Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to it could happen like bastards are dying?
Speaker 2: Is cool Doing cool Stuff? Wow? Eh, that's my that's
Speaker 2: my cool Zone Media mixed with the show that isn't
Speaker 2: Cool Zone Media introduction or well you all know the
Speaker 2: title of it. You clicked on it in the thing.
Speaker 2: Everyone else is holding up dogs and or dog pillows.
Speaker 2: But my dog is out saving the world from airplanes
Speaker 2: by running around my yard barking at them, and not
Speaker 2: a single airplane has come into my yard since my
Speaker 2: dog has started keeping watch. So I will just say earlier, yeahshaw, okay,
Speaker 2: shout out to someone sent me a message where someone
Speaker 2: was like, oh, I really liked that podcast Cool People
Speaker 2: Did Cool Stuff. I can't remember the name of the host.
Speaker 2: You know that lady who like lives alone with her dog?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, oh, is that who you are? You're
Speaker 2: the lady who lives alone with her dog? Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: doing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the podcast that you're all listening to is cool
Speaker 2: People Did Cool Stuff. The voices you are hearing is
Speaker 2: our producer Sophie. Hi, Sophie, I Margaret, I missed you.
Speaker 2: I missed you too, And what is the name of
Speaker 2: your dog splash dog pillow.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm holding an exact replica pillow of my dog
Speaker 1: Anderson that my best friend Robin gave us. It's pretty amazing,
Speaker 1: is amazing, and Anderson sleeps on her Anderson pillow.
Speaker 3: So that's that's pretty great, so beautifully narcissistic.
Speaker 2: I love that she's alive. Yeah. The other voice you
Speaker 2: are hearing is my guest, Miriam.
Speaker 3: I'm hi, I'm Miriam. I'm also holding up a dog.
Speaker 3: This is a real dog and not a cushion, although I.
Speaker 2: Could not convince me. Yeah, this is a cushion shaped dog,
Speaker 2: a furry cushion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a cushion that eats a surprising amount
Speaker 3: of dog food.
Speaker 2: There are dogs in today's episode, not a lot of them. Well,
Speaker 2: actually there are a lot of them, but they're not
Speaker 2: a major part of the story.
Speaker 3: I don't know what today's episode is about, because all
Speaker 3: the only hint you would text me was that it
Speaker 3: was suggested to you by my girlfriend. And when I
Speaker 3: asked my girlfriend, they didn't remember. So I guessed the
Speaker 3: two most likely people that they would have suggested to you.
Speaker 2: They were wrong, wrong on both cowns.
Speaker 3: No, Bo didn't tell you to do, Fred Hampton.
Speaker 2: I most told me to do a lot of people,
Speaker 2: but the particular person we're doing today, this week and
Speaker 2: next week. It was going to be a one two parter,
Speaker 2: but immediately got carried away because there's so much cool
Speaker 2: shit that's going to happen. I'm also a lot of
Speaker 2: heartbreaking shit because today we are going to talk about
Speaker 2: Lakota resistance to the American Empire. Fantastic.
Speaker 3: Mo is bouncing up and down next to me because
Speaker 3: I'm wearing headphones. We are talking about Lakota resistance to
Speaker 3: the American Empire. Yeah, most really happy about that.
Speaker 2: Eventually, it's going to culminate into something that is happening now,
Speaker 2: which is that there is a campaign that has been
Speaker 2: going on longer than I've been alive to get a
Speaker 2: man named Leonard Peltier free. That's where we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about next week. First, we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: the nineteenth century shit this week, which is also cool
Speaker 2: and also unfortunately heartbreaking. But next week we'll talk about
Speaker 2: the twentieth century and how it continues into the twenty
Speaker 2: first century and hopefully not into the centuries after that. Instead,
Speaker 2: people will be like, man, remember when there used to
Speaker 2: be a United States of America instead of a confederation
Speaker 2: of Indigenous lands, and people will be like, that's wacky,
Speaker 2: and that's and then someone will get mad because we'll
Speaker 2: have figured out something the word whacky not having never
Speaker 2: mind anyway.
Speaker 3: So you're I like, how you're imagining future people to
Speaker 3: get mad at you. Yeah, yeah, kind of the opposite
Speaker 3: of imagining a guy to get mad at Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's probably because I joined back on Twitter. I was
Speaker 2: free for months, Margret, Why did you do this? Because
Speaker 2: I wanted more up to date news about the genocide
Speaker 2: that my tax dollars are funding. Because the New York
Speaker 2: Times will look at things like hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 2: people marching in DC and say thousands of people gather
Speaker 2: and then say even in the article, it was like,
Speaker 2: we don't know how many people. And I'm like, crowd
Speaker 2: estimates are as old as journalism, Like I can do
Speaker 2: crowd estimates. By the time you've been to your like
Speaker 2: fifth massive demonstration, you can do crowd estimates. Oh crap,
Speaker 2: our audio engineers, Ian, this would have been a cursed episode,
Speaker 2: Hi ian Ian. So we're going to start with an
Speaker 2: awful lot of context.
Speaker 4: Because oh man, context I know from me on cool people.
Speaker 2: I know cool context that happened the cool terrible context
Speaker 2: that happened to cool people. That's I will say for once.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure the cool context is not going to
Speaker 3: take us to medieval Ireland so or pre Roman Ireland.
Speaker 2: Even I wonder if I can get that in here,
Speaker 2: unfortunately in a very bad way, because we are going
Speaker 2: to talk at some point about how settlers, often coming
Speaker 2: from colonize in the pressed situations, become bad once they
Speaker 2: enter a settler position, which, of course there's no modern
Speaker 2: context anyway, think of any No, certainly not nothing that
Speaker 2: got me back on Twitter. Okay, So I would argue
Speaker 2: that the biggest lie I got told by my American
Speaker 2: education was that the Revolutionary War was a good thing.
Speaker 2: This is like my least popular opinion, if you ask
Speaker 2: the broad population. The Revolutionary War was a was a
Speaker 2: lateral move at best. And I'm going to explain why
Speaker 2: I believe that this is the case.
Speaker 3: I mean, you should make that point and make it hard,
Speaker 3: but spoiler alert, I already agree with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, yeah, that doesn't surprise me. The most important
Speaker 2: thing is that I got kind of told it was
Speaker 2: certainly heavily implied that this is the end of colonization, right,
Speaker 2: We're no longer colony. We are now a nation, and
Speaker 2: so colonization has ended. This is an absolute lie. The
Speaker 2: American Revolution was the unleashing of unfettered colonization that continues
Speaker 2: to this day. An anti colonial independence movement is when
Speaker 2: the indigenous people and cultures of an area retained control
Speaker 2: over their terrain. This is not what happened in the
Speaker 2: American Revolutionary War, because in like the seventeen fifties or
Speaker 2: so for anyone, the American Revolution was seventeen seventy six
Speaker 2: to seventeen eighty three. In the In the seventeen fifties,
Speaker 2: Britain controlled only the east coast of the United States
Speaker 2: the Midwest, basically everything past the Appalachian Mountains was claimed
Speaker 2: by France, who generally had friendlier relationships with various indigenous nations,
Speaker 2: not because they were like, we're so good, French government
Speaker 2: is nicer, but basically like they just they weren't as
Speaker 2: interested in settling. They were much more interested in the
Speaker 2: fur trade. They already had a good way of extracting
Speaker 2: money from that area, basically.
Speaker 3: And they were they were doing more of their atrocities
Speaker 3: elsewhere in the Americas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. The French kept also then they
Speaker 2: were still fucking up these areas too, to be clear,
Speaker 2: They kept trying to make people have like a clear
Speaker 2: cut authoritarian hierarchy and use capitalism and all that shit,
Speaker 2: and all these various nations are like, why the fuck
Speaker 2: would we do that? We already have our own cool,
Speaker 2: complicated systems already, right, that baffle the mind of the
Speaker 2: you know, Western European hierarchical thinking, not because.
