"Native Americans" And Rand's Statements: What Do We Know About The Native Americans of North/Central/South America?


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@Francisco Ferrer

What sense does it make to "respect the rights" of a people who engage in near continuous aggression against your country? African slaves are another matter. It's not like they invaded America.

Rand's point was not that Indian tribes had forfeited their rights by attacking European settlers; rather she argued that they had no rights (even before the arrival of white pioneers) because they had not conceived rights and were not using them.

[The Native Americans] didn't have any rights to the land and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using.... What was it they were fighting for, if they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their "right" to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or maybe a few caves above it. Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent.

If Europeans could legitimately take land occupied by Indians because the Indians didn't believe in property rights, it would logically follow that Europeans could enslave Africans because (some) Africans had enslaved other Africans.

The difference is that it is legitimate to own land but not legitimate to own people. The two situations are not morally equivalent.

For example, if I wanted to move to Europe which is densely populated, I could buy a house or rent an apartment and move there. In other words, the land is not unoccupied, but I could still theoretically move there by engaging in a perfectly reasonable transaction.

The problem for Europeans wanted to move to America was that there wasn't anyone to buy a piece of land or a house from and no one to rent from either. That doesn't justify a conclusion that it is improper to move from Europe to America. Instead, the proper conclusion is that the native Americans didn't understand the concept of property and that it was therefore proper to attempt to work around them rather than with them.

The fact that the Africans owned slaves doesn't justify owning African slaves because slavery is morally repugnant in the first place. The proper conclusion is that the Africans were acting immorally and therefore should not be imitated.

The native Americans were wrong and the Africans were wrong. The Europeans were right in both cases.

Darrell

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The way I have seen the emergence of nations, it always boils down to conquest at root. Settlement is the handmaiden of conquest.

I'm not saying that's a good thing, but I don't know of any country that did not have conquest somewhere at the start of its history.

I use the cognitive system of identify correctly so you can evaluate correctly. So I see a cognitive issue in ignoring the universality of conquest to start nations.

The moral part is what happens after the conquest is made and solidified.

In other words, I see no reason to blame the USA for doing things the Indians and Africans and European nations were already doing to each other. Not at the beginning. That is the way people were back then (and still are if left unchecked). Our system of government EMERGED from that reality. It did not already exist in some dream nation on earth and the USA started violating it.

Sure, slavery, reneging on treaties and all the rest is contemptible. But the miracle is not that we did those things. The miracle is that we stopped.

Despite the big-government expansion, which will take us back to conquest in the previous mold if we let it, we are going in the right direction. The way the USA does conquest these days is to crush a dictatorship, then turn the country back over to the locals. There is a lot of monkey-business and screw-ups in the middle, but that is fundamentally different than the previous way, at least on the point of formally ruling the conquered land and people and absorbing them into the conquering nation.

I hate the characteristic of the conquest urge in humans, but it exists. In fact, since I am human, it is in me. I use morality to temper it with reason.

Michael

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In other words, the correct emotional attitude (the evaluation) for me is that we should be proud of the break-free of conquest the nation has done and we should try to keep pumped to keep moving in the right direction.

It is NOT we should be ashamed of the need to make a choice to break free in the first place (the identification). A shame like that is based on a misidentification of what humans are. And it leads to us despising ourselves for being like the rest of humanity at the start when our ancestors did things we now find unacceptable from our freedom perspective.

I guess it's alright if you are into wallowing in guilt qua guilt...

:)

Michael

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The definition of self-defense is using force against someone who has threatened or begun the use of force. There was no aggression or likelihood of aggression by the Cherokees in the 1830's. And there was relatively little resistance once the immoral, unconstitutional removal began

Using your theory, I have the right to drive my neighbors off their land and seize it for my own use on the grounds that at some future point in my lifetime my neighbor might poison my well or sell the land to a man who might turn into a mass murderer.

That's ridiculous. Self-defense is defense, not using force. When you use force, it's called "war". Defense is when you take the necessary steps and precautions to prevent or repel an attack. The seizure of Indian lands was necessary for the defense of the nation. The Indian's refusal to comply with the demands of the US government and their subsequent interference in the attempts of the US to defend itself is necessarily a form of aggression.

Good. If self-defense is not using force, then the executive branch should have simply relied on verbal pleas instead sending an armed force of 7,000 under General Winfield Scott to round up13,000 Cherokees. Since the armed men forced the Indians off their land, by your own definition it was not self-defense.

In any case, the Indians were complying with the highest court in the land. It was the removers who were not.

So there won't ever be any threat? I don't think you understand how itnernational relations work. Just because a country is not at war with you now, doesn't mean they won't ever be. I'm sure you would agree that the costs of any war are extremely high. It follows then that even a relatively small probability of war would be intolerable. It's always better to nip a major future threat in the bud now then it is to have to fight it at its full-strength later.

Your analogy is in-apt. In a state of anarchy, like one we have in an international system, you most definitely would have the right to drive your neighbors off their land because there's a chance they might poison your well. The only reason you don't is because you don't have to, since the government will be able to punish your neighbors for poisoning your well at relatively no cost to you.

Just because Mexico is not at war with us now, doesn't mean they won't ever be. The costs of any war with Mexico would be extremely high. It follows then that even a relatively small probability of war would be intolerable. It's always better to nip a major future threat in the bud now by invading Mexico and forcing the Mexicans to live elsewhere than it is to have to fight it at its full-strength later.

