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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
 Posted - May 20 2004 : 11:48:27 PM
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Insensitive to what? Vanity? The Babylonian concept that the defeated is somehow spirtitually superior to the conqueror?
If the United States had wanted to kill all the Indians there was nothing to stop it. Absolutely nothing. If Congress had unleashed the Union army in 1865 against the Indians and told it to kill them all, it'd last two months, most of it travelling and filling out paperwork. But of course, nobody wanted to do that outside the small percentage of thugs who are always around. Robert Lincoln concluded we spent a million dollars for every Indian we killed, and even then that didn't blanche anyone. We had the money and the way and absolutely no will, no desire to inflict genocide. Our romantic notion of the Indian was installed early.
It could have been worse. If Ghenghis Khan had made it from Asia, he probably would have killed everyone.
The Indians were screwed every which way, which is why it's so amusing (and due) when some of them ended up with rich land and now the casino thing and the feds are all annoyed that some of the reservations are rich and insufficently taxed. Ha! It would have been better if we'd been honest and just conquered and usurped everything and admitted it, rather than drape this gossamer over our selfish actions and leaving make believe sovereign nations in our midst. It would probably have been better for the tribes as well.
It's a police action because Congress never declared war or gave the President war powers till much later. The army was told it was involved to protect the settlements and the railroads, and Sherman was acid in his observations about all that. Rounding up folks and herding them back to the reservation is large scale police work. There were no military objectives per se to these wars; no armies to defeat, no land to hold with soldiers.
But the reason the Indians ended up like they have is because they didn't trust each other, wouldn't unite, and drove all their visionaries away if it threatened their patriarchal structures or gang leaders. Metacom, Tecumseh, Osceola were pretty remarkable folks. Metacom and Wamsutta and the New England Indians could have and came close to burning out ALL the white settlements in six months. But the King Phillip War fizzled because they grew suspicious of fighting for each other rather than against each other.
That's an internal failing (shared with the Confederacy, Scotland, etc.)that doomed them. Not the horrible, greedy white people. That doesn't mean the white people weren't horrible or greedy, but just that something approaching organization - not just militarily - would have done wonders for the aboriginal cause. Centuries previous, they may have had it, but the first pandemics swept them away.
I found 1491 Online at
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/03/mann.htm
Lot of hypotheses, of course, but the evidence supports it. It's an important story. We're just beginning to learn about native American history before the European invasion. Even the Indians themselves seem to have it all wrong. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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Heavyrunner
Captain
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 12:13:37 AM
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Prolar,
As I know (or recall) the history of this, Custer and Gibbon were to link up, coordinating their action. That does not necessarily mean they knew the encampment existed in the Little Bighorn Valley. But I remember that Custer was to wait for Gibbon. We can enjoy discussing and exploring it as I, too, am very new to this board.
Dark Cloud,
Your comments are arrogant and insulting. I brought up a subject that may be open to debate, but one that has a basis in both family history and the history of the 7th Cavalry, including considerable research done within two decades of the battle. I still have questions, myself. Therefore, I seek answers, not empty pontification. Have another brandy. |
Bob Bostwick |
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JakeW
Private
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 12:35:48 AM
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Wiggs, read it, you will enjoy it.
Dark Cloud, ease up. I wasn't suggesting the novel to Jason as a historical reference, just something entertaining that he might enjoy. Take it for what it is, and put on a smile.
Jake |
"We've Caught 'em Napping Boys!" - Custer's Last Phrase |
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Anonymous Poster8169
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 02:31:02 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Heavyrunner
Anonymous,
William Lewis Bostwick is on the duty roster (for the battle) at the 7th Cavalry website. He's listed as a teamster, although not KIA. I would like to get the name listed here, if possible. I think the man earned the right--check www.us7thcavalry.com scroll down to "roster", click on it and scroll down to cousin Will.
He wasn't at the battle. In a small-type appendix Hammer includes a teamster named Louis Bostwick among 142 quartermaster employees "not in the Little Big Horn River fight," whom I guess is your guy. Only a half-dozen men were working as teamsters for Custer's pack train at the battle.
quote:
As I wrote, a history of our family, "The Bostwicks in America," published in 1901, notes that he died in the battle "at the hands of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians." The only question I have is whether he was killed there and, if so, why is he not listed KIA.