Speaker 3: You know, you're not You're not dealing with people who
Speaker 3: are like, who are going to be good to deal
Speaker 3: with when they demand that you restructure your entire society
Speaker 3: in order to have a fucking conversation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so the British were like, well,
Speaker 2: we want to go west of the Appalachians especially, we
Speaker 2: want that. Actually this is more of the British colonists,
Speaker 2: the Americans as they call themselves, and they're like, we
Speaker 2: especially want that, sweet sense.
Speaker 3: I like that you just dead named the American colonists.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's right, fucking Brits.
Speaker 3: George Washington, who calls himself a American.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, so they want Ohio and so then we
Speaker 2: get do you know that we had a world war
Speaker 2: in the eighteenth century. I do know that I didn't
Speaker 2: really I like, vaguely, vaguely new. I'm going to call
Speaker 2: this World War zero or that's very cool thing to
Speaker 2: call it. Yeah, and it probably didn't deserve it. But
Speaker 2: and this is called the Seven Years War, or if
Speaker 2: you grew up in the United States, it's called the
Speaker 2: French and Indian War, which is not France and indigenous
Speaker 2: folks fighting against each other. It's US fighting against the
Speaker 2: French and indigenous people. It's basically a pissing match. The
Speaker 2: World War zero is a pissing match between France and
Speaker 2: England that dragged half the world into it because of colonization,
Speaker 2: and it obviously involved North America as well. The English
Speaker 2: colonists fought the French, and some indigenous nations fought on
Speaker 2: each side of that war, basically whatever suited their specific interests.
Speaker 2: England wins that war. By seventeen sixty three, France in
Speaker 2: England signed the Treaty of Paris. Spain gets Louisiana, England
Speaker 2: gets the rest of the territory of New France, basically
Speaker 2: the Midwest.
Speaker 3: Shit well, and Louisiana went up a lot further on
Speaker 3: that map than it does now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, England gets Florida from Spain.
Speaker 2: Plus there's a bunch of shit that England steals from
Speaker 2: the French who had already stolen it in Africa and
Speaker 2: the Indian sub continent. And this is always really funny
Speaker 2: to me when you imagine the people like dividing up
Speaker 2: this territory, because imagine like me and my neighbors like
Speaker 2: go break into someone's house and then while the people
Speaker 2: who are living there are like screaming at me and shit,
Speaker 2: we just start to start fighting over like who gets
Speaker 2: what bedroom? You know, That's what this war was.
Speaker 3: Yes, that is funny and not at all horrifying.
Speaker 2: No, oh my god, there's so much horror movie like,
Speaker 2: Oh American history, this is going to be a rough one. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, but there'll be really beautiful moments.
Speaker 3: I mean most of the ones that you've had me
Speaker 3: on for have involved genocide. I think the Pirate one
Speaker 3: was genocide free mostly, but you know.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, that was just instead of different kind of
Speaker 2: moral complexity, like the immoral dis choice that I made
Speaker 2: to make my sailor friend come on and talk about pirates.
Speaker 2: That was great. Mariam had like one rule, just never
Speaker 2: have me on about pirates, and I was like, let's
Speaker 2: talk about pirates anyway, y'all should go back and listen
Speaker 2: to that one. So so the colonists are like, fuck, yeah,
Speaker 2: we won this war. We're gonna go rob that fucking
Speaker 2: land a sweet Ohio it's waiting for us, you know.
Speaker 2: But they didn't actually get to go there right away. First,
Speaker 2: you get, well, two things gonna happen roughly at the
Speaker 2: same time. You get Pontiac's War, where a ton of
Speaker 2: indigenous people got together and are like, fuck you Brits,
Speaker 2: get the fuck out. We were okay with the French kinda,
Speaker 2: you all are way worse. This ended up in pretty
Speaker 2: much a stalemate, and this is when genocidal fervor by
Speaker 2: the colonists reaches an all time high because they're like,
Speaker 2: but we just won this war. Can't we have all
Speaker 2: your stuff now, you know? And so all the land
Speaker 2: between the Appalachians and the Mississippi were a great, big
Speaker 2: old Indian reserve and the king was like, don't go west,
Speaker 2: young man. That's my that's my best joke of the week. Unfortunate.
Speaker 3: No, it's great, it's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's it's always important to point out when
Speaker 2: you make a joke, that's how people know it's funny.
Speaker 2: So the colonists are like, what do you fucking mean?
Speaker 2: You can't just give all this fucking land to them,
Speaker 2: Like we just want You can't.
Speaker 3: Just give all this land to people who are already
Speaker 3: on it and have been on it since time immemorial.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, what are you doing? We are British, I
Speaker 2: mean or Americans and so. And to be clear, the
Speaker 2: Crown wasn't doing this because they're like anti racist or
Speaker 2: some shit. They wanted that fur trade that's already very
Speaker 2: lucrative and brings a bunch of money, and they didn't
Speaker 2: want to like specifically help the settlers who are starting
Speaker 2: to get kind of kind of antsy. Anyway.
Speaker 3: You know what I learned in my like late in
Speaker 3: life American history class is that they didn't want to
Speaker 3: send troops to deal with defending American settlers. Oh that
Speaker 3: makes lushing into this area that they were told not
Speaker 3: to go to. They were like, no, we like made
Speaker 3: a whole piece and part of that piece involves you
Speaker 3: not going there. And if you go there, then we're
Speaker 3: going to have to protect you because you're our guys.
Speaker 3: And that's that's like a whole use of resources that
Speaker 3: we the British Empire don't feel like doing right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's a lot of I'm learning more and
Speaker 2: more about this pattern in history where settlers want to
Speaker 2: go steal more territory in their settled colonial state, and
Speaker 2: the like state itself is a little bit like really
Speaker 2: right now, like you can do it later, and the
Speaker 2: settlers like, oh, we're doing it, and then the state's like,
Speaker 2: all right, I guess we're doing it, not because the
Speaker 2: state is the good guy, but like it's just a
Speaker 2: weird dynamic anyway, right.
Speaker 3: Or like you tacitly allow settlers to go someplace where
Speaker 3: they're officially not allowed to be, and then when harm
Speaker 3: comes to them in the place that they are not
Speaker 3: supposed to be, you're like, we must go and defend
Speaker 3: them at all costs. And again, no parallels to anything.
Speaker 2: No, it's a nineteenth century, exclusively.
Speaker 3: Eighteenth and nineteenth century phenomenon. Yeah, history doesn't repeat itself.
Speaker 2: Absolutely not. So the white Americans they throw a little
Speaker 2: war you might have heard of. It's called the settlers
Speaker 2: want to keep going west to steal more ship, but
Speaker 2: the king won't let them. War also sometimes called the
Speaker 2: Revolutionary War by certain like war hipsters, but mostly it's
Speaker 2: known as the settlers want to keep going west to
Speaker 2: steal moreship, but the king won't let them. War.
Speaker 3: I always thought, though it was the Revolutionary War was
Speaker 3: over selling it because like in a revolution you have
Speaker 3: to overthrow a government, and like, I'm sorry, but like
Speaker 3: the government of England was still very much the government
Speaker 3: of England after the Revolutionary War.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there were other reasons too. The main thing
Speaker 2: I got taught in school, which is true, is this
Speaker 2: like big tax thing, But the landgrad was actually a
Speaker 2: huge part of it. And also as soon as the
Speaker 2: patriots won the war, they said higher taxes than the
Speaker 2: crowd ever did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what was the Second War America did?
