Sound Bites -- Provocative excerpts from primary and secondary sources (some with audio commentary)
181-190 of 333 Sound Bites. [show all]
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181) Brothers: We never made any agreement with the King nor with any other nation, that we would give to either the exclusive right of purchasing our lands; and we declare to you, that we consider ourselves free to make any bargain or cession of lands, whenever and to whomever we please. If the white people, as you say, made a treaty that none of them but the King should purchase of us, and that he has given that right to the United States, it is an affair which concerns you and him, and not us; we have never parted with such a power. (answer made by an unidentified Indian leader to the Commissioners, Aug. 16, 1793, recorded in American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States. DC: Gales & Seaton, 1834, qtd. in Eric Kades, "The Dark Side of Efficiency: Johnson v. M'Intosh and the Expropriation of American Indian Lands." U. of PA Law Review 148.1065 [April 2000]: 1065-1190. Lexis-Nexis. 23 Sep. 03. )
182) The moral responsibility of the European nations and later Euro-Americans to bring the gospel and European civilization to the natives has not radically changed since the 1500s either. . . . More often this idea has served as a justification for policies (e.g., Indian removal, allotment and assimilation, termination) that are actually in the best interests of the political and economic forces of the United States, so that the responsibility of the nation to educate, convert, and elevate the Indians socially, economically, and spiritually has been the cloak that hides a multitude of sins. (Vine Deloria, Jr., & David E. Wilkins. Tribes, Treaties, & Constitutional Tribulations. Austin: U of Texas P, 1999: 7. )
183) Historians of the twentieth century have expressed varied opinions regarding the importance of and sincerity of the missionary motive in Elizabethan and Jacobean overseas expansion. Most have regarded it as of lesser importance or as a mere cliché. (Loren Pennington, "The Amerindian in English Promotional Literature." The Westward Enterprise: English Activities in Ireland, the Atlantic, and America 1480-1650. Ed. K. R. Andrews, N. P. Canny, and P. E. H. Hair. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 1978: 175. )
184) Sir, as we trace the sources of this law [of nations], we find its authority to depend either upon the conventions or common consent of nations. And when, permit me to inquire, were the Indian tribes ever consulted on the establishment of such a law? Whoever represented them or their interests in any congress of nations, to confer upon the public rules of intercourse, and the proper foundations of dominion and property? The plain matter of fact is, that all these partial doctrines have resulted from the selfish plans and pursuits of more enlightened nations; and it is not matter for any great wonder, that they should so largely partake of a mercenary and exclusive spirit toward the claims of Indians. (from speech of Sen. Theodore Frelinghuyson of New Jersey, presented to the Senate April 9, 1830, during debate of Georgia's Indian Removal Act. Rpt. in Documents of United States Indian Policy. 3rd. ed. Ed. Francis Paul Prucha. U of Nebraska P, 2000: 49. )
185)
The actual Laws of Burgos, the legislative code promulgated on the basis of the council's seven propositions, reflected a Eurocentrically determined vision of Indian normative divergence requiring the natives' subjugation and remediation, by peaceful means where possible but by forceful means if necessary. As one section of the Burgos code declared:
Should the natives attempt to oppose the settlement [of a colony], they shall be given to understand that the intention in forming it, is to teach them to know God and his holy law, by which they are to be saved; to preserve friendship with them, and teach them to live in a civilized state. . . . They shall be convinced of this by mild means, through the interference of religion and priests, . . . and if, notwithstanding, they do withhold their consent, the settlers . . . shall proceed to make their settlement . . . without doing them any greater damage than shall be necessary. The code regulated nearly every aspect of Indian group life. Indian tribal culture was formally relegated to a deficient, diminished, legal status, to be reshaped according to Christian European ethical, political, and social norms. Total assimilation of the Indian to the European's truth became the official colonial policy of the Spanish Crown.
(Robert A. Williams, Jr., The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest. New York: Oxford UP, 1990: 87-88. )186) Whatever the ultimate normative conclusion, the entire process of expropriating America is a stunning example of Hirschleifer's muscular economics -- the "dark side" of efficiency. (Eric Kades, "The Dark Side of Efficiency: Johnson v. M'Intosh and the Expropriation of American Indian Lands." U of PA Law Review 148.1065 [April 2000]: 1065-1190. Lexis-Nexis. 23 Sep. 03. )
187) When therefore this noble enterprise, by the rules of Religion is expressly iustified; when the passages by Sea are all open and discouered, when the climate is so fruitfully tempered; when the naturall riches of the soile are so powerfully confirmed: will any man so much betray his owne inconsiderate ignorance, and bewray his rashnesse; that when the same Sunne shineth, he should not haue the same eies to beholde it; when the same hope remaines, he should not haue the same heart to apprehend it? At the voyage of Sir Thomas Gates, what swarmes of people desired to be transported? what alacrity and cheerefulnesse in the Aduenturers by free wil offerings, to build vp this new Tabernacle? ( A True Declaration of the Estate in Virginia, 1610 )
188) We passed toward the place where they were left in sundry houses, but we found the houses taken downe, and the place very strongly enclosed with a high palisado of great trees, with cortynes and flankers very Fort-like, and one of the chiefe trees or posts at the right side of the entrance had the bark taken off, and 5 foote from the ground in fayre Capitall letters was the graven CROATOAN without any crosse or signe of distresse. (John White on his attempt to find the 1587 Roanoke colonists: David B. Quinn, ed., New American World: A Documentary History of North America to 1612. Vol. 3. New York: Hector Bye, 1979. )
189) [W]e ask and require that you . . . acknowledge the Church as the ruler and superior of the whole world and the high priest called Pope and in his name the king and queen . . . our lords, in his place, as superiors and lords and kings of these islands and this mainland . . . , and that you consent and permit that these religious fathers declare and preach to you . . . . [I]f you do not do this or if you maliciously delay in doing it, I certify to you that with the help of God we shall forcefully enter into your country and shall make war against you in all ways and manners that we can, and shall submit you to the yoke and obedience of the Church and of their highnesses . . . , and we shall take away your goods and shall do to you all the harm and damage that we can, . . . and we protest that the deaths and losses that shall accrue from this are your fault. (the Requerimiento, 1513. New Iberian World: A Documentary History of the Discovery and Settlement of Latin America to the Early 17th Century. Vol. I. Eds. John H. Parry and Robert G. Keith. New York: Times Books, 1984. )
190) So that none could come into his [Humphrey Gilbert's] tent for any cause [but] commonly he must pass through a lane of heads which he used ad terrorem . . . and yet did it bring great terror to the people when they saw the heads of their dead fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolk and friends, lie on the ground before their faces, as they came to speak with the said colonel. (Thomas Churchyard, A General Rehearsal of Wars, 1579, qtd. in Robert A. Williams, Jr., The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest. New York: Oxford UP, 1990: 151. )
