Custer Custer the hero.

[E_just_E]

In any event they were a people we were bound and determined to conquer by one means or another.

Conquer? Who are you talking about? They just wanted to be in the lands that they and their ancestors grew and lived over and over generations. Someone else was the conqueror & intruder and wanted to expel them from their ancestral lands.

 

[Irishtom29]

Somewhat odd if one accepts your premise the Indians were friendly at Sand Creek, and hostile and armed at Washita, that twice as many were killed at Washita with actually less of a loss of soldiers....................yet you consider Sand Creek indeed a massacre, and somehow Washita a fair fight?

So the Indians at Sand Creek were hostile and those at the Washita weren't?

What's a fair fight?

 

[E_just_E]

So the Indians at Sand Creek were hostile and those at the Washita weren't?

The word hostile back then was used to describe bands of natives who did not accept treaties signed by the titular heads of their Nation designated by the US government, but not ratified by all members or the leaders of all tribes of a certain Nation.

It does not mean a group of people likely to attack someone, as the modern definition. It means a group of people who do not recognize treaties that gave their ancestral lands away and they are not willing to move from them.

Semantics, but really important.

 

[Irishtom29]

Conquer? Who are you talking about? They just wanted to be in the lands that they and their ancestors grew and lived over and over generations. Someone else was the conqueror & intruder and wanted to expel them from their ancestral lands.

"We" means the Americans, "they" means the Cheyenne. Whom we conquered.

As I understand it the Cheyenne had been expelled from the Great Lakes country in the 1700s and were relative newcomers to the southern plains. Given the migrations on the plains caused by domino effects of Iroquois and Chippewa aggression in the Great Lakes country I doubt many peoples on the plains had been there over and over generations in a given area except for the farming peoples. Then add the eastern Indians sent west by the Americans to the mix, some of whom pushed on to the plains to hunt and fought with the Indians already there and the result was quite a stew.

 

[E_just_E]

"We" means the Americans, "they" means the Cheyenne. Whom we conquered..

I suspect that the Cheyenne (and the other native Nations) might have just a very tiny bit of a claim to the "Americans" name...

Conquer? Google: genocide. More like it.

 

[Irishtom29]

I suspect that the Cheyenne (and the other native Nations) might have just a very tiny bit of a claim to the "Americans" name...

Conquer? Google: genocide. More like it.

When referring to conflicts between the United States and American Indians it's common to refer to the citizens and forces of the United States as "Americans", especially as during the time of conflict Indians weren't citizens of the United States. The Indians themselves often referred to the Americans as the Americans; many having an understanding there was a difference between Americans, British, Mexicans, French, Spanish, Texans, Dutch and so on.

I take genocide to mean the deliberate extermination of an ethnicity or race. This wasn't the policy of the United States which was content to stop killing Indians once they submitted. There are broader meanings of genocide which water the original meaning down, as I understand the meaning, and take away the sting of the word through doing so.

Since you evidently disapprove of the manner in which the Americans took Indian lands I wonder in there's a manner in which we could've taken their lands that you'd approve of. I know the British took Indian lands in Canada with less violence but I don't know how they managed that.

 

[E_just_E]

Since you evidently disapprove of the manner in which the Americans took Indian lands I wonder in there's a manner in which we could've taken their lands that you'd approve of. I know the British took Indian lands in Canada with less violence but I don't know how they managed that.

Not a matter of approval or disapproval. I have no influence on matters that happened. Just a matter of criticism.

Killing people who really cannot defend themselves and kicking them away from their lands, taking away their means of subsistence, and forcing them away to arid, foreign designated places, and kill the ones who do not want to do so, is not admirable or heroic, any way you cut it.

Your premise is that "taking Indian lands" was okay. I disagree with that. Taking something that does not belong to you by force, is not "okay".

 

[major bill]

For over 100 years books and movies showed Custer as a hero. In the last 40-50 most so much so. Is this an example of revisionist history?

The facts were no different in the 1880s or 1950s than they are today. Recent historians have revised how the facts are discussed and the conclusion based on the facts. So are historians rewriting history or changing history?

