Amerikan Destiny

"...We must consider the Spiritual genocide that they commit against us. The spiritual genocide that the white people have been victimized by for thousands of years..." -John Trudell

 

"This is said in full knowledge of the many futile efforts that have been made by zealous able men and woman, by the churches, and by the Government, to lead the Indian out of barbarism."[1]

 

"He should be brought under the operations of the law, 'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground.' He should be educated to labor."[2]

 

"And the Indian should be taught not only how to work, but also that it is his duty to work; for the degrading communism of the tribal-reservation system gives to the individual no incentive to labor, but puts a premium upon idleness and makes it fashionable. under this system, the laziest man owns as much as the most industrious man, and neither can say of all the acres occupied by the tribe, 'This is mine.' The Indian must, therefore, be taught how to labor; and, that labor may be made necessary to his well-being, he must be taken out of the reservation through the door of the general allotment act. And he must be imbued with the exalting egotism of American civilization, so that he will say 'I' instead of 'We', and "This is mine,' instead of 'This is ours.' But if he will not learn! If he shall continue to persist in saying, 'I am content; let me alone!' Then the Guardian must act for the Ward, and do for him the good service he protests shall not be done--the good service that he denounces as a bad service. The Government must then, in duty to the public, compel the Indian to come out of his isolation into the civilized way that he does not desire to enter--into citizenship--into assimilation with the masses of the Republic--into the path of national duty; and in passing along that path he will find not only pleasure in personal independence and delight in individual effort in his own interest, but also the consummation of that patriotic enjoyment which is always to be found in the exercise of the high privilege of contributing to the general welfare."[3]

 

John H. Oberly,

The Secretary of the interior.

 

 

 

"Expansion westward seemed perfectly natural to many Americans in the mid-nineteenth century. Like the Massachusetts Puritans who hoped to build a "city upon a hill, "courageous pioneers believed that America had a divine obligation to stretch the boundaries of their noble republic to the Pacific Ocean. Independence had been won in the Revolution and reaffirmed in the War of 1812. The spirit of nationalism that swept the nation in the next two decades demanded more territory. The "every man is equal" mentality of the Jacksonian Era fueled this optimism. Now, with territory up to the Mississippi River claimed and settled and the Louisiana Purchase explored, Americans headed west in droves. Newspaper editor John O'Sullivan coined the term "manifest destiny" in 1845 to describe the essence of this mindset."[4]

 

Another good read by Jason Coppola - Indigenous Groups Challenge Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination -> www.truth-out.org/laws-not-enough-tackle-violence-against...

 

1. pg., lxxxvii

2. Genesis 3:19 - "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." [KJV]

3. pg., lxxxix - books.google.com/books?id=-UZHAQAAIAAJ&pg=PR89&dq...

4. www.ushistory.org/us/29.asp

 

 

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