Native American Day Came Without A Shot Fired - Tolowa's Somber History
Submitted by Jeanne Bedell Mashkikinabinais
By Tim Giago
Huffington Post - October 1st, 2007
When Columbus Day comes around each year there is consternation in the Native American community across America. Columbus Day parades, particularly the one held in Denver, CO., are disrupted by militant American Indians. On some Indian reservations black armbands are worn to recognize what the indigenous people consider a "day of infamy."
But who would have "thunk" that in a state Indian activists called "The Mississippi of the North" in the 1970s, would be the only state in the Union that does not celebrate Columbus Day, but instead celebrates "Native American Day."
How could such a state, condemned by activists for years, have risen above the fray and distinguished itself as a leader in white/Indian relations? The credit must go to the power of the Indian press.
Let me explain. In 1990 a young man named Birgil Kills Straight (that's right, Birgil with a B) decided to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Massacre at Wounded Knee by leading a contingent of Lakota riders on the trail that Sitanka (Big Foot) and his followers took on their way from the Cheyenne River Reservation to the Pine Ridge Reservation after hearing of the murder of Sitting Bull. The 7th Cavalry, George Armstrong Custer's old outfit, caught up with them at Wounded Knee Creek and on December 29, 1890, they opened fire on the mostly unarmed Lakota men, women and children, murdering nearly 300 innocent civilians.
Kills Straight, a highly educated Lakota man, felt that this would be an opportune time to commemorate and honor the victims of the massacre. But he took it one step further and decided to hold a Lakota ceremony called, "Wiping away the tears." After the riders reached the sacred burial grounds of the victims at Wounded Knee the ceremony would be held to reach across the barriers of racial intolerance and in essence, extend a hand of peace and forgiveness to the white race.
I saw this as an opportunity to extend that message in a column I wrote directed at then Governor George Mickelson (R-SD). I challenged him to use this commemoration to not only proclaim 1990 as a Year of Reconciliation between Indians and whites, but to also use it as a time to set aside Columbus Day and to rename that day Native American Day. My editorial also asked the governor to honor Martin Luther King Jr. by making his birthday a state holiday.
Gov. Mickelson accepted my challenge in a letter to my newspaper, The Lakota Times. Lynn Hart, a Lakota/African American, read my editorial on the floor of the South Dakota Legislature. Hart was making an effort to have the state declare the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., a state holiday. Well, we ended up getting all three. The state legislature voted unanimously to make1990 a Year of Reconciliation, to replace Columbus Day with Native American Day, and to make Martin Luther King's birthday a state holiday.
All of these things were accomplished without a single shot being fired, without a single arrest being made, without the occupation of a single building and without protesting and marching in the streets. They were accomplished because of the truth of an old adage, "The pen is mightier than the sword."
But it took a courageous governor and a strong and determined legislative body to stand behind the proclamation of Gov. Mickelson and make 1990 a Year of Reconciliation, and to support the legislation replacing Columbus Day with Native American Day and of making the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., a state holiday.
The Lakota Times was a free and independent weekly newspaper that was born on the Pine Ridge Reservation a few years after the occupation of Wounded Knee. It stood alone in its efforts to bring truth and unbiased reporting of the news to the reservation. In its formative years it withstood firebombs, it withstood having its windows blasted out with shotguns three times, and it withstood assaults upon my family and me. Under the constant threats of death, the weekly newspaper faithfully covered the political, social and educational news on the reservation.
And in the end, my editorial in the Lakota Times helped to create a new state holiday and to set aside the holiday most Native Americans found distasteful. South Dakota is the only state out of 50 that has moved to create a Native American Day to honor its largest minority.
On November 10, 2007 I will be the first Native American ever inducted into the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame and I hope it will open the door for the many other hardworking Indian newspaper editors and journalists to follow.
(Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, was born, raised and educated on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard in the Class of 1991 and founder of The Lakota Times and Indian Country Today newspapers. He founded and was the first president of the Native American Journalists Association. He can be reached at najournalist@msn.com)
Tolowa's Somber History
Submitted by Bert Garvey
By Adam Madison
Daily Triplicate Staff Writer
October 3rd, ‘07
SMITH RIVER — Saturday's Tolowa Dee'ni Day at the Howonquet Community Center in Smith River, a celebration of Tolowa culture, took a different tone after a sobering presentation on Tolowa massacres in Del Norte County.
