OPINION:
Halito! Chim Achukma? (Hello, how are you?)
It’s Native American Heritage Month again. I would like to discuss something that’s been endeared to me for some time. I seek transparency, and I do not desire to be offensive in any way, but I’m on deck, and it’s my turn to bat.
This concerns school curriculums and at least offering ‘Native American’ studies as an elective.
We seldom hear anything about Native American history, and after all, we are Oklahoma and home to 69 tribes who were displaced here in the 1800s. The Oklahoma History course in school only skims the surface of Native studies, and, after all, with its indigenous history, no other state compares to Oklahoma.
There’s been a sudden urgency to actualize how Native American history should be taught in our schools. For a start, why not tell the truth instead of withholding, editing, and sanitizing it? In layman‘s terms, “tell it like it is.”.
We’re talking transparency here. It’s necessary to open ‘Pandora’s box’ and discuss land theft (I call it ‘land grab’), government corruption, hundreds of broken treaties, rape, human trafficking, taking children from parents and sending them far away, and even scalping men, women, and children and collecting ‘bounties’ for scalps.
The prestigious yet dishonest Texas Rangers even murdered Mexican people scalped them, and sold scalps as being Indians. Rangers called it glory, and they answered to nobody.
For many years, our history books have failed miserably regarding Indigenous history. Three years ago, Kim and I were in West Point, New York, and I finally found an 8’ x 8’ section in the museum basement devoted to ‘Indian Wars,’ which referenced it as ‘Indian Uprising.’ I might also add that Native people should never be referred to as ‘renegades’ when referencing people who were fighting for their land, families, and the honor of being the true and quintessential Americans. Unfortunately, they have been... on the wrong side of history.
Such was the case when Indigenous people fought on what I call the ‘wrong side of history.’
Indigenous people have, to a large extent, wandered anonymously in the education of America’s youth. Take Native Chiefs, for example.
Where are they now? The same place they’ve always been—lost in the annals of American history. Their names are without content. Their voices are silent. A rightful place in American history has not been reserved for them. A desecration of sorts, to me anyway. Or, just…‘On the wrong side of history.’
American history has been ‘all in’ when focused on such leaders as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (both slave owners), Douglass ‘Doug-Out’ MacArthur, Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. Grant, and Andrew Jackson. Grant and Jackson committed their share of genocide. Jackson championed the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
The U.S. Supreme Court said he couldn’t do that, but he said, “Just watch.” And, thus, the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Cherokees, Creeks, and Seminoles had all their lands dispossessed and were driven like animals to Oklahoma, and nobody spoke up for them. I ask, Where was the ‘Rule of Law’ in our Constitution, which says, ”No one is above the law?“ They were more or less an afterthought as the U.S. government continued the seizure of more and more ‘Indian land’ while being…‘On the wrong side of history.’
Meanwhile, little credit has been given to Chief Seattle, Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, Quanah Parker, Black Kettle, Geronimo, Osceola, Tishomingo and Pushmataha, to name a few. These Indigenous leaders have been ‘all out’, not ‘all in.’
How brilliant and courageous these leaders were to have withstood genocide and kept their people together against insurmountable odds while being, in the truest sense, Americans. They were incredible military leaders who often made a mockery out of the U.S. Army (always under-reported). Truth: when the U.S. Cavalry won a battle, it was called a victory, but when the Indians won, it was called a massacre. Once again...‘On the wrong side of history’.
They didn’t hold PhDs, graduate from Harvard, nor were they in America’s Who’s Who, or come from affluent families back east. They shared a relationship with the land and were willing to die for it. This was something that Euro-Americans could never understand. Nobody could place a price on the land, nor could you fence it. The land was a part of the Native, and the Native was a part of the land, inseparable. One and the same, and settlers and the U.S. government both wanted it.
We’re talking blatant, unadulterated land theft, and treaties were like New Year’s diets, not worth the paper they were written on. This was a one-sided, non-negotiable act and was never a ‘Robin Hood’ type. In every instance, he was doomed for defeat, and nobody in our illustrious history has anyone been the consummate underdog such as He. He was outmanned, outgunned, but never outfought. For almost three centuries, he held that distinction while also being…‘On the wrong side of history.’
Most often, the cry of settlers was, “What do they want with all that land? They don’t need all that land.”
Even John Wayne was quoted, “I don’t feel wrong about taking this great country from them. There were great numbers of settlers who needed that land, and Indians were selfishly keeping it for themselves.” Okay, let’s say that John Wayne was eating at the Cattlemen’s Steakhouse in OKC. He’s served a huge 16-ounce ribeye, and I casually walk over, cut over half of it, put it on my plate, and say, ‘Sorry Duke, but you don’t need all that steak.’”
I have very few fears. One of those is that the history of Native America and its many incomparable leaders will be a thing of the past if we don’t salvage and recover the remnants of what’s already been lost. You get beyond two hundred years, and the authenticity of history can be a matter of conjecture and a ‘crap shoot’. This can be especially so if you happen to be...‘On the wrong side of history.’
I could elaborate more, but I feel we have a moral and ethical obligation to tell the other side of a people who were and are the ‘First Americans’. It’s an evolving door now, and many native people prefer to be called by their tribal name, and the word ‘Indian’ has definitely fallen out of favor because the name is inaccurate since it was given by Europeans who thought they had landed in ‘India’. Just consider what we would have been called had Europeans been searching for China.
‘Chi pisa la chike,’ — Alan Simpson
