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.
This will always be a matter of perspective. It was a crime, it would be unreasonable to expect the Indians to have viewed it as justified in the name of establishing a superior civilization. On the other hand, it was in keeping with all of world history. Whenever the better organized and more advanced cultural groups have collided with ones in more primitive states, it's been bad for the primitives.
If there is such a thing as an absolute right to property ownership or exclusive use rights, humans have never behaved as though such a right exists. The reality has always been that property ownership is a matter of being able to back up your claim with force if needed, whether it is your by own hand or your government's protections.
Finally, there is also the matter of deciding where to stop on the guilt trail. How far back do we need to go and how specific do we need to get? If the US were to re-deed Texas and Oklahoma to the Comanche, would the Comanche then be obligated to turn around and re-deed it to the Kiowa and other tribes which they displaced back in the day when they were the better organized and more advanced group? Should Great Britain be returned to the Danes, Angles and Saxons, or straight to the Celts?
So, there has never truly been a pure creature called property rights, there have only been claims and disputes, winners and losers. Maybe you think you own something because your great great grandfather fought for it, but what would you do if someone showed up wanting to fight you for it?
Balzac wrote that "Behind every great fortune, there is a crime." I believe that this applies to nations as well. Wherever one group has become dominant, it has always been at the expense of other groups getting dominated. Lament in recognition of this ugly reality, while simutaneously recognizing that it has been an inescapable reality.
Impressive response Grandstander, very true indeed. I would hope that schools don't show "Dances With Wolves" to kids out of context (if they show it at all) , without explaining a little about about the sins of Indian culture too. Settlers tried to teach the Indian men how to plant and grow crops, at least here in Iowa. They scoffed at white men that did field work, or the concept of land ownership. The Indians were paid tidy sums of cash for their land here in Iowa, in signed treaties by the chiefs themselves. It was explained to them what it meant if they signed and accepted the money, and what was expected of them. Those that remained on the land afterwards were tolerated and attempts were made to civilize them. But attacks and outright massacres occured on white settlements, forcing the US cavalry to intervene.
Settlers tried to teach the Indian men how to plant and grow crops, at least here in Iowa. They scoffed at white men that did field work, or the concept of land ownership.
The vanquishing of the Eastern Indians was a relatively organized and deliberate program, morally justified after the Louisiana Purchase by the conscience salve ..."We aren't stealing their land, we are trading it for other land". And of course they were stealing their land, giving them no choice regarding where they wished to live, simply removing them to empty space because it became available.
The Plains Indian story was different. There never was any singular policy, no master plan to do what eventually was done. It unfolded in a series of attempts to be fair, well intentioned agreements, and hideous misunderstandings about the reality around them.
White civilization was organized on a hierarchical basis with clearly identified and respected officials at the top. There were direct lines of authority and final judgment came with the verdict of whoever held that final authority at that time. Thus, when looking to treat with the Plains Indians, the whites tried to identify the equivalent Indian authority who could speak for all of his people, or sign a treaty on behalf of multiple tribes.
The problem with this is that no such creature existed among the Plains Indians. Tribal chiefs were not Tsars, not chief executives, they were typically wise elders whose authority came from voluntary cooperation, not compulsion of law. It would be more appropriate to call them senior advisers. Thus, one chief from one tribe might agree that peace was best and sign a treaty accepting the limitations of a specific reservation. However, in the Indian culture, this did not bind all tribal members and anyone who wished to go another way, went that other way without any attempt by other Indians to stop them. In their view, they had no authority to stop them because no obligations of unity of action existed in those cultures.
And what followed was exactly what you would expect from such competing visions of contracts and property rights. The Indians which had agreed to a treaty would retire to the reservation, those who had not agreed would continue doing as they wished. Sooner or later there would be an incident...someone, white or red, would kill someone else, revenge would be extracted, and now the whites are claiming that the Indians broke the treaty, justifying punishment. That punishment would be applied to the entire tribe rather than attempting the relatively impossible task of identifying the individual Indians responsible. The white view was that Chief Whitewater, or whatever, had signed guarantees of peaceful behavior from the Sioux or Cheyenne, and here were some Cheyenne on the warpath, so Chief Whitewater was responsible for their behavior. The tribe of course would react poorly to this idea and from their point of view, it was the whites violating the treaty where they had promised to leave the Indians to live in peace.
