Indians (Native Americans)

>Peek<

That's a great site edgar. Here is a link to the official site of the native-run territory Nunuvut in Canada:

http://www.gov.nu.ca/

Thank you, cav. I want to check it out over the week end.

When the Navajos tried to take advantage of the military slack caused by the outbreak of the Civil War, the US government sent Colonel Kit Carson to settle the uprising. His mission was to gather the Navajo together and move them to Fort Sumner on the Bosque Redondo Reservation. When the Indians refused to move and hid in the Canyon de Chelly, he began a merciless economic campaign destroying crops and lifestock, burning villages and killing people. By destroying their food supplies, eventually he convinced the Navajos that going to the reservation was the only way to survive. In 1864, the Navajos, among with some other tribes, a total of 8-9,000 people, began their move to Fort Sumner.
Along the 300 miles trip to the camp, about 200 people died of cold and starvation. Many more people died after they arrived at the barren reservation. The original idea was that the Navajos would engage in agriculture at the reservation but because the land was unsuitable for raising crops and the people had no farming experience, the plan failed. Four years later, in 1868, partly as a recognition of their mistake, the US government allowed the people to return to their homeland.
from the book "The Long Walk of the Navajos
The Emigration of Navajo Indians to Fort Sumner, New Mexico"

The concept of war by economic attrition is neither unique, nor original to American scallywags mascarading as military men.

In 1608, Samuel de Champlain arrived near a high bluff on the north shore of the river St. Laurant (that's St. Lawrence, for you English-language bigots) in Don de Dieu, and moving his crew to the shingle below the bluff (now the Lower Town), established Québec. In 1609, in concert with an Indian war party, with a handful of his own men, he joined in a surprise assault on the Iroquois in what is now upstate New York. Some authors--surprisingly, most these days--state that the Indians in question were the Hurons--who were the linguistic and cultural first cousins of the Iroquois. Parkman states that the party were Ottawas. This seems more likely to me, as the Ottawas were Algonquian, and therefore the "natural" enemies of the Iroquois. When Cartier had visited the valley of the St. Laurent in the 1530's, he recorded much of the vocabulary of the aboriginal inhabitants, including near the site of what was to be Québec. Parkman assures us that 19th century linguists identified the vocabulary as Huro-Iroquoian. This suggests that the Iroquoian tribes may have been driven from the river valley into the Mohawk valley during the three generations which ensued between Cartier's visit and the arrival of Champlain. There certainly was no love lost between these "nations," and there was a constant hostility between the Iroquois and the Algonquian tribes, especially the Ottawa, whom the Jesuits esteemed to be the strongest and most well-organized of the Algonquians. Nevertheless, Champlains suggests that the Ottawas solicited French supoprt because they otherwise lived in constant terror of the Iroquois. Parkman's account suggests the Iroquois jumped by the French-Indian party were a war party bound for the Ottawa lands.

However, were they Hurons, it would help to explain subsequent behavior of the Iroquois, which is otherwise somewhat of a mystery. To the other Indians of the Great Lakes region, the Hurons were the "grandfathers," credited with giving "civilization" to the surrounding tribes. The story is reported as being quite common among the tribes of the region. Additionally, from the time of Cartier through to near the end of the first century of French colonizaiton (at the least) and the days of René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the Algonquian tribes of the eastern and coastal regions of the northern shore of the St. Laurent and it's débouche into the Gulf of St. Laurent were extremely primitive in comparison to their tribal cousins to the west. They are described as living from shell fish, fish and small game, and as having no notion of agriculture.

This attack on the Iroquois by the French lead to one of the longest running wars between "white men and red men" in the history of North America. On more than one occassion, the Iroquois (a confederation of five tribes) invaded "New France," and on one occassion, remained for two years.