Speaker 2: So speaking of that far more whiskey rebellion joke, Oh wait,
Speaker 2: I didn't get that, No, I didn't. I don't know
Speaker 2: as much about the whisky rebellion. I'm like vaguely aware
Speaker 2: of it, but not.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, well, now I'm slightly on the spot because
Speaker 3: I like pulled out a reference to something that I
Speaker 3: only half remember. But my memory of this is that
Speaker 3: very soon after the War of Independence, a bunch of
Speaker 3: rural guys, like farmers, most of whom were veterans of
Speaker 3: the war, were brewing ski because why wouldn't you, right,
Speaker 3: and the government wanted to tax it, and they didn't
Speaker 3: want to let them, and so George Washington himself, I think,
Speaker 3: and the US Army such as it was at the time,
Speaker 3: like went and put down the rebellion of these guys
Speaker 3: who didn't want the government to tax their whiskey. Because
Speaker 3: the unless I'm like completely getting this wrong, and like,
Speaker 3: I'm sure nobody will tweet at you if I'm wrong, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you shouldn't have gotten back on Twitter. But that basically
Speaker 3: as soon as the like you can't tax us war
Speaker 3: was completed, that same government turned around and were like,
Speaker 3: we're gonna tax you and fought a war for that purpose.
Speaker 2: Okay, no, yeah, that makes sense, And yeah I was.
Speaker 2: The little I knew about whiskey rebellion is the like
Speaker 2: the actual like sort of oral working class was like, wait,
Speaker 2: the aristocracy won again. That sucks. Yeah, I don't. I
Speaker 2: don't entirely know. During the Revolutionary War, one thing I
Speaker 2: do know because I did research on it for this episode.
Speaker 2: I sort of knew this anyway, because I love talking
Speaker 2: shit on the Revolutionary War. It's like my I totally
Speaker 2: earned the name Kiljoy. Far more black and Indigenous people
Speaker 2: fought against the Patriots than alongside them. About five thousand
Speaker 2: to nine thousand black men became Black Patriots, whereas about
Speaker 2: twenty thousand black men escaped their Patriots slavers to join
Speaker 2: the British army because they were promised freedom by the king.
Speaker 3: And this is the first deal that only one side
Speaker 3: offered in that war. The Americans did not offer an
Speaker 3: equivalent deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think some of the Black patriots were free,
Speaker 2: but I think mostly they were free in the first
Speaker 2: place or were enslaved the whole time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I think it was only like Britain, because
Speaker 3: Britain offered like a blanket deal of if you come
Speaker 3: fight for us, then you can be free. And they,
Speaker 3: like I used to lead tours about the were history tours,
Speaker 3: walking tours, and I once referenced this fact in a
Speaker 3: tour to a group of school children and like the
Speaker 3: mom who is like I'm contributing, like popped up and
Speaker 3: went But the British lied because like, the British are the.
Speaker 2: Bad guys, and I was like, no, they didn't, like.
Speaker 3: Black people went to Canada, Like that's I don't know
Speaker 3: why you think the British had to be like cartoon villains,
Speaker 3: Like they were not lying about that one.
Speaker 2: They lied a lot, but yeah, no, yeah, And then
Speaker 2: there was a whole thing where like, I mean, the
Speaker 2: ones who moved to England weren't necessarily treated super great,
Speaker 2: but they weren't enslaved. So that's fucking sound.
Speaker 3: I don't know about a lot of I don't know
Speaker 3: what happened in terms of moving to England, but they
Speaker 3: were like really thriving communities of what were called like
Speaker 3: black loyalists in Canada.
Speaker 2: Cool the US Declaration of Independence, like sub tweets this
Speaker 2: this emancipation gotta get you back off Twitter when it
Speaker 2: says that the king had quote excited domestic insurrections among
Speaker 2: us and there was actually an earlier draft of the
Speaker 2: Declaration of Independence that's more explicit like these motherfuckers I
Speaker 2: had to steal our property or whatever.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: So and this isn't because the king was good, to
Speaker 2: be clear, England just wasn't nearly concerned as concerned about
Speaker 2: slavery ensure didn't mind fucking up the economy of the
Speaker 2: colonies have kept them in line. One of the other
Speaker 2: impacts of the Revolutionary War that's really tragic from my
Speaker 2: point of view, is that there's this mighty and really
Speaker 2: neat Iroquois confederacy, the Hodnashone, And this is a confederation
Speaker 2: of six nations whose democracy influenced everything from the American
Speaker 2: Constitution to Karl Marx to modern radicals of all stripes.
Speaker 2: And this confederation was hundreds of years old at the
Speaker 2: time of the Revolutionary War, and it was split by
Speaker 2: the war. Four of the nations sided with the crown
Speaker 2: because the king didn't want to steal their land as bad.
Speaker 2: Two of the nations sided with the colonists because they
Speaker 2: were like closer with the colonists. Basically, all of the
Speaker 2: indigenous nations that fought in the Revolutionary War, they weren't
Speaker 2: doing it because they're like we love the king, or
Speaker 2: like we're patriots, right. They were just fighting for their
Speaker 2: own interests, in their own independence as best they saw fit.
Speaker 2: But in seventeen eighty three, the patriots win the war
Speaker 2: and colonists are like free land and it was bad
Speaker 2: and it was a land crab. And you know what
Speaker 2: else is run on stuff to the Homestead Act. Yes,
Speaker 2: but sponsor of this show, the Homestead Act, go get yourself.
Speaker 3: Really, that's a bad one market sponsorship.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, Well I already got paid by them to
Speaker 2: do strike. Okay, we are brought to you by strikes
Speaker 2: and not stealing land. Is that better? I liked it?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, well here's the ads only for those things.
Speaker 2: And Rebecca, we're not actually going to talk. So this
Speaker 2: is when they all rush into Ohio where many of
Speaker 2: you are probably listening, but we're not going to talk
Speaker 2: about Ohio today.
Speaker 3: Congratulations on the abortion and weed by.
Speaker 2: The way, Oh yeah, fuck yeah, yeah do at the
Speaker 2: same time?
Speaker 3: Well no, absolutely, abortion while you smoke a joint, I know,
Speaker 3: don't smoke the.
Speaker 2: Joint after Yeah, after smoke the joint, and only after
Speaker 2: December seventh, because otherwise we'll be a crime. Why do
Speaker 2: I know that data goes I don't live in Ohio
Speaker 2: and I don't smoke weed. Whatever, I still think it's
Speaker 2: fucking cool.
Speaker 3: We did make that line cooler knowing what day goes
Speaker 3: into effect. Thanks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I one of my friends lives in Ohio and
Speaker 2: smokes weed, and I was like, holy shit, are you excited?
Speaker 2: And then I was like, wait, don't get excited yet,
Speaker 2: because obviously they don't smoke weed now, but they will.
Speaker 3: Of course December seventh. They will smoke their first year.
Speaker 2: Because we all totally believe in the system of law,
Speaker 2: and no one understands that it's just a cudgel to
Speaker 2: be used against their enemies. Everyone believes in law. But today,
Speaker 2: instead of talking about Ohio, we're going to focused on
Speaker 2: the Black Hills. Is the area around an area around
Speaker 2: Wyoming and the Dakotas which only took like a generation
Speaker 2: or two for the white people to get to from
Speaker 2: Ohio and all that the Black Hills here. Been to
Speaker 2: the Black Hills, I have not. They're really pretty. I
Speaker 2: understand why everyone fought over them.
Speaker 3: I mean, you don't think that that had more to
Speaker 3: do with extractive resources. You think it was this, It
Speaker 3: was at the scenery. It can't have been the scenery.
Speaker 2: Now it's about gold. I'll talk about that later. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Look, I haven't been, but I did watch Deadwood.