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Sure, slavery, reneging on treaties and all the rest is contemptible. But the miracle is not that we did those things. The miracle is that we stopped.

Michael

Exactly.

However, we are still the most evil country on the planet because we enslave the populations and occupy their land that we conquered through war since 1900.....oops that is not true, my bad.

Well then we are evil because we never help our potential enemies when they suffer from the devastating weather caused by America that is drowning islanders as the seas rise from American caused global warming. oops that is not true either.

Hmmm, what is America guilty for again?

A...

a confused American

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The difference is that it is legitimate to own land but not legitimate to own people. The two situations are not morally equivalent.

For example, if I wanted to move to Europe which is densely populated, I could buy a house or rent an apartment and move there. In other words, the land is not unoccupied, but I could still theoretically move there by engaging in a perfectly reasonable transaction.

The problem for Europeans wanted to move to America was that there wasn't anyone to buy a piece of land or a house from and no one to rent from either. That doesn't justify a conclusion that it is improper to move from Europe to America. Instead, the proper conclusion is that the native Americans didn't understand the concept of property and that it was therefore proper to attempt to work around them rather than with them.

The fact that the Africans owned slaves doesn't justify owning African slaves because slavery is morally repugnant in the first place. The proper conclusion is that the Africans were acting immorally and therefore should not be imitated.

The native Americans were wrong and the Africans were wrong. The Europeans were right in both cases.

Darrell

It is legitimate to own land. It is not legitimate to force people who are occupying land--and have a legitimate right to it by prior claim--off that land.

As to the assertion that "native Americans didn't understand the concept of property and that it was therefore proper to attempt to work around them rather than with them," that is certainly not true of the Cherokee (or a number of other tribes). The Cherokee (who had homesteads, farms and towns little different from that of nearby white settlers) were living peacefully on their land in north Georgia in full compliance with the 1783 Treaty of Long Swamp.

Since that treaty between the Cherokee and the United States had specified what land belonged to the Cherokee, it was the Indian removers in the United States government in 1838 who did not understand the concept of property because they refused to honor property rights written into the law.

Seizing another human's body to use for one's own benefit is immoral. So is seizing another person's legally recognized plot of land.

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The difference is that it is legitimate to own land but not legitimate to own people. The two situations are not morally equivalent.

For example, if I wanted to move to Europe which is densely populated, I could buy a house or rent an apartment and move there. In other words, the land is not unoccupied, but I could still theoretically move there by engaging in a perfectly reasonable transaction.

The problem for Europeans wanted to move to America was that there wasn't anyone to buy a piece of land or a house from and no one to rent from either. That doesn't justify a conclusion that it is improper to move from Europe to America. Instead, the proper conclusion is that the native Americans didn't understand the concept of property and that it was therefore proper to attempt to work around them rather than with them.

The fact that the Africans owned slaves doesn't justify owning African slaves because slavery is morally repugnant in the first place. The proper conclusion is that the Africans were acting immorally and therefore should not be imitated.

The native Americans were wrong and the Africans were wrong. The Europeans were right in both cases.

Darrell

It is legitimate to own land. It is not legitimate to force people who are occupying land--and have a legitimate right to it by prior claim--off that land.

As to the assertion that "native Americans didn't understand the concept of property and that it was therefore proper to attempt to work around them rather than with them," that is certainly not true of the Cherokee (or a number of other tribes). The Cherokee (who had homesteads, farms and towns little different from that of nearby white settlers) were living peacefully on their land in north Georgia in full compliance with the 1783 Treaty of Long Swamp.

Since that treaty between the Cherokee and the United States had specified what land belonged to the Cherokee, it was the Indian removers in the United States government in 1838 who did not understand the concept of property because they refused to honor property rights written into the law.

Seizing another human's body to use for one's own benefit is immoral. So is seizing another person's legally recognized plot of land.

The Cherokees took the government to court to stop the removal and the courts agreed the removal was illegal. Andrew Jackson said something like ---- the court has made it decision, let the court enforce it. And the Cherokee went down the Trail of Tears. half the tribe died on the way to Oklahoma. It was the American version of the Bataan Death March.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Good. If self-defense is not using force, then the executive branch should have simply relied on verbal pleas instead sending an armed force of 7,000 under General Winfield Scott to round up13,000 Cherokees. Since the armed men forced the Indians off their land, by your own definition it was not self-defense.

In any case, the Indians were complying with the highest court in the land. It was the removers who were not.

This is just word games Mr. Ferrer. You can't define a word by something that it is not. If you were paying attention to my argument, you would have noticed that I defined "defense" as: Defense is when you take the necessary steps and precautions to prevent or repel an attack. Whether you use force or not in the course of defending yourself makes no difference.

In any case, the Indians were complying with the highest court in the land. It was the removers who were not.

Since the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare is constitutional, then you agree with that too, right?

Just because Mexico is not at war with us now, doesn't mean they won't ever be. The costs of any war with Mexico would be extremely high. It follows then that even a relatively small probability of war would be intolerable. It's always better to nip a major future threat in the bud now by invading Mexico and forcing the Mexicans to live elsewhere than it is to have to fight it at its full-strength later.

Your analogy doesn't work because there isn't even a small possibility of war between the US and Mexico.

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Good. If self-defense is not using force, then the executive branch should have simply relied on verbal pleas instead sending an armed force of 7,000 under General Winfield Scott to round up13,000 Cherokees. Since the armed men forced the Indians off their land, by your own definition it was not self-defense.

