Native Wars

Horseshoe Bend National Military Park

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If I were to choose one turning point in American history, I would choose what happened here in March of 1814. After many consecutive treaties with the Creek were broken and great parts of their land were taken, some Creek warriors tried to defend their nation, which had survived contact with the Spanish, French & British. Andrew Jackson invaded the heart of the Creek Nation, surrounded 1000 warriors armed with 300 guns with 3000 soldiers in the bend of the river here. 800 of the Creek warriors were killed, 300 while trying to swim to safety. The village was burned and the women and children with them were captured. By any fair accounting, a ten to one advantage that results in 80% killed is a slaughter, and shooting swimmers is particularly cruel.

But Jackson used the victory to steal more land for white settlers, so he was treated as a hero, instead of a liar, thief and atrocious killer. Jackson even betrayed the Creeks who fought side by side with him in battle, taking their land too. Jackson would go on to become the only President to openly defy the Supreme Court, by not only refusing to return land but by forcibly removing Native Americans to reservations in the west, along the Trail of Tears. A popular President among whites who could vote, he perpetuated racist stereotypes about Native American “savages”, which continued past the Civil War when 750,000 mostly white Americans slaughtered each other over the right keep slaves.

Most Americans won’t admit it, but our ancestors wanted our government to slaughter Native Americans and take their land for our benefit. Racism has been used as official policy for killing, removing, and exploiting non-whites for centuries. By ignoring, denying and lying about this fact, many of us have chosen to live our lives without a moral compass. The first step is to admit the truth, then figure out what to do about it, and finally to teach our kids to be better.

Fort Davis National Historic Site

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This is an Indian Native American War era fort. Soldiers from here, including African American Buffalo Soldiers, fought Geronimo and the Apaches in Arizona, the Kiowas and the Comanche, patrolling the San Antonio-El Paso road against raids. President Andrew Jackson predicted it would take a thousand years for white settlers to replace the Native Americans in the west. In reality, the process only took a few decades.

I believe the goal of history should not be a recitation of events. I believe the point of history should be to learn from the past in order to make better decisions in the future. The people are dead. They don’t care whether we praise them or criticize them; that’s not the point. We need to evaluate past actions in the context of the times.

Columbus was an innovative navigator, whose initial voyage went against common sense at the time and changed people’s understanding of the world. He was also wrong about who the Natives were, and he treated them viciously. But he didn’t create racism or slavery. Those were taught in European universities, supported by the church and were the official policy of European governments. Those institutions, which still exist today, bear the responsibility for atoning for the evils of racism and slavery of colonialism.

Kit Carson was an accomplished explorer, who developed strong relationships with the Native Americans he met and traded with. He did what others did not dare and changed people’s understanding of the west. He also carried out a brutal scorched-earth campaign against the Navajo and marched them into internment camps. He neither created racism nor invented the policy of removing Native Americans from their land.

Andrew Jackson was an American hero for defeating the British in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. He also fought many wars against the Native Americans, broke treaties and even defied Supreme Court orders to remove Native Americans along the Trail of Tears, leading to a legacy of depressed, poverty-stricken reservations. He should have chosen a different path, leading to greater education, cultural exchange, technology transfer, integration and cooperation. The US Presidency, Congress and the military, which still exist today, bear the responsibility for atoning for the evils of the wars and forced removal of Native Americans.

History must be studied to make these judgements and to recommend corrective actions whenever possible, otherwise we doom ourselves to carry the burden and even repeat our past mistakes.

Arkansas Post National Memorial

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Flooding has always been an issue here. French traders established the first trading post near here in 1686, buying pelts from the Quapaw and shipping them down the Mississippi. They build a fort, which is abandoned due to flooding. Then they build another nearby and again move due to flood. After the French and Indian War, the Spanish take over the fur trade and reestablish a fort on the original location. The French get it back and then sell the whole “Louisiana” territory to the US. The post is briefly an important territorial capital, but the Union shells the confederates here during the Civil War destroying much of the town. And what’s left over becomes a backwater as the Arkansas River shifts away in 1912 and the remnants slowly erode into the bayous.

The photo shows the Little Post Bayou in the foreground and the Arkansas River in the background. With climate change increasing flooding broadly, the River has now risen again, reconnecting with the Post. Most of the history is now underwater, including French, Spanish, British, Native American and Civil War battlegrounds. But some foundations remain, along with subtle signs of confederate trenches in the woods. The post is a wonderful place to view wildlife, with many geese, a few deer, a red headed woodpecker, alligators, and a snowy egret on a tiny island in a little lake. The ranger, who loves wildlife, repeatedly assured me that the alligators here were adorable loving creatures and perfectly safe for people. I kept my distance from the large one I spotted.

Fort Smith National Historic Site

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The Arkansas River connects the Mississippi River to the Santa Fe Trail in Kansas, so the fort facilitated Native American removals along the Trail of Tears. The courthouse here dealt with many cases of serially displaced tribes. This was the base for US Marshals to “control disputes” and arrest whiskey traders out in Indian Native American Territory. The jail here was known as “hell on earth”.