In about 1640, astutely recognizing the bulwark of the economic health of New France, the Iroquois decided to engross all of the fur trade of the Great Lakes. This they would then trade to the Dutch and English at Albany for the wherewithal to accomplish their devoutly desired end of destroying the French (a purpose of which the Dutch and English of that era would have highly approved). In order to attain their goal, they decided to destoy all of the tribes of the region. Although they failed, and eventually, in 1673, allowed La Salle to build a fort at Cataracoui (modern Cataraqui, where Kingston, Ontario now sits)--they gave it a damned thorough effort. One tribe, the Cat People, were entirely exterminated. As the Jesuits had not yet resided among them, to record their language and legends as they had with so many Huron and Algoquian septs, we know little else of them than that they were exterminated. They may have been a sept of the Hurons, or may have been an Algonquian people. The Hurons themselves lost the great majority of their population (i've read various accounts putting their loss at from 60- to 80% of their total population). The Potawatomi were driven from the southern shore of Lake Erie into the Wabash valley. The "Fox People," the Outagamie, then occupying the area now occupied by Detroit, managed to stop the Iroquois with some very thin French aid, but they were sufficiently damaged in the war that they removed to the west, eventually marching up the lower penninsula of Michigan, and crossing at and with the support of their French allies at Michillimackinac, moved around the upper penninsula and into Wisconsin.

The Iroquois pursued this effort singlemindedly for almost two generations. Henri de Tonti, acutally an Italian (his father invented the "tontine"), was a faithful lieutenant of La Salle. In the winter of 1682-83, he helped establish Fort St. Louis at Starved Rock, now a state park in Illinois. From there, the French moved down the Illinois to the great lake in about the middle of its course, where a blockhouse was built at Fond du Lac, where Peoria now sits. In 1686, Tonti had gone down the Illinois in a vain attempt to find La Salle, and discovered that the handful of men at Fond du Lac had fallen apart as a unit, and some of them fled into the woods at his approach. Taking with him three men willing to return to Lake Michigan (one of whom disappeared on the march), he ascended the river, and at Starved Rock, stayed for a few days with the Iliniwek (Illinois) in their winter emcampment. Crossing the river to the left bank, he and his companions stumbled onto the encampment of a large Iroquois war party (Tonti estimated 2,000, and was a man with extensive military experience and can thus be considered a reliable witness). Getting away without raising the alarm, the hurried back to warn the Illinois. Overcoming the trepidation of the warriors of that tribe, they convinced them to make a sudden, "pre-emptive" attack on the Iroquois, with the promise of their support with their firearms. Meanwhile, the women, children and the elderly "broke camp," taking all of their valuables, and as much of the buried corn and beans as they could manage, and started downt the right bank of the river. The Illinois attack on the Iroquois was successful for a day, but both they and Tonti knew better than to press their luck. They hurried back to Starved Rock, recrossed, and marched south, prepared to fight a rear guard action. The Iroquois crossed at Starved Rock, desecrated the Illinois burial grounds, and then unaccountably re-crossed the river to the left bank, and hurried south to parallel the Illinois march on the right (at that point, the west) bank. Tonti could hardly believe their good fortune, especially as the Iroquois had never mastered the use of the birch bark canoe (or perhaps disdained it, as it seems to have been an Ottawa invention). The Illinois "braves" (hmmmm) problably thanked and blessed whatever totems and spirits they perferred.

Arriving at the mouth of the river, the Illinois crossed over the Mississippi--all except the Tamaroa sept, the warriors of which bragged of their prowess and their contempt for the Iroquois (perhaps too many days of safety had bloated their self-esteem). The following morning, the Iroquois crossed at dawn, and, the warriors promptly abandoning the women, children and infirm, slaughtered everyone who did not make it to the Mississippi--many who did drowned in the pell-mell attempt cross the river, at that point more than a mile wide. The surviving "braves" were parcelled out to be adopted into the other septs, and the Tamaroa were, effectively, exterminated. In the following year, Tonti convinced the Illinois to once again "screw their courage to the sticking point," and join a raid against the Iroquois.

