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We have to recognize how much we screwed over the Native Americans. We took away their prime land on the East coast. We gave them some shitty land in Oklahoma t

• dfee 6y ago
  > We gave them some shitty land in Oklahoma Interesting sentiment. As someone who grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I think you should go there and tell the people who live there your thoughts.
  • _se 6y ago
    The fact that people live there doesn't make it desirable. People will always defend where they live. Don't be naive.
    • dfee 6y ago
      I highly encourage the OP to make this point, too.
      • hehehbbbnd 6y ago
        If they’re anything like you, they’re just as worthless trash.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • throwaway20148 6y ago
      The land around the Ouchita Mountains is not shitty at all. In fact it’s gorgeous.
      • frenchy 6y ago
        Mountains are gorgeous when you have plenty of food and shelter, like we do now. They're shitty if you're a subsistence farmer in the 1800's.
  • jake_morrison 6y ago
    I grew up in Norman, so I am familiar. It's not as good as the prime real estate they had, and the life they had there. Why do you think the government chose Oklahoma for the reservations?
    • dfee 6y ago
      We both know the reasons as we both studied it in 9th grade Oklahoma History. Though I’m not sure that Brad Henry (D) really did much more for those people then anyone more recently (R). To be fair, I’ve not lived there for over a decade. There is quite a bit of grift in that state. It is certainly not the land they were native to, and that is the important point.
      • scoopertrooper 6y ago
        I didn't study 9th grade Oklahoma history, so maybe you could enlightened me. I did a bit of googling and it seems that Oklahoma wasn't suitable for large scale agriculture till the 2oth century when innovative farming techniques were developed. Is this not correct?
        • austincheney 6y ago
          That is only correct according to what agricultural products you wish to produce. In a purely English traditional style of growing grain in small plowed earth plots you are likely correct, which is a largely ethnocentric view of agriculture.
          • airstrike 6y ago
            Well, if it is correct from the perspective of the Americans who were conceding the land, then it's as correct as it needs to be for the purposes of this discussion.
        • dfee 6y ago
          I’m not sure as I’m not an agricultural scientist or engineer. That’s also not a lot of what OK History was about, either. Though that would’ve been pretty interesting! A few highlights are: the Trail of Tears and the land grants and those who rushed to claim plots of land before the land rush started (illegally marking their territory - hence Sooners, the mascot of the University of Oklahoma). This was likely for sustenance farming and ranching (iirc) and incentivizing local development. (Oklahoma State is the agricultural school, and their mascot is the Cowboys, probably related to the massive cattle flows that ranged from Fort Worth to the Kansas City railroads). The next highlight is the dust bowl where a drought made the land largely untenable for farming. This was the setting for the play “Oklahoma!” as well as the book “The Grapes of Wrath”. Throughout the whole history, natural resource mining (specifically gas and oil) have been the primary economic driver of the state. Unfortunately for the state, through the 80s and 90s much of that moved to Texas. And indeed, Oklahoma is the heart of fracking today. (Or at least was, but my mom who’s an environmental chemist has retired, so I no longer hear the current stories). My oddest memories (coming of age into teenage years) was during the Brad Henry (D) days. I was probably more inclined to that party, but saw some weird shenanigans during that period too. Like the “right to work” anti-unionization situation play out as well as the introduction of the Oklahoma lottery (to support education! / actually a grift machine for general government budgeting). Tulsa has become increasingly swamped by seedy casinos (something I knew nothing of until my late high school days when I feel like they really began to take off). If I were there today, I’d advocate for exactly what Tulsa has done: try and stop the brain drain by putting together programs to attract talent (like $10k grants to tech folks who move there), a renewal of investment in parks, and pitches to the likes of Tesla to attract national attention for innovation. The latter two were successful programs proven our by a city I lived in (and love) after college, Austin (just 7 hours south). Anyway, that’s my grab bag of history, without going into too many of the unique stories that make up the history of the state. I hope I got most of it right! My thoughts on the place have softened with my time away, and while I don’t intend to move back any time soon, I recognize the struggles the people who live there face. In some respects it’s the opposite of the Bay Area (where I live now) and in other respects it’s exactly the same.