In any case, the Indians were complying with the highest court in the land. It was the removers who were not.

This is just word games Mr. Ferrer. You can't define a word by something that it is not. If you were paying attention to my argument, you would have noticed that I defined "defense" as: Defense is when you take the necessary steps and precautions to prevent or repel an attack. Whether you use force or not in the course of defending yourself makes no difference.

In the case of the Trail of Tears Indian ethnic cleansing, it was the U.S that was attacking, not the Indians.

If A shoots neighbor B because B might shoot A (even though B has done nothing in words or actions to indicate such a threat), it is A who is attacking. It is A who is the violator of rights.

In any case, the Indians were complying with the highest court in the land. It was the removers who were not.

Since the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare is constitutional, then you agree with that too, right?

Just because Mexico is not at war with us now, doesn't mean they won't ever be. The costs of any war with Mexico would be extremely high. It follows then that even a relatively small probability of war would be intolerable. It's always better to nip a major future threat in the bud now by invading Mexico and forcing the Mexicans to live elsewhere than it is to have to fight it at its full-strength later.

Your analogy doesn't work because there isn't even a small possibility of war between the US and Mexico.

And there was even less of a possibility that the Cherokee Nation would have launched a war on the United States of America in 1838.

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Jesus! I cant even believe this is being argued. Allow me to settle it. Francisco is right. MSK is right about the evolution from immoral actions to good ones. Gary and Darrell... what the hell are you guys talking about? Gary has to be joking and Darrell sounds like the justification of god's actions. Everything god does is good because.. he's god and he would never do anything wrong.

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@Francisco Ferrer

The only way what you're saying could possibly make any sense whatsoever is if you believe that either the US government is obligated to respect the rights of individuals which are not its citizens or not within its borders, or you think that nation-states should have the same rights and responsibilities and individuals.

I think both are equally absurd, but which one would you go with?

As for the Cherokee, there's a lot more to the situation than if they could or couldn't attack the US. The major threat is that, if they were allowed to develop and build up their own military, they could organize into a wolrd power west of the Mississippi. Then they could pose a very serious threat. Mexico has no such opportunities. The other thing is that the US military was a tiny fraction of the size it is today, so an Indian war could very well pose a huge risk to at least the western part of the then United States. The final concern is that the Cherokees could be conquered by Britain, France, Spain, or Mexico, and I don't think I have to explain why that would be problematic.

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@Francisco Ferrer

The only way what you're saying could possibly make any sense whatsoever is if you believe that either the US government is obligated to respect the rights of individuals which are not its citizens or not within its borders, or you think that nation-states should have the same rights and responsibilities and individuals.

I think both are equally absurd, but which one would you go with?

As for the Cherokee, there's a lot more to the situation than if they could or couldn't attack the US. The major threat is that, if they were allowed to develop and build up their own military, they could organize into a wolrd power west of the Mississippi. Then they could pose a very serious threat. Mexico has no such opportunities. The other thing is that the US military was a tiny fraction of the size it is today, so an Indian war could very well pose a huge risk to at least the western part of the then United States. The final concern is that the Cherokees could be conquered by Britain, France, Spain, or Mexico, and I don't think I have to explain why that would be problematic.

U.S. officials are morally obligated to respect the individual rights of all persons, just as we all are. A private citizen has no right to gang rape and mass murder Vietnamese civilians. Neither does a U.S. soldier. Receiving a federal paycheck does not exempt one from moral law.

Secondly, U.S. officials are legally obligated to respect U.S. law, which specifically allowed for Cherokee control of certain lands in Georgia.

If U.S. officials were worried about the Cherokee organizing "into a world power west of the Mississippi," why did they force them to march 2,000 miles to the west of the Mississippi?

Or are you offering this as another example of government stupidity?

How would the north Georgia Cherokees in 1838 (or later) have been conquered by Britain, France, Spain, or Mexico? Would the invading foreign armies have docked their navy at Savannah or Charleston and simply marched unimpeded though U.S. territory to reach their objective?

I'm almost at the point where I have to treat your comments as satire.

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Here are some facts:

Georgia's Indian Treaties

This list is not complete. Treaties signed with the Creek and Cherokee that did not directly involve the state of Georgia have not been included.

