All of the tribes experienced a Trail of Tears due to the forced relocations; some were more or less severe. However, regardless of their differing severity, the forced relocations were all part of the U.S. extermination policy, or genocide, to solve their "Indian Problem." The "problem" in Indian Territory was that the tribes who were forced to relocate under conditions that significantly reduced their population through extermination or starvation, some in harsh winter conditions, was that they survived the forced relocations at all. Hence, a "solution" was needed to insure white domination in Indian Territory. Henry Dawes and his Dawes Act fueled by racism, denial of joint statehood, and a cruel "wedding" fusing Indian Territory with the State of Oklahoma all contributed to Oklahoma's Statehood through the elimination of many tribal lands and the great diminishment or total elimination of tribal political influence.

The white supremist attitudes of Henry Dawes, author of the Dawes Act and which led to the Allotment Era, was paramount in shifting land ownership from whole tribes to the sole individual.

Kill the Indian, Save the Man

Massachusetts Senator Henry Dawes, convinced that the white man's ways were superior, pooh-poohed the idea of communal property, although he did express sympathy for the Natives. "The common field is the seat of barbarism, while the separate farm is the door to civilization," he said. Dawes explained that selfishness was the root of advanced civilization, and he could not understand why the Indians were not motivated to possess and achieve more than their neighbors.

The white supremist attitudes of Dawes was reflected in whites prior to the Allotment Era that Dawes formally initiated.

The Indians Are

Getting Uppity

Berthrong describes the attitudes of the whites who overwhelmed the Cheyenne and Arapahoe reservation subsequent to allotment:

White-Indian relations after the opening of the Cheyenne-Arapaho Reservation were tragic. Deep prejudice often bordering on racism marked whites' attitudes toward their Indian neighbors...If the Indians had possessed more economic potential, skills, and incentives to acquire additional or replacement property, the losses they suffered through fraud and theft would not have been so severe or irremediable. As it was, the discrimination, the loss of property, and the contempt in which the Indian was held by farmers and ranchers made it impossible for many of the Cheyennes and Arapahoes to follow the 'white man's road.' (Berthrong, p.207)

Guy Dull Knife Jr. recalls his boyhood impression of whites outside the reservation borders: "He remembered the dirty looks, the waiting for whites to enter first, the standing in line, others cutting in front of them, the occasional cursing, clerks tailing him up and down the aisles and the signs that said 'No Dogs or Indians Allowed'." (Starita, p.326)

Dawes's anti Indian sentiment bled over into the legislation he created, the notorious Dawes Act. The facts that it authorized the president, Roosevelt at the time, to twist tribal land ownership into individual land ownership if the land was deemed "advantageous for agricultural and grazing purposes" when Oklahoma's primary assets were farming and agriculture prior to its statehood, were by no means innocent and coincidental. To the contrary, it was divide and conquer in retrospect. 

Divide -

(Underline mine)

Source

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in all cases where any tribe or band of Indians has been, or shall hereafter be, located upon any reservation created for their use, either by treaty stipulation or by virtue of an act of Congress or executive order setting apart the same for their use, the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, authorized, whenever in his opinion any reservation or any part thereof of such Indians is advantageous for agricultural and grazing purposes, to cause said reservation, or any part thereof, to be surveyed, or resurveyed if necessary, and to allot the lands in said reservation in severalty to any Indian located thereon in quantities as follows:

Source

In addition, the law severely reduced Indian holdings; after all individual allocations had been made, the extensive lands remaining were declared surplus and opened for sale to non-Indians. In 1887, the tribes had owned about 138 million acres; by 1900 the total acreage in Indian hands had fallen to 78 million.

- and conquer.

As Oklahoma sought statehood the U.S. government again divided reservation lands to sell to white settlers, leaving just a small parcel for reservation land.

The Merriam Report: A Look At "Real" Life

The report found many contributing factors, one of the major ones being the Allotment Policy.  In the Merriam Report, it was also said that

Not accompanied by adequate instruction in the use of property, it has largely failed in the accomplishment of what was expected of it.  It has resulted in much loss of land and an enormous increase in the details of administration without a compensating advance in the economic ability of the Indians...it almost seeded as if the government assumed that some magic in individual ownership of property would in itself prove an educational civilizing factor, but unfortunately this policy had for the most part operated in the opposite direction.  Individual ownership in many instances permitted Indians to sell their allotment and to live for a time on the unearned income resulting from the sale.(2)

100 Years in the Land of the Red Man

"When the Allotment Era came into being, it changed every perspective we had on land--it went from the control of the tribe to the control of the individual," he explained.