There weren’t any major Civil War conflicts here, as the Union abandoned it at the beginning and the confederacy did the same two years later. Native Americans regiments were formed on both sides during the war, and Cherokee engaged Union troops north of the fort at Pea Ridge. It was at this fort in 1865 when the US informed the tribes that they were all enemy combatants, regardless of which side they had been on or whether they were one of the five “civilized” tribes that had largely integrated, and that all the tribes lost the Civil War. The slaves were freed, but the Native Americans again lost their land and still had no rights.

Despite the lack of Civil War battles here, there are no lack of Civil War reenactments here. Although the park service does not allow battles to be reenacted on park property, the folks above demonstrated by firing the cannon, while women separately participated in gentler “living history” nearby. That anyone would want to reenact such a dark and tragic history, especially when it glorifies and perpetuates the immoral beliefs of the traitorous pro-slavery side, is living proof that the ugly racism of our past still continues today.

Fort Scott National Historic Site

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Built in 1842 to defend the “permanent” frontier with Native American territory, the fort quickly fell behind events. Settlers were already moving west on the Santa Fe Trail. Within four years the actual frontier was being taken from Mexico, with cavalry “dragoons” riding a thousand miles west from here to fight in that war. The fort was abandoned in 1853 and the buildings auctioned. But the military withdrawal set the stage here for Bleeding Kansas, the conflict that presaged the Civil War. Turns out the military wasn’t needed here to keep peace between the settlers and the “warlike” Natives, but rather between the slavers and the abolitionists.

When the Supreme Court overturned the Missouri Compromise and the government passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the US government officially decided that it was best to just let the states decide on slavery by themselves. Here, the pro-slavery townspeople– and “border ruffians”–took over the fort to defend against militant abolitionists in the surrounding countryside who were determined to prevent the expansion of the moral abomination of slavery. Around 60 people were killed, including a pro-slavery former deputy marshal, whose widow is remembered for swearing revenge.

The US military returned to use the fort during the Civil War and defended it from guerrilla attacks. Both African American and Native American regiments were formed here. And after the war, soldiers were again sent west to defend the railroads against squatters who protested being cheated out of the land stolen from the natives.

While educational, I believe the park service has a responsibility to do more than simply illustrate the views of both sides. The Civil War was not “a controversy over states’ rights” nor was Bleeding Kansas merely “growing pains” as park exhibits say. The only states’ “right” being contested was the “right” to chain and breed people, on the basis of race, in perpetual ignorance and slavery, including women and children, forever. By any standard of human rights, that is not a right, but a profound moral crime. There is no legitimate justification of slavery. Perpetuating traitorous and racist views that there was any honor in fighting for slavery is dangerous to society and deeply offensive, to those held in bondage, to their descendants and to those who fought and died to end slavery in America.

Fort Larned National Historic Site

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This large US military base was built to end “the Indian problem” permanently. How? I direct your attention to the ammunition and gunpowder in the room above. The problem that the Native Americans had was that their land was being systematically stolen, often in violation of US treaties. The “problem” the US government had was how to stop the Native Americans from defending their illegally-seized territory.

After the Civil War, the US military moved against the Native Americans. Near this fort in 1867, General Hancock’s troops massed near a large Cheyenne village, which evacuated quickly, and then, on the General’s suspicions and order, burned it to the ground, prompting a widespread escalation of conflict across Kansas that summer. Perhaps realizing his mistake, the General hired an interpreter, signed a treaty and paid several tribes to move away. The terms were unfair, but the fighting moved away from Kansas as the military fortified this base and increased troops here over the next year.

Make no mistake. The Native Americans were forced from their lands at gunpoint, while the US government repeatedly broke its own treaties.

On a completely coincidental point, today’s conservative political folks are extremely afraid of undocumented foreigners coming in with guns and taking over America. Think about that.

Fort Union National Monument

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Not much remains of the largest Union fort in the west. But there’s plenty of history here. This was a critical supply base to keep the Confederacy from expanding into the southwest. Some of the Navajo who were driven from their homes during the Long Walk were imprisoned here. Here was the largest and most advanced hospital in the west. Soldiers and cavalry guarded both branches of the Santa Fe trail from here, once trading and migration routes for Natives, then for settlers whose wagon ruts can still be seen in the earth, then for the mail, and finally for the railroad, which still bears the name in the logo BNSF.

On the drive out to the site, a pronghorn stood in the road and stared at me, perhaps not frightened by my relatively quiet and zero emission electric car. Although I didn’t get a photo, I got a careful look at it and confirmed its identity with the park volunteer. Turns out they’re not antelope but related to giraffe. Again, everything I learned about the west, where “the antelope play” was wrong. There aren’t any antelope in North America. The pronghorn are the last survivors of human hunting among similar species in North America, due to their speed. Humans are increasingly lethal to all other species, and by changing our climate so quickly, we will make most species on earth extinct within a few decades. I wonder what our ancestors who traveled this trail would say if they could see how quickly we are devastating the planet.

Fort Bowie National Historic Site

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Three of the graves in the fort’s cemetery are of captured Native American children. The center one belongs to a three-year-old Apache girl, buried under a Christian name given to her by her captors. The one on the right is of an Apache child unnamed with no age, buried like the others in the manner of his or her captors. And the left grave belongs to the two-year-old son of Chief Geronimo, Little Robe, who likely died of a disease spread by his captors, and whose father’s name will be remembered as synonymous with bravery, long after everyone else here is long-forgotten.