A pebbled paved sidewalk is the path that leads up a small hill opening into the cemetery. Looking ahead about 15 feet the path ends abruptly. At the top of the hill the path turns left (north). It’s still early spring and the many trees are bare of leaves which allows me to see the whole two acres of the burial ground. From where I’m standing, I can see the end of the cemetery. If not for the tall buildings surrounding me, I would feel elevated and able to overlook the city. The cemetery is a flat piece of land. The west side settles against the back of a building that faces 7th St. The east side drops off like the side of a cliff landing in the back-parking lot of the KCK public library. The north end rest along the sidewalk of Minnesota Ave. where some consider to be the location of the cemetery depending on your research. The south end where I entered is just north of the 7th St Casino (owned by Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma).
There is not a mausoleum in this cemetery. The original stones are unreadable and far too few for as many bodies assumed to lie beneath me. Rocks and pieces of broken old gravestones are scattered throughout the area. A lot of head stones
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Our book states that historical practices were affected by the dramatic social upheavals that accompanied the “westward expansionism” of white society. Wyandot Nation fought long and hard to stand their ground and prevent this westward expansion from taking their land of deceased loved ones. As he lay dying, Old Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce told his son “Never forget my dying words. This country holds your father’s body. Never sell the bones of your father and mother.” These words make me think of the Conley sisters and everyone else who fought to keep this burial ground sacred which I now have the privilege to experience and write
Whitney Battle-Baptiste, the author of Black Feminist Archaeology creates the framework of this book because as a Black woman who is interested in race, gender, and cultural views, believes that too often in mainstream archaeological theory, Black culture and the experiences of Black women and our families are overlooked and dismissed. Dr. Baptiste states her explanation on how joining Black Feminist Theory and archaeology in her projects provides a way to open a discussion between archaeologists, which is her intent. It also shows that “when archaeologists critically engage with a dialogue about the intersectionality of race and gender, we begin to see the deeper forms of oppression and how they affect the lives of marginalized populations.”.
Local histories written in the nineteenth century are often neglected today. Yet from these accounts, one can see a pattern develop: the myth of Indian extinction, the superiority of White colonists and also to understand how American attitudes and values evolved. The myths were put forth for a reason according to Jean O’Brien. O’Brien explains how the process came to fruition in Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England. In the majority of local town histories, Indians are mentioned in passing, as a past that will never return. Indians were ancient, whereas English colonists brought modernity to New England. Jean O’Brien argues that local histories were the primary means by which white European Americans asserted
In 1893, Simon Pokagon spoke at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition. He was a prominent tribal leader who was known for this speech. So much so, it was printed and turned into an informative pamphlet. The speech encompassed American history and it’s push Westward, detailing the destruction of the Native lands and culture forever. He begins by telling the crowd about how he cannot celebrate with them in this great big new city, because it reminds him of all that was lost. Pokagon states, “where stands this “Queen City of the West” once stood the red man’s wigwams;” (Page 32). A bold statement follows about how nature was plentiful, until pale face came with their
There are many ways in which we can view the history of the American West. One view is the popular story of Cowboys and Indians. It is a grand story filled with adventure, excitement and gold. Another perspective is one of the Native Plains Indians and the rich histories that spanned thousands of years before white discovery and settlement. Elliot West’s book, Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado, offers a view into both of these worlds. West shows how the histories of both nations intertwine, relate and clash all while dealing with complex geological and environmental challenges. West argues that an understanding of the settling of the Great Plains must come from a deeper understanding, a more thorough knowledge of what came before the white settlers; “I came to believe that the dramatic, amusing, appalling, wondrous, despicable and heroic years of the mid-nineteenth century have to be seen to some degree in the context of the 120 centuries before them” .
In a lively account filled that is with personal accounts and the voices of people that were in the past left out of the historical armament, Ronald Takaki proffers us a new perspective of America’s envisioned past. Mr. Takaki confronts and disputes the Anglo-centric historical point of view. This dispute and confrontation is started in the within the seventeenth-century arrival of the colonists from England as witnessed by the Powhatan Indians of Virginia and the Wamapanoag Indians from the Massachusetts area. From there, Mr. Takaki turns our attention to several different cultures and how they had been affected by North America. The English colonists had brought the African people with force to the Atlantic coasts of America. The Irish women that sought to facilitate their need to work in factory settings and maids for our towns. The Chinese who migrated with ideas of a golden mountain and the Japanese who came and labored in the cane fields of Hawaii and on the farms of California. The Jewish people that fled from shtetls of Russia and created new urban communities here. The Latinos who crossed the border had come in search of the mythic and fabulous life El Norte.
The West: From Lewis and Clark and Wounded Knee: The Turbulent Story of the Settling of Frontier America.
