John Ross vs. the 1835 Treaty of New Echota (from “Well, OK Then…”)

November 22, 2018June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

NOTE: I’m revising and reorganizing much of the content from “Well, OK Then” as part of an overall effort to ‘clean up’ this site. This post is one of those newer, better versions of something previously shared.

Chief John Ross was a “mixed-blood” Cherokee who nevertheless became the best-known and arguably the most effective tribal leader of his generation. His supporters tended to lean traditional – they were conservative, and old-school – wanting little or no contact with whites and uninterested in their version of “progress.”

Because he would not agree to voluntary removal, the U.S. found others in the tribe who would. They plied them with land and money and the argument that this was going to happen one way or the other – so they might as well make it as painless as possible. The signers of the Treaty of New Echota (1835) violated the most sacred of Cherokee laws while lacking the status to even speak for the tribe to begin with.

Ross was not impressed, and wrote this to Congress on September 28th, 1836:

It is well known that for a number of years past we have been harassed by a series of vexations, which it is deemed unnecessary to recite in detail, but the evidence of which our delegation will be prepared to furnish…
{A} contract was made by the Rev. John F. Schermerhorn, and certain individual Cherokees, purporting to be a “treaty, concluded at New Echota, in the State of Georgia, on the 29th day of December, 1835, by {U.S. Commissioners} and the chiefs, headmen, and people of the Cherokee tribes of Indians.” A spurious Delegation, in violation of a special injunction of the general council of the nation, proceeded to Washington City with this pretended treaty, and by false and fraudulent representations supplanted in the favor of the Government the legal and accredited Delegation of the Cherokee people, and obtained for this instrument, after making important alterations in its provisions, the recognition of the United States Government.
And now it is presented to us as a treaty, ratified by the Senate, and approved by the President, and our acquiescence in its requirements demanded, under the sanction of the displeasure of the United States, and the threat of summary compulsion, in case of refusal…

Chief Ross knew his facts and his audience. He wastes little energy on extraneous issues or the details of past problems. He goes straight to what is essentially contract law – and accuses the U.S. of making a fraudulent deal. Abusing Indians might not have been all that un-American, but bogus contracts were certainly close.

By the stipulations of this instrument, we are despoiled of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals. We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defence. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We are denationalized; we are disfranchised.

Ross doesn’t talk about the land, or his people’s culture, etc. He doesn’t badmouth the individuals who signed the Treaty of New Echota, beyond indicating they had no right to do so.

He instead highlights elements of the situation which were more likely to resonate with his audience. After establishing the invalidity of the treaty, he argues that it violates their property rights. Few things were more sacred to real Americans. John Locke argued that protection of property – which he defined as “life, liberty, and estate” – was the sole function of government. Jefferson replaced “estate” with “pursuit of happiness,” but lest there be any confusion, the Fifth Amendment specifically defends “life, liberty, and property” from government intrusion without “due process.”

Which this, clearly, was not.

Ross then throws in freedom (liberty), the right to defend yourself before the law, and personal safety. Those are the big three – life, liberty, and your stuff. They’re held together by the underlying assumption that such “natural rights” are every man’s refuge in a nation built on such ideals.

It’s a brilliant approach. He has facts and reasoning on his side. Unfortunately, facts and reasoning weren’t going to decide this issue – the results were determined before he’d even bought his ticket. The U.S. was concerned only with rhetorical cover at this point. The Treaty gave them that – they knew damn well it wasn’t legitimate… they just didn’t care.

Ross does speak to the ethical abhorrence of the situation, albeit briefly:

We are deprived of membership in the human family! We have neither land nor home, nor resting place that can be called our own. And this is effected by the provisions of a compact which assumes the venerated, the sacred appellation of treaty.
We are overwhelmed! Our hearts are sickened, our utterance is paralized, when we reflect on the condition in which we are placed, by the audacious practices of unprincipled men, who have managed their stratagems with so much dexterity as to impose on the Government of the United States, in the face of our earnest, solemn, and reiterated protestations.

Then, like a good five-paragraph essay, he repeats his main point by way of conclusion.

The instrument in question is not the act of our Nation; we are not parties to its covenants; it has not received the sanction of our people. The makers of it sustain no office nor appointment in our Nation, under the designation of Chiefs, Head men, or any other title, by which they hold, or could acquire, authority to assume the reins of Government, and to make bargain and sale of our rights, our possessions, and our common country.
And we are constrained solemnly to declare, that we cannot but contemplate the enforcement of the stipulations of this instrument on us, against our consent, as an act of injustice and oppression, which, we are well persuaded, can never knowingly be countenanced by the Government and people of the United States…
{We} appeal with confidence to the justice, the magnanimity, the compassion, of your honorable bodies, against the enforcement, on us, of the provisions of a compact, in the formation of which we have had no agency.

It’s almost like he thinks governmental power is derived through the consent of the governed. “No removal without representation!”

Not really very catchy, I guess.

Ross’s complaints would fall on deaf ears. The powers-that-be had already undermined Cherokee sovereignty via two Supreme Court cases. In the first one, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), the Court refused to hear the actual case – a complaint by the Cherokee that the State of Georgia kept passing laws which infringed on their guaranteed sovereignty within their own boundaries. The Court determined that the Cherokee certainly weren’t American citizens, but neither were they exactly a sovereign nation – at least not any more. Their relationship with the U.S. was like that of a “ward to its guardian.”