Speaker 2: So although there's a lot of fighting before white people
Speaker 2: get there, about who gets to live there, so fair
Speaker 2: kill people fight.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The Black Hills are an isolated mountain range where Wyoming
Speaker 2: in South Dakota meet. It got its name from the
Speaker 2: Lakota people, who called it Hissapa or Black Mountains, because
Speaker 2: the pines grow so dense that they appear to be
Speaker 2: black from a distance. It has always been a sacred
Speaker 2: place for the Lakota and for the groups that came
Speaker 2: before them. Lots of folks hung out there in various
Speaker 2: pre colonial history, and they often fought over it. The
Speaker 2: Arakari were there as well as the Cheyenne and the
Speaker 2: Crow and some other folks. And then in seventeen seventy six,
Speaker 2: while well everyone's paying zenent to someone else, it actually
Speaker 2: is completely unrelated thousands of miles away. In seventeen seventy six,
Speaker 2: the Lakota basically kick everyone out and take the Black Hills,
Speaker 2: which sets up an animosity that is going to come
Speaker 2: up a lot later and broadly. The various groups that
Speaker 2: are living there are what are called the Great Plains tribes.
Speaker 2: Some of them are semi nomadic, some are fully nomadic,
Speaker 2: and they rely heavily on hunting. The vast herds of buffet
Speaker 2: flow before the introduction of the horse. They relied on
Speaker 2: dogs with sledges to hale stuff around. Like an Ari
Speaker 2: Kara family would have thirty to forty dogs per family,
Speaker 2: which is just imagine being that rich.
Speaker 3: That's such a wonderful number of dogs. I know you
Speaker 3: did promise me dogs in this episode.
Speaker 2: This is the dogs. Yeah, And I said there was
Speaker 2: gonna be a lot of them, but they weren't going
Speaker 2: to be very important of the story because I was like,
Speaker 2: there's not that many dogs the sound.
Speaker 3: Final to the story. Well, if you have a nomadic
Speaker 3: society and dogs are your your primary pack animal, that's
Speaker 3: a those are very important dogs. I will not let
Speaker 3: you dismiss these dogs.
Speaker 2: It's true, but there are hundreds of years ago by
Speaker 2: the time that we're stuffing talking about.
Speaker 3: Their context it is you're all about the contexts. Are
Speaker 3: contextual dogs.
Speaker 2: Right, contextual dogs. Later they are master horsemen and great planes.
Speaker 2: Tribes are used as the archetypical Indian in White American culture,
Speaker 2: partly because they were really fucking good at fighting US
Speaker 2: military and so they were like around to be at
Speaker 2: war longer, Like I mean, not everyone's been around, right,
Speaker 2: Like one of the other greatest lies that we hear
Speaker 2: is that like that it's done. Everyone's subjugated, it's over
Speaker 2: two lay for decolonization, all that bullshit.
Speaker 1: Right, But.
Speaker 2: These folks, it's part of why they live on in
Speaker 2: the white American imagination and become this like stereotypical reflection
Speaker 2: of all indigenous people in North America. So if there's
Speaker 2: like a thing that you think of, this probably comes
Speaker 2: from the Great Plain Stribes. Most of who we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about today are generally called the Sioux, including
Speaker 2: by a lot of them, but more historically than presently,
Speaker 2: it's an outside name for them and is less in
Speaker 2: use today. There are three branches or subculture of what
Speaker 2: gets called the Sioux. There's the Lakota, the san Tea
Speaker 2: or the Eastern Dakota, and the Yankton or the Western Dakota.
Speaker 2: And each of these groups is further divide into various bands.
Speaker 2: The names is an exonym that comes from Najibwe word
Speaker 2: for little snakes, because it was meant to be mean.
Speaker 2: I believe mostly will be talking about Lakota this week,
Speaker 2: and so I point that out because like, if you
Speaker 2: google a lot of this, you'll have to look for
Speaker 2: like sue stuff, you know, white people didn't really start
Speaker 2: showing up in the Black Hills until the early eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: At first, relationships were complicated, but not necessarily super bad
Speaker 2: when there's just like a couple of white people around.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: By the eighteen twenties, the US is setting one group
Speaker 2: against the other and hiring folks to help them with
Speaker 2: various raids. And it's not hard to get some of
Speaker 2: these groups to fight each other because they their issues
Speaker 2: with each other are like all pretty legit, you know,
Speaker 2: of course. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And by the eighteen when like a super powerful, you know,
Speaker 3: outside entity comes in and is like making use of that,
Speaker 3: of course there's going to be you know, that's going
Speaker 3: to be a terear situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And it like and people are just doing
Speaker 2: what they think is best with the information that they
Speaker 2: have available to them, right, They're like, oh, well, this
Speaker 2: this other group is my main enemy. These fucking white people.
Speaker 2: Help me fight them or like vice, you know. Like
Speaker 2: by the eighteen forties, folks are like, wait, what the fuck,
Speaker 2: We're all like dying of disease. These motherfuckers keep slaughtering
Speaker 2: the ever loving shit out of the Buffalo. This sucks,
Speaker 2: and resistance start.
Speaker 3: Allying with them never actually works out great.
Speaker 2: No, it really really doesn't, especially making treaties with them.
Speaker 2: Not a historically honoring treaty bunch.
Speaker 3: White Americans really really love to make treaties, love to
Speaker 3: break treaties, does the United States?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a serial monogamous who loves to cheat.
Speaker 3: Never mind, is it like that, It's like a serial
Speaker 3: monogamous who is also a serial killer.
Speaker 2: Yes much, yes, more, better, better. Yeah. I never thought
Speaker 2: it'd be like, oh, serial killer better better better. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the Gold Russian Oregon Trail bullshit in the eighteen
Speaker 2: forties saw so many settlers headling west. Is really fucking
Speaker 2: things up, and folks are moving right through their territory.
Speaker 2: There's this eighteen fifty one treaty that, of course the
Speaker 2: US immediately broke, and the Oglala band of the Lakota
Speaker 2: people was particularly not fucking having it. There's one war leader,
Speaker 2: his name's Red Cloud, and in eighteen sixty six he said,
Speaker 2: quote the White Chief comes a soldiers to steal the
Speaker 2: land that they were like considering selling, comes to steal
Speaker 2: before the Indian says yes or no, I will talk
Speaker 2: with you, no more, I will go now, and I
Speaker 2: will fight you as long as I live. I will
Speaker 2: fight you for the last hunting grounds of my people.
Speaker 2: Red Cloud. Yeah, he's not fucking around. He killed the
Speaker 2: head chief of the Oglala Bulbar for being too friendly
Speaker 2: with the invaders. Gottnna do what you gotta do, yep.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about how bad the invaders were. This
Speaker 2: is gonna be my favorite part. Uh, they're really invading Heck,
Speaker 2: for example, you ever heard of a guy named Kit Carson?
Speaker 2: Has yes?
Speaker 3: Heard of that guy?
Speaker 2: So he's not involved here. But I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 2: why I'm gonna. I need to you to understand him,
Speaker 2: to understand the relative morality of some of these invaders.
Speaker 2: He's more involved in the Southwest. Uh, particularly, I believe
Speaker 2: he's involved in murdering and sexually assaulting Tonay people. Kit
Speaker 2: Carson was a Union officer who immediately after the Civil
Speaker 2: War went to go join the Indian Wars and got
Speaker 2: the nickname Indian Killer, which is a bad name and
Speaker 2: if you have it, you should die. He went around
Speaker 2: the Southwest and destroyed everyone's food supplies. That was like
Speaker 2: how he won his quote unquote wars. He was really
Speaker 2: into destroying people's food supplies. He was famous as shit
Speaker 2: as like a dime store novel hero. He's like the
Speaker 2: face of like America fighting in the Indian Wars or whatever.
Speaker 2: The Dney called him long Knives, which is another bad
Speaker 2: nickname to have, and he used to play catch with
Speaker 2: the sever breast of Indigenous women that he's slaughtered. Jesus Christ,
Speaker 2: because American history is a fucking horror movie, you know what.