The only teamster/packer killed at the Little Bighorn was Frank Mann.
R. Larsen
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Anonymous Poster8169
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 03:29:57 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by joseph wiggs
I am overjoyed to hear of your illustrious ancestor, William Lewis Bostwick. Through your veins flows the blood of a man who actually helped to create American history. I think I'm a little envious of you also, for in a sense, you were there in the spirit of your ancestor.
Well. All I can say is that if I were cursed enough to have ended up in that death trap with screaming Indians swooping around me, wanting to tear off my scalp, stick knives up my ribs and do nasty, violent things to my penis, and *I* heard some one talk about how "envious" he was that he didn't have an ancestor lucky enough to participate in my ordeal, I'd punch him in the face.
It's rather a relief to me that none of my ancestors, that I know of, had exciting deaths. Unless you're a Nelson Rockefeller, exciting deaths are almost always excruciatingly unpleasant.
R. Larsen
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wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 04:21:06 AM
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Hi Dark Cloud
Benteen wasn't ten miles away at any point from Custer, at least as the crow flies,
Gotta give you that one.I think Benteen had said he made a recce of 10 miles which is a bit misleading.
A quick research based on Peter Panzari's book "LBH 1876" would indicate that the furthest distance between the 2 units occured when Benteen stoped at the morass to water the horses this allowed the distance to open to approx 6.5 miles[3.02 pm Custer close to Reno Hill]
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wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 05:36:49 AM
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Dark Cloud
We had the money and the way and absolutely no will, no desire to inflict genocide. Our romantic notion of the Indian was installed early.
There are more ways than one to inflict genocide.Kill all the buffalo,
Cut down the rain forests,deplete the fish stocks and see what it does to primitive hunter gatherer socities.Even in our own case [Irish]do nothing while 2 million starve to death.[Did you know that the Sioux actually sent more money to us than the British Royals]
Time was up for the Indians they were just unfortunate to run into the most letal killer in history--the Anglo Saxon christian.
It's a police action because Congress never declared war or gave the President war powers till much later
How's this for a little policing
"Wholesale massacre occurred and I have never heard of a more brutal,
cold-blooded massacre than that at Wounded Knee. About two hundred women and children were killed and wounded; women with little children on their backs, and small children powder burned by the men who killed them being so near as to burn the flesh and clothing with the powder of their guns, and nursing babes with five bullet holes through them....General Nelson A. Myles.
There are actually photographs of troops posing with heaps of dead Indians!!!!!
but just that something approaching organization - not just militarily - would have done wonders for the aboriginal cause.
Aboriginal society does not lend itself to complex organisation.Organisation means specialisation and thus the end of a normadic hunter gatherer existance.They were doomed just a pity that the advance of "civilisation" could not have been achieved in a more benign fashion.
Hi Prolar
Heavyrunner: I'm mostly an interested reader of these posts and don't reply often. I don't want to come off as a know it all like Dark Cloud though he is usually right, ot Wild I who isn't.
First of all you say you are reluctant to contribute anything but you have no problem having a go at people who do contribute.
This is a discussion and I imagine all views are welcome.Maybe I'm wrong in much of what I say but I hope I don't offend people so please join in and point out the error of my ways.
Slan
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lorenzo G.
Captain
Italy
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 07:03:11 AM
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Jews were killed without any war between them and the Germans? Many of them WERE Germans. You can flense by religion or by nationality.
I know this. Many of them was also italians. But I had to make a distinction through indians situations. What I ment to tell is what you later answer to WILD about USA.
Indians then were warriors, much of them was outlaws and don't disagree violence and other. Jews was not so. I used the term "war" first because historian, (I agree with you that is wrong) call them "indian wars" and second to explain the difference from two parts in combat, and one part armed that go against a disarmed quiet and working people. USA, had reasons. Indians too. But is unfair to paint Usa as cannibals killers and the poor indians as only spiritual peacefully people.