Native American literature from the Southeastern United States is deeply rooted in the oral traditions of the various tribes that have historically called that region home. While the tribes most integrally associated with the Southeastern U.S. in the American popular mind--the FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole)--were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) from their ancestral territories in the American South, descendents of those tribes have created compelling literary works that have kept alive their tribal identities and histories by incorporating traditional themes and narrative elements. While reflecting profound awareness of the value of the Native American past, these literary works have also revealed knowing perspectives on the meaning of the modern world in the lives of contemporary Native Americans.
As the birds are singing their sweet melody, the terrain of Arlington National Cemetery is filled with sadness. Although the brilliant rays of sun are shinning through the thick colossal treetops, there is a chill in the air. While watching the mourners, the feeling of their sorrows is all too real.
The African Burial Ground located in the Lower Manhattan section of New York City is a National Monument dedicated to the thousands of African slaves who were forcibly taken from their native homelands into a life of servitude by Europeans. These slaves were brought to New York before it became the great city that is now today and forced to work to build it into a stable colony without any compensation. Approximately 15,000 are estimated to be buried within the burial ground. The remains of men, women and children of all ages were found at the site and their remains provide further proof of the cruel and violent injustices slaves had to face at the hands of their slavers.
All in all, the treatment of the American Indian during the expansion westward was cruel and harsh. Thus, A Century of Dishonor conveys the truth about the frontier more so than the frontier thesis. Additionally, the common beliefs about the old west are founded in lies and deception. The despair that comes with knowing that people will continue to believe in these false ideas is epitomized by Terrell’s statement, “Perhaps nothing will ever penetrate the haze of puerile romance with which writers unfaithful to their profession and to themselves have surrounded the westerner who made a living in the saddle” (Terrell 182).
The history of the relationship between Indigenous Peoples of the North America and European settlers represents a doubtlessly tragic succession of events, which resulted in a drastic decline in Indigenous population leading to the complete annihilation of some Native groups, and bringing others to the brink of extinction. This disastrous development left the Indigenous community devastated, shaking their society to its very pillars. From the 1492 Incident and up to the 19th century the European invasion to the North America heavily impacted the social development of the Indigenous civilization: apart from contributing to their physical extermination by waging incessant war on the Indian tribes, Anglo-Americans irreversibly changed the Native lifestyle discrediting their entire set of moral guidelines. Using the most disreputable inventions of the European diplomacy, the colonizers and later the United States’ government not only turned separate Indigenous tribes against each other but have also sown discord among the members of the same tribe. One of the most vivid examples of the Anglo-American detrimental influence on the Native groups is the history of the Cherokee Nation and the U.S. Indian Removal Policy. The Cherokee removal from Georgia (along with many other Indian nations) was definitely an on-going conflict that did not start at any moment in time, but developed in layers of history between the Native Americans, settlers of various cultures, and the early U.S. government. This rich and intricate history does not allow for easy and quick judgments as to who was responsible for the near demise of the Cherokee Nation. In 1838, eight thousand Cherokees perished on a forced march out of Georgia, which came to be called the T...
Tovias, B. (2011). Colonialism on the prairies: Blackfoot settlement an cultural transformation, 1870 - 1920. Portland, Oregon: Sussex Academic Press.
In his essay, “The Indians’ Old World,” Neal Salisbury examined a recent shift in the telling of Native American history in North America. Until recently, much of American history, as it pertains to Native Americans; either focused on the decimation of their societies or excluded them completely from the discussion (Salisbury 25). Salisbury also contends that American history did not simply begin with the arrival of Europeans. This event was an episode of a long path towards America’s development (Salisbury 25). In pre-colonial America, Native Americans were not primitive savages, rather a developing people that possessed extraordinary skill in agriculture, hunting, and building and exhibited elaborate cultural and religious structures.
The movement westward during the late 1800’s created new tensions among already strained relations with current Native American inhabitants. Their lands, which were guaranteed to them via treaty with the United States, were now beginning to be intruded upon by the massive influx of people migrating from the east. This intrusion was not taken too kindly, as Native American lands had already been significantly reduced due to previous westward conquest. Growing resentment for the federal government’s Reservation movement could be felt among the native population. One Kiowa chief’s thoughts on this matter summarize the general feeling of the native populace. “All the land south of the Arkansas belongs to the Kiowas and Comanches, and I don’t want to give away any of it” (Edwards, 203). His words, “I don’t want to give away any of it”, seemed to a mantra among the Native Americans, and this thought would resound among them as the mounting tensions reached breaking point.
Native American’s place in United States history is not as simple as the story of innocent peace loving people forced off their lands by racist white Americans in a never-ending quest to quench their thirst for more land. Accordingly, attempts to simplify the indigenous experience to nothing more than victims of white aggression during the colonial period, and beyond, does an injustice to Native American history. As a result, historians hoping to shed light on the true history of native people during this period have brought new perceptive to the role Indians played in their own history. Consequently, the theme of power and whom controlled it over the course of Native American/European contact is being presented in new ways. Examining the evolving