  1. Creek Treaty, May 20, 1733 (May 21?)
  2. Creek Treaty, November 10, 1763
  3. Long Swamp Treaty May 30, 1783 (Cherokee) <<<< This was the only Treaty that has been cited by Francisco...
  4. Treaty of Hopewell, November 28, 1785 (Cherokee)
  5. Treaty of New York, August 7, 1790 (Cherokee)
  6. Treaty of the Holston, June 26, 1794 (Cherokee)
  7. Treaty with the Creeks, June 29, 1796
  8. Treaty with the Cherokee, October 2, 1798 (ratified April 30, 1802)
  9. Treaty of Fort Wilkinson, June 6, 1802 (Creek)
  10. Treaty of Tellico (Blockhouse) October 24, 1804 (Cherokee)
  11. Treaty of Fort Jackson August 9, 1814
  12. Treaty with the Cherokee, March 22, 1816 (2 treaties were signed)
  13. Treaty of 1816, September 14, 1816 (Cherokee)
  14. Treaty with the Cherokee, 1817, July 8, 1817
  15. Flint River Treaty (Treaty of Creek Agency) January 22, 1818 (Creek)
  16. Treaty of Washington, February 27, 1819 (Cherokee)
  17. Treaty of Indian Springs, January 8, 1821 (2 treaties were signed) (Creek)
  18. Treaty of Indian Springs, February 12, 1825 (Creek)
  19. Agreement with the Creeks (Broken Arrow), June 29, 1825
  20. Treaty of Washington, January 24, 1826 (voided Treaty of Indian Springs, 1825)
  21. Treaty of Wetumph, November 15, 1827
  22. Agreement with the Cherokee, March 14, 1835 (Unratified)
  23. Treaty of New Echota, December 29, 1835 (Cherokee)(made with a very small group of Cherokee who did not represent the entire tribe. This led to the Trail of Tears)
Treaty of Long Swamp Creek, 30 May 1783: Confirmed the northern boundary of the State of Georgia with the Cherokee, between the latter and that state, with the Cherokee ceding large amounts of land between the Savannah and Chattachoochee Rivers to the State of Georgia in the Treaty of Long Swamp Creek.
Treaty of French Lick, 6 November 1783: A peace treaty between the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Chickasaw; however, the Lower Cherokee present at the conference also made an agreement of cease-fire.
Treaty of Pensacola, 30 May 1784: For alliance and commerce between New Spain and the Cherokee and Creek.
Treaty of Dumplin Creek, 10 June 1785: Ceded remaining land within the claimed boundaries of Sevier County to the State of Franklin.
Treaty of Hopewell, 28 November 1785: Changed the boundaries between the U.S. and Cherokee lands.
Treaty of Coyatee, 20 July 1786: Made with the State of Franklin at gunpoint, this treaty ceded the remaining land north of the Little Tennessee River.
Treaty of Holston, 2 July 1791: Established boundaries between the United States and the Cherokee Nation. Guaranteed by the United States that the lands of the Cherokee Nation have not been ceded to the United States.
Treaty of Philadelphia, 17 February 1792: Supplemented the previous Holston treaty regarding annuities, etc.
Treaty of Walnut Hills, 10 April 1792: Between the Spanish governor in New Orleans and the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, and Seminole in which the former promised the latter military protection.
Treaty of Pensacola, 26 September 1792: Between the Lower Cherokee under John Watts and Arturo O'Neill, governor of Spanish West Florida, for arms and supplies with which to wage war against the United States.
Treaty of Philadelphia, 26 June 1794: Reaffirmed the provisions of the 1785 Treaty of Hopewell and the 1791 Treaty of Holston, particularly those regarding land cession.
Treaty of Tellico Blockhouse, 8 November 1794: Peace treaty with of the United States with the Lower Cherokee ending the Chickamauga Wars (1776-1794).
Treaty of Tellico, 2 October 1798: The boundaries promised in the previous treaty had not been marked and white settlers had come in. Because of this, the Cherokee were told they would need to cede new lands as an "acknowledgment" of the protection of the United States. The U.S. would guarantee the Cherokee could keep the remainder of their land "forever".
Treaty of Tellico, 24 October 1804: Ceded land.
Treaty of Tellico, 25 October 1805: Ceded land, including that for the Federal Road through the Cherokee Nation.
Treaty of Tellico, 27 October 1805: Ceded land for the state assembly of Tennessee, whose capital was then in East Tennessee, to meet upon.
Treaty of Washington City, 7 January 1806: Ceded land.
Treaty of Fort Jackson, 9 August 1814: Ended the Creek War, demanded land from both the Creek and the Cherokee.
Treaty of Washington City, 22 March 1816: Ceded last remaining lands within the territory limits claimed by South Carolina to the state.
Treaty of Chickasaw Council House, 14 September 1816: Ceded land.
Treaty of the Cherokee Agency, 8 July 1817: Acknowledged the division between the Upper Towns, which opposed emigration, and the Lower Towns, which favored emigration, and provided benefits for those who chose to emigrate west and 640 acre (2.6 km2) reserves for those who did not, with the possibility of citizenship of the state they are in.
Treaty of Washington City, 27 February 1819: Reaffirmed the Treaty of the Cherokee Agency of 1817, with a few added provisions specifying land reserves for certain Cherokee.
Treaty of San Antonio de Bexar, 8 November 1822: Granted land in the province of Spanish Tejas in the Viceroyalty of New Spain upon which the Cherokee band of The Bowl could live. Though signed by the Spanish governor of Tejas, the treaty was never ratified by the Spanish Empire nor by the succeeding Mexican Empire nor by the Republic of Mexico.
Treaty of Washington City, 6 May 1828: Cherokee Nation West ceded its lands in Arkansas Territory for lands in what becomes Indian Territory.
Treaty of New Echota, 29 December 1835: Surrendered to the United States the lands of the Cherokee Nation East in return for $5,000,000 dollars to be disbursed on a per capita basis, an additional $500,000 dollars is for educational funds, title in perpetuity to an equal amount of land in Indian Territory to that given up, and full compensation for all property left in the East. The treaty was rejected by the Cherokee National Council but approved by the U.S. Senate.
Treaty of Bowles Village, 23 February 1836: Granted nearly 4000 km2 of land in the east of the Republic of Texas to the Texas Cherokees and Twelve Associated Tribes.

