30 pages
Subheadings:
The Never-Ending Trail of Tears of Imperialistic Empires
Part I.
Letter to a Deceased Philosopher:
1. The Non-historical Type of Interpreting History
A. The Historical Type of Interpreting History
B. So Then, What Time is It?
C. The Mathematics of Bankers' Compound Interest Time
2. The Paradigmatic Construction of Reality
A. The Functions of Paradigms
B. Ptolemy and Copernicus on the Obits of the Planets
C. Summary of Paradigm Characteristics
3. Mythological Consciousness
A. Mythos and Logos
B. A Phenomenology of Myth
C. The Dialectic of Mythic Consciousness
Part II: A Brief History of the United States Indian Removal Act of 1830
12,500 words
35 pages1. Native American Tribes of the United States
A. Major Indigenous Tribes of the American Southeast
B. Wildcat Banking: experiments in money creation
D. New American Slave Empire
2. The Politics of Aporia
A. Cherokee Chief Major Ridge
B. Chief John Ross
C. Supreme Court Rulings: Marshall Trilogy
D. Troublesome Christian Missionaries
E. Andrew Jackson's Reign of Caprice and Whim of Power
3. The Cherokee Trail of Tears
A. Jackson's CroniesB. The Exiled Cherokee Christians
4. Dangerous Insights
A. The Nationalistic gods of SpaceB. New Class Distinctions
C. Death of a Prophet
D. False Flags
E. Gaza: accumulation by dispossession
The Never-Ending Trail of Tears of Imperialistic Empires
“Remembrance of the past may give rise to dangerous insights, and the established society seems to be apprehensive of the subversive contents of memory.”
This essay is about the American 1830 Indian Removal Act passed through Congress by President Andrew Jackson and the State of Georgia. The first part of this essay will address philosophical questions 1.) about historical (time) and non-historical (space) ethnocentric ontologies of different cultural worldviews, 2.) the paradigmatic construction of reality that make societies, and 3.) mythological consciousness in both ancient and advanced industrial societies. Part II of this essay will review the removal of indigenous Native Americans known as the Five Civilized Tribes (Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Cherokee, and Seminoles) from their native lands. These particular tribes were known to the European immigrant settlers as "civilized" because they enthusiastically accepted the White settlers' invitation to assimilate into colonized culture. These tribes intermarried with the White European settlers producing mixed American/Indian children some who became famous political statesmen. The term “civilized” is considered demeaning today in referring to the tribes so “The Five Tribes” is used instead to name those Indian Nations who in the early 19th century were in fact better housed, better dressed, and more literate in their own languages than their settler counterparts.
In part II, I will examine the 1.) money problems during the 1830s American Wildcat Banking Wars, and 2.) the physical expulsion, known as the “trial of tears,” during the 1830s of Southeastern Native Americans from Georgia, part of Alabama, Western Carolina, Eastern Tennessee, Florida, and Mississippi to the territory of Oklahoma that later gained statehood in 1907 and lastly, 3.) The Politics of Aporia, or how Alabama waged “lawfare” against the Five Tribes to expel them from their native lands.
My renewed interest in the history of the Trail of Tears Indian removal is partly a result of serendipity. The word “Serendipity” is ultimately derived from Sanskrit and an ancient fable about The Three Princes of Serendip who were always making discoveries by accident of things they were not first seeking. Sometimes the things they discovered by accident were more valuable than what they originally sought.
Vine Deloria is the "star of the American Indian renaissance."
Serendipitously my Native American cousin suggested I read the book, “God Is Red: A Native View of Religion,” (1973, 1st edition) (pdf.) by Vine Deloria Jr. (1933–2005). Deloria is a theologian, historian, and activist for Native American rights. According to Deloria's Wiki entry, his father, Vine Victor Deloria Sr. (1901 - 1990) transferred his children's tribal membership from the Yankton Sioux to Standing Rock. Deloria Jr.'s paternal grandfather was a leader of the Yankton band of the Dakota Nation.
Deloria Jr.'s early education was “at reservation schools, then graduated from Kent School in 1951. He graduated from Iowa State University in 1958 with a degree in general science.[7] Deloria served in the United States Marines from 1954 through 1956.[8] Originally planning to be a minister like his father, Deloria in 1963 earned a theology degree from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, then located in Rock Island, Illinois.[7] In the late 1960s, he returned to graduate study and earned a J.D. degree from University of Colorado Law School in 1970.[2]“
In addition, Deloria Jr. was executive director of the National Congress of American Indians from 1964 to 1967. In 1970, he attended Western Washington State College at Bellingham, Washington, and became Professor of Political Science at the University of Arizona from 1978 to 1990 where he established the first master's degree program in American Indian Studies within the United States. He taught at the University of Colorado Boulder in 1990 and then returned to Arizona in 2000 to teach at the College of Law.
Deloria's academic credentials are outstanding and so is his record of political activism as director of the Congress of American Indians, then founder of the Institute of American Indian Law, and The Institute for the Development of Indian law. He was an expert witness for the defense in the Wounded Knee Trials of 1974. He won fishing rights for Native Americans in court case United States vs. Washington (1974). In short, “Reflecting widespread change in academia and the larger culture, numerous American Indian studies programs, museums, and collections, and other institutions have been established since Deloria's first book was published.” His first book was “God is Red: A Native View of Religion” (1973) which we will now turn.
