1872: "American progress"

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

A white woman floats above unconquered lands leading settlers westward while natives and wildlife retreat . She wears a US star on her forehead and the book she carries is labeled "School Book". She is stringing along telegraph wires, the first interwebs.

"let all that is indian within you die" - Indian assimilation school pledge

Comments

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

The glory that is Manifest Destiny,
or is that Plymouth Rock falling on me?

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Where we come from says a lot of about the state of our arrival in this place and time.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

That was new to me, thx.

[moonshaz.livejournal.com]

Nice video, but most of the images I saw had nothing to do with the Cherokees and how they actually lived/dressed around the time of the removal. (There were a few historically accurate images, but they were a tiny minority.)

These folks are dressed in the kind of clothing that would have been worn by the Cherokees on the Trail of Tears as part of a cultural tourism program that the Cherokee Nation is developing. As you can see, there are no feathered headdresses or fringed buckskin garments.



Also, neither the Cherokees' original homelands nor the area they were removed to in OK have snowcapped mountains.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Is this a subject of particular interest/study to you?

[i.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that lipstick, mascara, and plucked eye
brows were Cherokee traditions.

[joshthevegan.livejournal.com]

LOL

[mudryikot.livejournal.com]

Did they really have fabric-making and fabric-colouring know-how? And what materials did they use?

[mudryikot.livejournal.com]

No, I just don't know squat about North America native people, really. Since I am not from America they never were that much studied in school history, and actually never were of personal interest.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I had a vague sense of that, but I wasn't sure how bad it was.

[joshthevegan.livejournal.com]

Our history as it relates to the natives of this land is disgusting.



Smallpox champion u s of a
Give natives some blankets
Warm like the grave
This is the pattern cut from the cloth
This is the pattern designed to take you right out
This is the frontier with winter's so cold
Greed informs action where action makes bold
To take all the cotton that's cut from the stalk
Weave the disease that's gonna take you right out
What is good for the future what was good for the past -
Won't last
Bury your heart u s of a history rears up to spit in your face
You saw what you wanted
You took what you saw
We know how you got it
Your method equals wipe out
The end of the frontier and all that you own
Under the blankets of all that you've done
Memory serves us to serve you
Yet memory serves us to never let you wipe out
Cha-cha-cha-champion
You'll get yours
Wipe out

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Meh. Most of my relatives at the time were busy going without potatoes and arranging passage to somewhere else, preferably with potatoes. They found trees.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

So, it's a good thing those injuns were cleared away.

*just screwing with you, dude*

[zadok-allen.livejournal.com]

The correct term is "pacified"!

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

He says toe-may-toe; she says ethnic cleansing. ;)

[mudryikot.livejournal.com]

"That's another of those irregular verbs, isn't it?
I give confidential press briefings; you leak; he's being charged under section 2A of the Official Secrets Act."
(C)

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Bah, I think all verb are pretty weird and irregular.

[spamwarrior.livejournal.com]

I can't wait to see McNaughton's version.

[pacotelic.livejournal.com]

To be fair, Europeans weren't treating each other much better in colonial times either.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

How do we know that's an American star? It might have been French and only been visiting.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

If she were French, there would be at least one boob showing. ;)

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Yeah, American Progress is an important piece, but it sure ain't no "Liberty Leading the People."

[mudryikot.livejournal.com]

And the vagon in the middle is painted into the colours of Russian flag. Subliminal messages and global conspiracies, eh?