Should U.S. Government apologize For American Indian Holocaust?

While the U.S. government is waging a war worldwide against terrorists, it's own past history has to be dealt with concerning it's actions against American Indians. Senator Brownback of Kansas introduced a resolution (S.J.15) calling for an apology from the federal government for it's long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies. Senator Brownback's bill is backed up by congresswoman Jo Ann Davis of Virginia with house resolution H. J. RES. 3.

In past years the U.S. Government has made it a point to apologize for it's action against other groups of Americans like African Americans and Japanese Americans. So one would think our federal government would have no problem apologizing to American Indians on paper. That's not true in this case.

Senator Brownback's apology resolution was before the U.S. Senate in 2004 but no action was taken. Now, the Senate Indian Affairs has passed the resolution out of committee and it will be placed on the senate calendar for a vote by the full senate in 2006. Maybe?

more...

http://www.webcommentary.com/asp/ShowArticle.asp?id=grahamm&date=051221

I was watching a show on the History Channel about the westward expansion.

It is sad that the attitude towards Indians was to kill as many of them as possible (It means you will have to kill less next year).

Genocide, pure and simple. We were the first Hitler in the world.

Cheers
Drifter

What "we" did to the aboriginal peoples of this continent was reprehensible, but we were in NO WAY the first to systematically try to eliminate the "others" in order to aquire their property and resources. Read a little history please.

for something we did that was reprehensible. I have read history, and I know that the US Government violated the Constitution by not allowing Native Americans to legally and openly practice their ceremonies until the 1970s. My Native friends tell about being punished by white teachers, etc, for speaking their native language, and I'm not talking about something that happened in the 1830s.

just pointed out a factual error.

My position on apologies? Not sure what they accomplish, if I were a victim I would probably prefer compensation. On the other hand some kind of acknowledgement might be a start.

How unbelievably insulting and WRONG you are on the fact we very much indeed genocided millions of Native Americans, threw them on bare dirt for land that they could call "their own" and shoved our missionaries on them every step of the way.

Get YOUR facts straight.

We should absolutely at the very least apologize, more importantly we should try to amend what we have done as best we can.

The comment I was addressing was this:

"We were the first Hitler in the world."

I stand by my post.

:shrug: I would truly like to know...:shrug:

I simply took exception to the comment:

"We were the first Hitler in the world."


Not the first and not the last. No excuses, just a factual statement.

but we did it long before Hitler.

My point is that our history is speckled with atrocities that we normally attribute to some OTHER culture/people.

Sorry you misinterpreted the focus of my post.

Cheers
Drifter

Since we were not the first,does that justify the action of the early and latter Indian killers.?

There's a book published some years ago called "American Holocaust" and it's really detailed about this starting with the Spanish in Mexico and throughout the trails west days.

"King Leopold's Ghost" -- a horrifying look at what happened in the Belgian Congo (and unfortunately, is still happening; same song, different verse).

the first Hitler in the world? There is a long history of genocide in the world. The US hardly invented the process of grabbing land by killing off the indigenous population.

to perpetuate the "Manifest Destiny" myth? Genocide is genocide, and when it is done, it should be admitted, and apologies given.

and kill them. :sarcasm:

I did not say it was OK. I said calling America the first Hilter lacked historical perspective. I'm a bit tired of folks that automatically think America invented every evil in the world.

the Kirgans, the Aryans, the Huns and hell, the Catholics and witch burnings were absolute genocide.

To those of us who are Cherokee,Andrew Jackson is known as Hilter.

I know well the story of the Trail of Tears-I can show you places where hundreds of Cherokees died during one of the winters during the march. I live near the first place they were allowed to settle before they were moved once again to Oklahoma. My husband's maternal grandmother was Cherokee.

Welcome to DU :hi:

e.g., the "trail of tears", when Andrew Jackson defied the SCOTUS and undertook ethnic cleansing against native americans living in the US southeast

after The War Between The States. The American Bison was slaughtered to the point of near extinction just to starve the Native Americans off of their land, so we could run a railroad through it or because somebody found gold or silver on their land, their villages were massacred and the mentality of the U.S. Govt. was that they were less than human. The Native American population from 1800-1900 became a fraction of itself across the nation.

in Massachusettes, starting around 1670, when the treaty with the Wampanoag was violated as the Puritans decided they needed more land and needed to "Christianize" the "savages". I have read town reports and original documents of the time and can tell you there were many "little wars" as the Native people were driven west. And don't forget that the colonial British army gave Natives blankets that had been used by people who had contracted smallpox so to infect the Native population. I believe this is the first documented example of the use of germ warfare. And some think that what was done was not important?

Peace to you.

If we don't apologize and start making amends, America's karma is going to remain extremely messed up.

that has introduced this? Well, like a broken clock, still correct twice a day. :shrug:

Cynical, moi?

"ethical eureka moment." :eyes:

peace and solidarity, always!

peace and solidarity, my friend!

if our actions result in Indians dying out.

Making good on all of the broken treaties is impossible, the nation would cease to exist. Living up to agreed compensation would be a start. Returning land would be even better, the Buffalo Commons returned to the Plains Peoples would be some justice.

...would mean the end of those taxpayer-subsidized low leases for grazing, the end of cheap leases of mineral rights, the end of thoughtless exploitation of extractable resources, and, worst of all...

HORROR OF HORRORS!!!!....

...the end of recreational vehicles with noisy internal combustion engines having free access to shatter fragile ecosystems, winter and summer, just to provide recreational thrills for motorheads.

We can't have that, can we?

still sarcastically (don't know what's gotten into me...)
Bright

to the Aboriginal people for stealing their land and decimating their
people - I think probably the majority.

But John Howard just can't bring himself to utter the s-word (sorry),
so it won't happen in the short-term.

It was all part of the misguided colonial mentality of course, and
early settlers in both our countries absorbed it from the British, but
it's very difficult to understand how they justified what they did.

A hollow apology
An empty gesture
"I'm sorry"
Now it's okay?
"We Said
We're sorry"
Back to business
Return to the rez
It's okay
The diabetes I mean
The crushing poverty
The trailer park penal colony

No. No thanks. No apologies. Give me land. Fertile land.
Did I say Give?
I meant
Return.

Just find the money lost by the inept government that belongs to the natives. And Give It Back.

Give them good land.

Allow them to rule themselves.

British (and Germans and so many others) were treated by the Romans, like the Angles and Saxon British were treated by the Normans, like the Mexican and Central American native people were treated by the Spanish, like the naitive Irish are treated by the British to this day. It's a never-ending scenario in the saga of the human race. The conquered and the conquerors.

Should we apologize? I won't, I didn't do it.

Should we give them lands to live on and abolish this horrible 'reservation' system we set up in this country when we stoled their land? You bet. Let them go back to where they came from. Give them back their sacred lands (the Black Hills comes to mind). Set up programs to enable them to be able to compete in the 21st century marketplace. Fix the disgustingly inadequate educational system these people are forced to live with. If you want to consider this 'minority' system that we have set up, they have been totally neglected and ignored, more than any other race. We need to take care of the people that were here first.