thecivilwarparlor:The American Indian And The Great Emancipator -The Lincoln Administration. The Ema
thecivilwarparlor:The American Indian And The Great Emancipator -The Lincoln Administration. The Emancipation Proclamation was in many ways a tremendous step forward for human rights, but it didn’t bring any new rights to Native Americans.Most historians agree that Abraham Lincoln was the most important man to ever occupy the White House because he abolished slavery and kept the states united through a bloody civil war. ~Kitty Kelley But one man’s hero is another mans satan- I was recently at a Powwow in San Diego at the Sycuan Indian Reservation and took these photos: Background: A forced walk of all Cherokees from the mountains of Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia to Oklahoma during the winter of 1838. Over 20,000 Cherokees were dragged from their homes, which were then plundered and burned. They were force marched most of them barefooted to Oklahoma during the dead of winter with the sky for their blanket and the earth for their pillow. Over 4,000 Cherokees died on this march and it became known as the “Trail of Tears.” Similar atrocities occurred all through the Lincoln Administration. In 1862, the Santee Sioux of Minnesota grew tired of waiting for the 1.4 million dollars they had been promised for the sale of 24 million acres of land to the federal government in 1851. Appeals to President Lincoln fell on deaf ears. What made this even more egregious to the Sioux was the invasion of this yet unpaid for land by thousands of white settlers. Then, with a very poor crop in august of 1862, many of the Indians were hungry and facing starvation with the upcoming winter. When Lincoln outright refused to pay the owed money, remember he had a war to finance the Indians revolted. Lincoln assigned General John Pope to quell the uprising and he announced at the beginning of his campaign: “It is my purpose to utterly exterminate the Sioux. They are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts, and by no means as people with whom treaties or compromise can be made.” Lincoln certainly did not challenge this statement. The Indians were quickly defeated in October of 1862 and Pope herded all the Indians, men, women and children, into forts where military trials were immediately convened. None of the Indians tried were given any semblance of a defense. Their trials lasted approximately 10 minutes each. All adult males were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death with the only evidence against them being they had been present during a “war” which they themselves had declared against the government. The moral of this story is.. history is never one sided, learn all you can about all sides in a conflict. North and South, Slaves and Freedmen, Great Men, and Forgotten Women. And keep in mind you cannot compare the values and politics of the people of the 1800’s to the standards of today-Stacey [email protected]://www.unitednativeamerica.com/issues/lincoln.html Source: The American Indian and the Great Emancipator. Photo Credit Stacey Palmer@The Civil War Parlor and Lincoln: No Hero to Native Americans http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january_february_2013/features/lincoln_no_hero_to_native_amer042037.php -- source link