A fellow student wrote: Once again I would have to agree with Gisela, the railroad has been very good for us, but again at what cost?
Forgive Me if this paraphrase is slightly off:
Approximately 20-50 million Bison are destroyed when a Government sanctioned program to eradicate the “Indians” includes eradicating the animals by paid snipers who kill in mass, then leave the meat to rot.
During this period and soon after, 1 to 4 million People, freeze, starve or become the victims of violence, exact numbers were not well kept. The outcome of this institutional genocide(*) was the decimation of many nations, We all know the names. U.S.A sites are named after them, Sioux, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, Dakota, etc. Looks like railroads and there legacy are very expensive...
(*) gen·o·cide [Mid-20th century. < Greek genos "race"] murder of entire ethnic group: the systematic killing of all the people from a national, ethnic, or religious group, or an attempt to do this
Forced Relocation?
Former Nomi Lackee Reservation. Photo: Bob Dawson/ Farewell, Promised Land Project, 1995.
"As there is no further west, to which they can be removed, the General Government and the people of California appear to have left but one alternative in relation to these remnants of once numerous and powerful tribes: extermination or domestication."
... report from three federal Indian commissioners, January 1851
© 2007 Mike W. Boitano
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