In other words, they were Dick Grayson to America’s Bruce Wayne. And they would never turn 18 in the eyes of the law.

The second case was brought by a white guy – a missionary to the Cherokee by the name of Samuel Worcester. Georgia had passed a law requiring non-Cherokee to get permission from the state before going onto Cherokee land – without bothering to include the Cherokee in the process. Worcester ignored the prohibition and kept doing his thing, and was arrested and jailed. In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the Supreme Court declared that only the federal government could deal with the tribes – Georgia couldn’t do that.

The decision was considered a victory for the Cherokee, but it didn’t really change anything. President Jackson is often quoted as having said “Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!” There’s no record of such as statement, but it was certainly consistent with Jackson’s general attitude towards the Court, the Natives, and anyone else who disagreed with him about anything ever.

The Court’s decision did not, in any case, shape or limit anything Jackson or Congress chose to do in relation to the Tribes thereafter. That the other two branches could ignore such a decision with impunity was a pretty clear indication of the status of a bunch of “savages” vs. the segment of “all men” actually represented.

So it’s 1836 and the Treaty of New Echota has been signed, by influential Cherokee if not by those actually authorized to do so. Stand Watie, Major Ridge (it’s a first name, not a title or rank), Elias Boudinot, and others, led nearly 10,000 of their countrymen to Indian Territory.

This was NOT the “Trail of Tears.” This was the “voluntary” part, more or less. It was several years before the remaining Cherokee were rounded up by force and driven to join their people far to the west. The suffering on this journey is well-documented and not one of the prouder moments in U.S. History.

The later arrivals, after so many months of death and suffering, were not particularly happy to see their earlier counterparts, already established in what would later be known as “Oklahoma.” The signing away of their lands wasn’t received much differently than if they’d offered up a few hundred of their virgin daughters for debauchery and eventual beheading. It was not only wrong, it was specifically against Cherokee law and carried the strongest possible consequences.

Several of the leaders of the “Treaty Party,” whose names had validated the removal treaty, were assassinated on the same night, not long after the remaining Cherokee arrived. It’s assumed that John Ross was behind this, or at the very least was aware of it before it happened, but no one knows for sure.

Whatever the justice or injustice of this decision, it isn’t the sort of thing that smooths transitions or promotes unity. The tensions weren’t new – full-bloods already tended to be pretty conservative while mixed-bloods were far more receptive to change and some elements of white culture – but this didn’t help. These same divisions will reappear in less than a generation when the white guys start dragging the Five Civilized Tribes into their “Civil War.”

It’s worth noting that the time period between Indian Removal in the 1830s and the start of the Civil War in 1861 is considered something of a “Golden Age” for the Five Civilized Tribes. This might be partly a sort of historical “spin” to offset white guilt over removal, but it’s not without merit.

The Tribes had brought their Black slaves with them to Indian Territory. The story of slavery among the Five Civilized Tribes is a whole other tale, but the short version is that by and large, slavery among the Tribes was far less onerous than that practiced by white southerners. Slavery is still slavery, of course, but it generally lacked the malice and violence brought to mind when discussing early American history.

For a quarter of a century, then, the ‘Red Man’ and the ‘Black Man’ lived in relative peace and quiet in Indian Territory. They rebuilt their governments, their schools, their presses, their churches, and their lives. They learned to adapt to the realities of this new territory and enjoyed a rare generation free of white interference.

Until that war thing, at least. Once that started, it was all pretty much downhill for the Cherokee and every other “civilized” tribe. For good.

This Land Is Whose Land? (From “Well, OK Then…”)

November 22, 2018June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

The first European nation to lay claim to what is now Oklahoma was Spain, via wanderings sent forth from New Spain – what today is Mexico.

Other than periodic expeditions hoping perhaps there was more to the Great Plains than met the eye, the Spanish weren’t particularly enamored with the northeastern-most reaches of their claims in the New World. They weren’t looking to colonize or expand on the same scale as their Anglo cousins, and the whole area was just… flat. And hot. And completely bereft of gold, more gold, or all the gold.

The neglect became permanent after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 by the English, with substantial assistance from a suddenly very-Protestant God. Spain was already struggling to maintain its role as a major player back home in Europe, and no longer had the energy for shenanigans in the Western Hemisphere – not without a greater payoff.

Little surprise, then, that the French met with little resistance when they claimed a big ol’ chunk of the New World as “Louisiana Territory” in 1682. The original boundaries looked a little different than they would 121 years later when Jefferson made his famous “Purchase” of the same name, but Oklahoma was included in both versions.

The French did exactly nothing, near as we can tell, in this part of the Territory while under their purview. Not that we needed them here, getting their… Frenchness all over us. But still – it would have been nice to be wanted, you know?

The area changed hands again at the end of the French and Indian War – the same one most of you remember from American History class. You may recall that it wasn’t the French vs. the Indians; they were allies against the British colonies along the eastern coast of North America. Like most things, it was complicated – part of a larger “Seven Years War” going on in Europe, and mixing itself into pre-existing issues between the colonies and the locals, etc.