"I think the destruction of the Native Americans is one of the greatest crimes in California's history," Ben Madley said, a fifth-year student in the Yale University History Ph.D program and keynote speaker at the event. "A crime of which precious little is written."
Madley used his dissertation and work-in-progress, "American Genocide: The Northern California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873," which includes accounts of Tolowa massacres by white people in Del Norte County in the presentation.
Madley grew up in Happy Camp and decided to pursue California Native American genocide while an undergraduate at Yale.
"Later in college I came across the Yuki genocide, and I started to wonder if this happened to all California Indians," Madley said. "Both Indians and whites need to face up to this very uncomfortable history and the terrible wrongs that were done."
Madley compared the massacres of the Tolowa, which began in the 1850s to the Holocaust.
According to Madley's presentation, the Tolowa massacres were carried out by state-funded white militias. In the 1860s, California spent $106 million in funding for the killing of Native Americans.
He said that the amount in today's dollars would be closer to $3.6 billion.
"The U.S. Congress decided to reimburse the state for every bit of money they spent on the militias," Madley said, "minus $100,000."
He talked about how easy it was for a man to become a state-funded militia who could kill anyone as long as he thought they were Indian.
"All they had to do was sign up and they would get to go home with their gun and bullets," Madley said.
The militia men also received stipends, land and cash incentives, depending on whether they killed a man, woman or child.
"California's laws in state history were made so that whites could do anything they want," Madley said. "It was elected officials that made all of this possible."
He spoke of the horrors of the first state-sanctioned reservations created after the massacres.
Madley included examples, such as extremely small areas the Tolowa survivors were put into, and "concentration-camp" conditions in which they were living.
"Indians got one-third of what prisoners in Auschwitz were fed," Madley said. "The Tolowa didn't have strong immune systems, and they were packed in tight."
The killings became more efficient towards 1854, with more guns, ammunition and uniforms coming from the state.
"They (the state) also came to believe they needed to finish the job," Madley said.
Madley said that most of the Tolowa killings were near water. "This is why there isn't any archaeological findings," he said.
"It is very easy to dispose of bodies when you are near large bodies of water," Madley said.
He added that at some sites, such as Yontucket (now known as Burnt Ranch) immense bonfires were built, using material from the village sites and men, women and babies were thrown into the flames.
Madley read other accounts from whites, who witnessed the killings of militia men tying large rocks and debris to the necks of Tolowa men and throwing them into the ocean.
He said that the U.S. government was "treating the Indians like wolves being hunted down and exterminated with impunity."
Tolowa tribe member and local teacher Loren Bommelyn provided some of the information used in Madley's presentation. Bommelyn also was a keynote speaker and spoke about the massacres from his point of view—as a Tolowa.
"If it's not backed up by degrees, then they (general public) don't believe it," Bommelyn said.
"Otherwise it's just an Indian up here telling stories," he said.
Bommelyn touted the importance of bringing the local Tolowa massacres to light. "It helps stabilize our world," he said. "We're trying to maintain an idea, a sense of who we are."
Bommelyn told the group the hardest thing about the massacres was living with the fact they happened.
"You know we've been living this since 1851," he said. "At the same time, it's who we are as a people."
Reach Adam Madison at amadison@triplicate.com
TO SUBMIT an ARTICLE, OPINION PIECE, COMMENTS to the Native Unity Digest, e-mail bobbieo@digitaldune.net.
NATIVE UNITY - A place for Native American Peoples to solidify their tribes to make a positive impact on the cultural, social, economic and political fabric of American society and a place for non-Natives to better understand the ways of the American Indian.
NATIVE ISSUES BLOG
Professor Robert J. Miller
http://lawlib.lclark.edu/blog/native_america/
AIROS NATIVE NETWORK plays music, news and other great programs from Indian Country - www.airos.org
FOR NATIVE CELEBRITY NEWS - go to www.nativecelebs.com
Visit Vietnam Vet. LARRY MITCHELL at http://www.potawatomivet.com and click on his blog at the site.
NATIVE BIZ LEARNING CENTER - www.learn.nativebiz.com was developed for tribal education specialists serving tribal communities. Any tribal community can register at NO COST.
SUPPORTING NATIVE AMERICAN/FIRST PEOPLE - ARTISTS, FILM MAKERS, ENTERTAINERS, ETC. http://www.krystynmedia.blogspot.com.
