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Wednesday, 01 December 2004
While reading Eastman's piece, I got the feeling that I was reading something very rare and very precious in that an incredibly important event was documented and saved for later generations to read. We often hear about the atrocities the United States government committed against the Native Americans when the Western side of the Northern American continent was being overtaken by white settlers-- of entire villages of defenseless, unarmed men, women and children slaughtered while sleeping, mercilessly hunted down while fleeing for their lives; about the treaties and documents that the U.S. government drew up and handed over to Native tribes in return for their cooperation, only to ignore and dishonor those treaties without so much as an acknowledgement that they ever existed. We have always heard these stories, but to read a first-hand eye-witness account by an educated, capable white American who also happened to have some Native blood in him and thus perhaps felt a personal tie to these people, was truly unique. Eastman's perspective and documentation of what happened is valuable because his word is trustworthy from many angles. It is unbiased, despite the fact that Eastman has Native blood; it is honest, and does not try to glamorize or romanticize or overexaggerate any kind of situation. I feel that we are lucky to have this piece as part of our available wealth of literature, because Eastman's writing tells a truth during a time when many white people simply wanted to deny the atrocities that were occurring. It was easier that way, I think, to pretend that the Natives were not suffering and were not being cheated, than it was to face the truth. What appalled me most about reading Eastman's piece was his description of the massacre. The way Eastman told it, American troops came into a reservation camp and were looking through tents for weapons, none of which any of the natives had. Then, from an unidentified location, there was a shot, and the troops promptly opened fire on the Native people-- men, women, children, old people, babies-- no one was spared, not even when they tried to hide or run for their lives-- they were hunted as far as three miles from the scene and killed. What is truly disgusting about this is that it would seem the American soliders were almost waiting for a chance to kill the Natives. Otherwise, why would they have been so quick to open fire on people that were so clearly unarmed? It is almost as if they were looking for an excuse to kill as many people as they could, and were happy to hear the unidentified shot because it meant that they could start shooting, but not be penalized for it later if the case were ever to come up in court. It was a sad and tragic piece to read, but as I mentioned earlier, extremely valuable because it tells the truth in an un-embellished, un-romanticized way. Eastman is a trustworthy writer, which is a large part of what makes his piece so valuable-- we know we can believe what we are reading. We have no choice. posted by: GLRitchie | 21:31 | comments (1) |
thanks to squidfingers for the background