It was at the conclusion of this war in 1763 that the British first got serious about raising taxes on the American colonists to help offset some of the costs of their “protection.” This sparked a whole other series of events more familiar to the average student and leading to seriously overpriced fireworks every summer.

In any case, the Treaty of Paris (1763) transferred proud ownership of all this flat, red dirt to the British, despite a secret agreement handing it over to Spain only a year before. It says something about the status of pre-settlement Oklahoma that Spain didn’t even fuss over this double-dealing; their primary concern involved other territories included in that exchange.

That explains, however, how land arguably belonging to the British could be returned to France by Spain in the year 1800. These were the days of Napoleonic hegemony – the proverbial “little general” who wanted to take over all of the known world.

EXCEPT OKLAHOMA BECAUSE WHY BOTHER AND HEY T.J., WANNA BARGAIN ON SOME BIG, FLAT, USELESS LAND?

Um… hello?! Potential state here! Home of natural resources and flora and fauna and stuff? Wind, sweeping down the plains? Hawks with questionable work ethics circling above? I get that we’re not the prettiest state in the room, but we’re at least… OK, right?

*sigh*

And people wonder why to this day we’re one giant inferiority complex, with a side of paranoid delusion. Texas proudly waves its ‘six flags’ representing various stages of its history. We had three prior to statehood, playing ‘hot potato’ with us like the homely friend of the popular girls they were really looking to – um… “homestead.”

But finally, a nation that needed us! That could appreciate us! Say what you like about the early U.S., they were some exploring and expanding fools! President Jefferson sent out Lewis and Clark and Co., who began mapping the entire area of –

Hey! Where are you going? Meriwether! Bill! Down here, big fellas! It’s me, Okla –

*sigh*

Sunnuvabitch. The Dakotas. They’re all hot’n’bothered for Nebraska and the Dakotas. Seriously?

Fine. We’ll waive our *mumble* wheat for someone *murmur* can appreciate *grouse* land we belong to is grandma’s crusty *obsenitiesandbitterness*.

There was thus very little to discuss between our inconspicuous transition into United States Territorial-ness in 1803 and the involuntary arrival of the Five Civilized Tribes via “Indian Removal” in the 1830s.

Meanwhile, white America was expanding much more quickly than expected. Immigrants were packing the shores, and those already here were spawning like blind prawn. While encounters with Amerindian natives had produced mixed results since the time Columbus first mislabeled them, five tribes in the southeastern part of the country had adapted far better than most, and conflicts had been relatively minimal.

The Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole, while distinct peoples in and of themselves, became collectively known as the “Five Civilized Tribes” (5CT). Keep in mind, of course, that this was not a self-selected title – it was bestowed by white Southerners in the area. This use of “civilized” wasn’t drawn from someone’s textbook definition or discerned anthropologically; it meant that these Indians were a lot more like the white folks around them than them other Indians, who were generally considered savage, wild, and dangerous. Decadent, actually.

Boo, savage Indians!

The 5CT, in contrast, were largely agricultural. They were far less nomadic, more highly educated, and far less likely to practice hit’n’run raids on white neighbors. Many converted to or at least adapted elements of Christianity, even wearing uncomfortable shoes and learning English in order to facilitate good relations.

If the primary cause of conflict with Natives was cultural, as is often asserted, then the 5CT should have had little trouble with the wave of white settlement surrounding them. If it were purely an issue of gold or other mineral wealth, as our textbooks like to emphasize, the problem would have been substantially more localized.

But the U.S. found it necessary to violate a number of its own fundamental values and laws in order to kick FIVE distinct nations out of an area roughly the size of THREE entire states. They did so at enormous cost to themselves and unforgivable loss of life to those removed. This was driven by something bigger than gold, something fundamental to an expanding nation.

White homesteaders wanted land. They needed land. They deserved land.

Not that they were likely to come right out and put it that way. From President Andrew Jackson’s First Annual Message to Congress, December 8th, 1829:

The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to individual States, and to the Indians themselves. The pecuniary advantages which it promises to the Government are the least of its recommendations…

“Pecuniary”? He’s been reading Jefferson’s letters again. Not bad for an uneducated orphan kid, actually.

“Pecuniary” means financial, or profitable. Perhaps fiscal growth was the “least” of many reasons to move the Indians, but he sure didn’t waste any time mentioning it.

Like, first.

It will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters. By opening the whole territory between Tennessee on the north and Louisiana on the south to the settlement of the whites it will incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier and render the adjacent States strong enough to repel future invasions without remote aid…

See? Not all of our motivation is selfish and monetary. They’ll also make a nice buffer between us and the Apache. Why should we be carved open and burned alive if we can throw a few Chickasaw in the way instead?

It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the States; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community.
What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization and religion? …

There we go – the “besides, it’s good for them” defense. We used a variation of this to justify slavery, you may recall – saving all those crazy Africans from their ooga-booga religions and cannibalism and such, freeing them up to play banjos around the fire and partake of the finest Christian civilization.

It’s quite a mix of values, though, isn’t it? Removal will leave them alone to do their own thing, but it will also force them to become more like us – which is the opposite of being left alone and doing their own thing. Besides, Jackson explains, what good is a bunch of trees and land when we could pack in cities and industry and corporate-style farming?