If Deloria's book “God is Red” only had the one chapter, “Thinking in Time and Space” (Chapter 5 in 1st edition) it still would have been a great groundbreaking book. This chapter is Deloria's critique of temporal, or historical ontology of European cultures. Not only is Deloria's insight into the Westerner concept of historical time revealing, but he brings to light the American Indigenous Indian ontological worldview as primarily spacial, of place— or nonhistorical.
And there is another serendipitous discovery: Deloria quotes the Lutheran Christian Socialist theologian, and Christian existentialist, Paul Tillich, three times in all the editions of his book. After fleeing Nazi Germany in 1933 and joining the New York City Union Theological Seminary. Paul Tillich's theological project is to deliteralize—but not to demythologize—Christian theology so to make Christianity comprehensible in the modern age of quantum physics.
Shortly after Deloria Jr. was executive director of the National Congress of American Indians from 1964 to 1967, the American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded in 1968, so Deloria Jr. emerged during an American Indian renaissance when Native Americans were becoming self-conscious and politically active nationally.
A Letter to a Deceased Philosopher
The word “essay” comes from the French word essai, meaning “trial” or an “attempt.” Going further back the French term originates from the Latin word exagium or “a weighing.” The Latin exigere means “to drive out; require; examine; try, test, and “to sort through.” So, we can say an essay is “an attempt to think along” with the author's narrative which in this case is about historical and non-historical ontologies. The Greek word “ontology” (ὄντος: part sg pres act neut gen) is the study of “being, of things, to be, existing.”
I consider Deloria Jr. a philosopher and as a philosopher he would expect—even demand—his written works be subject to philosophical critiques. Deloria's book “God is Red” is itself a powerful critique of Indian stereotypes of Native American culture and can be traced back to Tillich's own project of reinterpreting Christian theology for this post WWII age of empirical-positivistic-sciences and cyberculture where physical space is superseded by cyberspace. Some writing tutors teach their students a method for creating a narrative voice for writing by the author imagining they are writing a letter to a dead philosopher. My critique is meant to strengthen Deloria's insights, criticism, and his entire academic Native American project.
Dr. John Vervaeke, philosophy professor and cognitive scientist, makes the distinction in his lectures between “adversarial processing,” and “opponent processing.” One network is adversarial in an argument, its winner takes all in a debate for example. Another network is opponent processing that appears to the external observer to be similar to adversarial processing, but the difference is that with opponent processing both persons share the same goal. (see “Ep. 30 - Awakening from the Meaning Crisis - Relevance Realization Meets Dynamical Systems Theory,” @ 50:30 minutes).
With the above distinction between adversarial and opponent processing in mind, I want to criticize Chapter 8, “The Spatial Problem of History.” (p. 129-151) of the First Edition 1973 about the Russian psychoanalyst Immanuel Velikovsky and his famous book, “Worlds in Collision,” (1950) that is today rightly considered pseudoscience. Velikovsky theorizes that in the 15th century BC the planet Venus emerged out of Jupiter and passed near the Earth causing changes in its orbit, even stopping the earth's rotation which explains the miracles of the Old Testament and many ancient observations of the stars by ancient peoples. Velikovsky then claims in the 8th and 7th centuries Mars was displaced by Venus and caused other strange observations and disasters.
Velikovsky's thesis is absurd. Deloria unfortunately attempted to use the proposed planetary collisions to show how different opposing theories, and ideologies can seemingly coherently explain the same observed phenomena. Deloria even endorses Velikovsky's theory in a footnote of “God Is Red,” (2003) 3rd edition (DR3., here after), p. 132. And in the 1st edition (DR1., p. 148). * Because the editions are worded differently, and a new chapter added, I must quote from all three editions.
Deloria writes:
“There appears to be no doubt that Velikovsky has been vindicated and that we are on the verge of an incredible reordering of our conception of both the world and history... Science and the academic community have revealed themselves as superstitious, dogmatic, narrow-minded, and spiteful little people as a result of their treatment of Immanuel Velikovsky. For nearly two and a half decades, they have refused to allow him to discuss the theories that have produced such a plenitude of newly verified facts about the universe as to make the basic theory the most revolutionary explanation of the creation we have ever seen. Some men have borrowed Velikovsky's ideas almost totally without giving him any credit or even mention. Others have reversed themselves completely without apologizing for their past errors or acknowledging Velikovsky's earlier and correct contentions (“God Is Red,” 1st edition, p. 148).”
But it gets worse. A new chapter 9, “Natural and Hybrid People” (p. 150-165) is added in “God Is Red,” 2nd edition, 1994 (pdf.) wherein Deloria presents Zecharia Sitchin's thesis in his book series, “Earth Chronicles” (2009) that posits ancient astronauts invaded the earth and were enslaved by ancient sub-human peoples to work in mines until the alien astronauts rebelled and created a new worker by genetically producing the first human being, or Homo Sapiens. This narrative could be made into a good science fiction movie—a combination of War of the Worlds and Planet of the Apes. Deloria is a little more cautious with the ancient astronaut thesis, but he still brings Sitchin into his book as an effort to show how the internal logic of myths function.
