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What's The Matter With Our Indians?

“Never criticize someone else unless you walk a mile in his moccasins.”

- Lakota Sioux proverb

To begin, let's examine the title.

Five hundred years after Christopher Columbus (Christophe Colomb, an Italiancartographer of some considerable renown) defrauded his Spanish sponsors into believing

that he had discovered India--naming the inhabitants he found "Indians"--many people

still call the aboriginal peoples of North America Indians. By the way, Columbus didn't"discover" the Americas. Being a map maker, he had spoken on many occasions with

 Norse map makers who had been to North America many times with Norse fishermen

who had been visiting the continent for hundreds of years. Thus began the great NorthAmerican fraud, but more on that later.

The aboriginal people of North America sometimes call themselves Indians, but they

aren't serious about it. African Americans sometimes call themselves "niggahs" too, butas a people they don't care for the moniker any more than the aboriginals like whites to

call them Indians. "Indians" is a bad name given them by ignorant Europeans whose

 primary purpose in coming to North America was to steal and to conquer. They called itdiscovering, exploring, trading, but let's use plain language here. They planned to take as

much as possible and give as little as they could get away with. It was the European way

of the time.

"Our" is wrong as well. What are called Native Americans in the USA and First Nations

in Canada were never conquered, never defeated as a people. Of the hundreds of distinct

tribal groups--at least the ones that were not slaughtered to extinction (Beothuk, theoriginal "redskins" that lived in Newfoundland) or decimated as they tried to defend

themselves in "Indian wars"--none were truly defeated. They didn't have any concept of 

"owning" land, so they were prepared to share it with the newcomers. Since thenewcomers themselves were not decimated by such delightful diseases as smallpox that

the Europeans delivered, the white skins soon outnumbered the natives. As always, size

(of population) matters.

So far as aboriginal peoples of North America are concerned, even today, they are

Americans or Canadians only according to citizenship documents they may have neededfor travel purposes. They consider themselves citizens of their own nations, as promised

them in treaties written for them by English speaking lawyers, in English legalese,explained to them in simple but deceptive language they could understand. The English

speakers had no leave to negotiate, so it was a "take it or leave it" situation. This matters because in most of these cultures no one forces another to say "No" to anything and it is

considered very rude to be forced into saying "No" yourself by another person. The

aboriginals agreed to treaties partly because their culture taught them to be agreeable, tonot say "No" to someone who is offering something.

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They were tricked into giving up "ownership" of their land (a concept they never had in

their culture) by Europeans who promised them homes on land they would control

("reserved" land, thus called reserves or reservations) and rights to fishing and hunting ontheir traditions lands, free education and a stipend for each person from the Crown each

year.

The aboriginals had no concept of "king." They knew of a Creator that was active in their 

lives but never seen, so they assumed that the unseen King would also look after them as

the Creator did. And, of course, keep promises made in writing.

What were the living conditions? A little perspective is in order here. After the Second

World War, representatives of the (white) government of South Africa came to Canada to

see how the Canadian government dealt with its "Indian problem." Then they went homeand, following the Canadian pattern, enacted Apartheid. Apartheid was banned in South

African years ago when the black skinned people vastly outnumbered the white skins and

the world turned against a prejudiced government in South Africa. However, in Canada,

the Indian Act still exists, though the government has made promises for many years toremove it. The United Nations has condemned Canada publicly for its apartheid

regulations, to no avail. Apartheid still exists, not in South Africa, but in Canada. On "therez."

Are "Indians" forced to stay on reservations these days? No, in Canada about half live off 

their home reservations. But any government benefits come only to those who live on thereserves. If you live off the reserve, even briefly--especially if you are a woman--then

move back to the reserve, good luck trying to get your rights to benefits back from the

government.

 Now about the "What's The Matter" part of the title. What's the matter is that North

American aboriginal people did not die out, as expected, which is why they were givensuch a "sweet deal" in the apartheid style treaties. What's the matter is that the culture of 

the North American aboriginal people is very, very, very different from the culture that

was brought to North America from Europe. If this article were expanded to book length,it would still not be long enough to explain the many differences between the cultures of 

the Europeans (now white North Americans) and the aboriginals.

What's the matter is that the white governments of North America never kept the promises they made to the aboriginal peoples in legally drafted and signed treaties they

drew up themselves. No aboriginal group was ever offered the chance to draft a possible

treaty because they were considered by the Europeans to be inferior people, not quitehuman in the European sense. Not only were the conditions of the treaties in the style

now known as apartheid, the governments didn't even keep the few promises they made

in those treaties. Promises they made up themselves.

We are used to politicians making promises before elections, then forgetting them once

the elections are over. But if we have a legal agreement with the government, we expect

the government to keep its end of the bargain. The government certainly expects us to

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keep our end, and is prepared to enforce it with imprisonment if we don't. The

government of Canada has never kept its part of the treaties it agreed to with the

aboriginal people it wanted to avoid going to war with. There were no Indian wars inCanada to speak of. The aboriginal peoples had no choice but to let the white skins take

over their land, exploit it with farming, with mines, with oil wells, while receiving zero in

return for their agreeing to "share" that same land. Their "reserved" land, by coincidence,rarely proved to have any real value, including for hunting the animals they traditionally

hunted for food, temporary shelter and clothing.

The "problem" with "our Indians" is that the white people lied, cheated, duped their treaty

 partners, then refused to keep even the few concessions they made in the treaties they

signed to keep the peace. And the white people can't understand why their "Indians" are

upset. Wouldn't you be upset?

 Not only do the aboriginals not have a concept of land ownership (no one would accept

ownership of the air, so why should people want to own the land when we can all share?),

they don't have a word for "religion". Aboriginal people don't have a problem with belief and faith, with wars and arguments between people who believe in the same God, as

whites do. They never ask "Do you believe in God?" Every one I know and have readabout believes in a Creator. That's not the God of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism,

Christianity, Islam). The Creator is a part of everything, to them. Including rocks, trees,

grass, wheat, bears, snakes and people. In fact, the concept of Creator largely agrees with

what physics has proven about atoms being components of everything, about energy andmatter being different versions of the same thing, about everything of importance being

accessible. Science doesn't agree with the concept of a supernatural, but the aboriginal

 people do not blame scientists for their shortsightedness. They accept what others think and choose to believe.

It's the rest of us non-natives who can't accept differences, who can't accept others whodon't believe what we have been taught, who can't accept that aboriginal people believe

what they can feel and experience while whites want to have mysteries based on "faith."

The problem is not with the people we white North Americans call Indians, but with us

white North Americans not caring enough about others to learn about them, to see if what

they believe, what they know, how they live, may be better than what we have been

taught. We treasure our ignorance and want to preserve it for our children. Those who believe anything radically different from what we have been taught must surely be

"inferior," so may safely be disregarded.

Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic

 Social Problems, a guidebook for parents, grandparents and teachers who want to grow

children who do not treasure ignorance, but who embrace learning about all people sothat world peace can become possible.

Learn more at http://billallin.com