Speaker 3: Like, I fancy myself a fairly educated person. And as
Speaker 3: soon as you started talking about this about Kit Carson specifically,
Speaker 3: I was like, well, I don't know a lot about
Speaker 3: Kit Carson specifically, but I bet nothing she's gonna tell
Speaker 3: me is gonna shock me. I know about the American
Speaker 3: genocide of and god fucking damn it, no, that is
Speaker 3: actually I mean ges Christ.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And any listener knows that I hate being really
Speaker 2: explicit about some of this kind of stuff. I take
Speaker 2: it very carefully. I think it's worth understanding who these
Speaker 2: motherfuckers are.
Speaker 3: There's I mean there there is like a a level
Speaker 3: of disregard for human life that needs to be understood
Speaker 3: in this situation because you can have you know, but
Speaker 3: because body counts don't tell the full story. But something
Speaker 3: like that is pretty pretty like demonstrative of the mindset
Speaker 3: at work and the just sheer like genocidal fervor at work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely and absolutely does not see people as human.
Speaker 2: There's a park named after him in California. You can
Speaker 2: go to Kit Carson Park. Okay, the reason I'm telling
Speaker 2: you about Kit.
Speaker 3: Carson Jesus, Okay, put that on the on the list.
Speaker 3: After all the Confederate well not after all the Confederate
Speaker 3: monuments are While the Confederate monuments are being melt down,
Speaker 3: maybe there's any other human that that things could be
Speaker 3: named after a wo Kit Kit sounds like a bullshit
Speaker 3: fucking nickname for like a nineteen fifties girl detective, and
Speaker 3: like he's I don't know, it's so likely he's trying
Speaker 3: to be so non threatening and chill, Like I hate.
Speaker 2: That non threatening chill. Yeah, okay, Kit isn't fuck that guy.
Speaker 2: So some of the shit that was happening in the
Speaker 2: Black Hills by the settlers in the army that's supporting them,
Speaker 2: all the murder and rape and murder rape, including of
Speaker 2: an entire camp of Chyenne people, Kit Carson, Kit fucking Carson,
Speaker 2: looked at that and said that the settlers who did
Speaker 2: that were cowards and dogs because of how evil the
Speaker 2: settlers and the Black Hills are.
Speaker 3: I mean, are we sure he wasn't just jealous?
Speaker 2: It's completely possible. But it's like that, how fucking that's
Speaker 2: if this is the moral compass? Like this is why
Speaker 2: I had to explain Kit Carson. It's also worth understanding
Speaker 2: Kit Carson because it's worth understanding that the villain from
Speaker 2: the Saw movies is the archetypical hero of the Indian
Speaker 2: Wars from the American side. I have still not seen
Speaker 2: the Saw movies. It's not my style of thing.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna watch though, And I know you love context,
Speaker 3: but I'm not gonna watch the Saw movies for context
Speaker 3: for your explanation of Kit Carson no murder. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm generally given to understand that people don't come out
Speaker 3: of those movies, you know, with all their parts.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Red Cloud and a bunch of other folks
Speaker 2: are like, fuck this, We're gonna do a fucking war,
Speaker 2: and it gets called Red Cloud's war. It's not really
Speaker 2: his war. You can't own a war. Also, it's like
Speaker 2: that's like a basically a white imposition to call him
Speaker 2: the leader of the war. There's a lot of leaders.
Speaker 2: It's also it would also be a lie to claim
Speaker 2: it was all equals, right, But it's like a lot
Speaker 2: of complicated different groups working together and fighting a very
Speaker 2: righteous and beautiful war. I mean, well beautiful whatever. It's
Speaker 2: fucking whatever they.
Speaker 3: Do what they were, yeah, doing something that needed to
Speaker 3: be done. And like, I think there's also something where
Speaker 3: you like name a by like naming a war after
Speaker 3: the one guy, where the US can kind of pretend
Speaker 3: that it's smaller than it is, like, oh, it's just
Speaker 3: this guy who has a problem with us. I don't
Speaker 3: know what his deal is. And it's like, no, it's
Speaker 3: all of these people who you have screwed over in
Speaker 3: this just in you know, in this sort of language
Speaker 3: defying way, that are now fighting back, and you're just like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: it's you're trying to like put it on one person, right.
Speaker 2: Red Cloud got a little upset one day after, you know.
Speaker 3: Right, like if people had called the War of Independence
Speaker 3: like and I can't name a single foundation, right, like
Speaker 3: Ben Franklin's war, it would have sounded trivial and silly, right,
Speaker 3: And you.
Speaker 2: Know, and so there are Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapahoe folks
Speaker 2: fighting alongside one another, and they're just like fucking the
Speaker 2: Americans up in Red Clouds War. But if you want
Speaker 2: to go to war, do we Yeah, do we sell? Nope? Nope, nope,
Speaker 2: none of that happened. Here's ads and we're back. So
Speaker 2: the US Army was protecting something called the Bozeman Trail,
Speaker 2: which connected up to the Oregon Trail, and they've just
Speaker 2: built a bunch of forts on Crow Territory, and the
Speaker 2: Crow are generally allied with the US throughout most of
Speaker 2: this because they're sick of the Lakota trying to put
Speaker 2: their territory. Captain William J. Fetterman is in charge of
Speaker 2: a bunch of these guys. I try really hard not
Speaker 2: to be mad at people for their last names, but
Speaker 2: Fetterman is the name of a person who puts people
Speaker 2: in chains and he's a bad guy.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's that's what that means, I guess, yeah,
Speaker 3: or it means featherman. Maybe I'm pretty.
Speaker 2: Sure it's jail guy. I don't know, whatever, I don't know.
Speaker 2: You're not actually responsible for your last name, and like me, killjoy,
Speaker 2: I mean, who would have picked a name anyway, so.
Speaker 3: Charged Unlike you, I didn't pick his name, but it
Speaker 3: sounds like hearth.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So he has no experience in the Indian Wars.
Speaker 2: This guy Fetterman, and he's entirely contemptious of the quote
Speaker 2: unquote savages. At one point he says, give me eighty
Speaker 2: men and I can ride through the whole Sux nation.
Speaker 3: I am so excited for this man to get killed
Speaker 3: so hard?
Speaker 2: Is that? Am I going to get to see this
Speaker 2: man killed so hard? Well, I'll tell you that he
Speaker 2: gets exactly eighty or eighty one men, and then he
Speaker 2: tries to through the whole six nation. I'll tell you
Speaker 2: that much. Does it not work out? So about a
Speaker 2: thousand warriors laid in ambush in the hills, four miles
Speaker 2: away from the enemy. Fort ten folks volunteer to serve
Speaker 2: as bait, evenly split from the various groups involved, including
Speaker 2: and introducing one of the coolest motherfuckers in history, Crazy Horse.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: And meanwhile, there's a wink To, which is a two
Speaker 2: spirit person who gives advice to Red Cloud about the battle,
Speaker 2: saying that in their vision they saw a hundred blue
Speaker 2: Coat soldiers in their hands and this prophecy gives the
Speaker 2: upcoming battle the name the Battle of the Hundred in
Speaker 2: the hands. US sources call it the Fetterman Fight, which is.
Speaker 3: Boring, yeah, much much less good name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, although it was a little bit like kind of
Speaker 2: what we were saying that people say about like Red
Speaker 2: Cloud's war, while he got kind of upset and he
Speaker 2: went to war. That's kind of what happens with Fetterman.
Speaker 2: He's like a little upset, you know. And so the
Speaker 2: ten decoys harassed the detachment of eighty one soldiers, which
Speaker 2: I believe is Fan and his eighty guys.
Speaker 3: Had ass ten people like that is an incredible thing
Speaker 3: to volunteer for.
Speaker 2: They are literally mooning soldiers who are shooting grape shot
Speaker 2: from cannons at them.