Velikovsky's thesis of planetary chaos and Sitchin's ancient astronaut thesis were the worst possible examples that could have been used to understand the internal logic of ideologies, and mythologies. The theses are so absurd that they become distracting, and if I were to explain why these theories are absurd, then I also would be distracted just like Deloria. Instead, a better strategy would be to explain the structure of paradigms and scientific revolutions. And in the case of Sitchin's theory, a study and description of mythological consciousness would be much more interesting and truthful.
Deloria's intended insights sought in these flawed chapters can be untangled and clarified! His intuitions and goals were valid and even noble. Instead of focusing on Velikovsky's absurd theory, I will introduce the famous, but not infamous, science historian Thomas S. Kuhn and his study of scientific paradigms in his book, “The Nature of Scientific Revolutions,” (1962) (pdf.) (SSR). And instead of Sitchin, a more comprehensive study of mythology is by the Neo-Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer, in his book, “The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Vol. II, Mythical Thought,” (1925) (here after referred to as PSF2) (pdf.).
Deloria's Critique of Temporal, or Historical Ontologies
Deloria writes about the problem of literalism in Christian Orthodoxy:
“At best we can conclude that the Christian doctrine of creation has serious shortcomings. It is too often considered not only as a historical event but also as the event that determined all other facts of our existence. It is bad enough to consider Genesis as a historical account in view of what we know today of the nature of our world. But when we consider that the Genesis account places nature and nonhuman life systems in a polarity with us, tinged with evil and without hope of redemption except at the last judgment, the whole idea appears intolerable (DR3, p. 86).”
Tillich’s rejection of biblical literalism that defends the cosmological argument’s conclusion that God is the Creator, and First Cause because rationalistic theism is based on the category of causality: "...the category of causality cannot 'fill the bill’...In order to disengage the divine cause from the series of causes and effects, it is called the first cause, the absolute beginning. What this means is that the category of causality is being denied while it is being used. In other words, causality is being used not as a category but as a symbol (ST, vol. I, p. 238; italics added).”
Deloria's most concise statement on historical ontologies is the following:
“When the domestic ideology is divided according to American Indian and Western European immigrant, however, the fundamental difference is one of great philosophical importance. American Indians hold their lands 'places' as having the highest possible meaning, and all their statements are made with this reference point in mind. Immigrants review the movement of their ancestors across the continent as a steady progression of basically good events and experiences, thereby placing history 'time' in the best possible light. When one group is concerned with the philosophical problem of space and the other with the philosophical problem of time, then the statements of either group do not make much sense when transferred from one context to the other without the proper consideration of what is happening (Deloria, “God Is Red,” 1973,1st edition, p. 75-76).”
One ontological view of the world is in spatial terms and another in time that progresses in a linear direction paired with the belief Western Europeans were the destined global guardians resulting in the Crusades, Imperialism, and the war against Communism. In other words, the temporal (historical) ontology give rise to imperialistic empires so that “Western political ideas came to depend on spacial restrictions of what were essentially non-spatial ideas (ibid., p. 76).” From Deloria's insight additional conclusions can be made such as the struggle over untapped resources and high finance predicting: “As undeveloped nations continue their own growth, severe modifications of exploitation must occur as well as more sophisticated forms of colonialism, if Western countries are not to suffer economic collapse (ibid., p. 77).”
Deloria writes of the mutually supporting concept of time and imperialistic empires—another important insight:
“The very essence of Western European identity involves the assumption that time proceeds linearly; further it assumes that at a particular point in the unraveling of this sequence, the peoples of Western Europe became the guardians of the world. The same ideology that sparked the Crusades, the Age of Exploration, the Age of Imperialism, and the recent crusade against Communism all involve the affirmation that time is peculiarly related to the destiny of the people of Western Europe (DR3, p. 62).”
Deloria predates modern Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis' claim that modern Neoliberalism transformed itself into a digital Neo-Feudalistic fiefdom. Deloria wrote in 1973 about the feudalization of countries, and ecological threats even before the oil company Exon announced the coming dangers of climate change in the late 1970s warning, “At worst the end of one form of colonialism means the beginning of a movement to feudalize political systems around the globe so as to stabilize the economic conditions of the more affluent nations. Either approach means that the ecological problem is not dealt with, the problem of technological dehumanization is not reduced, and the breakdown of individual and community identity is not reversed (DR1., p. 77-78).”
Place is material existence: time is a transcendental idea. Deloria mentions Tillich's systematic theology at least three times in his book, “God Is Red,” and seemingly supports Tillich's critique of Christianity by statements such as this paragraph: “The needed basic change depends on a realization of the revolutionary reorientation of definitions that must occur when time is negated and space becomes more dominant. Religion has often been seen as an evolutionary process in which mankind evolves a monotheistic conception of divinity by a gradual reduction of a pantheon to a single deity. The reality of religion thus becomes its ability to explain the universe, not to experience it. Creeds and beliefs replace immediate apprehension of whatever relationship may exist with higher powers. As time becomes less important in understanding religion, the whole monotheistic thesis is threatened. Yet our supernatural experiences do not necessarily lead to a monotheistic conclusion (DR1., p. 79).”