 

[E_just_E]

For over 100 years books and movies showed Custer as a hero. In the last 40-50 most so much so. Is this an example of revisionist history?

The facts were no different in the 1880s or 1950s than they are today. Recent historians have revised how the facts are discussed and the conclusion based on the facts. So are historians rewriting history or changing history?

Nope. The collective understanding of human rights and civil rights brought up a general outcry for the treatment of Native Americans, as well as of African Americans in the 19th century.

That's the difference. Perspective. Back then "Indians" and "Blacks" were not equal to the white Americans.

 

[archieclement]

For over 100 years books and movies showed Custer as a hero. In the last 40-50 most so much so. Is this an example of revisionist history?

History is always being revised because of new research and changing values. Obviously when the lost cause was popular, confederates were idolized as heros, Today because of the way blacks were treated then, we have different views........

Obviously when we thought killing, mistreating and robbing Indians was acceptable, the indian fighters were idolized as heroes......one likes to think today we have come to realize mistreatment of the Indians was no better then the mistreatment of blacks.

So the Indians at Sand Creek were hostile and those at the Washita weren't?

What's a fair fight?

???? your the one who said you couldn't compare the two, Sand Creek they generally were accepted as friendly and it as a massacre.......your the one based the comparision as unfair as they weren't friendly at the Washita

Fact is twice as many Indians were killed at Washita then Sand Creek, at less loss of life to the troopers........personally don't see how anyone couldn't consider both massacres...........

pretty sure if the Indians had wiped out a town of 300 including numbers of women and children at a loss of 20 Indians, it would have been widely reported as a massacre.......

 

[FZ11]

"Custer, Terry, Gibbon, and all the rest of their officers had no way of knowing the size of the Sioux-Cheyenne encampment"

Terry and Gibbon didn't.........Custer's scouts pretty much warned him how big it was.................He may have chose to ignore the intelligence he had, which turned out indeed accurate, but he had for days been warned the size and number of the trails indicated perhaps caution would have been called for........

No. Custer was picked by Terry because Custer was not cautious. Custer's job was to catch up with the Indians which he did. Gibbon,Terry,and Custer are trying to catch the Indians. They think the Indians are more likely to run than to fight. That was the thinking at the time. Some scouts recommended an immediate attack because the scouts were paid by getting to keep all the ponies they could capture and they didn't want all those ponies to get away! Now you know why all those scouts rode with Reno's advance.

 

[archieclement]

and not following his intelligence and exercising caution, got him and his command killed, not exactly a good job......obviously at some point, and I would think getting yourself and your command killed would be that point.....its reasonable to question his judgement in not following the intelligence he had that would have called for caution......

pressing them would be one thing, dividing an already heavily outnumbered command, or not waiting for Benteen to come up obviously was foolhardy based on the outcome. In reality he had options, he choose the worst possible one........

 

[Rio Bravo]

My understanding is that Custer didn't carry out any reconnaissance, and didn't bother to identify the village.
He did not attempt to identify which group of Cheyenne were in the village, and furthermore the village was on Reservation soil, where the Commander of Fort Cobb had guaranteed them safety. The Cheyenne were even flying a white flag, indicating that the tribe was actively avoiding conflict..........thereby proving that they were "friendly" !

 

[Irishtom29]

Your premise is that "taking Indian lands" was okay. I disagree with that. Taking something that does not belong to you by force, is not "okay".

OK. But we don't have a historical reset button. Here we are and here we stay. Even if the conquest of the natives as wrong nobody is going to make it right.

 

[archieclement]

My understanding is that Custer didn't carry out any reconnaissance, and didn't bother to identify the village.
He did not attempt to identify which group of Cheyenne were in the village, and furthermore the village was on Reservation soil, where the Commander of Fort Cobb had guaranteed them safety. The Cheyenne were even flying a white flag, indicating that the tribe was actively avoiding conflict..........thereby proving that they were "friendly" !

The indian bureau described the event as a "massacre of innocent Indians", and humanitarian groups denounced it as "cold-blooded butchery".

Certainly considering the Washita battle as a massacre isn't revisionist, it was debated as such at the time.