Speaker 3: Fucking legend. That is so cool. Good for them, and
Speaker 3: oh my.
Speaker 2: God, And it's like it's so funny too, right, because
Speaker 2: it's like when I first read this, I thought it
Speaker 2: was like, oh, no, we set up as if we're
Speaker 2: easy to attack. Don't attack us. You know. That's because
Speaker 2: that's what I would assume would write.
Speaker 3: I was picturing somebody like running through like, oh no,
Speaker 3: I've twisted my ankle, don't chase me.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, no, they were literally mooning them.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They were like, hey, we're harassing you and try to
Speaker 2: get you to follow us so we can kill you.
Speaker 2: And they're like, okay, we're gonna follow and kill you.
Speaker 2: You know, this couldn't possibly be a trap. Yeah, every
Speaker 2: and so the decoys let the soldiers further away from
Speaker 2: any support. Every one of the eighty one soldiers died
Speaker 2: in the ambush. Cool. The indigenous folks had like very
Speaker 2: few guns at this point. They are mostly fighting with
Speaker 2: bows and arrows, spears and clubs against muskets. Fetterman himself
Speaker 2: died when someone slashed his throat. For years they were like, no,
Speaker 2: he shot himself in suicide because he couldn't be killed.
Speaker 2: But he had to, you know, he knew he was
Speaker 2: gonna die, and like the forensics were just like his
Speaker 2: fucking throat was slashed. Like he's not a hero, He's
Speaker 2: just a fucking piece of shit who wasn't very smart,
Speaker 2: who got himself fucking murdered.
Speaker 3: He really got mad when he saw some butts, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and did not at all think perhaps I am being manipulated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. When in doubt of a strained showing you
Speaker 2: their butt. They're manipulating you.
Speaker 3: They're trying to get some kind of reaction from you.
Speaker 2: Think hard about what that kind of reaction might be. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 2: if you ever want to read a what modern bias
Speaker 2: looks like, read the Wikipedia account about the Fetterman Fight,
Speaker 2: because it was clearly written by someone who sees the
Speaker 2: US Army as heroes. And it blows my mind that
Speaker 2: in the year of Our Lord twenty twenty three, there
Speaker 2: are people who think that the white Americans were justified
Speaker 2: in like fucking anything they did during the founding of
Speaker 2: this nation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a I I guess I always like think
Speaker 3: that I'm like walking around surrounded by people who don't
Speaker 3: think like the directors of nineteen fifties Westerns. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: I guess I guess that's who's around me, or at
Speaker 3: least since who's editing Wikipedia.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: And the justification is that a lot of this is
Speaker 2: happening on Crow Territory where the rather than Lakota territory.
Speaker 2: But I'm like, people are resisting colonization. A bunch of
Speaker 2: different indigenous nations are coming together resist colonization and destroy
Speaker 2: people who are don't see them as human.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if the justification involves the fact that this
Speaker 3: is on Crow territory, I'm going to need that justification
Speaker 3: to be supported by a detailed account of how the
Speaker 3: US Army treated the Crow. Yeah, and I'm gonna guess
Speaker 3: that that doesn't support that justification.
Speaker 2: Well, during a lot of this, the Crow are the
Speaker 2: allies of the US government. Okay, but because of but
Speaker 2: I actually I only know about specific Crow scouts. I
Speaker 2: actually don't know larger and I'm really not trying to
Speaker 2: paint you know, entire groups of people with brushes and.
Speaker 3: This, sure, And I mean I'm just saying, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: in the long term, painting the United States is just
Speaker 3: at with thet the best interests of the Crow at heart.
Speaker 3: Sounds pretty suspect to me.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Anyhow, Red Clouds War, which Red Cloud wasn't in
Speaker 2: charge of, just was one of people in charge of.
Speaker 2: A ton of badass motherfuckers are up in this, like
Speaker 2: Crazy Horse, a guy named Spotted Tail, American Horse. But
Speaker 2: several of these badass motherfuckers later become sellout motherfuckers by
Speaker 2: most accounts. Unfortunately, it's complicated everywhere always Shortly thereafter, during
Speaker 2: the midst of this war, that the Federman fight doesn't
Speaker 2: end that war, right, but it is the greatest loss
Speaker 2: in the Indian wars in US history up to that point.
Speaker 2: But don't worry.
Speaker 3: Rarely can you end a war by killing eighty one
Speaker 3: extremely dumb motherfuckers. Yeah, even as satisfying as it may.
Speaker 2: Be, Well one, don't worry. Lakota warriors and some other
Speaker 2: folks are going to kill an even greater number of
Speaker 2: US soldiers fantastic the reasonably near future. But also they're
Speaker 2: going to win this war spoiler. Shortly thereafter, the soldiers
Speaker 2: get given breech loaders instead of muzzleloaders, and this does
Speaker 2: fuck up the tactics of the indigenous folks because one
Speaker 2: of their main tactics is to rush before they can reload,
Speaker 2: so you only have to suffer one volley, right, And
Speaker 2: with breech loaders, they're shooting too fast, and so they
Speaker 2: are two different attacks on forts, and both these attacks fail.
Speaker 2: So the Indigenous nations go back to doing what their
Speaker 2: best at, which is guerrilla attacks. And the US realized
Speaker 2: they calculated it would take them twenty thousand soldiers to
Speaker 2: put down this group of indigenous more than eighty Yeah,
Speaker 2: a little bit more in eighty, so the US sued
Speaker 2: for peace. They were like, we can't do that, we
Speaker 2: give up, and Red Cloud was like, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to fucking meet you unless you give up all, unless
Speaker 2: you abandon these three forts. So the US abandoned those forts.
Speaker 3: Nice, that's like the concession before he'll even come to
Speaker 3: the table.
Speaker 2: Yep, before all you come to the table. So then
Speaker 2: again before they come to the table, the warriors went
Speaker 2: and burned those forts to the fucking round. Fuck yeah,
Speaker 2: And this part is important to our story. The US
Speaker 2: government sued for peace in eighteen sixty eight in the
Speaker 2: Treaty of eighteen sixty eight. They're really original namers, the
Speaker 2: kind of people come up with Fetterman Fight and Red
Speaker 2: Cloud War. Are going to call it the Treaty of
Speaker 2: eighteen sixty eight. Sometimes this is called the Treaty of
Speaker 2: Fort Laramie because it was signed at Fort Laramie.
Speaker 3: That's what they called it on the TV show Deadwood,
Speaker 3: where it which is okay, where most of what I
Speaker 3: know about the Black Hills unfortunately comes.
Speaker 2: From I didn't watch that, and sometimes I actually try
Speaker 2: to watch this stuff. That's like, here's what mostly people
Speaker 2: say about the following thing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: On November sixth, eighteen sixty eight, Red Cloud signed this treaty,
Speaker 2: and it guaranteed indigenous groups quote, absolute and undisputed use
Speaker 2: of the Great Sioux Reservation. No persons shall ever be
Speaker 2: permitted to pass, over, settle upon, or reside in territory
Speaker 2: described in this article, or without consent of the Indians
Speaker 2: passed through the same. No treaty for the secession of
Speaker 2: any portion or part of the reservation herein described shall
Speaker 2: be of any validity or force unless executed and signed
Speaker 2: by at least three fourths of the adult male Indians
Speaker 2: occupying or interested in the same. So it's a very
Speaker 2: clear treaty. It is a this is yours, it's yours now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's unambiguous, really specific and clear. It would be
Speaker 3: very obvious if somebody were to break the terms of
Speaker 3: that treaty.
Speaker 2: Well, unfortunately it's stayed intact ever since. And that's the
Speaker 2: four parter good thing in the.
Speaker 4: US keeps its promises, huh, which actually gets into some
Speaker 4: of this interesting I'll probably end up talking about more
Speaker 4: this more next week, but obviously i'm buying large using
Speaker 4: you know, I'm referring to people as indigenous people rather
Speaker 4: than like Indians, for example, right, obviously, except when I'm
Speaker 4: quoting things.