Those individuals, Jones recounted, were illegally taxed and many lost their land by their failure to pay those taxes, largely because their grasp of the new and foreign concept of individual private land ownership didn't quite match the speed of the government's enforcement of its imposed tax policy.

Continuing, as the Iroquois Confederacy helped to shape American Democracy on a national level, the Sequoyah Constitution helped to shape the Oklahoma Constitution on a state level.

Source

No historian can properly review the provisions of the Oklahoma Constitution without considering the Sequoyah Convention which convened at Muskogee in 1905; for some of the most important provisions of the Constitution derived their inspiration from the Sequoyah Constitution, notably: Article nine on Corporations, the method of Legislative apportionment, the Great Seal, less than a unanimous verdict of Jurors in trials of civil causes, compulsory teaching of Agriculture and Domestic Arts in the public schools, the names of many Counties in old Indian Territory, et cetera.

As Vice-President of the Sequoyah Convention of 1905 and as President of the Guthrie Constitutional Convention of 1906, I witnessed some facts of historical value, hitherto not given publication.

-huge snip -

"You know many people in Oklahoma Territory and I wish you would remember this, 'The politicians of Oklahoma City and Guthrie will try to dominate the convention and shut out the Indian Territory along with western Oklahoma. When statehood comes, remember to keep "tab" on the delegates elected and for some good man over there, not allied with the machine, for president of the Convention'." To which I agreed.

But that wasn't part of the "solution," Roosevelt squelched Indian Territory's attempts at having joint statehood with Oklahoma. As the result, there is no Centennial for Indian Territory.

ENABLING ACT (1906)

After the introduction of a bill for admitting Indian Territory as the State of Sequoyah sank in Congress in December 1905-January 1906, Pres. Theodore Roosevelt recommended joint statehood.

What was part of the "solution" was a cruel "wedding" between Indian Territory and the State of Oklahoma simultaneously with Oklahoma's admittance into statehood.

Source

Rev. Dodson:

Representing the Indian Territory is Mrs. Anna Bennett of Muskogee. 

(Durant presents Mrs. Bennett to Jones, bows, and steps back.)

Mrs. Bennett:

I will.  And to you I present my hand and my fortunes, convinced that  your love is genuine and sincere.

Dodson:

Do you, Mr. Oklahoma Territory, take this woman to be your lawfully  wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forth, in union as the  State of Oklahoma?
 

To bring this to a close, all of the tribes experienced a Trail of Tears due to the forced relocations; some were more or less severe. However, the tears did not end with the forced relocations. The cruel mock wedding ceremony caused tears; being shut out of the democratic process caused more tears after the denial of duel joint statehood, as did the Dawes Act and all the racism that accompanied it. Simultaneously, the Indian Boarding Schools were working their "solution," which would continue until approximately 1970, while the forced sterilizations would work their "solution" and end in the mid 1970's. No Indian, no "problem" for the whites who cut the Indians out of life, democracy, or both.

Labels: winter rabbit

August 26th through the 29th was the SYMPOSIUM ON THE SETTLEMENT OF INDIAN RESERVED WATER RIGHTS CLAIMS (a good overview is here).

I am speculating, but I think that one reason for the Symposium on the Settlement of Indian Reserved Water Rights Claims was because of this:

Red Shirt Village -- Residents of Red Shirt village on the northwest corner of the Pine Ridge Reservation have put up signs warning people of the high nuclear radiation levels found in the Cheyenne River.

Defenders of the Black Hills: a group of volunteers without racial or tribal boundaries working to ensure that the United States government upholds the Fort Laramie Treaties of 1851 and 1868.

NOW, THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED,
the GPTCA affirms that any person, agency or entity including federal, state, and county governments, or corporations, businesses or companies who shall cause any nuclear pollution, or contamination to enter the confines of the Indian Reservation Homelands should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and

NOW, BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED,
the Great Plains Tribal Chairman's Association calls upon all other Tribes and Indian Nations to join with us to protect our Reservation Homelands, to ensure that no damage will come to the people, the culture, the environment including the air and water and economy of the Tribes of the Great Plains because of uranium mining or other processing of contaminants in the region of the Great Plains Region.