The focus on space is a greater attention to material existence. Deloria is ready for a reinterpretation of Christian Orthodoxy—a very Tillichian spirit. In fact, Tillich does exactly as Deloria described with the gradual reduction of polytheism to monotheism. And, Tillich argues for time over place in interpreting existence. The Ancient Greek polytheistic gods of Olympus were fittingly lousy gods because they ruled over a lousy Greek world—the Greeks' worldview understood spatial existence as the closed realm of ubiquitous irrational undeserved tragedy in a never-ending “circle of genesis, and decay, greatness and self-destruction (Tillich, “Theology of Culture,” pdf., p.32; here after, TC).”
Also, in Tillich's three volume systematic theology, he constructs a typology of polytheism and monotheism. (see, Tillich, Paul, Systematic Theology Vol. I of III, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1951, p.222; here after ST., Vol. I). In this sense, Greek polytheism was a realistic theology of human existence. The Olympic pantheon of gods ruled over a circular spatial cosmology wherein “space is tragic,” and god is a stranger. In post-lapsarian Christian ontology (The Fall of Man) humans are essentially connected to the divine, but are not strangers to God as in Deism—instead, human beings are alienated, or estranged while still possessing an embedded pre-existing inherent connection. The concept of time, Tillich writes, as circular prevented Ancient Greek thought from developing a philosophy of history. Space and time are the structures of all existence that can be thought of symbolically as the fundamental struggling forces that determine human life and history.
According to Tillich the types of polytheism are universalistic (animistic), mythological (deities are not fixed characters representing the realms of being), and dualistic (the holy is based on the conflict between the divine and the demonic). The types of monotheism are categorized as monarchic monotheism (the Greek god Zeus), mystical monotheism (all conflicts between gods are overcome by an ultimate One), exclusive monotheism (cannot relapse into polytheism), and trinitarian monotheism (the ultimate, and the concrete in existence are united). (See ST., Vol. 1, p. 222-230). This section on the typologies of religion by Tillich is not easy reading.
(See my essay titled, "The Struggle of the Olympic gods of Space with The God of Infinite Time" for Tillich's views on “a-historical” and historical ontologies.)
Tillich's view in his book, “The Protestant Era,” (1948) (pdf.) (PE) identifies two main types of forms for interpreting history: "... the first type in which history is interpreted through nature and the second in which history is interpreted through itself.... These two types exhibit entirely different structures. In the first type space is predominant; in the second, time is predominant. This does not overlook the fact that no pure types appear in history, that always elements of the one type can be found in the other type, since there is no time without space and no space without time in human existence (PE; p. 16-17)." The first type of interpreting history is through nature, or non-historical (space), and the second type is historical interpretation through time, i.e. through events themselves that have a (τέλος, télos) meaning “goal,” or “end.”
The Non-historical Type of Interpreting History
“A religion defined according to temporal considerations is continually placed on the defensive in maintaining its control over the interpretation of historical events.”
In his book, “The Protestant Era,” Tillich gives fewer abstract descriptions and more concrete examples of the two types of historical interpretations than in his systematic theology. He names four specific forms of nonhistorical doctrines of significance: Chinese Taoism, Indian Brahma, the Greek nature doctrines, and the late-European life-doctrine. Consciousness needs both categories of space and time to have experience. We can't even think of any object, or point that is not in space and time otherwise we would be unconscious. But life in culture and community can emphasize one category of perception over the another. In Taoism, however, the “present is a consequence of the past, but not at all an anticipation of the future.” The past is dominate over the future in Chinese Taoism thinks Tillich. Indian Brahma doctrine experience itself negates time and space and all being of any reality. Only the illusion from the point of view of Maya is the real, except for Brahma-Atman which is the really real. Tillich again concludes that no event of time has any ultimate meaning in this doctrine. (See details in PE, Chapter II, Historical and Nonhistorical Interpretations of History: A Comparison, p. 16-31).
The Greek nature doctrine of history is particularly interesting because Tillich thought this worldview is where advanced Western industrial societies was gradually moving toward. The ancient Greeks also lacked any concept of the future since time was for them circular. Tillich writes:
“Nature is the structural necessity in which empirical reality participates. But empirical reality participates within the limitations of its material nature; by the latter it is prevented from realizing fully its essential nature. The mark of perfection in nature is the circular motion of a thing, in which it returns to itself. 'Being' as such has the form of a sphere, equally perfect in all parts, not needing higher perfection, immovable and eternal, without genesis and decay. Temporal things, conversely, show contradictory, irregular motions without a circular connection of end and beginning and therefore with genesis and decay, self-destruction and death. History cannot claim any point of perfection because it is not a circular motion. The great Greek historiography shows the genesis, acme, and decay of cities and nations.... It wants to shape the present according to the experiences of the past, as, for instance, Aristotle's Politics shows. But there is no expectation of a more perfect future. Aristotle describes Greece as the country of the 'center' between north and south, east and west. He knows a center of space, but he does not know a center of time, 'Time is nearer to decay than to genesis,' he says, quoting a Pythagorean. Time for him is endless, repeating itself infinitely, while space is limited, full of plastic power, formed, defying infinity (PE, p. 18-19).”
