Native American tragedy: thoughts on the US

More serendipity .. today we stumbled across Little Big Horn on our way to Billings. The location, preserving the battleground where Custer held his Last Stand, is little more than a large graveyard across miles of meadows. After the battle, the US Army buried the 268 dead soldiers right where they lay, with small gravestones marking the locations.

The ‘American’ monuments commemorate the dead, but provide little context for why the battle was waged and justified. The Native Americans weren’t even acknowledged until after 1991, but now have a memorial that provides thoughtful commentary on their purpose in the fight and honoring both their own AND the American warriors’ deaths.

This trip was intended to make us think about all things USA .. and here are some thoughts that surface for me when considering events like the battle of Little Big Horn.

This gravestone says it all.

The plight of the American Indian’s history under the invasion of Europeans is hard not to be sickened by. The fact that this particular battle only occurred because the US Government betrayed a signed treaty guaranteeing ownership of the Black Hills to the Lakota is a serious black mark against our nation’s moral history.

It’s just a lousy example of the United States sometimes being a lousy country.

But I’m not in the camp of those who cannot help themselves in incessantly criticizing our nation for our checkered past. I fundamentally believe America, with all its serious warts and mistakes, has overall been a force for good in the world.

The European invasion of what became the United States was certainly ‘colonial’, and by our modern standards was simply wrong. The racist views and treatment of Native Americans was vile and betrayed the very founding principles of our nation.

Custer’s promise to the Cheyenne. He did not keep that promise, while also capturing women and children to ‘motivate’ the surrender of warriors.

But I believe that context matters and time in history matters when evaluating national good vs evil. Before America, the entire history of civilization has been colonial and warlike, with people not of the tribe … the ‘other’ ..  being miserably treated. Quite a bit due to the American example, much of the world migrated to reasonably civil nations. The fact that the United States is also in a transition to contemporary and better standards of behavior, catching up on racial and gender issues while figuring out its place as a world leader, does not outweigh our goodness.

We’ve never been perfect and are sure as heck not perfect today, but to quote MLK .. and I take this seriously .. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”. By all means, hold us accountable for our recent actions … but the world pre-Columbus which was a different era and context that is not returning and I can personally only dwell on the big things we got wrong so much.

At the same time .. those such as the DeSantis administration in Florida that seems to be incapable of criticizing America (for example, the absurd recent history curriculum addition that “slaves learned useful skills”) are equally as wrong as those such as Howard Zinn who seem to think we can do no right. Get over yourselves. We’ve done bad stuff and good stuff. It’s good to have the debates over both our good deeds and our transgressions and to acknowledge our sins, and it’s surely important for the victims to have acknowledgement of that past. And surely, there can be a good faith discussion that perhaps there are things we ought do today to assist victims of our history who are still affected to this day.