The Tribal Supreme Court Project is part of the Tribal Sovereignty Protection Initiative and is staffed by the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) and the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). The Project was formed in 2001 in response to a series of U.S. Supreme Court cases that negatively affected tribal sovereignty.

This information at the international level, beginning with the Cobo Report, is crucial to understand in conjunction with all the above.

Chapter 6: International developments in the recognition of the rights of Indigenous peoples

The Cobo report, as it is commonly known, was prepared over the next decade. It was submitted to the Sub-Commission in 24 instalments between 1981 and 1984 with its conclusions and final recommendations compiled in a consolidated volume in 1987. Underpinning the report's detailed conclusions and recommendations is the recognition that, despite the great diversity of their cultures and systems, Indigenous peoples throughout the world have common experiences of discrimination, oppression and exploitation.

- snip -

- recognition that Indigenous peoples and nations are subjects of international law and must be included within international law processes;

- recognition of Indigenous peoples' special relationship to land and its integral link to their beliefs, customs, traditions and cultures and for efforts to be taken to maintain or restore that relationship;

- the ratification and implementation by States of international human rights treaties such as those on genocide, anti-slavery, racial discrimination, civil and political, and economic, social and cultural rights; and

- the establishment of a working group on Indigenous peoples at the United Nations under the Sub-Commission.[12]

The chairperson altered this, yet some were still against it (emphasis & underline mine).

SPEAKERS CALL FOR INCREASED INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF INDIGENOUS RIGHTS,

Recognizing that most of the world's remaining natural resources -- minerals, freshwater, potential energy sources and more -- are found within indigenous peoples' territories, the sixth annual session of the Permanent Forum has brought indigenous groups together with representatives of Governments, intergovernmental organizations and United Nations agencies to state their views, voice concerns and suggest solutions regarding their lands, territories and natural resources.

We know how that went, don't we?

It falied in the U.S.

Here is more information about it.

Since we're talking about a web of land theft and

http://indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id="1096415997

"a new kind of Indian war, I'm going to make this ending short and sweet about something more well known. I don't agree with the Chief of the Cherokee Nation in regards to the freedman, but I really don't agree with Diane Watson. Let me say why by posing a question which I believe reveals Watson's intent in light of the fact that her "proposal" has so much support, while vital issues as Indian Health Care have failed. My question is based completely upon my own speculation.

Who gets the casinos after the Cherokee lose the right to use them?
Maybe it will be the Cheyenne State of Oklahoma and the U.S. Government. Should the world end their entire relationship with the U.S. based solely on the current sitting president? Right, please sign the pledge below.

Click on: Take A Stand! Click Here!

We "will accept nothing less than the U.S. government keeping the promises made to Native Americans."

Call for Papers
The Paul Lucas Conference in History at Indiana University
“Public Spheres of History: Writing the Past and Representing the Profession”
Hosted by Indiana University History Graduate Student Association
Friday and Saturday, February 29 and March 1, 2008


Keynote Speaker: Michael Adas, Abraham E. Voorhees Professor of History

Rutgers University, New Brunswick

Saturday, March 1, Time: TBA



This year's conference explores the different spheres that historians study, while also emphasizing the multitude of publics in which history is crafted. Expanding on Jürgen Habermas's original definition of the "public sphere" as a category of analysis, historians increasingly highlight the valuable flexibility of the concept. Embracing this trend, our conference will investigate the different political, social, and cultural spheres studied and inhabited by historians. Conference participants might address wide-ranging subjects and traverse broad thematic, geographic and temporal boundaries, but some questions we hope to address include:



*What is the relationship between the private sphere and political or other larger publics?

*How does the political sphere affect or impinge on the individual? How is the personal of public significance and how does the individual affect or participate in a larger public?

*Does the changing scale of studying history affect ideas about the public? Can we speak of a transnational or global public?

*How do new technology and media impact and transform the way publics are created?

*How is history created or represented within a variety of public settings (museums, for instance), levels of education, or in the wider community?



