Larry's Blog

I read this book two weeks ago. It spoke of the Native American’s viewpoint of the destruction of their people, culture and land by the “Christian” Whites. It was depressing to read over and over the same routine. White man tells Indian to move to a reservation because they were in the way of the white man. Indian moves. If Indian doesn’t move quick enough Indian people get slaughtered. When they get to reservation they starve. Then the Whites realize they want the reservation land, and force the Indians to move again or split up their land.

The book talked about many massacres by the Whites. One of the more notorious was led by a Methodist preacher, John Chivington.

U.S. Army Colonel John Chivington's portrait. Chivington was a Methodist preacher

He led the massacre on a village of friendly Indians who flew the American Flag. His reason, “I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians.” His leader had gotten permission to organize a company of Indian fighters, and when they found only peaceful Indians, they did not want to look bad, so they came to the Indian village during the night and murdered men, women, and children.

Chivington gloated, ‘I have eclipsed Carson and posterity will shortly speak of me as the great Indian killer.’ Kit Carson, when he heard the news, was livid:

‘To think of that dog Chivington, and his hounds, up thar at Sand Creek! Whoever heerd of sich doins among christians! Them pore Injuns had our flag flyin’ over ‘em….Well, here come along that durned Chivington and his cusses. They’d bin out huntin’ hostile Injuns, and couldn’t find non….So they just pitched into these friendlies, and massa-creed them…in cold blood….And ye call these civilized men Christians and the Injuns savages, du, ye?…I never yit draw a bead on a squaw or papoose, and I loath and hate the man who would. ‘Taint natural for brave men to kill women and little children.’

There is no doubt that Chivington was a coward and a murder, and there were many other cowards who murdered the Indians. By law, according to the Bury My Heart, Indians were not considered human, much less citizens with any rights.

Ghost Dance

One of the subjects that I found interesting was a huge movement among the Indians involving Read more…

Kit Carson

I thought I would write my thoughts about some of the recent books I have read.

Brigham Young, Second President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Born 1801, Died 1877

A month ago I read Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West. The author is Hampton Sides. It is 624 pages and was published in 2007.

This book went into a lot of detail about Kit Carson and his life. He seemed to be in many places that changed history in the West.

My view from this book was that Carson was great, but he also had his faults. He was great at taking orders, such as from Gen. James Henry Carleton, where his scorched earth policy against the Navajo Indians culminated in their surrender and the infamous Long Walk to an uninhabitable reservation in eastern New Mexico. During the years that they were there, thousands of Navajo’s died of starvation and disease.

I didn’t like the way the author treated the story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. No, these newly converted Mormons, who themselves were survivors of an extermination order in the US., did not represent the teachings of the Mormon church. (Mormon is a nickname for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, AKA LDS). No, the Leadership of the Mormon church did not call for this and did not condone it. Brigham Young, the leader of the Church at that time, actually insisted that the governor of Utah organize an investigation. I found that the knee-jerk reaction of Carleton, his peers, and the author, was that if one Indian screwed up, or one Mormon screwed up, it was acceptable to lay the blame on the whole tribe.

Next, I read a book called Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown, published in 1970. I’ll talk about that in the next blog.