Did you read the orders he gave? Telling your expedition leader to take men, women, and children prisoners; burn crops and villages; refuse to discuss any peace offers; and terrorize the population goes beyong the normal rules of warfare. Washington certainly did not give similar orders concerning any British or loyalist opponents.
I think that Andrew Jackson had the best policy toward the Indians. The so-called “Trail of Tears” was for those lazy bastards’ own good. If they wanted to be treated like citizens, they should act like citizens. Davy Crockett walked back and forth across this country dozens of times, and killed bears with his bear hands* while he was doing it! So don’t tell me it was so hard to walk to Oklahoma or wherever the hell they were off to.
- It’s commonly thought that Davy Crockett killed bears with his bare hands. That’s stupid. He had a special set of prosthetic hands actually made out of bears which he used to kill bears. Here is an artist’s rendering.
Actually there’s this big thing called The Ocean between the US and Britain. That makes it a bit difficult to go around burning their crops.
Natives didn’t fight according to European rules. Washington had to choose a method fighting people who didn’t line up with guns and march towards you. And note that he won. That’s an improvement almost every other war against guerrillas. Just look at Vietnam.
I hear you, I’m just saying I don’t think anyone wants this thread hijacked into yet another of Liberal’s rants about Jackson. That’s all. That’s all I really know about presidential policy towards Native Americans. So I was hoping to read this thread and learn more.
Sage Rat, the idea of lining up and marching towards you is largely a myth, IIRC.
Idiotic. A completely idiotic post.
When the Cherokee were awakened at gun point on a cold November morning by armed Union soldiers, and were ordered to fucking MARCH across the Appalachian mountains to Oklahoma, leaving behind everything they owned, including blankets and food, how were they unlike the Jews herded into train cars? And when old men, weak women, and many children died on the Trail of Tears from starvation, exhaustion, freezing to death, and heat stroke, how was their torture less painful than that of the Jews?. And when they were dumped out into the desert, in the worst possible land, and left to fend on their own, the only difference between death camps and reservations was that the Union soldiers left. All that remained for the Indians was to search for water and try to survive. Your attempt at humor is sleezy, bumbling, and born of ignorance.
Analogics is the study of analogies.
The historical accuracy of the stereotype isn’t the issue though. There was a certain way that wars were fought, and the Indians didn’t do anything like that.
Liberal, this thread, AGAIN, is NOT just about Jackson, all right? Don’t try and hijack it, PLEEEESE!!! The comparison of ALL U.S. presidents to Nazis is completely absurd, and downright fucking insane.
Thank you, Sage Rat. I stand corrected. However, guerilla warfare has been around since antiquity. So it’s not like the Natives invented it.
I guess maybe you never heard of Canada. Or maybe you missed the part where I said “loyalist opponents”. And I guess it’s beyond you how British troops could discuss peace terms. But to give you credit you do appear to have understood two words that I wrote - “British” and “crops” - and were able to form a connection between the two.
Damn savages. Refusing to fight like real people.
But as you point out, we won. So we must have been right.
Basically, yes. War is about sizing up your enemy and attacking their weak points.
When we fought Germany, we used widely methods from fighting Japan. Buildings in Japan were all made of wood and paper. We firebombed their cities–the houses of regular ol’ citizens. Why? Because it was an easy target and it worked. It’s not nice or kind, but that was the opening they presented to us.
Uh-huh. Yeah. And if the title of the thread was “Which Andrew Jackson had the best policy re: Native Americans?” you might have a point. Your analogy, which I assure you I have studied, was
We can render this as an SAT question:
Policies of the Gestapo : Jews :: __________ : Indians
a) Policies of Faith Hill
b) Policies of Your Mom
c) Policies of US Presidents
d) No, really, your mom is HAWT!
If we were to replace Faith Hill with Andrew Jackson, then you could (and in fact have, at great length) make a case for answer A being correct. If we were to replace Your Mom with… what am I saying? Nobody could replace Your Mom!
According to you, the correct answer is C. (for cookie!) That is, the actions of US Presidents in regard to Indians are comparable to the actions of the Gestapo in regard to the Jews. This is an enormous crock of shit, as I’m sure you know, but I will explain why. There have been 44* presidents of the United States. It’s a pretty exclusive club. How many of them approved of or enacted policies similar to Andrew Jackson’s? How does this compare with the approval rating for fucking with the Jew among Gestapo poo-bahs?
