Following up a biography on David Crockett with a history of the Comanche people. The westward expansion period of the US is perhaps my favorite period of history, but it provides within it continuous moral hangups. History is not a pretty place, and the atrocities committed in the past are often glazed over today in order to protect our ancestors legacies. But where should we turn when the tale of American exceptionalism is littered with the blood of so many? When we have committed genocides with as much zeal as any Nazi could have? When we embarked on full scale wars to eradicate a people? Now, for you people out there who would criticize my comparing American slavery and eradication of the non white peoples to the atrocities of Nazi Germany I will give to you that the wars against the native Indians (for that is what they were called) were spurred by atrocities committed on both sides. Many of the Indians also bore a racist attitude towards the white man, So the circumstances are markedly different. But it doesnt change a mindset towards genocide. But what are we to do? Are we not allowed to revere our ancestors? For they were a product of their times and in similar circumstances can we say we would stand different? Do we appreciate the fact that all sides sinned in westward expansion, and America holds that responsibility more due to the fact that it prevailed over everyone? Are we allowed to make those of the past into heroes? Or should we be ashamed of what we were? I ask these questions, and pose these problems, not to say that America is, in any way, a country founded on negative and terrible principles. I simply ask all of you, my friends, where do you stand when it comes to separating truth from legend, and where that leaves our forefathers?
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 20:18:08 +0000
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