Maybe he hadn’t been reading Jefferson after all.

The tribes which occupied the countries now constituting the Eastern States were annihilated or have melted away to make room for the whites. The waves of population and civilization are rolling to the westward, and we now propose to acquire the countries occupied by the red men of the South and West by a fair exchange, and, at the expense of the United States, to send them to land where their existence may be prolonged and perhaps made perpetual.

The term ‘Manifest Destiny’ hadn’t been coined yet, but the ideology permeates Jackson’s language. There are no individuals making choices, or cultures colliding – merely inevitable progress “rolling to the westward.”

Doubtless it will be painful to leave the graves of their fathers; but what do they more than our ancestors did or than our children are now doing? … {White settlers} remove hundreds and almost thousands of miles at their own expense, purchase the lands they occupy, and support themselves at their new homes from the moment of their arrival.
Can it be cruel in this Government when, by events which it cannot control, the Indian is made discontented in his ancient home to purchase his lands, to give him a new and extensive territory, to pay the expense of his removal, and support him a year in his new abode? How many thousands of our own people would gladly embrace the opportunity of removing to the West on such conditions! If the offers made to the Indians were extended to them, they would be hailed with gratitude and joy.

Jackson may be overdoing it a bit, even by the standards of the day. His primary purpose was most likely not to convert anyone adamantly opposed, but to assuage any guilt on the part of those already looking for an excuse. That’s why we talk about “audience” and “reason” when we do document analysis, kids – dead white guys can be sneaky.

Whatever else Jackson was, he was a genuine champion of the “common man.” As a creature of his times, that rarely included the 5CT or anyone else with meaningful pigmentation – it meant white homesteaders.

Like the generation of Founders on whose shoulders he consciously stood, he recognized the connection between land and opportunity, land and character, land and democracy.

He was generally plainspoken, but that didn’t mean he had no understanding of human nature. He knew that sometimes lofty goals and hard decisions required… framing. He was no diplomat, but he was certainly willing to play the demagogue here and there if he believed his cause was deserving.

And there was no higher cause than this American nation. These people. This potential. He may have hated Indians, or he may have not. It didn’t matter. America had a destiny, and that destiny needed more land.

That chunk of Louisiana Territory that kept getting tossed around and ignored is about to become useful.

Land Ownership and the Foundations of Democracy, Part Two (Westward, Ho!)

November 22, 2018June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

When my kids were little, we used to go to Bishop’s Cafeteria to eat with my dad. He was old, and old people like cafeterias – so we went.

My son would fill his tray with everything he could fit in, including that cafeteria classic – brightly colored, cubed Jello. My daughter was much pickier, but inevitably she chose the wiggly cubes as well. The boy would snarf down his selections in minutes; the girl would take hours if we let her.

It is worth noting that she didn’t usually eat the Jello.

She liked to look at it. The table would inevitably get jostled a bit, or otherwise nudged, and the Jello would wiggle. It’s what Jello does. She loved that. And, to be fair, that’s just as valid a use for Jello as any other. (Just because something is edible doesn’t mean it serves no other function – otherwise, neither houseplants nor family pets would be around long.)

But that’s not how my son saw it.

“Sis, you gonna eat that Jello?”

“No.”

“Can I have it, then?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s my Jello.”

“Are you serious?”

Of course she was serious. I had to question his bewilderment, given that this scene was played out repeatedly over the years. Still, his outrage seemed to build quite genuinely, every time…

“Come on, Sis – you’re not going to eat it!”

“No.”

“But WHY?!?”

“It’s MY Jello.” And at this point, she’d usually give it an extra lil’ nudge – *wigglewigglewigglewigglewiggle*

“DAD!”

“Yes, Son?”

He’d explain, as if perhaps I’d been abroad on business the whole time, rather than sitting there at the same table while things unfolded according to sacred family tradition. I’d express my condolences, but had to concur with Sis that the Jello at issue was, in fact, HER Jello. It didn’t help his case that he’d snarfed an entire platter of foodstuffs only moments before – including a very similar chalice of… cubed Jello.

It never went well.

As the United States began to expand west, its people encountered numerous native tribes who were – to be blunt – in the damn way. Our national sin in regard to Amerindians is not that we overcame them, it’s that we did so bathed in such hypocrisy. Rather than declare war, we declared eternal friendship. We killed them in the name of peace and in pursuit of a faith built on martyrs. We took everything from them while demanding their gratitude – for our civilization, our religion, and our pitiless modernity.

To be fair, we needed the land. They had it, but… well, they weren’t really using it properly. The Plains tribes especially were the worst sort of land-wasters – hunting when hungry, gathering when gathering was useful, hanging out, carousing and eating and socializing and such…

We lacked the words to declare them hippies, but ‘utopians’ didn’t seem harsh enough. Not one single factory. Very little organized agriculture. No hospitals. No schools. Just relationships alternating with quiet reflection.

I’m overgeneralizing, of course – there were hundreds of tribes and cultures and such – but by and large, they weren’t doing proper America things with the lands they claimed as theirs. And, as with the Jello, subjected to repeated wiggling but remaining unconsumed, our frontiersmen forebears weren’t impressed by the arguments of those claiming that land ownership requires neither cultivation nor mall-building.

