Thank you for your dialogues and adding Phillip Deere into the circle.
Is hard and painful for me to talk about my missing and murdered relatives, and
it doesn't feel any more safe to talk about my grief in the context of the "Report".
John Trudell said “they are war like”.
Maintaining Church intercession, domination, between man and God, right and wrong,
is an intoxicating drug of Chain of Command. Necessitating,
Claim of a right of domination,
Chain of Command,
Military Legalized Systems,
Acts of Congress,
Plenary Power,
Serving Evidentiary Denialism,
Statues of Limitations,
Doctrines and Trusts,
Immunity,
pretending to be justice,
in the spoils of war,
theft,
claim of ownership,
over property, bounty, and booty,
are just ways Chain of Command's entrails
hold hostage.
"Assimilation" may be another word for forced recruitment. Pratt, a military man came up with the "Kill the Indian, save the man" educational system. School abuse before Indian Boarding schools and after is a feature not an exception. This is how they teach their children/property, to fear their god.
All of it from their planting staffs of discovery claims, to their oaths, and pledge of allegiance.
Daddy told me, he’d rather, if I ever did say a pledge of allegiance, it would be to Mother Earth. Like the gentle touch of Ancestars hands upon my cheek, my parents helped me “run away” from US schools. In all ways, Honoring the Ancestars.
How is it that people who come from across the ocean “claiming a right of domination”, steal Original Peoples children from their families, put them in institutions, treat them sadistically, and murder them - and - Americans still think there's a difference between their arrival & now, a difference between their “educational”, courts, and policing systems, with racial profiling, family separation and putting children and families in detention prisons?
There is a long trail of death in their chain of command.
“They can’t see us as human beings. But they can’t see themselves as human beings. The invisibility is at every level, it’s not just that we’re tucked away out of sight. We’re the evidence of the crime. They can’t deal with the reality of who we are because then they have to deal with the reality of what they have done. If they deal with the reality of who we are, they have to deal with the reality of who they aren’t. So they have to fear us, not recognize us, not like us.” John Trudell
Hi Peter, Thank you for posting the Philip Deere Interview. I will continue to disseminate your work. I have sent out emails and multiple copies of your book and Steve's. Some of my emails to you are getting blocked, so I'll hold off on those.
I had wanted to move to the Pioneer Valley but I missed my window of opportunity.
My friend Dr. David Walker has published an entire book, Coyote's Swing: A Memoir and Critique of Mental Hygiene in Native America (University of Washington Press, 2022), regarding the question you are raising here. "Incompetent" was and still is an official label for traditional Indians within the federal system of Indian affairs. And you also have examples such as the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians in Canton, South Dakota which Dave Walker examines in detail. It's heart wrenching information, and further evidence of the domination system and the claim of a right of domination. His book is amazing! Take care, and thanks for reaching out.
You guys covered and provided some great information but considering how much Steven has done to teach us all about genocide I am surprised that it wasn’t specifically mentioned that these “schools” and the policy in general quite literally check all five boxes for what is laid out in the international definition of genocide. And the irony here is that “genocide” was essentially just defined independent of this policy. I don’t believe WE were in any way at the center of consciousness to those developing this concept and defining the crime.
And while I agree there are huge holes in any assessment of the “cost” of these schools especially since the report only assesses the cost to the U.S. treasury and none to us. But there is also a complete absence of any assessment and assignment of the redress to the injury done to our people. There are well established metrics for the punitive damages to be determined. Pharmaceutical companies, chemical companies, oil companies and any number of parties responsible for harm to people and lands have had some level of financial penalties assigned to them. And the most obvious example is the settlement authorized against the Catholic Church for sex abuse claims. Those settlements average between $200,000 and $300,000 per surviving claimant. And I dare say these abuses pale by comparison to what 150 of this genocidal policy did to our people.
My final concern is the gross under counting of deaths, abuse and even the children taken into custody involved in these reports and what has to be an intentional decision to do so.
I also must add that the Trust Doctrine was in no doubt the rationale for this policy, but the authority to implement it was under the Plenary Powers Doctrine. You both have pointed that out in the oral arguments associated with the ICWA case and Sam Alito’s questioning of Solicitor General Needler. Alito specifically asked Needler if the Plenary Powers granted the authority to perpetrate this harm.
Thanks to both of you for the great discussion. This makes me suspect there is some connection between the Indian boarding school system and the institutionalization of people with developmental disabilities (mid 19th c to mid 20th c, but actually still ongoing). The aims were different (assimilation in the former case, segregation in the latter), but the methods seem to echo one another somewhat. I wonder, was the language of hygiene or health (I suppose as applied culturally in the case of native folks) used in the building and design of the boarding school system?
Thank you for your dialogues and adding Phillip Deere into the circle.
Is hard and painful for me to talk about my missing and murdered relatives, and
it doesn't feel any more safe to talk about my grief in the context of the "Report".
John Trudell said “they are war like”.