Violation of this treaty led to the Cherokee War of 1839 in which most Cherokees were driven north into the Choctaw Nation or who fled south into Mexico. Following this episode, remaining Texas Cherokees under Chicken Trotter joined Mexican forces in a guerrilla war that culminated with the invasion of San Antonio by Mexican General Adrian Woll. Cherokee and allied Indians saw action at the Battle of Salado Creek and against the Dawson regiment. Following this conflict, it was apparent that Mexico was not going to be able to provide the remaining Texas Cherokees with any stability or lands in Texas. This led to a push for peace by newly re-installed Texas President Sam Houston to push for a peace treaty in 1843.
Treaty of Bird’s Fort, 29 September 1843: Ended hostilities between several Texas tribes, including the Cherokees, and the Republic of Texas. The Treaty which was ratified by the Congress of the Republic of Texas, recognized the tribal status of the Texas Indians as distinct, including the Cherokees that would later become known as the Texas Cherokees and Associate Bands. President of Texas Sam Houston, adopted son of former Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation West John Jolly, signed for the republic. This treaty, honored by the State of Texas following annexation, has never been abrogated by the Congress of the United States and in theory is still valid.
Treaty with the Republic of Texas, 1844: Additional treaty in which Chicken Trotter and Wagon Bowles were involved, but never ratified.
Treaty of Washington City, 6 August 1846: Ended the covert war between the various factions of the Cherokee Nation that had been ongoing since 1839 and attempted to unite the Old Settlers, the Treaty Party, and the Latecomers (or National Party).
Treaty of Fort Smith, Arkansas, 13 September 1865: Recognized the claims of the John Ross party as the legitimate Cherokee Nation vis-a-vis those of the Stand Watie party, as well as a cease-fire between the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Comanche, Creek, Osage, Quapaw, Seminole, Seneca, Shawnee, Wichita, and Wyandot, with the United States.
Treaty of the Cherokee Nation, 19 July 1866: Annulled a "pretended treaty" with Confederate Cherokees; granted amnesty to Cherokees; established a US district court in Indian Territory; prevented the US from trading in the Cherokee Nation unless approved by the Cherokee council or taxing residents of the Cherokee Nation; established that all Cherokee Freedmen and free African-Americans living in the Cherokee Nation "shall have all the rights of native Cherokees"; established right of way for rivers, railroads, and other transportation their Cherokee lands; allowed for the US to settle other Indian people in the Cherokee Nation; prevented members of the US military from selling alcohol to Cherokees for non-medicinal purposes; ceded Cherokee lands in Kansas; and established boundaries and settlements for various individuals.
Treaty of Washington City, 29 April 1868: Supplemented the treaty of 1866 and also ceded the Cherokee Outlet in Indian Territory.

Facts are why I started this thread...

A....

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Treaties between the Cherokee prior to the Articles of Confederation:

Treaties of the Cherokee

Treaty%2Bof%2BNew%2BEchota.jpg
The Cherokee have participated in over forty treaties in the past three hundred years.
Treaty between two Cherokee towns with English Traders of Carolina, 1684: first treaty of trade between the Cherokee and European immigrants.
Treaty with South Carolina, 1721: Ceded land between the Santee, Saluda, and Edisto Rivers to the Province of South Carolina.
Treaty of Nikwasi, 1730: Trade agreement with the Province of North Carolina thru Alexander Cumming.
Treaty of Whitehall, 1730: “Articles of Trade and Friendshipbetween the Cherokee and the English colonies. Signed between seven Cherokee chiefs and George I of England.
Treaty with South Carolina, 24 November 1755: Ceded land between the Wateree and Santee Rivers to the Province of South Carolina.
Treaty with North Carolina, 1756: Treaty of alliance by the Province of North Carolina with the Cherokee and the Catawba during the French and Indian War.
Treaty of Long-Island-on-the-Holston, 20 July 1761: Ended the Anglo-Cherokee War with the Colony of Virginia.
Treaty of Charlestown, 18 December 1761: Ended the Anglo-Cherokee War with the Province of South Carolina.
Treaty of Johnson Hall, 12 March 1768: Guaranteed peace between the Cherokee on one side and the Six Nations Iroquois, the Seven Confederate Nations, and the Caughnawaga on the other.
Treaty of Hard Labour, 17 October 1768: Ceded land in southwestern Virginia to the British Indian Superintendent, John Stuart.
Treaty of Lochaber, 18 October 1770: Ceded land in the later states of Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky to the Colony of Virginia.
Treaty with Virginia, early 1772: Ceded land in Virginia and eastern Kentucky to the Colony of Virginia.
Treaty of Augusta, 1 June 1773: Ceded Cherokee claim to 8100 km2 to the Colony of Georgia.
Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, 14 March 1775: Ceded claims to the hunting grounds between the Ohio and Cumberland Rivers to the Transylvania Land Company.
Treaty of DeWitts’ Corner, 20 May 1777: The Lower Cherokee ceded their lands to the States of South Carolina and Georgia and agreed to migrate westward into what’s now North Georgia.
Treaty of Fort Henry, 20 July 1777: The Overhill, Middle, Out, and Valley Cherokee, this confirmed the cession of the lands to the Watauga Association with the States of Virginia and North Carolina and ceded the Out Towns to North Carolina.
Treaty of Long-Island-on-the-Holston, 26 July 1781 : Peace treaty between the Overhill, Valley, and Middle Towns, and the Overmountain settlers that confirmed former cessions but gave up no additional land.
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Probably none of you have heard of the Battle of Long Swamp Creek, but it officially was the last battle of the American Revolution. In fact, it occurred after the Treaty of Paris was signed. However, back then it took news at least 4-6 weeks to travel from England to North America, and another month or so for news to travel to the Up Country. In 1783 the area where I live, the southern tip of the Blue Ridge Mountains, would have been the end of the world, in the mind of most citizens of the new United States.