(And don’t even try to pretend there was no such thing as ‘owning land’. That doesn’t even make sense. That’s like saying you can’t own people – ridiculous.)

It was genuinely maddening. Let’s not overlook that. Mixed in with the greed and selfishness and prejudice and maybe even some dark damnable thoughts was palpable frustration – an almost holy outrage – that this land was being denied them by a people unwilling to do more than jiggle their Jello.

We needed that land – we deserved that land (because if having it allows us to establish worthiness, then we should have it BECAUSE we’re worthy – it makes perfect sense, if you don’t think about it too closely).

This is not just about me and mine – although it IS very much also about me and mine. We’re here as part of something bigger – something important – something holy – something democratic – something special.

Killing Indians for personal reasons wasn’t considered particularly onerous by the standards of the day. Most of the civilized world was still pretty comfortable with what would today be condemned as racial and cultural elitism. This was beyond that, though – this was brushing aside a backwards culture and a darkened people (figuratively?) to make room for progress. Light. Democracy. The New Way.

Because we NEEDED this land for settlers. For homesteaders. For citizens. Without it, there’s no progress. Without sufficient land, the whole of-the-by-the-for-the concept clogs up – it could even fail. And if American democracy fails, the new nation fails. If it fails here, it fails everywhere. Tyranny returns, darkness wins, and monsters rule the earth.

Conflict with Mexico was not much different. Their culture was nothing like most Amerindian peoples, but neither did we particularly fathom or appreciate their social structure, economic mores, or anything else – nor they ours. Perhaps outright disdain for one another played a different role than with the Natives, and certainly by that point the sheer momentum of Westward Expansion eclipsed whatever underlying values or beliefs had fueled it a generation prior, but whatever the immediate motivations, the same conviction of absolute rightness oozed from the words and letters of those pinche gabachos manifesting their destiny.

It’s not logical, but it is very human to devalue how others process their world and the goals they choose to pursue. The Natives had every opportunity to make themselves productive – to get a little schooling (hell, we offered it to them FOR FREE), learn proper civilization, even to take care of themselves through the miracles of modern agriculture. The Mexicans had plenty of chances to be, um… less Mexican.

But let’s set aside for a moment that we were inflicting antithetical values and lifestyles on a diversity of proud peoples. We’ll ignore the generations of broken treaties and outright deception. I’d like to focus on the third element of the equation – the rigged game, even should the Locals choose to play our way.

Poor tools. Bad soil. Spoiled supplies. If there’s such a thing as a “level playing field,” this wasn’t it.

They were assigned a value system and lifestyle they didn’t want, with the full weight of state and federal governments forcing compliance. They were assigned the worst land on which to practice this new system, and given inadequate tools and other supplies. The stakes were incredibly high – at best, they were expected to emulate those with the right equipment, in which case they could perhaps almost survive as second-class citizens. More likely, they would fail, starve, or simply give up – this not being a game they’d wished to play anyway. The dominant citizenry would then point to this “failure” and label them as lazy, incompetent, or otherwise flawed.

(If you didn’t know better, you’d think I was talking about how conservatives manage public education, wouldn’t you? There may be many reasons to study and enjoy history, but the last thing we want to do is to begin recognizing the variety of ways in which humanity manifests the same tendencies and plays the same games across time and place. We might have to learn from it and confront it in real life, and let’s face it – that’s awkward for everyone.)

After the Civil War, many Freedmen believed they deserved – that they had in fact been promised – “40 Acres and a Mule.” Some had actually been granted such at the unauthorized discretion of Union generals who, reasonably enough, took land from defeated plantation-owners and redistributed it to former slaves.

These few instances were reversed to smooth the transition into Reconstruction and maintain the almost cultish commitment Americans had to property rights – and, apparently, to irony. The freedmen received nothing.

Well, that’s not entirely true. They received freedom. That was a pretty big deal. But freedom to do… what? With no education, no land, no resources, no momentum – what, exactly, were their options?

Many stayed where they were, working the same land they’d been working, in exchange for food and shelter. Others left their former “masters” and wandered, either seeking loved ones from whom they’d been separated or simply wanting to go… somewhere else.

Many ended up working for white landowners under various arrangements. The South had just lost a rather brutal war – they didn’t have money to pay anyone. But food, shelter, a place to be… that they had. Eventually sharecropping and tenant farming were ubiquitous.

Freedmen didn’t have any land, or a realistic way to obtain land. Carpetbaggers from the North began establishing schools, the government had a few agencies, but overall opportunity was… limited. Just over a decade after the South surrendered the war, the North surrendered Reconstruction and brought their troops home in exchange for the Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes.

You all remember Hayes, right? A President for whom it was worth giving up the closest the nation had ever come to realizing its founding ideals?

Yeah, me neither.

The freedman had gained everything – in theory. On paper, they were free! The men could vote! Land ownership! Education! Equality before the law! Unalienable rights, in your FACE!

But without land, or a practical way to obtain land, they couldn’t provide for themselves. The system didn’t facilitate advancement via laboring for others – just ask the Lowell Girls, the Newsies, or any ox. Freedmen (or others without land) couldn’t do the things people had been conditioned to expect as a prerequisite for suffrage – for being a ‘full American’.

