https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-apology-indian-boarding-schools-interrupted-by-gaza-war-protester-2024-10-25/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/navy-apology-for-destroying-alaska-native-village-angoon-tlingit/

The past few days have seen a few formal apologies issued by the US government to Native Americans as token offerings after columbus day was memory holed by the neo know nothings in favor of indian native american indigenous peoples day
As has been the trend, the complexities and moral ambiguities of previous generations have been boiled down by reductionists to cater to the palates of a black and white worldview held by modern liberals.
Biden apologized for the federal government's forcible boarding school program for native american children that lasted for 150 years. He cited the known deaths of at least 973 native children at boarding schools and called it a blot on our history.

Now lets examine the reality
The indian boarding school program was set up by well-intentioned humanist and religiously motivated charity groups for the purpose of uplifting the natives. At a time when indians and americans clashed enough that the new york times penned op eds calling them a 'justly exterminated race' and many would rather have the remainder stamped out, volunteers and priests and nuns tended to native children in hopes of civilizing them and giving them the benefit of modern education. Of course, they were still restricted by contemporary standards. Childhood mortality both at home and at boarding schools was very high not just for native children but for everyone, it was the 1800s. But what census statistics can be derived from the time show just how bad things were for those who stayed on reservations- the average life expectancy of indians was about 35 years old, half that of Americans. They lived with famines and disease. Girls were pretty much sex slaves in most tribes, and warfare and slavery was rife as tribes slaughtered each other. One of the greatest crimes in media misrepresentation is the idea of noble savages that lived at peace with nature, when in reality they were poor bastards living with god awful conditions.

When nuns and priests sought to 'kill the indian' by eliminating native cultural remnants and being script disciplinarians, it was overwhelmingly motivated by a humanitarian interest in helping those children. We have the benefit of judging past generations from a comfy society with no stakes. Thousands of people devoted their lives to helping others the way they understood it to be the best, and now we spit on their memories and call them monsters. They weren't career minded freelancers getting a paycheck, nobody was taking up teaching at indian schools out of spite or hatred, they weren't nazis running death camps. People spent their whole lives in the name of charity and here's our president walking all over them.

If modern sensibilities had been at play since the beginning, where would native americans be today? If we had cordoned off the reservation lands entirely and left them to their own devices, not culled the buffalos to nothing, somehow avoided smallpox. Would they still be living in teepees and smashing each other in the head with tomahawks and carrying off daughters? Life ain't great for the uncontacted tribes in Africa, that's for sure. I think the second story, the apology for the Angoon bombardment does another great job of illustrating how western morality and historical revisionism intersect. Its an example where both sides, American and Indian both clearly acted in the wrong, came to clash because of vices and morals. In that one incident, Indians took hostages and demanded reparations when one shaman died in an accident on a whaling vessel, which was nobodies fault- a harpoon gun exploded. The American military laid siege, and they released the hostages, but the lieutenant demanded double the reparations in return and the indians were unable to pay so he bombarded them senselessly, which didn't kill too many outright but left them stranded for the winter. Yet that was preceded by decades of similar back and forth incidents. Indians killed American officers in revenge for Americans killing Indians who brawled who had attacked Americans over a misunderstanding and so on. A great example- Chief Scutd-doo and his son Lowan and wife met with Quartermaster Sergeant Jacob Muller and his wife Mrs Muller at Christmas at Fort Wrangell- they all got drunk, against federal code- and Mrs Jacob Muller tried to intervene when Lowan beat his wife during an argument, and Lowan turned on Mrs Muller and bit off her third finger on the right hand. It spiraled to Lowan being hunted and shot by soldiers, Scutd-doo returning and murdering a captain who happened to be standing outside the fort, a siege of the indian village, two day bombardment, musket skirmishes and court martial and hanging. It all started when a white woman tried to protect an indian woman from domestic abuse, go figure

So yeah leave it up to Joe Biden to boil it all down to 'America bad'

They've been running this grift on us forever here

Well intentions and well wishing don't discount the realities of what occured. People spend their whole lives doing church 'charities' even now, some provide actual value, others are terrible net negative for society. For example, the humanitarian church groups who fly first class to third world or savaged areas to help by handing out Jesus flyers and telling the victims their circumstances are the results of sin. They really help, and the money used to get them to the areas well spent. Or the mega church money spent on philanthropy projects chosen by a circle of shadow elites.

Another example is church groups promoting resettling refugees in mass. I'm fine walking all over these idiots modern or historical.

Same with the ones who created the reservation territories and then tell everyone the natives are sovereign nations. Kek.

Lookup the reservation lands, then lookup US Federal precious mineral maps. Their sovereign lands are on Federal claimed mineral lands...

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Have read some older publications written around 1900 about sailing through South America to bypass the cape. The captain author views on the natives during this era is pretty cutthroat. A kin to like big foot, scary savage beastmen is essentially how they are viewed. Untrustworthy, uncivilized, unclean, volatile. Guy would bobby trap his ship just to sleep and not have natives rob him

This post was edited by RedFromWinter on Oct 28 2024 01:16am

Would you say with all the benefit of modern hindsight that the realities of what occurred were a net positive or negative for society? The cabal of ahistorians are trying to judge it off inflammatory metrics like the number of gravesites. Having 973 identified graves over 150 years across 523 schools in an era where childhood mortality was 43% before reaching age 5 and of those who lived to age 10, only 60% reached adulthood. For white people, much worse for indians. I think that's a clear and obvious red herring. There are anecdotes of corporal punishment and even sexual abuse, but c'mon, were white children in boarding schools facing any better? People alive today grew up with nuns rapping them on the fingers with rulers.

The real meat of it boils down to this modern perspective that any encroachment of white settler culture on the preexisting indian cultures is an inherent moral crime. That we were sinning by disrupting their way of life in the first place. As if they lived in home tree living a carefree life singing to eywa, and weren't backwards savages who killed each other, took slaves and died miserable and young after lives of hardship. Even if you concede the good intentions of charity groups seeking to uplift these people, and disregard their intent- can you say their impact was negative?

This post was edited by Goomshill on Oct 28 2024 01:43am

It's a matter of perspective. Consider the mineral map overlaps with reservations. There is also a poverty map, large overlap with reservations too. It's a net benefit to society as a whole, society being largely European settlers, to have the tapestry of indigenous groups controlled in mind and body. Even better, at the time the angsty trouble maker youth were boarded at these schools.


The indigenous would sing a different tune. Also, the generalizations you are making of all the tribes are BIG misrepresentation. Like saying all of Europe is savages because they are killing and enslaving their neighbors. Literally the history of many Euro countries and ongoing

uh, based alert

the schools may have been well intentioned but its hard to talk about a more unconsitutional practice unless you go to slavery or the japanese internment camps, which thankfully were short term.

just a truly disgusting practice, and even if we use rose tinted glasses to look back into the past they were pretty disgusting.

i'd honestly list them as 3 behind slavery and the trail of tears, and perhaps ww2 internment, as the worst crimes perpetrated by the govt against it's own people in american history.

We should be taxing them into oblivion for services rendered, wherein they are still delinquent.

Where's our payment for educating them?