So it was small scale breakdowns, such as I cite above, multiplied by frequency and finally emerging as a full scale war. None of this was truly intended by anyone, all participants felt absolutely justified in legal and moral terms. Bloody chaos followed. And as I noted previously, when such things happen and one of the two parties in the dispute is better organized and more advanced, the end result is bad for the lesser organized group.
That's how the west was won...in confusion, chaos and misunderstanding.
Would have to give much thought as to best historical films,but my choice for worst ever jumps right onto the page.It is a much honored,multiple oscar winner that recent posts have mentioned;Dances With Wolves.From start to finish,everthing is wrong with this monstrosity.This film is the poster boy of Leftwing Hollywood revisionism;they made this thing saying "this is the way we think things should have been,we dont care how they actually were".As a history buff with a special interest in the Indian Wars,it was painful to sit through DWW.The plains were not at all in 1863 as the film portrays.They even got the good and bad guys switched around.While Wes Studi is a fine actor,his character did not exist in 1863,the Pawnee were friendly with and allied with the Americans.The Lakota,or Teton Sioux,were the bullies of the northern plains,at war with almost all other tribes,except the Cheyenne and Arapaho,with whom they were allied.Every Lakota in the film was kind,brave,generous,honorable,loyal,and so on,no bad qualities at all.Every White American,on the other hand was a psycopath of some sort;a killer,rapist,coward,drunkard or other badly flawed person.Could go on and on,but will close with just a couple more comments.The Sioux in the film would have fit a little better in 1763,not 1863.At that late date they were very well versed in the ways of Americans.Finally,did the filmakers forget what had happened the previous August in Minnesota?The rampage that the Santee Sioux went on?The fact that many Santees fled west and took refuge with their Teton brothers,and would have been present?No mention of that,was there?
Good post Blackshoe. If anyone on the Plains was practicing genocide it was the Sioux and Cheyenne practicing it on the Pawnees yet that ridiculous movie made the Pawnees the bad guys!?!
Of course the Sioux didn't want any part of the Chippewa.
I agree about DWW... but while we are on the subject.. What about "Jeremiah Johnson"? I know the characters were based on historical figures..For those who know about this era.. was that an accurate portrayal of Mountain Men??
Just finished watching it. My favorite part in ''the longest day'' is right after the allies bomb the german bunkers and the landing craft start to approach you hear the alarms going off and the german soildiers running to man all the guns and when given the orders start to fire as i'd imagine their adrenalin along with the approaching americans/brits must have been sky high.
I love The Longest Day, but I have to admit my favorite scene has to be the one about 'gummi puppen'. It sticks out because it is comical and doesn't fit the rest of the film.
One of my favorite films which has not yet been mentioned is They Were Expendable.
I notice you all have completely forgotten one half of the population. What about films like So Proudly We Hail with Claudette Colbert or Margaret Sullavan in Cry 'Havoc'? The later was an almost completely female cast about the nurses at Corregidor/Bataan; Robert Mitchum didn't even get any screen credit for the one line he had.
And let's no forget Three Came Home, the true story of writer Agnes Keith about her internment in Borneo.
Do you see a common thread here? Having had a cousin who survived the Death March at Bataan before succumbing to the effects of what was no doubt PTSD, like a moth to a flame, I have a rather macabre fascination with films about Corregidor/Bataan. His untimely death under questionable circumstances hit our family pretty hard. Guess I am just trying to understand what happened to the poor man, or maybe keep reminding myself so no more veterans fall through the cracks.
Well, you guys have pretty much covered the studio releases, so I'm going to move on to a great, great made-for-television miniseries: Longitude. It was done for A&E and was based on the book by Dava Sobel. It dealt with the invention of the very first chronometer and how it changed navigation forever.