By 1673, the Iroquois had been sufficiently weakened by the constant warfare as to assure the survival of those who had hung on in the Great Lakes region. The Ottawa had fled to the northeast, and lurked on the upper reaches of the river which now bears their name. Although they returned to their former homes, from the Detroit River to Thunder Bay, the haunted forests were badly depopulated. Louis de Baude de Frontenac, twice governor of New France, sufficiently overawed the Iroquois that they were quiescent for a generation, but even his mystique failed, and they eventually invaded Canada once more. But, the tribes of the Great Lakes had survived, although barely. How many septs, bands or clans unknown to the Jesuits and the coureurs du bois were destroyed in this systematic attempt can never be known.

The Iroquois were determined indeed. It must have had something to do with their penchant for eating their enemies:

http://www.csasi.org/2001_july_journal/cannibalism_in_the_prehistoric_pg-108.htm

That's funny, I always thought the iriquoise were supposed to be the most civilized and democratic of american tribes (and many tribes outside of america)

Them Iroquois were also quite refined in the art of torture. They tied up their enemies naked, including Jesuits, and slowly stripped off thin strips of skin, but never cut deep enough to actually kill the victim. They could remove all the skin from a captive and keep them alive. Now that's just gross.

There is a horrifying history right in my new area... will have to look up some links. Back/later.

Well, one hears that sort of thing about Americans too(i.e, being civilized), but it should always be taken with a grain of salt. That they were civilized (and in comparison with many of the tribes of North America, their social organization and their agricultural technique were quite advanced) does not exclude them from practices which we would consider barbaric.

Such a judgment could well be considered hypocritical though. That the Crusaders indulged in at least one incident of cannibalism we know because the monks who accompanied them recorded the event--not something they were likely to make up about their own countrymen's behavior in the land of those whom the considered heathen. Since that time, cannibalism has surfaced, or at least has been alleged, among "civilized" peoples--in America, we have the example of the Donner expedition, and the survivors of the wreck of the whaler Essex, attacked by a whale in the Pacific (and the basis for Melville's Moby Dick).

That it was institutionalized among aboriginal people in North America is not necessarily a measure of their relative degree of civilization.

Pardon my bad spelling... I guess one's definition of civilized behavior depends on one's own behavior. So, maybe that was the way to be back in that era?

It is not uncommon behavior in any people's history, that is to say, the cruelty. According to both Iulius Caesar and Tacitus, the ancient Germans practiced horrible cruelties of torture, and Caesar assures us that he Kelts would bind prisoners up in wicker and burn them alive in order to entertain themselves. The records of our ancestors two and three thousand years ago, however, are not sufficiently detailed to know if this were common or not, and whether or not they did this to anyone, or just rude tourists like the Romans.

For those societies in which cannibalism has been institutionalized, it is often derived form the idea of imbibing your enemies courage and strength by eating him. There are literally endless avenues for speculation as to what would give rise to such an ethos, although my bet is the perreniel late winter "starving time."

If you're in trouble,
and the tummy rumbles,
look to your friend,
say "It's the end"
Eat him up good
but avoid the brains,
eating those
could make you insane.

colonel chivington when attacking hundreds of old men, women and children at Sand Creek (the young men were away on a hunt) allowed/abetted his troops to mutilate the dead bodies cutting away breasts, testicles and assorted body parts to be taken back to the streets of Denver and displayed in a parade down colfax avenue to the cheering of 1,000's --- civilization?

Simple mathematics suggest that given a surfeit of civilization, the race will not survive.

A fascinating study of cannabilism in culture is the book 'Divine Hunger' by Peggy Reeves Smith.

there were 7 democrats in Hinsdale county colorado, Alfred Packer was sentenced to prison for eating 6 of them.

A great movie about the failures of the seventeenth century French Jesuit missionaries in Quebec is Black Robe.

Yikes!