If you are disturbed by that video, you should probably know that the exact same destruction of the native culture happened right here in Alaska:
Several generations of Native people — many of whom are still alive today — would become targets of a tragic, frequently successful campaign of cultural elimination. Demanding that Natives abandon the cultures and languages of their grandfathers and grandmothers, Natives were given a clear message that one way of looking at the world was superior to the other. That the survivors did as they were told — abandoning their feasts and ceremonials, their dances and even their languages — is testament not to the correctness of the Western message but to the survivors' states of mind. Having lost multitudes of spiritual and political leaders, artisans, historians, and elders, those who were left were orphans — spiritually as well as physically — destined to live in a world of emotional and material poverty.
In the schoolhouses and boarding schools, in the churches and in the orphanages, Native children would learn how to become good Christians and good Americans.
What they really learned was to be ashamed of their language, they were often beaten for using it, and to become reliant on the whites that invaded their lands and stole from them their way of life, self reliance, and sense of pride.
The federal government also restricted when they could fish and hunt, making their traditional subsistence lifestyle all but impossible.
When you see a homeless native on the streets of Anchorage, you have to realize that that is not a choice they made for themselves. That was what they were reduced to after their culture was all but destroyed, and alcohol and drugs were the only things that seemed to ease their pain.
There has been a great effort in the last few decades by Alaska, and its native people, to put things right.
But the reality is that the damage done by the interference of outsiders, first the Russians and then Americans, has caused deep and potentially irreparable damage to the Alaska native culture.
In that way Canada and Alaska have much in common.
Tragic and outrageous and heartbreaking. Claim THAT, Bill O'Reilly.
ReplyDeleteG this not only happened in AK and Canada but all over the USA as kids were snatched off of reservations, given "Christian" names and robbed of their heritage.
Deletehttp://www.npr.org/2011/10/25/141672992/native-foster-care-lost-children-shattered-families
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/14/1200994/-Native-schools-and-stolen-generations-U-S-and-Canada
All of this is done in the name of "religion", "christianity"
The Daily Beast has an article up about Sarah Palin and her desperate plea for attention.
ReplyDeleteGreat commentary:
Delete"What does Sarah Palin’s own fame stand on now these days, anyway? A caps-lock key and a sense of grievance."
Sorry to pull you up on this but it IS what we were taught in school. SUBsistence. They were not in decline as a multitude of cultures so where is the sup preface relevant to their existance.
ReplyDeleteAustralia has the same attitudes to our indigenous people who were doing perfectly OK in their SUBsistence until europeans came with guns.
Cheers, Peter
Glenca @5:03, you are absolutely right until the term SUBsistence becomes EXtinct and our EXistence is bettered by our INsistence for a more equal distribution of wealth, nothing will change. How do we, the vast majority of humanity, change this? By EXposing the INhumanity of those who hold power and forcing change. It seems impossible and I am too old to have creditable answers. May the next generation find them.
DeleteThis pulling native children from their homes and "westernizing" them was going on in the US into the seventies. I grew up in a small rural southern Calif. town and I remember the Mormon church bringing Navajo girls in to live with certain Mormon families.
ReplyDeleteOne of the girls lived with a family down the street from me. I think she was twelve years old (same age as me) and was in the seventh grade.
This family had six children under the age of eight already living in this small three bedroom house. The mother was always tired and the house smelled of diapers. They really brought these girls in to be "mother's helpers". The girls all wore cheap cotton dresses that were straight out of the fifties (not at all in style in 1970) and I never remember any effort made by the family to give this girl a "normal" life. She was always looking after the family's children after school and the oldest child would embarrass her by making her tell the neighborhood kids about her "primitive" life on the reservation.I think she lived with the family for two years.
When I look back on this situation it makes me sick, I wish I would have reached out to her more. But I also feel that part of the Mormon plan is to keep to their "own" kind and that included the "native slaves".
Most likely she was sent on after 2 years because she was pregnant from being sexually abused.
Delete... unfortunately, anon @9:53, that is an only too likely conclusion of a horrid tale.
