, and northeastern Alabama. Here in a land of valleys, ridges, mountains, and streams they developed a culture based on farming, hunting, and fishing.
The Cherokees took on some of the ways of white society. They built European-style homes and farmsteads, laid out European-style fields and farms, developed a written language, established a newspaper, and wrote a constitution. But they found that they were not guaranteed equal protection under the law and that they could not prevent whites from seizing their lands. They were driven from their homes, herded into internment camps, and moved by force to a strange land.

Fact: It is estimated that prior to European contact in 1492, the
Americas (North and South) were populated by roughly 145,000,000
people. By the end of the 1800's, 95% of the population had been
killed; or 9 out of every 10.
* STERILIZATION - In the mid-70's, illegal sterilization of
Native American women were performed usually after childbirth and
often without proper consent. Common Sense magazine reported that the
Indian Health Services sterilized about 3,000 women per year.

* There is evidence to suggest that DISEASES were deliberately
introduced to Native populations by a variety of sources, including
blankets. In 1763, Lord Jeffrey Amherst suggests to Colonel Henry
Bouquet that blankets infected with smallpox be given to the Lanape
and Ottawa people, "You will do well to [infect] the Indians by
means of blankets as well as to try every other method that can serve
to extirpate this [execrable] race." Evidence is also available that
shows the Native people were purposely weakened so the diseases could
easily infiltrate their communities.

* Unprovoked MASSACRES - The list of unprovoked slaughter of innocent
Native people by both soldiers and civilians is extensive. Here's
a small sampling of the atrocities:

* Sand Creek (200+ killed)
* Bear River (up to 400)
* Slaughter of the Innocents in 1643
* Indian Island Massacre (over 100 killed)
* Puritans burn over 700 Pequot Indians alive in 1637
* Over 300 die at Wounded Knee
* Battle of Washita - over 103 sleeping Cheyenne men, women and
children are killed
* 144 defensiveness Aravaipa Apache Indians are raped, beaten,
murdered and mutilated by an angry mob in Arizona. "One infant of
some ten months was shot twice and one leg nearly hacked off"
said by Lieutenant Royal E Whitman, describing the brutal massacre.
28 of the remaining children were confiscated and sold into slavery.
* March 8, 1782, 90 innocent Christian Indians were erroneously
blamed for various crimes and then sentenced to death. The following
morning, the Indians were led out in pairs and murdered by blows to
their heads with copper mallets - in front of white settlers. 39 of
the victims were children. Later, their scalps were removed and held
as trophies.

"You will... use all means to pursade any tribe
to come in for the purpose of making peace, and
when you get them together kill all the grown
Indians and take the children...
sell them as slaves to defray the cost..."
- Confederate Governor John R. Baylor, 1862

* MASS EXECUTIONS - The largest mass executions held in American
history were of Native people.
In 1862 Santee Sioux attempted to collect their promised
payment and rations from US government officials. Agents denied both,
even though their food was stored in a warehouse at the Agency.
Though the soldiers and local townspeople were aware of the peoples
dire straits and near starvation, they took no effort to release the
food that was righfully - and legally - theirs. In August Andrew
Myrick, an agency trader and store-owner, knew of the desolate
condition of the Native people, yet callously replied, "So far as
I am concerned, if they are hungry let them eat grass!"
Within days the Santee Sioux could tolerate no more ill
treatment. On August 18th the Sioux Uprising began. Little Crow lead
the revolt and approximately a thousand settlers died during raids
and killings, including Myrick who would later be found dead in his
store with grass shoved into his mouth. By 1864 the Sioux Uprising
would end with nearly 90% of the Santee either imprisoned or dead.
Several hundred would later be charged in the killings, leading to the
largest mass execution in US history.

* FORCED REMOVAL from HOMELANDS - Indigenous people were taken from
their homeland, their burial grounds, and their hunting/farming
grounds and forced to relocate to a place completely foreign to them.
Nearly 3 billion acres of land were stolen and thousands upon
thousands of people died during the journey from disease, exhaustion,
illness, childbirth, old age, and starvation. Some soldiers shot
women in labor, children or the elderly who were straggling behind.
And once the weary POW's made it to their final destination, they
were often met with even worse conditions than those endured during
the trek.

"Tell your people that since the Great Father
promised we should never be removed, we have
been moved five times. I think you had
better put the Indians on wheels so that you
can run them about wherever you wish."
~ Anonymous Chief ~ (1876)
FORCED ASSIMILATION - Native Americans were denied their cultural
history, traditions, religion and tribal communities - all in the
name of "civilizing" them. To this day, assimilation is still
being thrusted upon the Native people in a variety of ways.