Despite written law, it was ridiculously difficult for freedmen to vote. It was impossible to gain economic ground, individually or as a community. Expression is severely limited when any unpopular thought can result in loss of livelihood. How does one maintain a sense of self against so much negation? At what point do we become our labels?

That’s the suffrage part. If Jefferson was correct about the spiritual and moral benefits of “laboring in the earth,” working land belonging to another may or may not have been worth partial divine credit. In terms of vested interest in our collective national success, whatever support black Americans lent to their country came without terrestrial reciprocation.

White men who succeeded under the system believed they deserved to succeed. Most had genuinely worked hard and made good choices by the standards of the time. It was not entirely logical to see those who did not flourish as clearly undeserving – but it was entirely human. We are not, after all, overly rational beings.

We all want to be part of a meaningful system, an ordered universe, and to be justified in whatever satisfaction we draw from our efforts. Generally, ‘facts’ adjust themselves to fit our paradigms rather than the reverse. That’s not specifically a white thing – that’s a people thing.

What began as a checklist for civic participation became the default measure of a man. What was intended to protect representative government from the incompetent or slothful became an anchor on those who didn’t fit certain checklists as of 225 years ago. They were unworthy. Not quite full Americans – and thus not quite real people. Not in the ways that counted.

The issue became your state of being rather than your efforts, choices, or abilities. It was self-perpetuating and self-reinforcing. It became circular.

Eventually land would lose its status as the ultimate measure and cure-all, and we’d find something new which absolutely must be made theoretically available to all for ‘democracy’ – such as it is – to survive. This new ‘golden ticket’ would replace land in terms of both the opportunity it purports to provide and the gage by which we rank value and ability. As with land, many will feel compelled to force the façade of equity into the equation while denying the risk of large-scale success by undesirables. {Hint: it starts with an ‘E’ and rhymes with ‘zeducation’.}

But that’s a few generations away. For now, men were looking west and feeling the pull of its potential – and of theirs.

None of our Founders or Framers could have anticipated just how quickly this baby nation would begin filling up – the locals spawning and immigrants flowing in as fast as boats could carry them. Nor is it fair to judge their worldviews and prejudices entirely by the standards of our own times. We can recognize their shortcomings and even their sins without completely demonizing them.

It did mean, however, that the ideals on which the nation had been founded quickly proved problematic in their implementation. Even in the limited, white male paradigm of the day, fulfilling those ideals seemed to require more territory than we’d realized. And yet… they still seemed like such promising ideals.

We were going to need even more land, or this wasn’t going to work.

Why Republicans Should Love Public Education

March 31, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Full Disclosure: I’m no longer a registered Republican. I stuck it out for decades, but at some point between the Tea Party breaking Rand Paul and the crowning of Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz as voices of ‘moderation and reason,’ I simply couldn’t do it anymore.

And yet… the Right Wing are still my people, however far I’ve strayed, and despite their collective loss of sanity over the past decade. Evangelicals, gun-fetishists, the socially repressed – I can’t support their positions, but I treasure their possibilities.

The modern Republican Party is a backslidden mess. They are a bewildering diaspora of conservatism’s potential – particularly the minivan and Easter crowd smothered within their ranks. I hereby call on them to leave their false idols and begin the journey home… starting with an issue which should be a no-brainer: public education.

Forget that it’s the right thing to do – it’s a winning political strategy.

The Right is all about personal responsibility.

An equitable and effective public school system goes a long way towards promoting real-world opportunity and unlocking individual potential. Education doesn’t cancel out poverty, systemic racial discrimination, etc., but it gives students – soon to be actual people – the option of whistling Vivaldi along the way and dramatically improving their personal odds.

You’re welcome to point a finger at the downtrodden and underserved and ask why they haven’t done more to better themselves, but your judgment is untenable unless those at whom you point have reliable access to high-quality, fiscally prioritized, meaningful education.

If you really want to add teeth to your moral outrage, provide wraparound services addressing many of the underlying sources of disparity reflected in grades, graduation rates, and test scores. Inequity may remain, but the system enabling it would be far less overt – and your expectations regarding individual achievement thus much more persuasive.

The Right is all about the economy and being a productive member thereof.

Those with better educations tend to avoid prison. They tend to get and hold better jobs. They tend to become settled, have families (and stay with them), and galvanize into moderation.

Yes, the most educated in our nation often grow rather liberal in their ideals – but not usually in their lifestyles. They spend, invest, even donate – all of which lubricate the wheels of the commerce.

The Right is all about family values.

Despite the rhetoric coming from the fringe elements (who always seem to end up in charge these days), public schools consciously inculcate good character – hard work, honesty, empathy, personal responsibility, etc.

Constitutionally, these must remain distinct from specific theology or faith, but as I recall from my evangelical days, God’s truths are strong enough they can’t help but be reflected in the natural world all around us (the one He created, and for which he set up ‘natural laws’?) with or without appropriate credit attached. Gravity need not be labeled “God’s Gravity” to be just as true, or just as useful to understand; why would “do unto others” or “study to show thyself approved” require sectarian sanction?

Granted, public schools DO tend to welcome and value children of all cultures, colors, sexual proclivities, etc. Many of you have been told this equates to a collective sanction of ungodliness. Surely five minutes with the Jesus of the four gospels refutes such silliness?

The Right loves to talk about America’s Founding Ideals.