First, a explanation to you Brits. At the time of the Revolution, the word "Tory" meant a resident of the rebeling colonies, who took up arms for the King. Tory did not mean a "political & economic conservative" as it did in Great Britain. Many of the economicaly conservative, coastal plantation owners were the original leaders of the Revolution, whereas economically more progressive, up country yeomen farmers initially opposed the rebellion in the South.

If you have watched the movie, The Patriot, you know what happened to turn the tables. The British used the exact same strategy in the South as the United States in Viet Nam, with exactly the same results. In fact, General Vo Nguyen Giap, commander of the Communist army, has repeatedly stated that he modeled his strategy against the Americans on those of the Southern Patriot guerillas and his victory at Diet Ben Phu after Washington's victory at Yorktown.

Well, atrocities by British Regulars and Tory dragoons against politically neutral fronstiersmen turned the frontiersmen into rabid revolutionaries. It was a viscious, no quarter given war. Patriot guerillas usually kept Redcoats as prisoners to use in prisoner exchanges, but generally executed Tories, because the Tories usually executed all Patriot prisoners, and sometimes even their non-combantant relatives.

For several years a band of Tories, who had moved to this county in 1776 with their Cherokee wives had been committing atrocities on the frontier, which was about 200 miles to the Southeast in east-central Georgia. The bands of white and Cherokee mounted raiders generally killed all men, women and children when attacking a farmstead. Colonel Andrew Pickens and Major Elijah Clark led a small army of Georgia & Carolina Mounted Rifles, plus Creek Indian Mounted Rifles (which included some of my ancestors) on raid into the North Georgia Mountains. All of the Patriots were dressed in the uniform of the Creek Mounted Rifles. At that time (1783) there were only three significant Cherokee villages in Georgia.

The first two villages Pickens' Army visited, did not contain any whites. The third, located about 5 miles from my house here, did. The Cherokees quickly surrendered after the first attack, but allowed the Tories to escape the village. As a peace offering, the Cherokee chief offered Pickens a treaty written in English, which gave the Americans the Creek-owned lands in northeast Georgia. That probably did not make my ancestors very happy, because that is where they lived.

The Mounted Rifles quickly found where the Tory guerillas were hiding and attacked. It was a one-side battle. All Tories, who were not killed in battle, were hung on the spot. . . including the wounded. This aspect of the battle was thought to be a myth until 1885 when a railroad was being built to open up the enormous marble deposits in this county. The skeletons of several executed Tories were uncovered by a railroad cut in Nelson, GA. Those were brutal times.

I found this interesting that they only killed the white Tory men.

A...

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U.S. officials are morally obligated to respect the individual rights of all persons, just as we all are. A private citizen has no right to gang rape and mass murder Vietnamese civilians. Neither does a U.S. soldier. Receiving a federal paycheck does not exempt one from moral law.

And who enforces the moral law? When it comes down to it, I wouldn't depend on another country's respect for the moral law to defend me, and neither would you. By obligating the US to adhere to a saintly standard of international diplomacy, you're effectively saying that the government should not do everything within its power to protect its citizens and the people within its borders. Why should we sacrifice our own safety and freedom for people in other countries? If those people want the US government to respect their rights, then all they have to do is cede their territories to the control of the US government. It's very simple. If they don't want to do that, fine. But then they have to accept the responsibilities and the burdens that come with being an independent nation-state, and one of those burdens is that the US is no longer obligated to respect their "rights".

Secondly, U.S. officials are legally obligated to respect U.S. law, which specifically allowed for Cherokee control of certain lands in Georgia.

Do people serve the law or does the law serve the people? If the law contradicts the interests of the people in a serious way, then it should be ignored. Otherwise, you're saying that the segregationist sun-down laws (and some other ridiculous laws) that are still in the books across many cities in the US should still be enforced. The law is merely a tool, not a sacred cow.

If U.S. officials were worried about the Cherokee organizing "into a world power west of the Mississippi," why did they force them to march 2,000 miles to the west of the Mississippi?

Or are you offering this as another example of government stupidity?

How would the north Georgia Cherokees in 1838 (or later) have been conquered by Britain, France, Spain, or Mexico? Would the invading foreign armies have docked their navy at Savannah or Charleston and simply marched unimpeded though U.S. territory to reach their objective?

I'm almost at the point where I have to treat your comments as satire.

Sorry that was a brainfart. I was typing really fast and got a little ahead of myself. The problem is that since the Cherokee were within the borders of the US, they had no right to call themselves an independent nation. If they are a dependent nation, then they don't have the right to make treaties with the US in the first place. Similarly for any Indians inside as yet unorganized US territories west of the Mississippi river or in unclaimed territories west of that.

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The difference is that it is legitimate to own land but not legitimate to own people. The two situations are not morally equivalent.

For example, if I wanted to move to Europe which is densely populated, I could buy a house or rent an apartment and move there. In other words, the land is not unoccupied, but I could still theoretically move there by engaging in a perfectly reasonable transaction.

The problem for Europeans wanted to move to America was that there wasn't anyone to buy a piece of land or a house from and no one to rent from either. That doesn't justify a conclusion that it is improper to move from Europe to America. Instead, the proper conclusion is that the native Americans didn't understand the concept of property and that it was therefore proper to attempt to work around them rather than with them.