By Tim Giago
Huffington Post - October 1st, 2007
When Columbus Day comes around each year there is consternation in the Native American community across America. Columbus Day parades, particularly the one held in Denver, CO., are disrupted by militant American Indians. On some Indian reservations black armbands are worn to recognize what the indigenous people consider a "day of infamy."
But who would have "thunk" that in a state Indian activists called "The Mississippi of the North" in the 1970s, would be the only state in the Union that does not celebrate Columbus Day, but instead celebrates "Native American Day."
How could such a state, condemned by activists for years, have risen above the fray and distinguished itself as a leader in white/Indian relations? The credit must go to the power of the Indian press.
Let me explain. In 1990 a young man named Birgil Kills Straight (that's right, Birgil with a B) decided to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Massacre at Wounded Knee by leading a contingent of Lakota riders on the trail that Sitanka (Big Foot) and his followers took on their way from the Cheyenne River Reservation to the Pine Ridge Reservation after hearing of the murder of Sitting Bull. The 7th Cavalry, George Armstrong Custer's old outfit, caught up with them at Wounded Knee Creek and on December 29, 1890, they opened fire on the mostly unarmed Lakota men, women and children, murdering nearly 300 innocent civilians.
Kills Straight, a highly educated Lakota man, felt that this would be an opportune time to commemorate and honor the victims of the massacre. But he took it one step further and decided to hold a Lakota ceremony called, "Wiping away the tears." After the riders reached the sacred burial grounds of the victims at Wounded Knee the ceremony would be held to reach across the barriers of racial intolerance and in essence, extend a hand of peace and forgiveness to the white race.
I saw this as an opportunity to extend that message in a column I wrote directed at then Governor George Mickelson (R-SD). I challenged him to use this commemoration to not only proclaim 1990 as a Year of Reconciliation between Indians and whites, but to also use it as a time to set aside Columbus Day and to rename that day Native American Day. My editorial also asked the governor to honor Martin Luther King Jr. by making his birthday a state holiday.
Gov. Mickelson accepted my challenge in a letter to my newspaper, The Lakota Times. Lynn Hart, a Lakota/African American, read my editorial on the floor of the South Dakota Legislature. Hart was making an effort to have the state declare the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., a state holiday. Well, we ended up getting all three. The state legislature voted unanimously to make1990 a Year of Reconciliation, to replace Columbus Day with Native American Day, and to make Martin Luther King's birthday a state holiday.
All of these things were accomplished without a single shot being fired, without a single arrest being made, without the occupation of a single building and without protesting and marching in the streets. They were accomplished because of the truth of an old adage, "The pen is mightier than the sword."
But it took a courageous governor and a strong and determined legislative body to stand behind the proclamation of Gov. Mickelson and make 1990 a Year of Reconciliation, and to support the legislation replacing Columbus Day with Native American Day and of making the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., a state holiday.
The Lakota Times was a free and independent weekly newspaper that was born on the Pine Ridge Reservation a few years after the occupation of Wounded Knee. It stood alone in its efforts to bring truth and unbiased reporting of the news to the reservation. In its formative years it withstood firebombs, it withstood having its windows blasted out with shotguns three times, and it withstood assaults upon my family and me. Under the constant threats of death, the weekly newspaper faithfully covered the political, social and educational news on the reservation.
And in the end, my editorial in the Lakota Times helped to create a new state holiday and to set aside the holiday most Native Americans found distasteful. South Dakota is the only state out of 50 that has moved to create a Native American Day to honor its largest minority.
On November 10, 2007 I will be the first Native American ever inducted into the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame and I hope it will open the door for the many other hardworking Indian newspaper editors and journalists to follow.
(Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, was born, raised and educated on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard in the Class of 1991 and founder of The Lakota Times and Indian Country Today newspapers. He founded and was the first president of the Native American Journalists Association. He can be reached at najournalist@msn.com)
Tolowa's Somber History
Submitted by Bert Garvey
By Adam Madison
Daily Triplicate Staff Writer
October 3rd, ‘07
SMITH RIVER — Saturday's Tolowa Dee'ni Day at the Howonquet Community Center in Smith River, a celebration of Tolowa culture, took a different tone after a sobering presentation on Tolowa massacres in Del Norte County.
