Quote from: RE on Mar 03, 2024, 06:49 AM

Quote from: K-Dog on Mar 02, 2024, 07:30 AMCapitalism is only the best system when new lands are being settled stolen and indigenous people are being displaced murdered.

Fixed that for you.

RE

Thanks, the clarification is appropriate.

A bit of family history.  My mothers family settled in no mans land between the Dakota and Sioux in Minnesota in about 1850.  Neither tribe could kill the other on this land which is on the bank of the Mississippi river.  The family patriarch had the attitude that the Indians had been there first, and that they had a right to hunt on 'his' land.  They could get food no other way and were here first.  Other white settlers did not agree with my great-great-great grandfather and he knew everybody else was trying to starve the Indians out.  He would have no part of it.

When Minnesota had an Indian war, a posse rode to my ancestors farm and took him to town by force.  He had refused to leave his farm earlier because he said he had nothing to fear from the Indians, and they were all his friends.  It turned out the Souix war party that came through was not from the local area and would have not known my great-great-great grandfather.  They killed every white man they found and it is a good think my great-great-great grandfather went to town.  Later the local Indians told my ancestor that they had been just as much afraid of the war party as everyone else was.  They wanted no part of it.  The war party had been forcing young men to join up 'or else'.

That is the story as it was passed from my grandmother to my mother and then to me.

Is the story true?  Absolutely.  Have the facts been distorted.  Most certainly. 

My point of view is that this is personal family history which I can choose to accept or reject as my 'own'.  I totally accept it.  I can see myself telling a posse to go away because I don't have anything to worry about.  The important take-away is that my ancestors realized other white men were trying to starve the Indians out so they would move on, and they wanted no part of it.

Some black people moved into northern Minnesota in WWII to work at a place called Fort Ripley.  My mother was with my grandmother and her mother.  They heard some people talking and the 'N' word was being used.  My mother was told "We do not use that word.  These people are like everyone else, and they came up here to work because all our men are at war.  We should be nice to them.

Decades before civil rights became a thing, my family had their shit together.

My family had the attitude there was room for everybody, and that the Indians had a right to hunt.  What I learned from how it was related to me was that eliminating food to force local natives to move on was a open secret that nobody talked about.  It was also something that not every white person was all right with.

That is my takeaway.



Humanity is a mixed bag no matter what tribe you belong to.