* Even CHILDREN were considered disposable. Colonel John M.
Chivington echoed the military philosophy of murdering children when
he said, "Kill and scalp all, little and big... Nits make
lice."
And on November 8, 1978, Congress passed the Indian Child
Welfare Act. Prior to this act, the US government would routinely
take children from their parents and community and place them with
non-Native families for fostercare or forced adoption. By 1978, as
many as 35 percent of Indian children were living apart from their
parents.

* TREATIES promising sovereignty, land, money, food, and peace were
all created by the United States - and then broken by the United
States. George Gilmer, Governor of Georgia, said in 1830
"Treaties were expedients by which ignorant, intractable, and
savage people were induced... to yield up what civilized people had
the right to possess."
Treaties were often signed only via threats, manipulation and
coercion. On August 15, 1876, Congress enacted the "Starve or
Sell" act denying provisions (such as food) to hungry Sioux
Indians guaranteed the rations in an 1868 Treaty. They were forced to
sign away their sacred Black Hills in return for the provisions
already guaranteed to them.
Another point to remember is that the American government not
only started the treaty-making process, they also abruptly ended it.
Once they no longer needed the American Indians land, they passed a
policy stating that all treaties were invalid; the Native people had
no choice or legal representation.

* LAWS were enacted to force the Native people to either confirm to
the whites ideal, or to force them off their land and out of their
communities. Laws such as: Native men could not testify against a
white man, allowed for many criminal acts to be perpetrated upon the
Indian community, with no remedy for legal recourse; or that they had
to keep their hair a certain length (though tribal customs were to
keep hair long.)
On April 23, 1904, Congress passed the Practice of Medicine
and Surgery in Indian Territory Act which eliminated traditional
medicinal practices and only allowed registered physicians and
surgeons to treat Native patients. Herbal medicine, "Medicine
Men" and "Medicine Women" were outlawed - though
"qualified" practitioners were few and far between.

* BOARDING SCHOOLS - Over 12,000 Indian children as young as 4 were
taken from their parents and placed in boarding schools where their
Indian names were replaced with `American' names, their
religion replaced with Christianity, their native languages forbidden,
and punishment was often harsh and, some claim, deadly. Cut off from
parents and tribal members for most of their childhood, these children
were taught to conform to "white" rules and acts of civility.
On November 17, 1989, the United States Senate released an
investigative report admitting that children at the mandatory
boarding school were often abused and/or sexually molested by their
instructors.
* On November 28, 1884, US News & World Report magazine named the
Bureau of Indian Affairs "The Worst Federal Agency" in
America. By 1997 the BIA admitted to "MISSING" several BILLION dollars
supposedly held in trust for Native Americans - money desperately needed.
(Note: Native Americans live in humiliating poverty far below any
other racial group.)

* The withholding and displaying of Native people's REMAINS. In
1986 it was estimated that over one million Indian skeletal remains
were held in private collections, universities and museums. Finally,
in the 1990's, the US government honored sacred burial traditions
by allowing family members to collect and bury their relatives.

* RACIST LANGUAGE - Even today, racist language is spoken against the
Native people. "Indian Summer" means false summer,"Squaw" is
considered vulgar, and "Redskin" - an extremely degrading
word similar to "n---r" - is the name of a sports team.
On February 26, 2001, a House Committee in Boise, Idaho,
dismissed a plan to remove the word "squaw" from the nearly
100 places that carry it. One representative, knowing that the Native people in
his community are deeply offended and insulted by the words use, said
"Just because people take is as offensive doesn't make it offensive."
It was also noted that it was too costly for the businesses to change
their name.

* STEREOTYPING - Thousands of movies, books, plays, textbooks and
songs falsely stereotype the Native peoples culture, history, ceremonies, spirituality and character. Textbooks report"savage" and "wild" Indian men hunting the virgin land, killing innocent
settlers just trying to care for their families (though most were on land
known to belong to the Indians.) Until the 1970's, cowboy and Indian movies
continued this falsehood, when, abruptly, the American cinema changed
direction and suddenly romanticized the honorable and nature-oriented,
spiritual Indian. To this day, few movies correctly depict Native
culture, people and issues, and there are no Indian-based television
shows (other than documentaries) being nationally broadcasted.

* DENIAL of CULTURE - the American government determines who is and
who is not an Indian. They have a set guideline that must be met in
order to say a Native person is truly a Native person. American
Indians are the ONLY US group forced to prove their ethnic heritage -
and to be denied the right to call themselves who they are.

* ELIMINATE LIVELIHOOD - Buffalo were deliberately killed, hunting
grounds handed over to non-Natives, and fishing rights retracted.
Starving people starve were forced to search for alternative food
sources, or to wait for US troops to bring food to them.
In a letter to the Oregon Office of Indian Affairs, June 7,
1862, an agent reports "I regret very much to inform you that the
management of said Agency is far from being satisfactory to this
office. I found a large portion of the Indians subsisting on potatoes,
which had remained in the ground during the entire winter, and were
frozen, rotten and loathsome."

