Mixed Feelings on Memorial Day

By Meteor Blades

My stepfather's brother died at Midway during World War II.
My best high school friend was killed in the early days of the Vietnam War.

These men are honored at today's Memorial Day ceremonies along with hundreds of thousands of their compatriots, and rightly so.

My very distant cousin, Osceola, died in prison after having been perfidiously captured under a flag of truce during negotiations. My great-great-great-great-great uncle was killed by U.S. soldiers during the Second Seminole War. Other distant relatives were killed by the hundreds during the Third Seminole War.

Whether they killed warriors and women on the banks of Washita River in Kansas or the banks of the Greasy Grass (Little Big Horn) in Montana, at Sand Creek in Colorado or at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, whether they were fighting Chiricahua in Arizona, Nez Perce in Idaho or Modocs in California, the men in blue who were killed in the Indian Wars are among those honored today.

But those they killed - the ancestors of us original Americans - have no national memorials commemorating the futile but unhesitating sacrifice they made for the freedom of their people.

Attempts have been made to correct this "oversight." In 2002, the 1909 memorial on the Denver Capitol grounds that honored the 22 soldiers killed while they massacred the southern Arapaho and Cheyenne at Sand Creek got a new plaque to replace the one calling that slaughter a Civil War victory for the Union. Fourteen years ago, the Custer Battlefield National Monument was renamed Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Both teensy steps in the right direction. But not enough.

Today, when the nation's war dead are remembered, when we are supposed to put aside political and ethnic divisions for a few moments of introspection, most of our politicians still can't take a break from the lies - past and current lies - for which too many of men and women in the ground killed and died. Today, we will hear lots about liberty, freedom and sacrifice associated with American wars, but nothing, I will wager, about the plunder, rapine and machinations associated with some of those wars, including the Indian Wars.

So pardon me if today my tears are tempered with rage.

Comments

[DHinMI]

We'll probably rectify these problems...at the current rate, sometime in the next century.

These problems you cite are even more troubling when one considers that, per capita, native Americans have and still serve our country at higher rates than any other groups in America. The serve our country, even though their ancestors get no credit for their battles in previous centuries in defending their nations.

[emptypockets]

I was listening to commentary on WBAI this weekend about one of Ward Churchill's books on property rights arguments in the US (from what I gleaned, the thesis was that native populations were not even cheated out of their land, which would imply a shady or misleading contract, but that there is no property rights claim at all - even a shady one - for the land the US claims as hers).

Worth reading? Or other recommendations?

[Chris Clarke]

Today, we will hear lots about liberty, freedom and sacrifice associated with American wars, but nothing, I will wager, about the plunder, rapine and machinations associated with some of those wars, including the Indian Wars.

Well, not nothing, but nothing where it matters most.

Emptypockets, do you remember a title? The thesis as you state it seems a little overgeneralized for Churchill. There are certainly plenty of acres that were stolen outright, including the land on which my house sits. But there were a few contracts and treaties that ceded some land - most of which were then disregarded by the whites in subsequent years.In such cases, there could be argument for the treaty equivalent of "breach of contract," but "no claim at all" sounds a bit hyperbolic.

[Meteor Blades]

emptypockets, in the early 1980s, Ward Churchill and I spent a lot of time together drinking and arguing into the deep hours of the night. We were for years in the American Indian Movement together. We long ago had a parting of the ways, so I am not an objective critic and don't feel comfortable commenting on his views about this subject or most others.

Two sources of material about Indian property rights are The American Indian Policy Center and my longtime favorite, The Native American Rights Fund.

But, like water law, Indian law is a complex, ever-changing, never-quite-completed-defined subject.

[emptypockets]

CC & MB, thanks for responses.

Chris, it was certainly a simplified generalized hyperbolic version of whatever Churchill actually was arguing -- that is typical for WBAI here ("your peace & justice radio station") and the summary wasn't given by the man himself but by the show's host, recounting a confrontation he had while protesting the West Point graduation ceremonies and reading that book (he then riffed on the book itself for 10 or 20 minutes). I was trying before my first post to figure out the name of the book itself, but none of his titles on amazon (or subtitles, or sub-subtitles) are ringing a bell. I think that is more due to my decaying synapses than anything else.

MB, those are not encouraging words for a young enthusiast (albeit with prematurely decaying synapses) just learning politics & trying to understand things! But probably accurate ones. Thanks.

[Raenelle]

And yet we have no problem honoring "our Confederate war dead." IMO, George Carlin best described US foreign policy, from 1789 on--"If you're brown, you're goin' down."

[Fred in Vermont]

>But those they killed - the ancestors of us original Americans - have no national memorials commemorating the futile but unhesitating sacrifice they made for the freedom of their people.<

I suppose that we could detail some Justice Department lawyer to write a memo on whether they were actual enemy solders or "unlawful combatants" not entitled to even the minimal dignity accorded under the laws of war.   But I fear I know what the answer would be from them.

[DHinMI]

Fred: Those were the good old days, because you didn't even have to write memos to get around the Geneva conventions, because they hadn't even been written.

You're thinking in the right direction, though. After all, with loonies like Janice Rogers Brown ascending to the bench, with their desire to go back to Lochner era jurisprudence, in which the federal gov't can't do much of anything. After all, what can the federal government do to prevent its soldiers from having a little fun with some "unlawful combatants." Besides, the ones who did it were just a few "bad apples."

[CathiefromCanada]

Very moving piece, MB. I admit that I had never before considered the appropriate tribute for First Nations war dead -- here in Canada we didn't have the scale of Indian Wars as you did in the states, but our Riel Rebellion in 1885 would qualify. On Canada's next Rememberence Day (which is like your Memorial Day, except ours is November 11) I will remember and honour the First Nations and Metis who fought and died in the rebellion.