This one gets trickier, because so much has changed logistically since our nation’s inception. But if the ideals themselves are as timeless as we hope, they should find traction and demonstrate value in modern times. As with matters of faith, however, it’s important we not mistake the logistics of their historical application with the eternal principles those in the past were attempting to honor.

The Constitution (a set of rules) can be amended as situations evolve. The Declaration of Independence (a statement of ideals) cannot. The Ten Commandments (a list of rules) were superseded by the arrival of the Messiah (the supernatural made flesh). The goal of personal communion with an eternal Creator (an ideal) remained consistent, but we need not sacrifice birds or sit in our gardens naked to get there.

The particulars were always intended to evolve, even if the overarching principles were not.

America’s founding ideals are about equality in the eyes of the law – actual, demonstrable equality, not just theoretical equality. The principal was established in the Declaration of Independence; the expression of that principal has expanded in fits and starts ever since. We could get closer.

America’s founding ideals are about meritocracy. We’re unlikely to find the best hockey players in towns with no ice, or gifted writers in communities with no books. Merit must be sought, nurtured, and unleashed.

Finding it and growing it – as often and in as many varieties as possible – is great for the individual, but of exponentially greater value to the whole.

America’s founding ideals are about diversity. I know, I know – old rich white guys, etc. But what they started expanded true citizenship – economic, social, and political power – far beyond anything known in their worlds at the time. The expansion of those ideals to include people of other colors and both sexes was perfectly consistent with their vision, if not their temporal understanding at the time.

America’s founding ideals are about opportunity for the humblest citizen.

This is a big one.

We value our business-owners and investors, certainly, but 150 years of both state and federal land policy made it an absolute priority to redistribute resources – 160 acres of land, usually – in the name of opportunity, to any citizen, however humble, free of charge and with the obligation only that they utilize it as best they could.

John Adams, before we’d even declared independence, argued that “Power follows property.” Thus, the way to make sure we preserve a “balance of liberty” – a full, meaningful involvement of a wide spectrum of citizens – was to make the “acquisition of land easy to every member of society.”

The various statutes governing land distribution over the years generally discouraged (or outright prohibited) the hoarding of resources. Homesteaders could only claim as much as an average family could realistically use. This wasn’t to be nice – it was best for society as a whole.

The best-known and most important of these was the Homestead Act of 1862. It was promoted and signed into law by THE founding Republican, Abraham Lincoln.

Today the key to opportunity is no longer land. Today’s “Homestead Act” is Public Education – the modern gateway to economic, social, and political opportunity, so sacred as to occasionally be oversold on just what it will and won’t guarantee in individual lives, but largely essential for anything else of value to become possible.

The Republican Party Was Created to Reduce Inequality.

The Republican Party sprang out of a combination of the ‘Free Soil’ party and a few other ‘not-the-Democrats’ groups in the 1850s. ‘Free Soil’ in this case had a dual meaning – they were against slavery, and they were for those without property being given land – and thus, a realistic shot at their own little version of the American Dream.

They had serious issues with polygamy as well, although we tend to brush that aside when covering the time period, meaning…

The Republican Party was quite literally born with THREE priorities –

(1) Let’s treat black folks better, because… America!

(2) Let’s give more free stuff to people who need an opportunity, because… democracy!

(3) Let’s tell people who they can and can’t marry because… icky!

We’ve held fast to the third, but forsaken the first two. Why?

The Republican Party would like to remain relevant and win elections.

The GOP has not done a very impressive job adjusting its rhetoric or expanding its reach beyond some very clichéd demographics.

There are a LOT of educators – public and private, teachers and support staff – in this country.

Can you imagine the electoral potential of a party which embraced public school teachers (most of whom are personally rather moderate)? Are there really SO many core values which would have to be jettisoned to pay teachers a living wage and get a bit more creative enabling schools to do what schools want to do best?

Wouldn’t the payoff would be so, so worth it?

Come Home. Please.

MLK, Wobblies, and National Insecurity

January 18, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

It’s MLK Day, and while there’s much to celebrate, the skeptic in me can’t help but focus on some things we conveniently ignore or write off as ‘no longer relevant’ in King’s legacy. There will be plenty written today, as there should be, about all he said, and did, and the positive impact he had. I’d like to suggest we not forget along the way some lessons to be learned from how the United States and the ruling classes therein responded.

MLK and the Civil Rights Movement in general were treated with hostility and violence, ugly words and ugly actions. Social and political leaders took the lead, demonized those involved, and used the tools of power to subvert those exercising their very inconvenient human rights. While white commoners gladly spouted racist ideology, respectable types were more likely to explain their concerns based on ‘national security’.

The FBI tapped King’s phones, and threatened his life. MLK was labeled un-American, a tool of foreign powers intent on subverting our way of life. Government leaders – those specifically chosen as our collective voice – condemned him as a liar, and officially categorized him with other ‘hate groups’. It wasn’t just J. Edgar Hoover or a handful of overzealous individuals; this was policy, from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy on down. Why? National security, of course.

Even after it was beyond doubt King was no Communist (and so what if he was?), government policy was to keep pushing this idea in the media through leaks, innuendo, and good old-fashioned name-calling. But it was justified, because… national security.