The fact that the Africans owned slaves doesn't justify owning African slaves because slavery is morally repugnant in the first place. The proper conclusion is that the Africans were acting immorally and therefore should not be imitated.

The native Americans were wrong and the Africans were wrong. The Europeans were right in both cases.

Darrell

It is legitimate to own land. It is not legitimate to force people who are occupying land--and have a legitimate right to it by prior claim--off that land.

As to the assertion that "native Americans didn't understand the concept of property and that it was therefore proper to attempt to work around them rather than with them," that is certainly not true of the Cherokee (or a number of other tribes). The Cherokee (who had homesteads, farms and towns little different from that of nearby white settlers) were living peacefully on their land in north Georgia in full compliance with the 1783 Treaty of Long Swamp.

Since that treaty between the Cherokee and the United States had specified what land belonged to the Cherokee, it was the Indian removers in the United States government in 1838 who did not understand the concept of property because they refused to honor property rights written into the law.

Seizing another human's body to use for one's own benefit is immoral. So is seizing another person's legally recognized plot of land.

Unfortunately, your analysis has numerous problems. First of all, you are applying modern Western or European or American concepts of land ownership to the Native Americans of 200+ years ago. What does it mean to occupy a piece of land? The Native Americans weren't occupying it very much as the land was very lightly settled. They didn't put fences up around it so it would have been impossible to know for sure what land was being claimed. In fact, most of the land was not claimed by individuals, it was claimed by tribes. The tribes claimed certain amorphously defined hunting grounds. That would have made it difficult if not impossible for colonists to know where they could settle so as not to interfere with the amorphous and frequently shifting claims of some tribe.

BTW, many libertarians and objectivists argue that the borders of the U.S. should be open to immigration because the USA doesn't own the land within its borders --- only (legal) individuals can own land. But, if that is the case, then a tribe could not lay claim to an area of land because a tribe is not an individual.

I'm not an expert on American history, however I'm curious as to the source of your information. A cursory glance at Wikipedia shows that not all Cherokee were peacefully adhering to the treaty of 1783. The Lower Cherokee "took an active part in the Northwest Indian War." The Northwest Indian War took place between 1785 and 1795.

The history of relationship between the U.S. and the various Native tribes is complex. The tribes variously fought on the side of the French or British, often against each other and frequently against the colonies. So, for example, the colonies won the Northwest Territory from the British during the Revolutionary War. Many of the Native American tribes living in that area fought on the side of the British, so the defeat of the British spelled the defeat of the tribes as well. The result was that the tribes had to give up land to the U.S.

I'm not saying that the colonists were always the good guys. However, the Cherokee might have been the exception that proved the rule. The Native Americans lost their wars with the settlers and that makes the colonists look like the bad guys, but the history of conflicts between the various tribes and the U.S. government is complex. It is convenient to make it sound like the U.S. just signed treaties and then reneged on them later, but the situation is often much more complex. For example, the U.S. might have been fighting a European country like Britain, France, or Spain, and some of the native tribes might have entered the conflict on the side of America's enemies. When the U.S. prevailed, the various tribes suffered negative consequences for choosing the wrong side in various conflicts.

Darrell

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Bottom line on all those treaties? -- ceded land, usually at gunpoint.

reservations2010.gif

Indian population

1650 2-10 million?

1800 600,000

1890 250,000

[Wikipedia] ... decimated is the proper word: 9 out of 10 killed

Actually, "decimated" usually means that 1 out of 10 were killed. Decimated would be an understatement if your numbers are correct.

Darrell

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U.S. officials are morally obligated to respect the individual rights of all persons, just as we all are. A private citizen has no right to gang rape and mass murder Vietnamese civilians. Neither does a U.S. soldier. Receiving a federal paycheck does not exempt one from moral law.

And who enforces the moral law? When it comes down to it, I wouldn't depend on another country's respect for the moral law to defend me, and neither would you. By obligating the US to adhere to a saintly standard of international diplomacy, you're effectively saying that the government should not do everything within its power to protect its citizens and the people within its borders. Why should we sacrifice our own safety and freedom for people in other countries? If those people want the US government to respect their rights, then all they have to do is cede their territories to the control of the US government. It's very simple. If they don't want to do that, fine. But then they have to accept the responsibilities and the burdens that come with being an independent nation-state, and one of those burdens is that the US is no longer obligated to respect their "rights".

Do people serve the law or does the law serve the people? If the law contradicts the interests of the people in a serious way, then it should be ignored. Otherwise, you're saying that the segregationist sun-down laws (and some other ridiculous laws) that are still in the books across many cities in the US should still be enforced. The law is merely a tool, not a sacred cow.

Sorry that was a brainfart. I was typing really fast and got a little ahead of myself. The problem is that since the Cherokee were within the borders of the US, they had no right to call themselves an independent nation. If they are a dependent nation, then they don't have the right to make treaties with the US in the first place. Similarly for any Indians inside as yet unorganized US territories west of the Mississippi river or in unclaimed territories west of that

When they have the opportunity, moral men enforce moral law. That is not to say that it is likely or even possible to right all the world's wrongs. That's a liberal fantasy.

If you insist that no country outside the U.S. can be trusted to act morally, then you'd be well advised to avoid foreign travel and foreign banks.