Interestingly, there are many other similarities between the Ancient Greeks' nonhistorical spacial interpretation of life, and Deloria's descriptions of Native American Indian views of nature, life, and fate. Many scholars of world history consider Ancient Greece the greatest culture of Western civilization.
The last form of nonhistorical ontologies in Tillich's typology is post-Renaissance Modern European naturalism, and is Tillich's interpretation of modern Western industrial societies during his lifetime. Modern naturalism is described by Tillich as a monistic totality formulated in mathematical terms by the philosopher mathematician Leibniz, or in organic terms (Bruno), or dynamic terms (Bergson), or in sociological terms (Spengler).
Note what Tillich writes about the tragic outlook of Ancient Greece culture returning to modern times. Post-Renaissance Modern European naturalism views time ambiguously and acknowledges the possibility of “...self-destruction or circular motion or infinite repetition; but in no case is the directed line of history decisive. Billions of years of physical time frustrate any possible meaning for the utterly small sum of historical years. In the mathematical type, time has been made a dimension of space. He who knows the mathematical world formula in principle knows all the future. In the organic and dynamic types of modern naturalism, time is considered a deteriorating force. In the organic and historical process, life becomes more complex, more self-conscious, more intellectualized. It loses its vital power and is driven toward self-destruction.... There is no universal history, crossing the life-and-death curve of each culture, overcoming the spatial 'Beside' by a temporal 'Toward.' On this basis even the tragic outlook of Greece tries to return. In nationalism the gods of space revolt against the Lord of time. Nation, soil, blood, and race defy the idea of a world-historical development and a world-historical aim. This recent development shows that a nonhistorical interpretation of history, even if arising in Christian countries, must return to paganism in the long run, for Christianity is essentially historical, while paganism is essentially nonhistorical (PE., p. 19-20; bold text added).”
The word “pagan” is from the Latin term paganus meaning “villager,” “rustic” and originally meant a small parcel of land in a rural countryside. “Pagan” at one time meant a “country hick,” but today it means any non-Christian polytheistic religion. Some religious thinkers believe that an overly Neoplatonic Christianity would benefit from an injection of paganism that recognizes space and material existence (place) as a significant force shaping spirituality within a culture.
Tillich summarizes seven characteristics of nonhistorical interpretation of history: 1.) Reality is interpreted through nature. 2.) Space is the superior category to circular infinitely repeating time. 3.) The temporal is less real. 4.) The good, the true and eternal are above becoming, genesis, and decay. 5.) Salvation of community is not through time and history. 6.) History is the process of deterioration and self-destruction in time. 7.) The nonhistorical interpretation of history either deifies special places as in polytheistic religions or deifies a transcendent “One” that negates both categories of space and time for interpreting history. (See details PE., p. 20).
The Historical Type of Interpreting History
As with non-historical doctrines, the historical doctrines of history also has multiple forms such as dualistic Iranian Zoroastrianism (Light vs. Darkness); monotheistic Old Testament Jewish prophetism, and apocalyptic Christian teleological orthodoxies that interpret time as the divine revealing itself in and through history to its end (Hegelian view of history); Anabaptists; English revolutionary peasants; bourgeois utopianism; and proletarian utopianism; religious socialism and communism. From here Tillich argues that Ecclesiastical conservatism has influenced most Christian countries to be politically conservative, and this monotheistic division expresses itself as a secular struggle between political conservatism and revolutionary progressivism. Historical doctrines of history are very political.
A summary of the contrasting main characteristics of the historical interpretation of history will better show the differences with the nonhistorical ontologies of history:
1.) History is the superior category for interpreting what is really real.
2.) Unlike space, teleological time has a definite goal and end.
3.) Time is the arena that good and evil struggle against one another, but the world is essentially good.
4.) True being, or the ultimately good is a “dynamic process of self-realization within and above existence.”
5.) Salvation from evil is won in and through a “history of salvation.”
6.) History has a center from which meaning is created by becoming a new being that overcomes self-destruction and the meaningless circular temporal movement of nature.
7.) “The historical interpretation of history is exclusively monotheistic.”
(See details PE., p. 27).
In another book Tillich authored, “Theology of Culture,” (1959) with chapters “The Struggle Between Time and Space” and “Nationalism and Space” shows the political nature of a historical interpretation of teleological time:
“Time and space should be treated as struggling forces, as living beings, as subjects with power of their own... time and space are the main structures of existence to which all existing things, the whole finite realm, are subjected. Existing means being finite or being in time and space. This holds true of everything in our world. Time and space are the powers of universal existence including human existence, human body and mind. Time and space belong together: We can measure time only by space and space only in time. Motion, the universal character of life, needs time and space. Mind, which seems to be bound to time, needs only embodiment in order to come to existence, and consequently it needs space. (“Theology of Culture,” p. 30).”
So Then, What Time is It?