DeleteI attended a rally on May 25, 2015 with the Penobscot Nation, the Passamaquoddy Tribe and and the Aroostook Band of Micmacs at the Maine State Capital.
ReplyDeleteSince Maine became a State in 1820, the Penobscot and Paassamaquoddy have held a seat in the Maine Legislature. The Micmac were never offered a seat at that table.
On this historic day, the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy representatives walked out of the State Legislature. They have not been respected as Sovereign Nations and they are not going to take anymore.
So we shall see if these Nations can get some of their power back. I hope so.
http://news.mpbn.net/post/tribes-pull-reps-maine-legislature-sovereignty-issues-come-boil
Unfortunately this has happened in every state in the USA. It has happened in every country where Europeans have expanded in. My own Grandfather and his siblings were stolen. Shipped to a missionary school many states away. They were beaten, used as slaves, and sexually molested. It took them almost 2 years but they did escape and make their way back home. Unfortunately my Great Aunt who was 13 at the time of her death died in child birth with her rapists baby, the missionary that was going to "save her soul". So please IMers, quit giving ME lectures on how I should respect your christian religion. Their parents were then forced to abandon their home and go into such a remote area that no sheriffs would come to steal their children again.
ReplyDeleteBut, in just the last few yrs a child was stolen. A white woman was allowed to give her baby up for adoption while the child's father, a Native American, was serving in the US Army. He fought for his child and lost. His child was legally stolen.
It is still also not uncommon for trumped up child neglect charges to be made so children are taken into fostercare to be used as modern day slaves and to make money for different facilities. The "for pay" prison system that so many IMers are against has been alive and well for Native Americans for centuries.
This practice all starts with forcing religion, namely christianity on Native peoples. It is still prevalent all over the world, including pockets in the US and Canada. It is still very wide spread in South America and Africa, assimilate or get wiped out.
Now please, one of you tell ME again on your holy day while I should respect your christian religion, that wiped out a majority of my ancestors, raped, beat, enslaved, stole our homes, of the rest.
It's atrocious what' s done in the name of religion. Robbing a race of people of their sacred land wasn't bad enough, The colonizers often brought with them diseases that the native population had no exposure to before, so many died of things like pneumonia, the flu, whooping cough, and a host of std's their immune system's couldn't fight off. Add a healthy dose of "conversion" to christianity, strip them of their culture, their native names, etc.
ReplyDeleteThings like this (and the crusades and holocaust) makes me ashamed of humanity.
The exact same thing happened here in Hawaii. The missionaries stole the children, the language, their religions, their dances, and their land. The largest land owners here are the heirs of those same missionaries. The women were raped, both were made into slaves and their children were taken away & forced into group homes/schools to be brainwashed into the Christian religion.
ReplyDeleteThey are now taking back their culture, speaking their language, teaching their histories, their dances, songs, chants are back but they dress in the missionary prescribed way for the older dances. For the most part, they never regained their religion, and most are Christians which makes me throw up my hands in despair. I'm happy for the rest. They still haven't received the same recognition as a nation as most of our Native Americans but they continue to try.
I've always been painfully aware of theNative American Culture's demise. I loved watching tv as a child and western movies with Cowboys and Indians were my favorite.
ReplyDeleteBut, now I cringe over the way Native Americans were presented as savages and scalping their way across the frontier. Even the silly costumes, painted faces and absurd behavior impacted many of our young minds. I'm glad to see at least some efforts made to put things right.
That can never be done but it's a good start.
I grew up in a commune on an Indian reservation in Arizona in the 60's. I was grabbed along with several native children all about my age (6) and sent to foster care in order to be sent to school. My parents moved into town and cleaned up, and I was sent back to them., but when the Native parents did the same as my parents, their children were kept in the Latter day saints foster care!
ReplyDeleteAt the latter day saints foster care, we were woken up at 5 to do chores. Then we went to school. After school we would do laundry for the elders of the church and sent to their homes to clean and cook. We were sent back to the latter day saints foster care (a HUGE building around 8 or 9 at night, only to do mandatory religious training for at least an hour before bed, mind you I was 6 and in first grade...