Maintaining Church intercession, domination, between man and God, right and wrong,
is an intoxicating drug of Chain of Command. Necessitating,
Claim of a right of domination,
Chain of Command,
Military Legalized Systems,
Acts of Congress,
Plenary Power,
Serving Evidentiary Denialism,
Statues of Limitations,
Doctrines and Trusts,
Immunity,
pretending to be justice,
in the spoils of war,
theft,
claim of ownership,
over property, bounty, and booty,
are just ways Chain of Command's entrails
hold hostage.
"Assimilation" may be another word for forced recruitment. Pratt, a military man came up with the "Kill the Indian, save the man" educational system. School abuse before Indian Boarding schools and after is a feature not an exception. This is how they teach their children/property, to fear their god.
All of it from their planting staffs of discovery claims, to their oaths, and pledge of allegiance.
Daddy told me, he’d rather, if I ever did say a pledge of allegiance, it would be to Mother Earth. Like the gentle touch of Ancestars hands upon my cheek, my parents helped me “run away” from US schools. In all ways, Honoring the Ancestars.
How is it that people who come from across the ocean “claiming a right of domination”, steal Original Peoples children from their families, put them in institutions, treat them sadistically, and murder them - and - Americans still think there's a difference between their arrival & now, a difference between their “educational”, courts, and policing systems, with racial profiling, family separation and putting children and families in detention prisons?
There is a long trail of death in their chain of command.
“They can’t see us as human beings. But they can’t see themselves as human beings. The invisibility is at every level, it’s not just that we’re tucked away out of sight. We’re the evidence of the crime. They can’t deal with the reality of who we are because then they have to deal with the reality of what they have done. If they deal with the reality of who we are, they have to deal with the reality of who they aren’t. So they have to fear us, not recognize us, not like us.” John Trudell
interesting that "chain" is also a land survey term: "chaining the land" = marking it for "property"
Our Spirits Don't Understand English. Short Video Interview with Andrew Windy Boy. Boarding school victim
https://youtu.be/qDshQTBh5d4?si=T3RJfEFxbFMfPKZB
I had seen this before... but powerful again... thanks...
Hi Peter, Thank you for posting the Philip Deere Interview. I will continue to disseminate your work. I have sent out emails and multiple copies of your book and Steve's. Some of my emails to you are getting blocked, so I'll hold off on those.
I had wanted to move to the Pioneer Valley but I missed my window of opportunity.
thanks for all you do! ... nothing on my end to block your emails...
Wonderful work! Shared at American Indian Adoptees website: https://blog.americanindianadoptees.com/
Greetings W. D. James,
My friend Dr. David Walker has published an entire book, Coyote's Swing: A Memoir and Critique of Mental Hygiene in Native America (University of Washington Press, 2022), regarding the question you are raising here. "Incompetent" was and still is an official label for traditional Indians within the federal system of Indian affairs. And you also have examples such as the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians in Canton, South Dakota which Dave Walker examines in detail. It's heart wrenching information, and further evidence of the domination system and the claim of a right of domination. His book is amazing! Take care, and thanks for reaching out.
~sn~
You guys covered and provided some great information but considering how much Steven has done to teach us all about genocide I am surprised that it wasn’t specifically mentioned that these “schools” and the policy in general quite literally check all five boxes for what is laid out in the international definition of genocide. And the irony here is that “genocide” was essentially just defined independent of this policy. I don’t believe WE were in any way at the center of consciousness to those developing this concept and defining the crime.
And while I agree there are huge holes in any assessment of the “cost” of these schools especially since the report only assesses the cost to the U.S. treasury and none to us. But there is also a complete absence of any assessment and assignment of the redress to the injury done to our people. There are well established metrics for the punitive damages to be determined. Pharmaceutical companies, chemical companies, oil companies and any number of parties responsible for harm to people and lands have had some level of financial penalties assigned to them. And the most obvious example is the settlement authorized against the Catholic Church for sex abuse claims. Those settlements average between $200,000 and $300,000 per surviving claimant. And I dare say these abuses pale by comparison to what 150 of this genocidal policy did to our people.
My final concern is the gross under counting of deaths, abuse and even the children taken into custody involved in these reports and what has to be an intentional decision to do so.
I also must add that the Trust Doctrine was in no doubt the rationale for this policy, but the authority to implement it was under the Plenary Powers Doctrine. You both have pointed that out in the oral arguments associated with the ICWA case and Sam Alito’s questioning of Solicitor General Needler. Alito specifically asked Needler if the Plenary Powers granted the authority to perpetrate this harm.
Thanks to both of you for the great discussion. This makes me suspect there is some connection between the Indian boarding school system and the institutionalization of people with developmental disabilities (mid 19th c to mid 20th c, but actually still ongoing). The aims were different (assimilation in the former case, segregation in the latter), but the methods seem to echo one another somewhat. I wonder, was the language of hygiene or health (I suppose as applied culturally in the case of native folks) used in the building and design of the boarding school system?
yes... ironically, given the horrendous conditions in the 'schools', the rhetoric included notions that 'savage' life was 'unclean'...