Existentialist philosophy, and phenomenology both describe and analyze the concrete structures of conscious experience such as time consciousness which is differentiated by the phenomenologists (Edmond Husserl, Jean-Paul Sartre) into types of time, or modes of time. There is clock time, or scientific time. Also, we experience lived time, or phenomenological time: phenomenological time is just as real as scientific time—just as real as a slow lunch line on a short break. Musicological time is experienced as carefully measured units of sound and silence in quantitative time, and there is historical time (the Ancient Greek word Χρόνος, or chronos). Linear mathematics is time applied to space, or time could be experienced as circular. And isn't there sacred time? Paul Tillich writes and speaks of a qualitative time (καιρός, kairos) meaning right, proper, exact, or critical time. And Tillich describes another existentialist mode of time referred to as Eternity that is “neither timelessness nor the endlessness of time. The meaning of olim in Hebrew and of αἰώνιος (eternal) in Greek does not indicate timelessness; rather it means the power of embracing all periods of time (ST., Vol. I, p. 274).”
(More details in my essay: “Tillich on Chronos and Kairos Time Experience,” and see "Multiplicity of the Experience of Time," @ 1:54:24 minutes)
Deloria's great insight into the differences between historical and nonhistorical ontologies has opened up these issues and revived interest in Native American culture and philosophy during the 1960s and now for yet another generation of young people who must somehow reclaim remembrance of the past.
However, there is yet another mode of time we have not considered, but is relevant to the historical study of the 1830s Indian Removal Act....
The Mathematics of Bankers' Compound Interest Time
Another kind of time is banker's compound interest time. Economist Michael Hudson has studied four-thousand years of debt and interest rates going back to Ancient Babylonia, Greece, and Rome. Mesopotamia as early as 1800 B.C. moneylenders discovered the magic mathematical Rule of Seventy-two compound interest rate calculation—how loaned money could double in a desired amount of time: where (t) is the time it takes for a loan to double. And (r) is the annual interest rate (in percentage form). For example, if the annual interest rate is 6%, the time it takes to double a loan would be: 12 days ≈ 72 / 6%. So the interest earning loan will double in 12 days. The contemporary mathematical formulas are more exact, and not just an estimate. Hudson notes the Ancient Babylonians had a “far superior more sophisticated than any model put out by the National Bureau of Economic Research, or other official agencies (“Michael Hudson Discusses the Financial Crisis and Politics with Class Unity,” @ 5:43 minutes).”
The 1830s forced Indian removal by the president Andrew Jackson was during a time of great economic instability caused by a plenitude of currency (banknotes) that had little to no value since it couldn't easily be converted to specie (gold and silver) especially if the note issuing bank is located deep in a snake infested Louisiana swamp. For example, around 1837 the bankrupt conservative Commonwealth of Massachusetts Bank had $500,000 of notes in circulation, but only held $86.48 in gold reserves. (“Money, whence it came, where it went,” John K. Galbraith, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975, p. 107) (pdf.). One good substitute for gold and silver is fertile agricultural land. The economic school of Mercantilists believed the source of all wealth was gold and silver metals earned from international trade. However, the school of Physiocrats believed the ultimate source of all wealth is the sun, and argued all national prosperity is created by agricultural output grown by free sunlight. President Andrew Jackson and his gang were land speculators. Any bank would want to sell debt to a private landowner, but it could not be communal land so both the current economic conditions, and monetary system demanded Indian land be divided into privately owned allotments and then put under bank debt. In other words, privately owned land could be immediately converted into cash. Privatization of communal land was a key goal of the Indian Removal Act. If the lender and the creditor both go bankrupt, the collateral becomes an alienated asset, but never again will it be communal Indian land. Just by embracing the settlers' monetary system the Indians were doomed. Imposing, or taking over a society's monetary system is the more effective way colonial powers seize a host country's wealth.
The Paradigmatic Construction of Reality
“That proliferation of versions of a theory is a very usual symptom of crisis.”
Early in this essay I proposed replacing Deloria's choice of a Russian psychoanalyst and pseudo-scientist, Immanuel Velikovsky, with the more credible philosopher and historian of science, Thomas Kuhn. Deloria goes into detail of Velikovsky's theory that ancient records, and the miracles of the Old Testament were actual events caused by the disrupted obits of Mars, and Earth. All this effort by Velikovsky to give naturalistic explanations of ancient biblical text assumes the religious narratives, such as in Genesis, literally occurred.
Deloria does write about the literal interpretation of religious text, but does not treat the problem of literalism, or symbolism with any depth, but only expresses skepticism toward a literal interpretation of religious history, and yet, Deloria relies on, and even endorses Velikovsky's effort to construct a literal interpretation of biblical stories. Deloria mentions the problem of literalism and the theological “demythologizing" project of theologians such as C. H. Dodd, Rudolf Bultmann, and Martin Heidegger. Tillich is not mentioned, however, maybe because Tillich understood the importance of mythic symbolism. But Deloria doesn't make these distinctions, nor attempt to defend an alternative to biblical literalism—his attitude toward the literalists and nonliteralists is, “a plague on both your houses!” Deloria never asks how two different, and even contradictory theories can coherently explain the same phenomena--the same appearances. Yet, Deloria endorses Velikovsky's literalistic alternative interpretation of ancient religions with a planetary chaos theory to explain recorded ancient astronomical events and biblical text.