"I think the destruction of the Native Americans is one of the greatest crimes in California's history," Ben Madley said, a fifth-year student in the Yale University History Ph.D program and keynote speaker at the event. "A crime of which precious little is written."
Madley used his dissertation and work-in-progress, "American Genocide: The Northern California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873," which includes accounts of Tolowa massacres by white people in Del Norte County in the presentation.
Madley grew up in Happy Camp and decided to pursue California Native American genocide while an undergraduate at Yale.
"Later in college I came across the Yuki genocide, and I started to wonder if this happened to all California Indians," Madley said. "Both Indians and whites need to face up to this very uncomfortable history and the terrible wrongs that were done."
Madley compared the massacres of the Tolowa, which began in the 1850s to the Holocaust.
According to Madley's presentation, the Tolowa massacres were carried out by state-funded white militias. In the 1860s, California spent $106 million in funding for the killing of Native Americans.
He said that the amount in today's dollars would be closer to $3.6 billion.
"The U.S. Congress decided to reimburse the state for every bit of money they spent on the militias," Madley said, "minus $100,000."
He talked about how easy it was for a man to become a state-funded militia who could kill anyone as long as he thought they were Indian.
"All they had to do was sign up and they would get to go home with their gun and bullets," Madley said.
The militia men also received stipends, land and cash incentives, depending on whether they killed a man, woman or child.
"California's laws in state history were made so that whites could do anything they want," Madley said. "It was elected officials that made all of this possible."
He spoke of the horrors of the first state-sanctioned reservations created after the massacres.
Madley included examples, such as extremely small areas the Tolowa survivors were put into, and "concentration-camp" conditions in which they were living.
"Indians got one-third of what prisoners in Auschwitz were fed," Madley said. "The Tolowa didn't have strong immune systems, and they were packed in tight."
The killings became more efficient towards 1854, with more guns, ammunition and uniforms coming from the state.
"They (the state) also came to believe they needed to finish the job," Madley said.
Madley said that most of the Tolowa killings were near water. "This is why there isn't any archaeological findings," he said.
"It is very easy to dispose of bodies when you are near large bodies of water," Madley said.
He added that at some sites, such as Yontucket (now known as Burnt Ranch) immense bonfires were built, using material from the village sites and men, women and babies were thrown into the flames.
Madley read other accounts from whites, who witnessed the killings of militia men tying large rocks and debris to the necks of Tolowa men and throwing them into the ocean.
He said that the U.S. government was "treating the Indians like wolves being hunted down and exterminated with impunity."
Tolowa tribe member and local teacher Loren Bommelyn provided some of the information used in Madley's presentation. Bommelyn also was a keynote speaker and spoke about the massacres from his point of view—as a Tolowa.
"If it's not backed up by degrees, then they (general public) don't believe it," Bommelyn said.
"Otherwise it's just an Indian up here telling stories," he said.
Bommelyn touted the importance of bringing the local Tolowa massacres to light. "It helps stabilize our world," he said. "We're trying to maintain an idea, a sense of who we are."
Bommelyn told the group the hardest thing about the massacres was living with the fact they happened.
"You know we've been living this since 1851," he said. "At the same time, it's who we are as a people."
Reach Adam Madison at amadison@triplicate.com
TO SUBMIT an ARTICLE, OPINION PIECE, COMMENTS to the Native Unity Digest, e-mail bobbieo@digitaldune.net.
NATIVE UNITY - A place for Native American Peoples to solidify their tribes to make a positive impact on the cultural, social, economic and political fabric of American society and a place for non-Natives to better understand the ways of the American Indian.
NATIVE ISSUES BLOG
Professor Robert J. Miller
http://lawlib.lclark.edu/blog/native_america/
AIROS NATIVE NETWORK plays music, news and other great programs from Indian Country - www.airos.org
FOR NATIVE CELEBRITY NEWS - go to www.nativecelebs.com
Visit Vietnam Vet. LARRY MITCHELL at http://www.potawatomivet.com and click on his blog at the site.
NATIVE BIZ LEARNING CENTER - www.learn.nativebiz.com was developed for tribal education specialists serving tribal communities. Any tribal community can register at NO COST.
SUPPORTING NATIVE AMERICAN/FIRST PEOPLE - ARTISTS, FILM MAKERS, ENTERTAINERS, ETC. http://www.krystynmedia.blogspot.com.
posted by BobbieoAZ @ 9:51 PM
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home