Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Well I don't feel there's a need to justify it (and if I understand you correctly you don't either). But if I were to justify it I'd try something better than the "Indians didn't believe in owning land" argument.
I don't think it's a argument, Tom, but it is part of the equation. And if we are to understand history we should include all pieces of the equation.
But it's not that the Indians didn't believe in owning land. It's that the Indians had no concept of owning land. And some of them, when they found out Europeans had a notion of buying and selling land, just offered it right up for sale. Even though they didn't own it.
Jackson was one of the bravest and most resolute men who was president. And he was a colorful son of a *****.
Many modern Americans dislike him because he screwed the Indians but most of those same people have no problem with the benefits they have as a result of that screwing. Hell, most 18th and 19th Century presidents screwed the Indians, Jackson is hardly alone in that.
A number of American Indian nations, including my forebears the Choctaw, will take issue with that. My ancestors stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Jackson against the British. This included a major role in his defeat of the British in several battles, not the least of which was the Battle of New Orleans.
How did he repay us? Does the Indian Removal Act of 1830 ring a bell?
Can anyone identify any reasonably well inhabited place on the earth which is still under the control of the direct descendants of the people who controlled it a thousand years ago? .
Good one, but of course what I had in mind was a continuous, unbroken stream of control.
Like you were saying, in almost every case the indigenous people of a land were assimilated into the new occupying culture and in that way disappeared.
Indians were removed from their native lands once. I really don't look for it ever - ever - to happen again. I'm betting they will retain their unique 'nation within a nation' status as long as there is an America to walk on. As a non-Indian, I am very proud of that fact.
A number of American Indian nations, including my forebears the Choctaw, will take issue with that. My ancestors stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Jackson against the British. This included a major role in his defeat of the British in several battles, not the least of which was the Battle of New Orleans............
Not in any numbers in The Battle of New Orleans, they didn't. Some were Indians, but history does not back up your assertion that the tribe fought:
Quote:
Never has a more polyglot army fought under the Stars and Stripes than did Jackson's force at the Battle of New Orleans. In addition to his regular U.S. Army units, Jackson counted on dandy New Orleans militia, a sizable contingent of black former Haitian slaves fighting as free men of color, Kentucky and Tennessee frontiersmen armed with deadly long rifles and a colorful band of Jean Lafitte's outlaws, whose men Jackson had once disdained as "hellish banditti." This hodgepodge of 4,000 soldiers, crammed behind narrow fortifications, faced more than twice their number.
And in fact, there is this truth:
Quote:
The Americans won control of the Detroit frontier region when Oliver Hazard PERRY's ships destroyed the British fleet on Lake Erie (Sept. 10, 1813). This victory forced the British to retreat eastward from the Detroit region, and on Oct. 5, 1813, they were overtaken and defeated at the battle of the Thames (Moraviantown) by an American army under the command of Gen. William Henry HARRISON. In this battle the great Shawnee chief TECUMSEH, who had harassed the northwestern frontier since 1811, was killed while fighting on the British side.
By February 1814, a larger band of Choctaws under Pushmataha had joined General Andrew Jackson's force for the sweeping of the Creek territories near Pensacola, Florida. Many Choctaws departed from Jackson's main force after the final defeat of the Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. By the Battle of New Orleans, only a few Choctaws remained with the army; however, they were the only Native American tribe represented in the battle.[citation needed]
As far as I can see, the Choctaw were a peaceful tribe for the most part, and enjoyed their good relationship with Americans. They refused to join Tecumseh, but their participation in the War of 1812 was extremely limited. Certainly the tribe as a whole did not participate.
The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians still exists today as the result of The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit. The fact is, that all Indians who migrated were offered the choice of becoming U.S. citizens or moving:
Quote:
On September 27, 1830, the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed. It represented one of the largest transfers of land that was signed between the U.S. Government and Native Americans without being instigated by warfare. By the treaty, the Choctaws signed away their remaining traditional homelands, opening them up for European-American settlement. Article 14 allowed for nearly 1,300 Choctaws to remain in the state of Mississippi and to become the first major non-European ethnic group to become U.S. citizens.[8][9][10][11] Article 22 sought to put a Choctaw representative in the U.S. House of Representatives.[8] The Choctaw at this crucial time split into two distinct groups: the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. The nation retained its autonomy, but the tribe in Mississippi submitted to state and federal laws
Making native people a citizen of the new culture and government was an extraordinarily rare event.
You have been taught that the people were rounded up and told to move, and that is only partially correct. As is usually the case, the truth is much more complicated than that.
If Americans had been the villainous scoundrels you have learned them to be, then Choctaw Nation would not exist at all today. But it does. In two parts.
Only in America.
No one has mentioned yet that Jackson was the first United States President to come from the lower classes. He had a hard-scrabble childhood. His support of the Union against the advocates of states' rights to nullify federal legislation on their own territory probably kept the federal government from becoming a toothless and meaningless entity. Yes, he was a very colorful character!
Monroe came from a relatively meager background. He was never rich and died broke.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