  • deleted 6y ago
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• maxerickson 6y ago
  People were displaced from most of the land area of the United States, not just from the east coast.
  • guerrilla 6y ago
    From pretty much all of it it seems: https://www.whose.land/en/ https://www.whose.land/en/
    • ryanmarsh 6y ago
      This map shows why Houston is such a shit hole (I live here). I often explain there were no dominant indigenous tribes in the Houston area when white men settled because it was a malaria infested swamp. That's what the summers feel like. No one in their right mind would live here without air conditioning.
      • AlotOfReading 6y ago
        I believe the atakapa did live in the area. The map is just incomplete, unfortunately.
        • ryanmarsh 6y ago
          Yes, anywhere the fishing is good you can find evidence of a tribe. However, further inland (50+ mi) in the flooding swampy flats or “coastal plains” specifically around Houston there is little evidence of previous inhabitants.
        • doodlebugging 6y ago
          Actually I had a problem with that map too if you are referring to the one posted today showing ancestral tribal lands. There is no mention of the Karankawa tribe who lived along the Gulf Coast. Interestingly enough they are one of at least two Texas tribes known to have practiced ritual cannibalism, the other being the Tonkawas. I lived in Houston for nearly 10 years and totally agree with the poster you replied to, that area is a shithole that is really unpleasant if you don't have air conditioning. The local tribes were mostly naked and covered themselves in mud to avoid the mosquitoes so they had workable options they employed.
• shoxty 6y ago
  Don't forget about sterilizing the women and forcing the children into boarding schools in an attempt to erase their culture.
• jake_morrison 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears
• TeeMassive 6y ago
  You should read about history, it's far from being white and black. Europeans were brutal, they were brutal to Europeans and toward other tribes. The only difference is that the Europeans won.
  • sam36 6y ago
    I thought about saying something similar. There are plenty of "people groups" that no longer exist due to war, forced take over, famine, etc. Nobody stands up for them though. People now are only pushing what immediately benefits them.
• sam36 6y ago
  It's certainly something to think about when so much today revolves around giving the government even more power and control, all the way down to what we can say. The Cherokees made up a large portion of the "Trail of Tears". The saddest part is they were largely fully "assimilated" into the "American" culture at the time. Most were fully "Christianized", spoke English, they translated many church hymns into their native language, built towns, and lived in houses. All like the "white man". Then they were asked to give up their guns and property and start marching.
  • doodlebugging 6y ago
    And some of them that had intermarried with whites and slaves and had mixed blood passed themselves off as Black Irish or Black Dutch to avoid being labelled Indian and sent west. This allowed them to keep the homes and businesses their families had founded and maintain their places in white society. They just needed to look believably white.
• keith__talent 6y ago
  Who is this 'we' you reference? Many people came to the US long after the Trail of Tears. Are they responsible for crimes committed on Native Americans before they or their ancestors/families arrived in a recognized (at the time of arrival) Sovereign Country. Would be interested in your justification for holding citizens of today's US responsible for an event that happened more than 100 years ago, before they lived or breathed.
  • jake_morrison 6y ago
    Those who benefit from the the current situation are responsible.
    • sam36 6y ago
      What is the "current situation" and what is the "benefit"?
      • Klinky 6y ago
        Half of Oklahoma has no value or benefit?
  • Klinky 6y ago
    "We", as in, "the country". It's part of the history and foundation of the country you agreed to become a citizen of. The nation of today is not isolated from it's past. Much benefit was gained from injustices of the past. What is the just thing to do? Sweep it under the rug and act like it didn't matter? What kind of values are those?