Dr. Thomas Kuhn’s book on a history of science, “The Nature of Scientific Revolutions,” (1962) (pdf.) (SSR) explores the evolution and revolutions of scientific paradigms and provides us with examples of how paradigms organize sense experience into a coherent intelligible whole. Dr. Kuhn develops the term “paradigm” extensively in his work:
“Paradigm has been used in science to describe distinct concepts, and theories. It's derived from the Ancient Greek term 'παράδειγμα' (paradeigma) meaning 'pattern, example, sample' from the verb "παραδείκνυμι" (paradeiknumi), 'exhibit, represent, expose,' and that from 'παρά' (para), 'beside, by' + 'δείκνυμι' (deiknumi), 'to show, to point out.' The original Greek term παραδείγματι (paradeigmati) is used in Greek texts such as Plato's dialogue Timaeus (28A) as the model, or the pattern that the Demiurge (god) used to create the cosmos (Wikipedia).”
(I have written in detail about the characteristic of paradigms in another essay titled, “Ideological Paradigms,” and this section will necessarily repeat some parts of the first essay.)
The Functions of Paradigms
Dr. Thomas Kuhn does not provide a formal definition of paradigms; the concept is given definition by ostensive historical examples resulting in about twenty-two different uses of the term according to Kuhn himself (SSR., p. 181). He employs the concept of “paradigm” much like the term “hypothesis” is used in the physical sciences. A hypothesis postulates objective, or independently external entities that account for our experience of the world. Atoms, electrons, substance, and the classic laws of physics are hypotheses that give form and significance to phenomena. Kuhn names those commonly shared hypotheses “paradigms” (SSR, pp. 10-11).
“Kuhn, however, is Kant on wheels.”
The concept of the scientific paradigm emerged out of Kuhn's research during the 1960s on scientific revolutions. However, Kuhn's description of paradigm functions is compatible with Kant's definition of categories which are necessary for experience with one exception: paradigms are not themselves necessary for experience. Consequently, there is not a good reason the concept of paradigms cannot be applied to any discipline:
"It has since become widely applied to many other realms of human experience as well even though Kuhn himself restricted the use of the term to the hard sciences. According to Kuhn, 'A paradigm is what members of a scientific community, and they alone, share.' (The Essential Tension, 1997). Unlike a normal scientist, Kuhn held, 'a student in the humanities has constantly before him a number of competing and incommensurable solutions to these problems, solutions that he must ultimately examine for himself.' (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). A scientist, however, once a paradigm shift is complete, is not allowed the luxury, for example, of positing the possibility that miasma causes the flu or that ether carries light in the same way that a critic in the Humanities can choose to adopt a 19th century theory of poetics, for instance, or select Marxism as an explanation of economic behaviour. Thus, paradigms, in the sense that Kuhn used them, do not exist in Humanities or social sciences. Nonetheless, the term has been adopted since the 1960s and applied in non-scientific contexts (Wiki: paradigm shift)."
The scope of a paradigm can be a single proposition, theory, hypotheses, conceptual model, a picture, or axiomatic postulates—all these terms refer to relative ideological categories which organize and give significance to the otherwise chaotic world of sense impressions. Although, all these terms like “theory” are too weak for Kuhn's uses of the word paradigm. Kuhn explores the characteristics of “paradigms” in his selected historical examples of scientific paradigmatic revolutions: “In its established usage, a paradigm is a accepted model, or pattern, and that aspect of its meaning has enabled me, lacking a better word, to appropriate 'paradigm' here (SSR, p. 23).”
After defining the general concept of paradigm, Kuhn examines historical examples of paradigm shifts such as Ptolemaic geocentric astronomy (2nd B.C.) in contradiction with Copernicus' heliocentric model (16th A.D.) of the solar system; Aristotelian dynamics opposed to Newtonian physics; the phlogiston theory of thermal-dynamics (fire); electric current traveling in a circuit understood as analogous to flowing water; and corpuscular optics in conflict with the wave model of optics. All of these theories were able to describe phenomena that two opposing models could coherently explain and successfully predict experiment results. The Ptolemaic and Copernicus models of planetary movement are particularly good examples of incompatible paradigms explaining the same phenomena.
Ptolemy and Copernicus on the Obits of the Planets
Claudius Ptolemy (100 – 170 A.D.) was the first person to present mathematical tables and arguments in the book Almagest in Arabic “the greatest compilation”) supporting antiquities’ widely accepted geocentric model of the solar system wherein the sun's obit is around the earth just as the moon obits the earth. The moon's obit didn't exactly follow Ptolemy's mathematics, so he needed epicycles to correct his false theory. His incoherent astronomical model was supported by the Catholic Church of his time and stood for about fifteen centuries.
Greek philosopher Aristarchus (310 – 239 B.C.) in the third century was the first to propose the heliocentric view of the solar system. When the Turks invaded Constantinople in 1453 A.D., Ptolemy's geocentric paradigm also began to collapse when in 1491 A.D. a student, Nicolaus Copernicus, (1473 A.D. – 1543 A.D.) read a restored copy of Ptolemy's Almagest and wrote in response On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres (1532 A.D.) presenting his heliocentric model of the solar system, but delayed publication of his final printed copy until the very day of his death.