I suppose it’s possible that I’m wrong. Were there high-ranking Gestapo agents who thought that the whole “exterminate the Jews” idea was a bit of a mistake and took actions to prevent it and make reparations? Or perhaps I just didn’t hear the news and Jimmy Carter participated in the deaths of millions. I guess that could have happened. That’s probably why that rabbit was so mad at him.
No, it’s a word you made up. Analogic means “pertaining to analogies” but there is no such field of study as analogics.** If the word meant something, that’s probably what it would mean, but it doesn’t actually mean anything because you just made it up.***
- I only count Grover Cleveland once because he is, after all, only one man. However, I count Taft twice. Motherfucker was big!
** There also is no such thing as metaphorology.
*** This space intentionally left blank.
Back on topic, please. Anyone else?
Well, then. I will mention that President Obama has appointed a Cherokee Tribal Member to his domestic policy team. Her name is Kimberly Teehee. Now, it is an important distinction between saying simply “he appointed a Cherokee Indian” and “he appointed a Cherokee Tribal Member”.
In order to become a Tribal Member, you must prove, with documentation that satisfies the Chief and the Council, that you are indeed descended from people of the Cherokee Nation. (I think some tribes allow for, like 7/8, and some require 100%. And there are rules about age and stuff, but anyway.) In any case, Teehee has worked very hard for Indian causes, and I feel a personal sense of great pride in her accomplishment.
I concur, but I am not saying please.
Everyone back off the personal comments and the attempts at sarcasm that are not effectively reaching the intended audience.
[ /Modding ]
(emphasis mine)
EH, apologies (and ignore me) if this comes across as a hijack, but I read this and was wryly amused, because isn’t this the core problem, and isn’t this precisely why 43 Presidents so far have had such protean approaches and inconsistent results?
Shouldn’t it be the “best” policy as defined by Native Americans?
And isn’t that exactly the rub?
What do Native Americans want? Do they want to be proportionately represented in US society, fully assimilated with equal rights and responsibilities? Do they want appendectomies and chemotherapy and hybrid cars? Or do they want autonomy, with their lands back and total freedom to carry on being whatever they were before they were conquered? And who, ever, gets to be the SpokesGroup for a conquered people?
Without first addressing those more fundamental questions, how can there be a coherent policy of any kind, much less a “best” one? If we just want them not to be drunks anymore, that’s a completely different policy approach than redressing past wrongs (which may get a lot of lip service but is unlikely to result in actually returning the 13 States…).
If the “best” policy is reflected simply in which President shows the most R-E-S-P-E-C-T, why that’s certainly the cheapest approach…
Also, and perhaps equally problematic, how much NA DNA do you have to have to be NA? Or can you just self-define…?
Beats the alternative, doesn’t it?
Hmm… thinking on it, I would note Ulysses S. Grant. He radically changed policies towards AmerIndians, trying to bring them into assimilation with America, and set things on the road to where they could become citizens. He cleaned out the corruption in Indian Affairs and in many cases did improve the lot of ordinary Indians.
The problem there is that he simply couldn’t build the support for it. The noble volunteers eventually got as corrupt as the old Indian Agents (or the same nasty people found ways to worm into the new). The bureaucracy put into place to proect them instead worked to keep them poor and miserable. The schools built to educate them in modern (for the late 19th century) science and learning became the infamous Indian schools of lore. His right-hand soldier, John Philip Sheridan, directly lied to Grant and disobeyed orders in order to start a massacre or two.
And, unfortunately, many Indian tribes themselves contributed. This was still an era when the West as unsettled and cities few and far between. In several infamous cases, AmerIndians proved themselves just as bad as the rest of us.
Grant, anyhow, may have been the single most kindly disposed, but the energetic and idealistic few were incapable of changing the habits of uninterested many, much less those actively cruel expoiters and killers.
Seems like the title is at odds with the OP. That is, the best policy re: Native Americans is probably not the best policy for Native Americans.
Us white folks were an invading army that fought a long battle against the then current occupiers of the land. We won and they lost. Any policy at that time toward Native Americans that resulted in anything less than their total annihilation was therefore a boon to them.
I left the OP wide open because I knew there would be strong differences of opinion on the very premise of the question. Some Presidents are better than others, of course. And moreover, some will, in good faith and with the best possible information, nevertheless favor policies sharply at odds with their equally-conscientious predecessors or successors. Who had the best policy? You tell me. I welcome your opinion.
Indians should certainly play a key role at the highest levels in addressing the problems which beset them. But I think an argument can reasonably be made - without drifting into paternalism or “We know what’s best for them” - that someone born and raised “on the rez” might just be too close to those problems. An outside perspective is often useful.