Wild you've cited Wounded kneeSure that event was horrible, disgusting, and to who perpetrated we must address nothing but blame. But if in one hand we have this cruel happening in the other hand we have a lot of entire villages burned, old men, children killed and women kidnapped, tortured or ravished or selled as ponies from one chief to another. They was all innocents too this people, unless you think that white life have not the same importance of red life - and I don't think so. Too much easy to say that this incursions were just a revenge, because then we could say same of Wounded knee, that many considered a revenge for Little Big Horn. And moreover, many times the Indian crimes was perpetrated from tribes who turned out in peace, or, perpetrated in the moment in which their Chief was discussing the peace with the white men. Well you cry upon the photos of soldiers posing with heaps of indians, but you don't cry about the indian that having kidnapped a white new baby born, he killed him crashing his head against a tree because he was crying; or you don't cry about the much times that cruelty happens and you've just get no photos only because indians had no cameras. I suppose that if you would be a witness of what they do with the death people, you should vomit togheter with me. If you're so disgusted from that photos, you have to be disgusted also with this: their necklaces of human fingers, cutted off noses or genital, scrotums used as tobacco bags; mutilated corps, feets, hands, heads here and that, opened slims; and around this "charming scene" they sing their chants thanking the big spirit. This disgust me as much as Wounded knee you know? And I found no excuses for it. Nor traditions, nor anger. |
If it is to be my lot to fall in the service of my country and my country's rights I will have no regrets.
Custer |
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wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 08:52:13 AM
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Hi Lorenzo
You are hardly suggesting that because an aboriginal people are savage it excuses the savagery infilcted on them by a more advanced society?
Slan |
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lorenzo G.
Captain
Italy
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 09:15:35 AM
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| No. It's just the contrary that I wanted to tell. That both savagery are to condemned. And must be condemned, As I've done. Please read one more time what I wrote. Americans killers, indians innocent poor people etc. please read my previous post again to find out my point. (I know it's my fault if it is difficult to understand, cause of my english)I am sure you will understand. |
If it is to be my lot to fall in the service of my country and my country's rights I will have no regrets.
Custer |
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wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 09:41:52 AM
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Hi Lorenzo
Yes I'v read it again.You condem both sides.Only trouble is you seem to saying that a primitive society should be judged by the same standards as the more advanced society.
I am not an anthropologist and my knowledge of the costums and history of the plains Indian would be very sketchey so I don't know just how cruel they were.[perhaps Dark Cloud could enlighten us]But I do know that is was their very existance that was threatened not the existance of the whites.
Slan |
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lorenzo G.
Captain
Italy
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 10:02:02 AM
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The first part was important you understood. Second is an opinion. Then I respect it.I would be able to tell you things about indians cruelty that give you goose pimples, but it's not the place here.
I can say, that both was threatened. If you see all the story from the beginning. In any case, if a savage (and to my opinion they was not more savage of other european people) kill my child or cut the head to my wife, that's always murder. And I guess you would react at the same manner.Finally, indian "society" had rules, knew what is love, good, bad, anger. They was'nt uncoscnious. So They knew they was killing. They knew what they did. You cannot said that they don't. |
If it is to be my lot to fall in the service of my country and my country's rights I will have no regrets.
Custer |
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wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 10:18:48 AM
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Hi Lorenzo,
Will continue this next week so have a nice week end.
Pity we don't have others from this side of the world on the board.
Regards |
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lorenzo G.
Captain
Italy
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 10:20:03 AM
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Ok!
Have a nice week end too. |
If it is to be my lot to fall in the service of my country and my country's rights I will have no regrets.
Custer |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 10:27:37 AM
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You guys keep repeating these cliches as if they were valid or meant what you have assumed they do.
Wiggs, your history lessons are of fifth grade level. To equate Manifest Destiny to genocide is, to say no more, a stretch. Genocide is the killing of an entire people. While attempted, it has never really occured. Killing all the buffalo would force the horror of beef over bison, jobs over hunting, 'civilization' over the 'noble savage.' It was abrupt, rude, awful, but it ain't genocide.
Wild, no, there is only one way to inflict genocide and that's to kill the people in question. That's what the word means. Destroying a culture isn't genocide. Even slavery isn't genocide. Killing them is genocide. And it IS a question of degree. There are any number of similar horrors in our own Labor movement of police raiding tent cities and killing all sorts of women and children. That makes it no less a police action.
