Jun 15, 2012 -- 3:34PM, wohali wrote:

Mytmouse, you are correct, the Plains People definitely gave a good accounting of themselves.

I believe Red Cloud was the first to actually defeat the United States Army, but I could be wrong on that.

Indians have participated in every conflict the United States has engaged in. Sometimes on both sides: the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Red Stick War, the Civil War, the Plains Wars, the Apache Wars. General Grant's adujant who wrote the first surrender terms was a Seneca indian named Ely Parker, while the last Confederate gengeral to lay down arms was Stand Watie, the leader of the First Cherokee Mounted Rifles.

Indeed, history isn't simple or clean. 

P.S., did you know that the original Code Talkers served in World War 1? They were Choctaw.

I had no idea there were Code Talkers in WWI. Thanks for sharing that.

To my knowledge, Natives are, per capita, the most decorated ethnic group in the military. 

I didn't know that there were code talkers in World War I, either.  And there was something else I didn't know, which was that, according to this link, there were 10,000 Native Americans serving in WWI.

www.choctawnation.com/history/people/cod...

(Are they referred to as Native Americans these days, or American Indians?  I've never been sure.  From what I've read, there is nothing wrong with calling an ethnic group Indians.)

When I looked at Wiki, I found that 44,000 Native Americans served in WWII.  Another site (calling them American Indians) stated that no group made a greater per capita contribution.

www.defense.gov/specials/nativeamerican0...

And seven of them won the Medal of Honor in WWII.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Native_Ame...

Jun 15, 2012 -- 12:09PM, mytmouse57 wrote:

No need to get defensive. I was just pointing out, there's a somewhat popular, simplified narrative that likes to act as if it was all sunshine and flowers here until the bad people -- Euro-Christians -- showed up and ruined everything....

The problem is that you got it wrong. You're reading the history as written by the victor. That is always slanted in a way to make them look better. The native cultures were no more violent than any other White culture, and in many cases more peaceful.

An example would be that scalping bit. It was taught to some of the East Coast societies by the French. They'd pay money - or guns - for scalps from nations not in line with the French.

Sure, they had wars, fights, over hunting grounds and such, but they "counted coup" by TOUCHING the opposing warrior. They didn't want to kill them because they knew that that guy had a wife and kids depending on him at home. It wasn't until the aggressive, violent, White invaders came and upset their cultures did the natives become violent.

Jun 16, 2012 -- 1:34PM, mainecaptain wrote:

Too many have fallen for the Movie version of Native Americans, The savages that had to be killed, except it was nothing like the movies.

Just who were the savages? Those women and children massacred at Wounded Knee? Or the 4000 that died on the Trail of Tears?

Or those that killed them without mercy?

In 1868 Custer and the 7^th Cavalry massacred Cheyenne , women, children and elderly at Washita creek in Indian Territory ( Present day Oklahoma)

In 1868 The Colorado Militia massacred women and children and destroyed a  village at Sand Creek Colorado  Territory.

The Cheyenne joined with the Sioux at Little bighorn to attack Custer .   Retaliation for Sand creek may have been part of the motive

 America may have and have had a large Christian population but certainly not followers of Jesus.  Modern American Christianity is more political and piety than disciples of Jesus’ teachings .