Becuase Everything Else Sucks

This Week in Capitalism: July 20th 1881

By Manila Ryce
Published Thursday, July 20th, 2006, 9:00 pm
Filed under: This Week in Capitalism

The New World, founded on genocide, slavery, rape, and plunder, was arguable the first and most ravaged victims of capitalism. With the arrival of Columbus came the rapid decimation of the western hemisphere. Historians estimate that around 90 percent of the original population of the Americas was wiped out by disease alone. Those left standing were forced into slavery, and their land taken by Europeans. About 100 million native people were killed directly or indirectly by European and white Americans, ten times that of the holocaust. In North America, Native Americans were but a nuisance to the goals of the United States Government.

In 1874, an expedition led by General Custer confirmed that gold had been discovered in the Black Hills of Dakota Territory. The Fort Laramie Treaty recognized that this land was sacred to Native tribes, and thus off limits to white settlers. However, this ban did not stop prospectors from rushing to the area, and desecrating the lands of the Lakota Indians. Eventually, the American government decided that money was more important, and decreed that all Lakota not off the land and in reservations by January 31, 1876, would be considered hostile. Sitting Bull, head chief of the Lakota tribe of the Sioux Nation, refused to move. He called on the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho to help in his resistance.

After a minor victory by Crazy Horse at the Battle of the Rosebud, Sitting Bull moved their camp to the valley of the Little Bighorn River, where they were joined by 3,000 more Indians. Here they were attacked on June 25 by the Seventh Cavalry under General Custer, whose troops made a stand on a nearby ridge and were defeated. In response to this military embarrassment, thousands more cavalrymen relentlessly pursued the Lakota, forcing chief after chief to surrender. Sitting Bull eventually fled to Canada, beyond the reach of the US military.

This week in 1881, the great chief Sitting Bull, a fugitive since the Battle of the Little Big Horn, finally surrendered to federal troops. Later on in life, Sitting Bull toured with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show, where he was a popular attraction. He would often address the audience by cursing them in his Lakota language. During the end of his life, the defiant Sitting Bull was still revered as a spiritual leader. Fearing that he would join fellow Lakota Indians in a Ghost Dance, a ceremony promising to restore the Indians’ way of life, US authorities sent 43 Lakota policemen to arrest him. Before dawn on December 15, 1890, the police busted into Sitting Bull’s cabin and dragged him outside. His followers gathered to protect him, and a gunfight soon followed. Police then shot Sitting Bull in the head along with his son, Crow Foot. His body was taken to Fort Yates, North Dakota, and buried in a military cemetery.
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3 Responses to “This Week in Capitalism: July 20th 1881”

  1. And the Australian Aborigines, the first people to colonize the Americas, were killed off in much the same way by the people who we currently identify as Native Americans. Those same Australian Aborigines, also called Negritos, were killed off by your own ancestors in the Philipines by the South Chinese colonizers, as well as the in the rest of South East Asia.

    The colonizing of America is simply the newest case of a more technologically advanced society replacing a more primitive one. If the Americas had been the continent gifted with wheat, barley, pigs, horses, and cows then they would have conquered Europe. I’m tired of people portraying native americans as saints and european colonizers as evil bastards, because it simply isn’t true.

    Kaziglu Bey
    07/21/06 at 5:27 pm

  2. @Kaziglu Bey
    Firstly, there is not enough evidence to show that all the cultures you mentioned in your first paragraph were “killed off” (at least not in the way Native Americans were killed off by Europeans). The genetic makeup of Native Americans suggests multiple waves of migration of various ethnic groups from Asia. The same genetic mixing is shown in the Philippines which still consist of many different ethnic groups. Surely, warfare lead to groups being decimated over generations, but higher birth rates and interbreeding are also contributing factors to their disappearance. Frankly, anything that may or may not have occurred before written history is speculation. In contrast, the destruction of Native American culture and people is well documented. Warfare between tribes is usually the result of competition, while the warfare against Native Americans by European and white Americans was the result of capitalist greed.

    Secondly, I did not portray “Native Americans as saints and European colonizers as evil bastards”. Everything I posted is fact. If I’ve written something untruthful please inform me so it can be changed. Certainly there is a biased perspective in what I write since this is a leftist blog and I believe capitalism (not Europeans) to be the greatest evil mankind has created. This is not about Whitey being the devil and brown people being saints. Even recently I recall blaming China and Southeast Asia (non-white peoples) for the decimation of tigers in my “Tiger Uppercut” post. It just so happens that Europeans invented capitalism and spread it around the world, which was made of brown people. If I were interested in denouncing certain races rather than a certain ideology I’d label these posts “This Week in European Atrocity”, or something of the sort.

    I also don’t agree with the argument that Europeans conquered the world because they were more technologically advanced, seeing as how they got the bulk of their technology from China and Arabia.

    Administrator
    07/21/06 at 11:12 pm

  3. […] Several Nez Perce advocated war, but Joseph favored peace. As the council was underway, a young brave came with news that he and several others had killed four white men in an act to initiate war. Hoping to avoid more bloodshed, Joseph further led his people north to the reservation. However, they were attacked before getting there and retreated towards the Canadian border. Joseph led 800 Nez Perce with 2000 US soldiers close behind. For over 3 months, Joseph and his people fought and outmaneuvered their pursuers for 1,700 miles across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. The Nez Perce used advance and rear guards, skirmish lines, and field fortifications against the much impressed General Howard. Freezing weather, non-stop battle, lack of food, and lack of blankets forced Joseph to eventually surrender during this week in capitalism, 1877. Years later in 1881, the great chief Sitting Bull would also grow wary of fighting and surrender to federal troops. The following words are attributed to Chief Joseph at his formal surrender just 40 miles south of Canada. […]

    The Largest Minority » Blog Archive » This Week in Capitalism: October 5th 1877
    10/7/06 at 2:55 am

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