Speaker 2: There are arguments the American Indian Movement aim which will
Speaker 2: be a major subject of next week. There are arguments
Speaker 2: that people made at various points where they're like, you
Speaker 2: know what, I actually prefer that word. And one of
Speaker 2: the reasons that sometimes people preferred that word again, I'm
Speaker 2: talking about the nineteen sixties, nineteen seventies, I'm not trying
Speaker 2: to make an argument for it now, was specifically around
Speaker 2: a lot of their fights were around the legal ees
Speaker 2: of these various documents, and they were like, we need
Speaker 2: to make it clear that we are the group of
Speaker 2: people who sign this document.
Speaker 3: Right, are we are who were supposedly granted these right
Speaker 3: these concessions and these rights.
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: But that is y.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't have a I have no interest
Speaker 2: in having an opinion on that. It does not matter.
Speaker 2: You know, whatever folks decide to go with, that's what
Speaker 2: I'm going with, and buy and large and you know,
Speaker 2: in the United States, I tend to use indigenous peoples
Speaker 2: and then like a lot of people in Canada use
Speaker 2: First Nations peoples and you know whatever. So the indigenous
Speaker 2: people who sign this condes this treaty. They're also supposed
Speaker 2: to be get given clothes, food, education, a sawmill and
Speaker 2: a gristmill, a warehouse, a doctor, an instruction in white
Speaker 2: man's agriculture and technology. This last part is part of
Speaker 2: the US policy to like civilize the indigenous people.
Speaker 3: Right, right, but the forest assimilation right.
Speaker 2: In exchange, the Lakota agree to withdraw opposition to the
Speaker 2: construction of the railroad and other roads elsewhere, you know,
Speaker 2: and wouldn't lead raids out from their territories against settlers.
Speaker 2: And this treaty snuck in just under the wire. By
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy one, the US passed a rider to a
Speaker 2: bill that said, quote hereafter, no Indian nation or tribe
Speaker 2: within the United States shall be acknowledged or recognized as
Speaker 2: an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United
Speaker 2: States may contract by treaty. This was when they were like, no,
Speaker 2: you are all fucking ours, right, you know, we do
Speaker 2: not respect anyone else to have any I don't like
Speaker 2: government very.
Speaker 3: Much, so well, yeah, it's bad. I mean, just I
Speaker 3: think based on the conversation we've been having for the
Speaker 3: last hour, so I think I'm ready to say the
Speaker 3: government is bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the America government is not actually overall a force
Speaker 2: for good. I hate to you know, people don't get
Speaker 2: real mad about that now whatever. So Red Cloud he
Speaker 2: signs this, but he and some of the other folks,
Speaker 2: they're kind of defeated after this. They like he goes
Speaker 2: east in eighteen seventy and he just sees how many
Speaker 2: fucking white people there are and he's like, oh fuck,
Speaker 2: we're fucked, like we can't and he never again goes
Speaker 2: back to war and he mostly starts playing ball with
Speaker 2: the invaders, although he's still got some good moments of
Speaker 2: resistance in him. And it's complicated. I'm not trying to
Speaker 2: be like, well whatever, I can't sit my fucking answer.
Speaker 2: Just did this shit. They were the other side of this,
Speaker 2: so whatever, you know. Meanwhile, the guy in charge of
Speaker 2: the reservation system, as best as I can tell, his
Speaker 2: guy named Francis Walker, and he said that the goal
Speaker 2: of the reservation system was to reduce quote the wild
Speaker 2: beasts to the condition of supplicants for charity Jesus, like,
Speaker 2: not even about assimilation. It is about making them no
Speaker 2: longer have agency. Yeah, so the Lakota and other flash
Speaker 2: I just I don't know.
Speaker 3: I again, I really thought that, like, oh well, I
Speaker 3: know this stuff. I know how horrible this was. But
Speaker 3: like occasionally somebody will just like say something, not even occasionally,
Speaker 3: seems like constantly, you know, people will just fucking say
Speaker 3: things like.
Speaker 2: That, yeah yeah, and people in power will say things
Speaker 2: like that, yeah right. That's the thing.
Speaker 3: This wasn't like some crank who's like, I don't I
Speaker 3: don't think that we should treat people well. This is
Speaker 3: like the guy who's in charge of the reservation system Jesus.
Speaker 2: As best as I can tell, I like spent a
Speaker 2: while trying to figure out I read the quote and
Speaker 2: then try to infer from context and then try to
Speaker 2: like google around it a lot because the quote is
Speaker 2: so affecting. But it wasn't entirely clear. That was my
Speaker 2: best guess as the person's job who said it. But
Speaker 2: still they've got this treaty of eighteen sixty eight, and
Speaker 2: the Lakota and other folks are like sort of sat
Speaker 2: for you know, they're like, Okay, we have the reservation,
Speaker 2: we have sovereignty, and we've got the Black Hills. You know,
Speaker 2: this is very important to us. But Miriam, do you
Speaker 2: ever think about like, what if white people wanted the hills?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean white people usually get what they want, right,
Speaker 3: that's how that goes.
Speaker 2: Huh. Yeah, They're like, well, why can't we have the
Speaker 2: hills even though we just signed this treaty because we
Speaker 2: lost a war, even.
Speaker 3: Though yeah, even though we literally just said you can
Speaker 3: have that and we won't try to take it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So, six years later, like not a generation later, not
Speaker 2: half a generation later. Six years later, enter onto stage
Speaker 2: Colonel George Custer.
Speaker 3: Well, I am excited for how this ends, but I'm
Speaker 3: not excited for what's going to happen. First.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, he's a dick. In eighteen seventy four, he
Speaker 2: leads an expedition into the sovereign territory of the Lakota
Speaker 2: to confirm rumors that there's gold, and he's like, Yep,
Speaker 2: there's gold. George Custer is such a piece of shit
Speaker 2: that a superior officer once said about him. The year prior,
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy three, a superior officer said about him that
Speaker 2: he was quote a cold blooded, untruthful, and unprincipled man,
Speaker 2: universally despised by all the officers of his regiment.
Speaker 3: Okay, so why is He'm like, why is he allowed
Speaker 3: to be in charge of anything?
Speaker 5: I argue, baby, I just I mean, I love that,
Speaker 5: like ninety percent of the people that you've like, of,
Speaker 5: like the genocidal white people you've talked about so far,
Speaker 5: there's like somebody standing right behind them going like, we
Speaker 5: all hate this piece of shit. And it's then stop
Speaker 5: giving him guns and people to command, totally, totally, and
Speaker 5: we're going to talk about Oh, we'll get to it.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: George Custer, you will be shocked to know is a
Speaker 2: huge proponent of the Indigenous people aren't human theory, and
Speaker 2: he was the He was the kind of guy who
Speaker 2: would say shit like I don't know what the Prime
Speaker 2: Minister of Israel says about Palestinian people in the Year
Speaker 2: of a Lord twenty twenty three, not that anyone would
Speaker 2: draw historical parallels.
Speaker 3: I thought we agreed that history doesn't repeat or rhyme
Speaker 3: or or do any of those things that it does.
Speaker 2: No, totally not. So miners everywhere are like, we need
Speaker 2: to get the fuck into those hills, Like there's gold there.
Speaker 2: I have a god given right to steal all of
Speaker 2: the gold and kill everyone who's between me and it,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: And only logical.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is actually one of the only interesting
Speaker 2: to me. I don't know, it's like the first time
Speaker 2: that settlement happened in the eastern direction, like because it
Speaker 2: was like people who had gone gold rushing out west
Speaker 2: were like, oh, there's gold in the middle of the
Speaker 2: country too. They like swung back into the middle of
Speaker 2: the country.