Submissions of pre-organized panels are strongly encouraged. Individual paper submissions are also welcome and those selected will be assigned by the conference committee to a suitable panel. The panels will include three paper presentations that are each twenty minutes in length. Presentations will be followed by a brief commentary offered by a discussant. Please submit the items and information below no later than Saturday, 1 December 2007. The HGSA Conference Committee will evaluate proposals and inform participants by Saturday, 15 December 2007.



Submission Instructions:

1. names of all authors for panels (also note name of person presenting paper)

2. institutional affiliation and title/position

3. contact information: email address, postal address, telephone/fax numbers

4. title and an abstract of the paper, which is no more than 250 words - requests for any audio-visual equipment (overhead, projector, PowerPoint, etc.) must be cited in the abstract



If you would like to serve as a commentator, please submit a CV and a brief statement detailing your areas of expertise.

While the panels and keynote address will be take place on Saturday, 1 March 2008, participants are encouraged to attend organized events on Friday, 29 February 2008. These will include an additional lecture given by Michael Adas organized by the American Studies Department, a dissertation workshop for advanced IU graduate students, and a conference welcome reception held on Friday evening. This information will be provided to participants.



Submit this information *via email* as an attachment (.doc or .pdf formats preferred) to:

hgsaconf@indiana.edu, or submit a hard copy to:



The Paul Lucas Conference in History
History Department Indiana University
742 Ballantine Hall
Bloomington, IN 47405-7103
Fax: 812-855-3378

The conference is *free* to IU graduate students in any field. Non-IU students will submit a registration fee of $30 (checks payable to HGSA)

Cross-border operations became a method that Turkey often applied in the 1990s, but it is hard to tell if they were successful in general...So far, the number of major Turkish cross-border operations in the region amounts to 24. In practice, the Turkish military [has been] inside Iraqi borders since 1992. Especially in the rectangular area of Zaho, Haftanin, Duhok and Amediye, there is a heavy Turkish military presence. Turkish troops from time to time hold operations from a few kilometers to 60 kilometers deep inside the border.

The number of outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorists in northern Iraq varies between 3,000 and 5,000. Number of active PKK terrorists along the border is estimated around 2,000, 1,000 of whom are relatively better trained. The number of terrorists inside Turkey is estimated as 1,500.

After 2003 in particular, over 10 relatively large-scale armed PKK camps were formed in northern Iraq. The total number of camps is estimated at over 20. Weapons and ideological training are also provided here.

The PKK sheltered heavily in the Kandil mountain range away from the Turkish border. The closest point of these mountains is 80-90 kilometers by air, more than 100 kilometers surface distance. Considering terror camps, the distance exceeds 150 kilometers. The nearest airborne support is provided from Diyarbakır or Malatya. Which means that air support is about 456 kilometers away from the operation region. It is very difficult to lay siege on the mountain range entirely. Such an attempt requires a siege varying between 235 kilometers and 317 kilometers at distance, an area over 3,000 kilometer square meters that should be kept under control.

The valley PKK has nested in is at the height of 1,300-1,500 meters. Mountains around the valley are about 2,900 meter high. The summit peak is at 3,500 meters. [In other words], the PKK is in a way placed in a natural fortress. The dimension of this area is estimated as 13.4 X 4.6 kilometers. Zigzag passages should be taken to reach the mountain.

Presumably, the number of terrorists around the Kandil Mountain and surroundings decreased [after] discussions [of] a possible cross-border operation. However, a few hundred terrorists are deployed in well-maintained shelters in the mountain. Some experts believe this figure is about 600. The Mountain is mostly used for training purposes. Newcomers are brought here and trained for bombings and attacks. The “Mahsun Korkmaz Military Academy” and the “Haki Karer Ideological Training Academy” are situated here on the mountain.

When it comes to our “strategists” though, we see a bunch of people whose understanding of what is going on is heavily distorted by their mindset. They are nationalists, they see things through emotionally clouded lenses, their assessment of Turkey's role and power is fundamentally wrong (because they do not understand that Turkey's power comes from its being a bridge, being a democracy, from its potential to become an EU member, and its being an ally of the West and so forth) and they take it for granted, not considering that this power may increase and decrease according to the steps that Turkey takes. Their understanding of the root causes of some problems, like the Kurdish question, is far from reality.