    • sam36 6y ago
      >What is the just thing to do? Sweep it under the rug and act like it didn't matter? That has stuck with me and I've been thinking. But I think I got an idea. Maybe we should educate our young about the past, where we came from (fled state sponsored religious persecution to a land that was free). We could also teach about the mistakes that were made, you know, like how we purchased conquered and displaced refugees from muslim warlords and then tried to treat these people as some kind of property. Maybe even go over the past processes and laws that were used to free these people and become an even better society. Maybe even go further, like make/erect some statues of some of the past heroes that actually purchased some of these conquered people but then saw the light and worked towards freedom for all using the Bible as proof that God made only one kind of "mankind" and no one set is superior to another. Maybe even erect some statues of some of these conquered people to show that we are not ashamed of seeing them as people and not property. Basically just kind of educate people so they don't grow up questioning the most basic tenets of their own nation and history? Oh wait...
• deleted 6y ago
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• loosetypes 6y ago
  An excellent book in that regard and for anyone looking to learn more is Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown.
• berryjerry 6y ago
  I find your use of "we" interesting because you clearly identify as part of the group that committed those acts hundreds of years ago. How long should a child be responsible for the crimes of their fathers? As an example, assume your father killed someone and stole $1000 dollars from them. You never knew about this didn't choose for him to do this but now someone is coming after you saying you must pay them $1000. You find out it's all true, your father did murder and steal $1000 and you indirectly and unknowingly benefited from that. Should you legally be forced to pay back that $1000 dollars? But the person is dead, should you have to pay that dead person's son $1000? Should you and any siblings have to divide that sum up and pay back the $1000 collectively? Let's say you have already spent every dime you have on meals out. Should you go to jail because you can't pay back the $1000 your father stole? I think these agreements which weren't honored are equal to theft but how long down the line must you pay for the crime of being born in that situation and pay others that were born into the opposite side of the theft. Even with as close a relation as a father, I find it hard to believe that a child should be responsible for their parents wrong doing. But now assume that not only were you not related to that person who stole $1000, you simply don't have the heritage that the murdered man has. Now assume that hundreds of years have passed and now someone is still asking to collect that $1000 from you. I find it very difficult to find the moral obligation to pay back that money when the people who were the actual victims are long dead, the people who committed the theft are long dead, and there is no connection between your actions and the theft. Voluntary payments I would be all for but using tax money which is essentially taken by force, as if you don't pay taxes you will go to jail, that kind of thing seems very wrong. I would not blame a child for their father's sins.
  • bzb3 6y ago
    What GP expresses is called white guilt, and it's brutally amplified by the media nowadays. If you don't feel bad for what your ancestors did, you're a terrible person... Even though you didn't have anything to do with their choices.
    • StanislavPetrov 6y ago
      Whether or not you are a terrible person has nothing to do with legal obligations. If your ancestors took out a loan and signed a lien against a property, that doesn't just go away if they die. Its a legal contract. The whole "white guilt" argument about some sort of collective burden that people are supposed to bear is entirely unrelated to a codified, legal treaty signed by our government.
• nsajko 6y ago
  > We have to recognize how much we screwed over the Native Americans. We took away their prime land on the East coast. We gave them some shitty land in Oklahoma that we didn't think we would ever want. We made them walk there in the "Trail of Tears", and lots of them died along the way. Then we decided to screw them out of the land in Oklahoma after all, but didn't go though the process properly because we didn't think it mattered. Tangential: to me (an European) it seems quite insulting to put all the (or just the five "civilized" ones?) native northern american tribes/nations in the same basket by capitalizing "Native Americans".
  • postnihilism 6y ago
    Are you describing yourself as European with a capital E?
• boomersooner 6y ago
  As an Okie and a tribal member, the situation is far more complex than what the news/wikipedia can describe. But I think that's mentioned here a lot- the news never does anything justice. The Indians do get billions handed out all the time -ihs.gov. One of the fundamental issues I see in Oklahoma is the lack of rule of law. I'm not thrilled we're releasing child molesters (that's who filed the suit), but I suppose starting somewhere is good. As for VC funding, I'd love to see more of that. I do computer vision/nlp for a living, and I've had to leave the state due to lack of work. It's cheap, there are smart people, but they all leave after school.
  • zach_garwood 6y ago
    The suit doesn't claim he shouldn't be tried for his crimes. It claims he should be tried by a federal court, not a state court. Nobody is "releasing" any criminals here.
• Fjolsvith 6y ago
  We should give Manhattan back too.