It sounds like dry stuff, doesn't it? But it really isn't. Riveting is the word I would use to describe it.
One that pissed me off because I had been so very much looking forward to it was the made for TNT tv flick "Ironclads", the story of the engagement between the Monitor and Virginia (Merrimack.)
Since in reality it was a drawn tactical battle (although a strategic victory for the North), the filmmakers felt obligated to make the focus a fictional subplot about a fictional female spy who somehow or other managed to be in love with both the executive officer of the Virginia and the harbor pilot for the Monitor. Back and forth she goes betraying first one side than the other, and in spite of this, she remains beloved and is allowed to go free at the end. The stupidest aspect is that the suppossedly "critical" information she is conveying is frequently nothing more than someone's opinion about something.
It was filmed on the cheap, so the ship to ship duel isn't that exciting to watch, you never see a panoramic view of the two ships pounding away at one another, only close ups of one or the other.
"Jeremiah Johnson" would rate as not too bad;it was based on a real person with the usual Hollywood adaptations.The mountain man era was very brief,less than 20 years.By the late 1830's it was in decline due to changing styles in fashions and overtrapping.The film takes place in the 1840's,past the peak of the mountain man trapper.As the film was based on fact,the lead characters war with the Crow was rather unusual,since the Crow were generally friendly toward Americans.They were bitter enemies of the Sioux,and suffered greatly from warfare with that much larger aggressive tribe.The main enemy of the trappers in the northern Rockies during this era were the Blackfeet,which the film does depict.The grizzly bear nonsense was Hollywood hokum.Grizzlies were not a joke to the mountain men,they were a very real threat.
I love The Longest Day, but I have to admit my favorite scene has to be the one about 'gummi puppen'. It sticks out because it is comical and doesn't fit the rest of the film.
There was also a bit of black humor in one scene. They depict a GI paratrooper using his hand cricket to click the recognition signal. He receives the assigned two clicks by way of response and steps into the clear, only to be shot by a German. Then the German recocks his rifle, which makes two clicks as the bolt is pulled back and forth.
What I didn't like about "The Longest Day" was that they used dialog to provide narration rather than having a narrator fill us in on the background. I hate that approach, it is always so awkward and unrealistic. I reference scenes such as having Field Marshal Rommel standing along the French coast saying to his staff..
Quote:
Just look at it, gentlemen. How calm... how peaceful it is. A strip of water between England and the continent... between the Allies and us. But beyond that peaceful horizon... a monster waits. A coiled spring of men, ships, and planes... straining to be released against us. But, gentlemen, not a single Allied soldier shall reach the shore. Whenever and wherever this invasion may come, gentlemen... I shall destroy the enemy there, at the water's edge. Believe me, gentlemen, the first 24 hours of the invasion will be decisive. For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day... The longest day.
...just as though none of his staff was aware of all of this already.
or worse, John Wayne says to one of his junior officers:
Quote:
I don't think I have to remind you that this war has been going on for almost 5 years. Over half of Europe has been overrun and occupied. We're comparative newcomers. England's gone through a blitz with a knife at her throat since 1940. I'm quite sure that they, too, are impatient and itching to go. Do I make myself clear?
3 million men penned up on this island all over England in staging areas like this. We're on the threshold of the most crucial day of our times. 3 million men out there, keyed up, just waiting for that big step-off. We aren't exactly alone. Notify the men, full packs and equipment 1400 hours
It cracked me up when the junior officer's reply to all that was "Yes, Sir."
These sorts of sudden lengthy summation expositions take place all throughout the film. It is like having a character enter a scene on stage saying "Hello young Carstairs Twombley-Reed, nephew of the millionare real estate developer whose wife is unaware that he is conducting an illicit affair with Fifi LaFlame, an exotic dancer in a Paris review which by coincidence, is coming to London next week."..."Oh, hello to you Ian Gravesmith, long time solicitor for my family's estate and frequently suspected to be embezzling funds from the same while carrying on an affair with the chambermaid from whom you extract secret family information."
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.
Best and worst.
