March 5, 2007
WHOSE TRAIL OF TEARS?
There is no arguing that Native Americans' treatment at the hands of colonial settlers in North and South America is a national historic shame that the U.S. will have to bear in perpetuity. Characterizations of original tribes that populated what is now the United States have garnered hagiographic qualities over passing years. They are now viewed as sinless noble savages, whose peaceful co-existence with the environment stands as a damning counter-example to our current modern society that despoils everything it comes in contact with. Native Americans are the romantic residents of our paradise lost.
I personally find such notions rather condescending. When appreciating Native Americans' cultures, there is often a fine line between describing their "wisdom" and characterizing their populations as child-like simpletons. It also overlooks the fact that Native American societies suffered from most of the ills that every community has from the dawn of man: starvation, hardship, war, and occasional disappearance.
This is something I did not know, however: some Native American tribes were enthusiastic slave owners. The Seattle Times reports on slaves owned by the Cherokee Nation:
Many of the Cherokees' slaves accompanied the tribe when it was expelled from its traditional lands in North Carolina and Georgia and forced to migrate in 1838 and 1839 to Indian Territory, in what is now Oklahoma.
Thousands of Cherokees died during the trip, which became known as the "Trail of Tears." It is not known how many of their slaves also died.
The tribe fought for the Confederacy. In defeat, it signed a federal treaty in 1866 committing that its slaves, who had been freed by tribal decree during the war, would be absorbed as citizens of the Cherokee Nation.
What brings this historical blot to light is some ex post facto insult to injury. Members of the present-day Cherokee Nation are holding a vote to expel descendants of the slaves the tribe once held who became nation members after their emancipation. Unsurprisingly, the move to disavow the nation's slave-owning past has to do with money.
Advocates of expelling the freedmen call it a matter of safeguarding tribal resources, which include a $350 million annual budget from federal and tribal revenue, and Cherokees' share of a gambling industry that, for U.S. tribes overall, takes in $22 billion a year.
The grass-roots campaign for expulsion has given heavy play to warnings that keeping freedmen in the Cherokee Nation could encourage thousands more to sign up for a slice of the tribal pie.
If the descendants of some persecuted Native Americans now get to live in tax free zones and operate multi-billion-dollar casino operations, what should the descendants of that population's slaves get? Printing presses to mint as much legal money as they want?
Tagged: cherokee, descendants, indians, native americans, slavery, votePosted by Lexiphane at March 5, 2007 9:42 AM
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