Manifest Destiny - as Compared to Hitler's Plan of a Master Race

In 1839, John L. Sullivan wrote of Manifest Destiny, a phrase coined
to explain and excuse the necessary expansion of the United States
and the right to property out west (property already allocated and
promised to Native people via hundreds of treaties. Property given in
trade for homeland east of the Mississippi... and in trade for
thousands of lives lost in the journey west.) O'Sullivan who
wrote of "human equality," "morality," "liberty" and "human
progress," laid the groundwork for an ideology that grew within the American non-Native
community and government: that Indians are a conquered culture.

--> * Note: An estimated 4,000,000 non-Native Americans
relocated to western territories between 1820 and
1850.

Just like Hitler and his plan for a Master Race, the United States
imposed their personal beliefs and goals on innocent people who they
deemed a nuisance - an obstacle of progressive civilization - by using
sinister tactics (including creating laws against the "unwanted" race
and rounding them up and removing them from their intended path) to
aid in achieving their goal. With both the Manifest Destiny approach
and the Master Race strategy, one group of people hoped to remove or
exterminate another group of people they deemed "inferior" - and
thereby creating laws and reasons for the genocide. These reasons were
affirmed, by most, as valid rationales for the atrocious acts and
society eventually not only accepted it, they also encouraged it.

"Of course our whole national history has been
one of expansion... That the barbarians recede
or are conquered, with the attendant fact that
peace follows their retrogression or conquest
is due solely to the power of the mighty civilized
races which have not lost the fighting instinct,
and which by their expansion are gradually
bringing peace to the red wastes where the
barbarian peoples of this world hold sway."
~ President Theodore Roosevelt ~ 1901

Why the Denial?
In the United States, Historical Truth is a misnomer. There can be no
historical truth when all accounts are told by the victor - written
to form a patriotic narrative that serves only the republic. After all,
if the US government admitted the truth, they would open themselves up
to liability, which then leads to responsibility, an apology, perhaps
a bit of guilt and social stigma, and then, finally, restitution.
This is not something the United States - nor most non-Native citizens -
wishes to partake. They would rather believe the propaganda spewed
over this continent for half a millennium, and refuse to change their
thinking because if it's found that our government DID, in fact,
systematically attempted to eradicate an entire race of people, then,
we are not the nation we thought we were, our founding fathers were
not so brave and brilliant, and the land in which we now live does
not rightfully to anyone without Native blood. And then there's the
most horrid thought of all: we would be no better than monster's like
Hitler, Stalin, Lenin and Pol Pot. And who in their right mind wants
to be in the same category as such despicable madmen?

James Axtell, historian, wrote in 1992 " We make a hash of our
historical judgments because we continue to feel guilty about the
real or imagined sins of our fathers and forefathers... [We] can stop
flogging ourselves with our "imperialistic" origins and tarring
ourselves with the broad brush of "genocide." As a huge nation of
law and order increasingly refined sensibility, we are not guilty of
murdering Indian women and babies, of branding slaves on the
forehead, or of claiming any real estate in the world we happen to
fancy."

The United States today includes the Jewish Holocaust in their school
textbooks, yet they exclude the American Holocaust. Memorials and
museums are created to educate and remember the millions who died in
Germany - and the madman who led them to their deaths - yet, the
American Indians receive no such recognition and seem to be a victim
of patriotic amnesia.

America is guilty of hypocritical finger-pointing. We condemn those
acts committed by others, while denying our own narcissistic
philosophies and actions that echo that which we berate. To do so not
only brings shame upon every American who knows - and accepts - the
historical truth of his or her country, but it also maintains the
unjust Manifest Destiny attitude towards the Native people, allowing
racism and cultural annihilation to continue as well.

--> Manifest Destiny of today: Thanksgiving, honoring
Christopher Columbus, Federal Recognition Policies, corruption within
the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the 4+ BILLION dollars missing
due to theft or mismanagement from BIA officials, reservation
property, usage of Indian names and images to sell products and to mascot
sports teams, incorrect history in children's books, the "extinction"
of tribes, Native portrayal in films, the debate over casino and
taxes, poverty, imprisonment of Native leaders, theft of Native art
and cultural items, treaty violation, mining on reservation land
(ruining water and land), the denial of fishing and hunting rights,
refusal to return land, graves desecrated, tribal interference, and
continued relocation.

"Because of the slum housing conditions; the highest
unemployment rate in the whole of this country;
police brutality against our elders, women, and
children; Native Warriors came together from
the streets, prisons, jails and the urban ghettos
of Minneapolis to form the American Indian Movement.
They were tired of begging for welfare, tired of being
scapegoats in America and decided to start
building on the strengths of our own people; decided
to build our own schools; our own job training programs;
and our own destiny. That was our motivation
to begin. That beginning is now being called
'the Era of Indian Power'."
~ Dennis Banks ~ 1992