When MLK came out against the Vietnam War – a position fairly common in later years, but still somewhat “un-American” at the time – these accusations seemed substantiated. Who but a subversive tool of foreign powers and ideologies would oppose America’s light-shining and democracy-building overseas? Come on, people – national security!

Perhaps the Reverend’s greatest sin in the eyes of the establishment was shifting his focus from racial equity alone to a ‘war on poverty’ in general. It was a dangerous mindset – that perhaps being poor was not a character failing or the natural results of some people being smarter or working harder than others, but rather the results of a corrupt – or at least broken – system. The proverbial playing field was in no way level.

Today we celebrate King’s movement for its non-violence, but media at the time fixated on the sporadic exceptions. They painted even those outside the movement who destroyed property or threatened individuals as evidence of what MLK was really about. No matter how often King and others denounced bad behavior, the movement was constantly accused of supporting violence because they didn’t denounce it enough. Clearly they were a threat to… national security.

The movement wasn’t perfect. There were internal disputes and inconsistencies, as there always are, and individuals and moments which didn’t fit the larger picture, to be seized upon by critics as proof of what they’ve wanted to believe all along.

But most of them didn’t want to hurt anybody, or even break anything. They just wanted to be treated like ‘real Americans’, real humans, and have access to a shot at the same American Dream as everyone else. That in and of itself, however, was a very real change in the established way of doing things. It was threatening to some and uncomfortable for most.

That’s just not how things had ever worked before, no matter what our ideals said.

It’s important to note that those in power, with access to the bigger picture and far more information than the average citizen, knew that their accusations and fear-mongering were nonsense. While the average racist asshole in the street may at least be painted as a product of their times, those making policy, controlling the courts, and holding most of the guns, were lying in ways that got other people hurt and killed, and doing so for their own comfort and power. Any rationalizing they did about the means serving noble ends was just that – rationalizing.

Did I say comfort and power? I’m sorry – I meant ‘national security’.

Fifty short years before King came into national consciousness, there was a labor organization called the International Workers of the World (I.W.W.) – nicknamed “Wobblies” for reasons long lost. They sought to organize unskilled workers in factories and fields, those marginalized due to limited education and no political power. Unlike other labor unions of the time, they weren’t about protecting certain skilled professions or choosing respectable members – they were the little people even among little people.

The response from both business and government was predictable – demonized in the media, the I.W.W. was constantly accused of being the tool of foreign powers, un-American and dangerous. Government infiltrators joined their ranks, and arrests were made on the most thinly manufactured charges. This was necessary, it was said, to protect national security.

Their homes and businesses were searched without warrants, and entire blocks of prisoners were promised leniency if they’d testify that various I.W.W. members had confessed nefarious doings to them – even if they’d never met that person, let alone shared a cell. When there were trials, due process was rare – although in a few cases a particularly idealistic judge would hold the line and refuse to allow extensive shenanigans, no matter what his personal loathing for the organization.

Of course, by the time the process had played itself out, the accused had been held in dark, damp cells with appalling sanitary conditions and inadequate nutrition for months – sometimes years. Because, you know… national security.

When the Wobblies came out against World War I, government and business had the excuse they needed to up their game. Laws were passed to make the free speech, press, and assembly of the Wobblies state and federal crimes in the name of… national security.

All violent acts done by labor or those of foreign descent became I.W.W. violence, no matter how condemned by the group itself, because… national security. And the I.W.W. was essentially a Socialist – maybe even Communist – organization at heart. They virulently attacked the Capitalism around them as more about entrenched power than competition and opportunity. The proverbial playing field, they argued, was in no way level.

When the courts failed to produce the desired results, representatives of the union were whipped, tarred and feathered, their lives threatened and their property destroyed, presumably by “spontaneous” mobs but often with the explicit cooperation of law enforcement. Periodic lynchings of ‘radicals’ were considered very American things to do – tacitly supported by government, vocally supported by the popular press.

That’s just not how things had ever worked before, no matter what our ideals said.

It’s important to note that those in power, with access to the bigger picture and far more information than the average citizen, knew that their accusations and fear-mongering were nonsense. While the average nationalistic goon might have been the product of his times, those making policy, controlling the courts, and holding most of the guns, were lying in ways that got other people hurt and killed, and doing so for their own comfort and power. Any rationalizing they did about the means serving noble ends was just that – rationalizing.

Did I say comfort and power? I’m sorry – I meant ‘national security’.

Thankfully in the 50 years since MLK’s assassination, we’ve learned a few lessons, and human nature has fundamentally altered from what it was from the dawn of time until 1968. It’s unthinkable that we’d allow political and business interests to unite against marginalized groups to protect entrenched power, or to give the unwashed masses a target for their frustrations and hatred so as to distract them from their ongoing neglect and overt exploitation by those whose comfort requires their ignorance, and their apathy.

We’d never tolerate gross violations of our highest ideals and explicit laws in the name of protecting those exact same ideals and laws – the irony would simply be too much.

No, thankfully today we’ve realized that if our ideals are, in fact, so very unique and wonderfully noble – if they have the power we insist they do – then the laws and social expectations based explicitly upon them are more than sufficient to deal with any discomfort, or even the occasional very real danger, which may result from holding to them. The best way to defend our national ideals… is to live by them.