Speaker 3: Ah, that is interesting, Yeah, that is interesting. Don't undersell
Speaker 3: your interesting facts.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So miners started gathering in towns like wagons are
Speaker 2: getting people are like lining up right and ready to pillage.
Speaker 2: But the US had at the moment, the US had
Speaker 2: troops stationed to keep them out of the hills in
Speaker 2: order to keep them honoring the treaty. And the US
Speaker 2: was like, well, we should settle this properly. We should
Speaker 2: buy all the land. And so they offered five million dollars,
Speaker 2: which is one hundred and forty million dollars in today's money,
Speaker 2: and the indigenous folk were like fuck no. Sitting bowl
Speaker 2: of the hunk, Papa Lakota said, quote, we want to
Speaker 2: know white men here. The Black hills belong to me.
Speaker 2: If the whites tried to take them, I will fight.
Speaker 2: And he said he would not sell even a pinch
Speaker 2: of dust to the Americans. Good call. Yeah, crazy horse.
Speaker 2: Who if I ever like go revisit this, I'm just
Speaker 2: going to a solid crazy horse thing because he seems
Speaker 2: really interesting as a person. He was a really quiet
Speaker 2: reserved guy. Yeah, totally, and so so crazy Horses. Just
Speaker 2: a quiet reserved guy who like wouldn't sing and dance,
Speaker 2: like wouldn't participate in all this stuff. He was always
Speaker 2: really nice to everyone, but it was just a little
Speaker 2: bit withdrawn you know. It's fucking cool. I really like him.
Speaker 2: He and so he's generally pretty quiet. But he said
Speaker 2: about this quote, one does not sell the land on
Speaker 2: which the people walk, and the resistant chiefs promised that
Speaker 2: any chief who sold the Black Hills would be killed.
Speaker 2: So Red Red Cloud and Spotted Tail are like they're
Speaker 2: thinking about it. They're like, oh no, maybe you know.
Speaker 2: And then they were like, oh, we don't want to
Speaker 2: sell it.
Speaker 3: We've just been given a pressing counteroffer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wherein we don't get murdered. Yeah, And it's like
Speaker 2: hard to say exactly my money based on everything else
Speaker 2: I read is that like Red Cloud was a little
Speaker 2: bit more on the level and Spotted Tail was a
Speaker 2: little bit less on the level at this point. But well,
Speaker 2: we'll get more into their stuff. So Red Cloud and
Speaker 2: Spotted Tail are like, now, we're not fucking signing. And
Speaker 2: Crazy Horse had another really good quote. I'm just going
Speaker 2: to stick in here because I like it. Quote. We
Speaker 2: did not ask you white men to come here. The
Speaker 2: Great Spirit gave us this country as a home you
Speaker 2: had yours. We did not interfere with you. The Great
Speaker 2: Spirit gave us plenty of land to live on the
Speaker 2: and buffalo deer and antelope and other game. But you
Speaker 2: have come here. You are taking my land from me.
Speaker 2: You are killing off our game. So it is hard
Speaker 2: for us to live. Now. You tell us to work
Speaker 2: for a living, but the Great Spirit didn't make us
Speaker 2: to work, but to live by hunting. You white men
Speaker 2: can work if you want to. We do not interfere
Speaker 2: with you. And again you say, why do you not
Speaker 2: become civilized? We do not want your civilization. We would
Speaker 2: live as our fathers did and their fathers before them.
Speaker 2: Fuck yeah, yeah, no fucking notes, So the indigenous people
Speaker 2: wouldn't sell. President Grant was like, fine, I'll withdraw all
Speaker 2: my troops that are protecting you from settlers, and I'll
Speaker 2: let the settlers do the work, and then he got
Speaker 2: ready to wage a war because he had to go
Speaker 2: protect those settlers too. You know. As for how that went,
Speaker 2: we'll talk about it on Wednesday. Spoiler alert, it does
Speaker 2: not go well for Custer personally.
Speaker 1: That was such a cool quote you read a second ago, though,
Speaker 1: like I want to go Yeah, I want to go
Speaker 1: back to it because it was really fucking cool. Will
Speaker 1: you read it again, like it just resonates.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a crazy horse quote. We did not ask
Speaker 2: you white men to come here. The Great Spirit gave
Speaker 2: us this country as a home you had yours. We
Speaker 2: did not interfere with you. The Great Spirit gave us
Speaker 2: plenty of land to live on in buffalo, deer, antelope,
Speaker 2: and other game. But you have come here. You are
Speaker 2: taking my land from me. You are killing off our game.
Speaker 2: So it is hard for us to live now. You
Speaker 2: tell us to work for a living, but the Great
Speaker 2: Spirit did not make us to work, but to live
Speaker 2: by hunting. You white men can work if you want to.
Speaker 2: We do not interfere with you. And again you say,
Speaker 2: why do you not become civilized? We do not want
Speaker 2: your civilization. We would live as our fathers did and
Speaker 2: their fathers before them.
Speaker 1: Lock.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's really powerful. Thanks for reading it again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, can't wait for Wednesday.
Speaker 3: Can't wait for Custard to die.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's gonna die so dead, He's like gonna be
Speaker 2: super dead. There's three wounds and they're not sure which
Speaker 2: one killed him.
Speaker 3: Not to call back to the Pirate episode, but like wimp.
Speaker 2: Black had like twenty yeah totally. Oh it's so funny.
Speaker 2: Well that's then the part one of a four parter
Speaker 2: because we have so much more to talk about. But first, Miriam, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think you want to.
Speaker 3: Talk about Yeah, if I said anything that was incorrect
Speaker 3: or you'd disagree with, I'm not on Twitter, so talk
Speaker 3: to Margaret about it.
Speaker 2: So ha ha ha.
Speaker 3: But maybe if you are a person who has some
Speaker 3: money of any amount, you could go to Medical Aid
Speaker 3: for Palestinians at m AP dot org dot uk and
Speaker 3: give them some money. Maybe you did that already at
Speaker 3: the beginning of the bombing of Gaza, and maybe you
Speaker 3: should do it again. If you did it already, and
Speaker 3: if you haven't done it at all, maybe you should
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 2: I think that's what I would plug to And then
Speaker 2: also to say that just read more about how colonization
Speaker 2: happens here in the US and how it's an ongoing
Speaker 2: project and how it's not over. And then like the
Speaker 2: thing that I keep pointing out because it sits in
Speaker 2: my head, it's my Roman Empire. It's the thing I
Speaker 2: think of every once so fucking week, is that in
Speaker 2: the grand scheme of things, the United States has not
Speaker 2: actually been a colonized territory for all of that long.
Speaker 2: It's been a very long time, and it's been a
Speaker 2: very horrible time, full of awful atrocities, but it's not over,
Speaker 2: Like there are many places where colonization lasted longer and
Speaker 2: then ended.
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, to to paraphrase Ursula Legwyn, we live
Speaker 3: under settler colonialism. Its power seems inescapable, So did the
Speaker 3: divine right of kings. All human power can be undone
Speaker 3: by human hands.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, have you got anything you want to plug?
Speaker 3: Just could happen here?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Oh, specifically on it could happen here. There's a
Speaker 2: really good episode that Mia did about settler colonialism and
Speaker 2: what it looks like that I actually listened to while
Speaker 2: writing this episode, and I think it's it's worth going back. Oh,
Speaker 2: I don't remember the title. It'll be from right around
Speaker 2: the week of November, like third or fourth or something
Speaker 2: like that, and it's really worth listening to. It talks
Speaker 2: a lot about is.
Speaker 1: It the cheapest land is bought in Blood?
Speaker 2: Yeah, go listen to Cheap It's a two part listen
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I highly recommend that.
Speaker 1: To Murder as well.
Speaker 2: From Martin. All Right, see you all Wednesday.
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