Re: [Marxism] Que los cumplas feliz, viejo Lincoln! (Happy Birthday, old Lincoln)

[David Thorstad <binesi@xxxxxxxxx>]

Mark Lause wrote:
> In terms of Indians, Lincoln was very different from his predecessors
> and repeatedly did positive things when the subject came up.  He was
> preoccupied at the time with what seemed to him to be more pressing
> problems...
>   
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I'm not sure how different Lincoln was in this regard. It's true that he 
was distracted from the whiteman's project to steal Indian lands by the 
Civil War, but as the war wound down, his administration got right back 
to carrying out its land theft. Was he generous to "pardon" 265 Dakota 
warriors yet allow the mass hanging in Makato, Minnesota, of 
thirty-eight others the day after Christmas in 1862? True, he was 
attacked by white racists for having pardoned any of the Dakota, but the 
execution was the largest in American history, and to this day remains a 
deep wound among Minnesota's Dakota Indians (who commemorate the event 
with a march in bitter winter cold every December from Fort Snelling to 
Mankato). It was used by Lincoln's negotiator (Alexander Ramsey) at the 
1863 Old Crossing Treaty to threaten the Red Lake and Pembina bands of 
Ojibwe if they did not agree to cede 11 million acres of the most 
fertile land in the United States, in the Red River Valley, which became 
known as the breadbasket of the (white) nation. The Indians were told 
Lincoln was their "Great Father," who had only benevolent intentions 
toward them as his henchmen stole their lands. The entire treaty period 
was nothing other than a land grab and outright theft--a Christian 
implementation of the Thou Shalt Not Steal commandment, I suppose. I 
don't think Lincoln was any better than any other racist American 
president when it came to this theft and murder plan.


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