 

[archieclement]

OK. But we don't have a historical reset button. Here we are and here we stay. Even if the conquest of the natives as wrong nobody is going to make it right.

Agree there no reset button and what's done is done.......but not sure why one would then want to celebrate the ones who did it as "heroes" if it was wrong...........

 

[2nd Dragoon]

The following from page 102 of Peter Cozzens; "The Earth is Weeping"

Although the officers of the Seventh Cavalry were bitterly divided over Custer's handling of Elliott's disappearance, they did agree on one thing: the desirability of their female Cheyenne captives. While the Osages held a boisterous scalp dance within view of the terrified women the night after the battle (of Washita), Cheyenne survivors said Custer and his officers appeared among them to select bedmates. Custer, the captives said,. chose the beautiful nineteen-year-old Monahsetah, daughter of Chief Little Rock, killed with his friend Black Kettle. As other Cheyenne drifted in to surrender, the officers of the Seventh Cavalry picked out more sexual partners. The Cheyenne accounts are plausible. Custer's unbridled sexual appetite was well established, and a company commander ** boasted in a letter to his brother that the officers had ninety Cheyenne females from which to choose; "some of them," he added, "are very pretty." As for himself, "I have one that is quite intelligent. It is usual for officers to have two or three lounging around."

** Captain Miles Keogh Quoted in Hutton, Sheridan and His Army, 389-90; Powell, People of the Sacred Mountain, 2:696.

Why anyone would consider Custer as a hero after the Civil War is beyond me. In MHO LBH was a well deserved defeat that can be laid at the feet of Custer. Never like him and in a real and just world he should have been thrown out of West Point.

The more I read "The Earth is Weeping" the more I see that both sides are to blame. But I put the bigger blame on the United States government and especially the corrupt government officials who were telling the Indian tribes one thing and then telling their bosses in Washington D.C. something else.

IMHO I think the book was well researched and written. Also judging someone's character and actions of the 1800's by the ever changing political and ethical standards of today is rather difficult.

 

[chucksr]

"... judging someone's character and actions of the 1800's by the ever changing political and ethical standards of today is rather difficult."

Shouldn't be, we know what Custer's performance was during the Civil War and we know what his actions were following that conflict. We know from published news reports what public opinion was concerning Custer after Little Bighorn, we have statements, memoirs, lithographs, story after story so it is possible to properly position Custer relative to late 19th century mores.
Now if you are seeking to resurrect Custer using 21st Century mores you will and should be frustrated. The opening of the West for settlement, commercial investment, and the railroads was the biggest challenge America faced after the Civil War and Custer and his story is front and center in that challenge but "fairness" wasn't part of the thinking in undertaking the pacification of hostile elements in those vast territories. So, just put Custer in the proper frame and view him within those parameters and difficulty goes away.

 

[Irishtom29]

Agree there no reset button and what's done is done.......but not sure why one would then want to celebrate the ones who did it as "heroes" if it was wrong...........

#1--Custer was a hero going by the same definition that Achilles, Hector and Diomedes were heroes. Right or wrong has nothing to do with it; just courage and prowess in battle.

#2--When I benefit from a person's actions I will at least refrain from bumrapping them: I'd feel ungrateful at best and hypocritical at worst. It's a tricky thing--how does one reconcile believing something is wrong while willingly benefitting from it?

 

[archieclement]

#1--Custer was a hero going by the same definition that Achilles, Hector and Diomedes were heroes. Right or wrong has nothing to do with it; just courage and prowess in battle.

#2--When I benefit from a person's actions I will at least refrain from bumrapping them: I'd feel ungrateful at best and hypocritical at worst. It's a tricky thing--how does one reconcile evil with benefitting from it?

#1 assume everyone has their own definition, I tend to more view rescuing women and children as heroic then slaying them. I used to feel the same about confederate figures and still do somewhat, but have at least became more open to the position of others that you cant completely separate military prowess from what they used that prowess to support.

#2 I think I do too, however I don't feel I benefited at all from slaying of women and children at Washita, must be the American Indian in me