Professor
Robert J Miller wrote the following paragraphs in the Seattle Post –the Intelligencer
with the title ‘Lewis & Clark, The Doctrine of Discovery and American
Indians’.
‘Meriwether
Lewis and William Clark sit high in the pantheon of American folk heroes. Even
today, Lewis and Clark are viewed as brave adventurers who went where no one
had gone before, exploring and conquering the wilderness for the betterment of
America.
There is
another way to view Lewis and Clark, however, which is nearer to the truth.
Lewis and Clark were military officers serving American empire and manifest
destiny and they were the vanguard of American policies that ultimately robbed
the indigenous peoples of nearly everything they possessed.’
Many of the
celebrated American pioneers like Davy Crockett and many more, were transformed
in American legends as heroes but were in fact Indian killers and Indian land
grabbers. The brutal and systematic execution
and termination of the American Indians were stories that western media did not
like to brag about or did not have the stomach to write about.
I will just
quote a few paragraphs from The Doctrine of Discovery and US Expansion to
enlighten those who think they are enlightened on early American history and
European conquest of the world.
The Fifth
Amendment to the US Constitution in 1787,
‘The utmost
good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians, their land and
property shall never be taken without their consent, and, in their property,
rights, and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed.’
In 1794,
‘the US government sent a regiment led by General “Mad” Anthony Wayne to
conquer a confederation of American Indian tribes attempting to keep hold of
their lands. At the Battle of Fallen Timbers, a band of 800 Native Americans
was slaughtered and 5,000 acres of crops were destroyed. ‘
In 1830, the
Indian Removal Act was passed, ‘which authorized the President to remove the
remaining Eastern Indians to lands west of the Mississippi. Between 1938 and
1939, under President Andrew Jackson, 15,000 Cherokee Indians were forcibly taken
from their land, herded into makeshift forts, and made to march some in chains
– a thousand miles to present day Oklahoma. Over 4,000 Cherokee died from
hunger, disease and exhaustion on what they called Nunna dual Tsuny or the
Trail of Tears.’
The rape of
the Native Indians and their lands started in 1095 when ‘Pope Urban II issued
an edict – the Papal Bull Terra Nullius (meaning empty land). It gave the kings
and princes of Europe the right to “discover” or claim land in non Christian
areas….These edicts treated non Christians as uncivilized and subhuman, and
therefore without rights to any land or nation. Christian leaders claimed a
God-given right to take control of all lands and used this idea to justify war,
colonization, and even slavery…. In 1823, the Doctrine of Discovery was written
into US law as a way to deny land right to the Native Americans in the Supreme
Court… ‘
And in 1845,
John O’Sullivan gave the Doctrine of Discovery another twist, calling it
Manifest Destiny …’the right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to
possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the
development of the great experiment of liberty…’
The Doctrine
of Discovery, sounding so innocent, was the seed of European conquest of the
world and the colonization of non Christian people, including butchery and
massacres of natives and the robbing of their land. Liberty and freedom were
only for the European Christians, not for the non Christians, not for the
American Natives, not for the Blacks and not for Africans and Asians.
Know your
history and absolve yourself from being made a fool of by the western powers
and media.