There is no dichotomy between respecting the rights of U.S. citizens and those of foreigners. In fact, honoring the rights of non-Americans will in all but a few cases be reciprocated by other nations.

Why should, say, the Swiss cede their sovereignty to the U.S.? The majority of the Swiss may rightly prefer being governed by their fellow Swiss than by a government thousands of miles away. And they'd be correct to doubt that the U.S. military would have an easy time bringing Switzerland under American control.

But all this is beside the point. The Cherokee posed no threat to white Americans in 1838. Their removal was motivated not by any perceived threat but by the discovery of gold deposits on Cherokee lands.

The law should serve justice, not merely the majority.

If the Cherokee had no to right to make a treaty with the U.S., then why did U.S. officials sign a treaty with them? You may not like the price you got for your house, but you can't come back forty years later and say you changed your mind.

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Unfortunately, your analysis has numerous problems. First of all, you are applying modern Western or European or American concepts of land ownership to the Native Americans of 200+ years ago. What does it mean to occupy a piece of land? The Native Americans weren't occupying it very much as the land was very lightly settled. They didn't put fences up around it so it would have been impossible to know for sure what land was being claimed. In fact, most of the land was not claimed by individuals, it was claimed by tribes. The tribes claimed certain amorphously defined hunting grounds. That would have made it difficult if not impossible for colonists to know where they could settle so as not to interfere with the amorphous and frequently shifting claims of some tribe.

BTW, many libertarians and objectivists argue that the borders of the U.S. should be open to immigration because the USA doesn't own the land within its borders --- only (legal) individuals can own land. But, if that is the case, then a tribe could not lay claim to an area of land because a tribe is not an individual.

I'm not an expert on American history, however I'm curious as to the source of your information. A cursory glance at Wikipedia shows that not all Cherokee were peacefully adhering to the treaty of 1783. The Lower Cherokee "took an active part in the Northwest Indian War." The Northwest Indian War took place between 1785 and 1795.

The history of relationship between the U.S. and the various Native tribes is complex. The tribes variously fought on the side of the French or British, often against each other and frequently against the colonies. So, for example, the colonies won the Northwest Territory from the British during the Revolutionary War. Many of the Native American tribes living in that area fought on the side of the British, so the defeat of the British spelled the defeat of the tribes as well. The result was that the tribes had to give up land to the U.S.

I'm not saying that the colonists were always the good guys. However, the Cherokee might have been the exception that proved the rule. The Native Americans lost their wars with the settlers and that makes the colonists look like the bad guys, but the history of conflicts between the various tribes and the U.S. government is complex. It is convenient to make it sound like the U.S. just signed treaties and then reneged on them later, but the situation is often much more complex. For example, the U.S. might have been fighting a European country like Britain, France, or Spain, and some of the native tribes might have entered the conflict on the side of America's enemies. When the U.S. prevailed, the various tribes suffered negative consequences for choosing the wrong side in various conflicts.

Darrell

I'm not applying modern concepts to old problems. I'm applying a treaty signed by the U.S. government in 1783 to the land it formally and legally had accorded to the Cherokee Indians.

As for the land being lightly settled with no fences and no possibility of knowing whose it was--that was anything but the case with Cherokee land in Georgia, which by the early 1800's was in large part under cultivation and improved by permanent structures. Furthermore, the Treaty of Long Swamp Creek was quite explicit about boundaries. Once again, you are apparently confusing the Cherokee with nomadic tribes of the West.

There were no hostilities between the Cherokee tribes living in Georgia and the United States government or the Georgia government in the forty years before the Cherokee's forced removal.

The Cherokee were the exception that proved the rule? I suppose that means that because members of the tribe were no threat to the white man they therefore had to be moved to the other side of the Mississippi.

The U.S. did not renege on the Treaty of Long Swamp Creek because the Cherokees had sided with the British. The treaty between the U.S. and the Cherokee was signed two years after the British surrender at Yorktown.

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@Francisco Ferrer

It's hard to respond to you because you chop up a post into pieces and then respond to each piece in turn. I understand the need to refute every single claim your opponent makes, but the end result is a debate that lacks any central focus. I'm sure we could go on and on about each subject in turn, but in the interest of keeping things on track, I will only address the thing I think is the core of our disagreement.

There is no dichotomy between respecting the rights of U.S. citizens and those of foreigners. In fact, honoring the rights of non-Americans will in all but a few cases be reciprocated by other nations.

It's those "few" cases that worry me. The only reason that there are only a few countries that we have to worry about today is because we've already "solved" just about all of our "problems" during the previous centuries. It's easy to say that the US should behave angelically on the international stage from our current vantage point, so let's consider a hypothetical that removes this bias and test your principles.

Pretend that we are a very small but productive country, and that we have two neighbors. One of them is Iran. It wants our territory and our stuff, and is currently preparing to annex us. The other is another small but militarily weak country that happens to be sitting on a strategic resource. If we had that resource, we could use it to successfully repel or deter an invasion from Iran.

Here are our options. We could try to buy that resource from them, but sadly, the amount they're willing to sell us is not enough to meet our military's needs. The other option is to quickly annex the parts of that country that contain that resource. We would then have enough of it to repel an Iranian attack.

Now, in this scenario, which is not too unrealistic (at least I think so), are we justified in "violating the rights" of the people in the other country?

I think most reasonable people, and by "reasonable people" I mean "anyody who doesn't want to live under an oppressive Muslim theocracy", would agree with me that we are.

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