Further, if you read the article I posted, you'd know that - aside from the Sioux having only recently come to the plains and the buffalo after being driven out of the forest by the Chippewa/Ojibways - that the buffalo themselves were fairly new to the position of exclusive diet and Home Depot to the Indians, something that had only happened in the previous two hundred years, about the time they got the horse, actually.
Custer was to unite with Terry, a general, not Gibbon, although Gibbon was with Terry.
So, now that we can cancel the stonemason and resist the urge to desecrate the monument with a name that didn't deserve to be there (I'm shocked, of course. Family histories, generally written to stroke the egos of those paying for it, are almost always well written and so true.....)we can surely console Heavy Runner with his faint association with a knight centuries in the past. Wiggs' relatives, if they were actually there, will have to party with other shades. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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Heavyrunner
Captain
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 12:36:24 PM
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Prolar,
I can appreciate your interest, hopefully aimed at finding the truth. While I think only six teamsters serving a column of 700 seems "teamster light," I, too would like to know the truth of all this. Perhaps I can do so through official sources. The researcher collecting the family history over a century ago was a man of science, bringing forth his findings in a scholarly, rather than vain manor. I'm fortunate that so much of my ancestry is documented, yet it hardly makes me a blue blood.
Of course, it's a very ugly thought to consider the violence done to the bodies of soldiers killed in a fight with Indians. I't just as ugly to consider what soldiers of that era did to women and children at Sand Creek and other venues. Come to think of it, it's pretty ugly to consider what an undertaker does to your body while preparing it for burial.
Sadly, some here write boorishly, as if all others are beneath them. Knowledge is a wonderful tool, although useless without judgement. I immensely enjoy exchanges of ideas and thought. I'm puzzled that some cannot do so without coming across like they were raised by wolves.
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Bob Bostwick |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 1:15:25 PM
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Men of science weren't reduced to writing vanity publications of 'family history.' They were usually failed professors or scions of locally famous families fallen on hard times. They were a well known and satirized type, up to John Marquand's "The Late George Gatsby."
In any case, he was either sloppy or wrong or trying to infuse interest into ordinary people. Let me assure you, the ludicrous obscenities of truth that a similar author put in my family's 'history' make yours seem as delivered by angels. This was a big business after the Civil War and America started into Empire mode, and we so-called democratic/aristocracy-of-merit types were ga-ga to affix ourselves in history to the famous or famous events. Even Custer fought to pretend he was in the courthouse when Lee surrendered rather than outside. There is doubt, of course.
There are lots of these books from that era, and they can all be burned to a cinder without much loss. It never seems to have occured to them (of course it did, they weren't being paid for it, though)that people gave themselves new names in America - often that of their masters in Europe - or were on the run, couldn't spell, lied, or had to explain bastards, etc. It's not like they ran dna tests or had the means to verify someone's story of an aristocratic ancestry or theft of inheritance or any of that. If the idiot, drunken grandfather mumbled it and paid for it, they wrote it. These should be read with a keg of salt at the shoulder. Large, heavy keg.
I take it you see nothing amiss with, after having been confronted with fairly irrefutable evidence your relative wasn't at the battle, you still seek 'the truth?' Again, the more interesting question is why your family would pretend to this status at the *expense* of the truth. Take heart: we all do the same thing. It's forgiveable and common but at war with the concept of history. My harshness is based solely on that, but it is deserved nonetheless. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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Heavyrunner
Captain
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 3:10:17 PM
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Yes, I do seek the truth, DK. I certainly don't trust you, however, to be the sole source of it. The history of which I write was not a narrative. It was a geneology based on family records--primarily wills, post mortems and lineage, including the Domesday Book. The author was objective, never subjective. Your assumption that it was a vanity publication is, well, an assumption--hardly based on reality.
I can discuss it. I have no problem with anyone's disagreement. I certainly don't seek to glorify anyone on monuments or elsewhere. I do, however, have a serious problem with flippant, pompous insults. Visiting here in good faith, it's not unfair to expect the same.
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Bob Bostwick |
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wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 3:50:58 PM
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Hi Dark Cloud
Wild, no, there is only one way to inflict genocide and that's to kill the people in question.
A little research located the defination of genocide see below.
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 3:58:39 PM
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How in the world can you know the author was objective? Who paid for the writing of the book, or is the family so famous and fascinating it was written for the general public? That happens. 'History' is more than geneology, safe to say, and that was your description of the book, not mine.
Further, he made at least one lazy mistake, easy to verify even back then. He clearly didn't research it, just took someone's word which, by the way, is all any geneology is absent genetic verification. The person in question may still have been alive in 1901, or may have shamed the family in some way, changed his name, and they affected a way out. That happened a lot.
Wonder what happened to your relative. At some point, he must have left the 7th's service and there would be financial records of that.
I don't ask anyone to take my word for squat, I only ask you start from a position of professed ignorance (I did)and work from there. If you start from the line of "Custer was a hero and must have..." or "my greatgrandfather was killed at the LBH and was therefore a hero..." you've got a ways to go. You aren't seeking truth, you're seeking vindication. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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Heavyrunner
Captain
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 5:27:23 PM
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Henry Anthon Bostwick, the geneologist who compiled the family history, had another title.
Col. Henry Anthon Bostwick was also a career soldier.
He was a quartermaster. He was active in a number of military organizations and also with the New York Historical Society. He died in 1916.
He could have been mistaken, but I doubt a career soldier would have PURPOSELY included the notation regarding William Lewis, particularly if William Lewis didn't earn it and more so if he were still alive when the research was done in the decade following the battle. I also wonder whether he'd have known William Lewis Bostwick's family--a very short distance from his own home in New York. From what I've seen, I'll trust his work at least as much as I trust any other.
Discussion and debate are healthy. They are stimulating. I have plenty of questions, to be sure. I'd just like to see the discussion remain on an adult level. |
Bob Bostwick |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 7:17:52 PM
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Ah, Bostwick, a family history - sorry, genealogy - by a family member with three names. Totally objective source. Can't imagine any such person covering up or deflecting unpleasant inquiries to family members' fates the year Victoria died.
You seem to be suggesting that wearing the uniform confers special qualities denied others and precludes deficiencies burdening others. There were more objective uniforms compiling the 7th's roster, along with first hand info, I'd think, if one is given to be impressed with uniforms.
What 'science' (as in your 'man of...') was the author involved in? Genealogy? Is that science? Well, a librarian has a degree in library science, so maybe. He was a professional genealogist in 1901?
As for genocide, Wild, a little research indeed. That's different than my dictionary's definition, which has only one: the systematic killing or extermination of a whole people or nation. Webster's New World Dictionary, 1964. And the word gen (people) cide (kill), like homicide, man kill. Alas, the definition may have broadened in forty odd years and I am now in error. What is your authority, again?
As for keeping the level adult, where on the age meter do you place the vision of the Bootlick and Wigs antecedents locked in mortal combat, catching each other's eye, etc. etc.? I place it at 13. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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prolar
Major
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 9:19:29 PM
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Dark Cloud: If the two commmands had united it would have been Custer's command uniting with Gibbon's command with Terry as overall commander.The point is that that were no orders to link up, co-ordinate an attack or wait for support. If you have information to the contrary, I would appreciate your posting it.
Heavyrunner: Memory can be a tricky thing. Terry's instructions are not hard to find. I urge you again to read them for yourself. As to the number of packers: A footnote to Walter Camp's interview with John McGuire, a soldier with the packtrain, says there were eleven. It is not clear if this is Camp's opinion or McGuire's.I believe that Larson is right that Mann was the only packer killed.Don't know about wounded. |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 9:34:10 PM
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| That would assume Gibbon had taken command of all the soldiers not in the 7th that came with Custer and Terry. If Terry's in overall command, he's in command. I've never heard the force exclusively called Gibbon's by anyone, nor understand why it would be. I'd thought Brisbane answered directly to Terry, for example. When he offered his cavalry to Custer and they took it to Terry, Gibbon wasn't involved. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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joseph wiggs
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
Posted - May 21 2004 : 10:39:11 PM
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| Dark Cloud, I've always been told that I eventually grow upon people. Your recent hesitancy to defame me has warmed the cockles of my heart, and proved that saying to be true. I look forward to continued debates with you my friend. While I know that we will never agree to anything at all, the opportunity to delve into the mind of a genius is a once in a lifetime dream. Your Friend, Joe. |
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Benteen's order
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