Kuhn does this same kind of paradigm analysis of the theories of Newton, Lavoisier, and Einstein.
1.) Paradigms are in principle not factual but are interpretations of facts. A range of phenomena will appear differently according to the paradigm through which the world is viewed.
2.) Paradigms set up or organize phenomena according to a pattern unique to itself and supply a context to an otherwise chaotic mass of facts. Paradigms form patterns within experience.
3.) Paradigms are attention directing by emphasizing a certain range, or domain of phenomena while other phenomena are viewed as less relevant, or irrelevant all together. What is considered a “fact” is relative to the paradigm from which one operates. A “fact” is paradigmatically defined. Any phenomenon that does not coherently fit a model is simply classified as an unexpected abnormal appearance, or “anomaly.” Too many anomalies could indicate a collapse of a school of scientific thought. A scientific model that fails to explain inclusively all appearances within its phenomenal domain fails to “save the appearances” suffers from “paradigm entropy.” Widely accepted paradigms are applied a priori by scientists who sometimes uncritically interpret phenomena leading to bias blindness. Paradigms are themselves non-factual. Recognition of paradigmatic patterns are perspectival and not the result of crude Lockean empiricism, “tabula rasa” (Latin for “blank slate”). This aspect of paradigms makes them enigmatic when a scientist must choose between different competing theories accounting for the same appearances. The epistemological question of paradigm choice cannot be resolved by appealing to experience alone since the model itself circularly validates what is accepted as factual.
Summary of Paradigm Characteristics:
Universal: Paradigms attempt to form a transcendental (a prior) universal whole to give meaning to the world of singular sensible impressions. Paradigms relate particulars to a universal frame of reference so that a particular sensible impression (using our five senses) is related to a universal frame of reference to give order, unity, structure, and context to experience.
Non-Empirical: Since singular sensible impressions are understood through a conceptual principle, paradigms define the factual by providing a medium, or concept through which experiential datum can be interpreted as fact. A paradigm relates facts to concepts to form a unified picture of the whole experience.
Interpretative: Sensible information is not given without first being filtered through a medium, or concept. This information is organized or structured according to some point of reference. Sensory information is modified by exclusion of experience and inclusion of unconscious meanings. Henri Bergson wrote: “...concepts, laid side by side, never actually give us more that artificial reconstruction of the object, of which they can only symbolize certain general, in a way, impersonal aspects; it is therefore useless to believe that with them we can seize a reality of which they present to us the shadow alone (Henri Bergson, “An Introduction to Metaphysics,” trans, T. E. Hulme ,Indianapolis; Bobbs-Merrill, 1978, p.29).”
Totalities: Ernst Cassirer speaks of this same process as the mind, “weaving the particulars into a system.” Paradigms attempts to form this totality which we call the “world,” or better yet Husserl’s term, “Lifeworld.” Cassirer described this activity of consciousness as... “The aim of theoretical thinking as we have seen, is primarily to deliver the contents of sensory or intuitive experience from the isolation in which they originally occur. It causes these contents to transcend their narrow limits, combines them in a definite order, in an all-inclusive context. It proceeds ‘discursively,’ in that it treats the immediate content only as a point of departure, from which it can run the whole gamut of impressions in various directions, until these impressions are fitted together into one unified conception, one closed system. In this system, there are no more isolated points; all its members are reciprocally related, refer to one another; illumine and explain each other. Thus, every separate event is ensnared, as it were by invisible threads of thought, that bind it to the whole. The theoretical significance which it receives lies in the fact that it is stamped with the character of this totality (Ernst Cassirer, “Language and Myth,” trans, S.K. Langer, New York: Dover Pub., 1946, p. 32).”
Relatively Categorical: Paradigms reduces the world of objects and events to generalized notions of which any individual event, or object can belong. Categories are classes, or types, through which experience is organized and known. “Category” is understood here in a Kantian sense: categories such as space and times are the fundamental a priori forms through which the phenomenal world is perceived. (see, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. II, Macmillan Pub., 1967 ed., “Categories,” by M. Thompson, p. 46). Paradigms are not necessary for experience like absolute Kantian categories; however, paradigms function the same way as categories. The absolute categories of space and time are necessary for experience, but the concepts that time is linear, or circular are not necessary to experience time. Neo-Kantians would describe paradigms as “relative categories,” or “relative a priori.” Relative categories are what builds the social construction of reality. See my essay “The Social Construction of Reality.”
Ontological: Paradigms are concerned only with the particular object, or entity. Intellectual reflection is directed toward the factors which give the world of particular experience meaning, and context. Reflection in this case seeks to examine those categorical factors which make the empirical possible—to examine those, “invisible threats of thought” that unites the whole. Paradigms provides a foundation for empirical concreteness by going beyond the facts to the “factors which make facts recognizable (“One-Dimensional Man,” Herbert Marcuse,1964, p. 106).”
·Circular: “When paradigms enter, as they must, into a debate about paradigm choice, their role is necessarily circular. Each group uses its own paradigm to argue in that paradigm’s defense (SSR, p. 94).”
This summary list does not mean truth is relative, or unknowable. Copernicus' heliocentric paradigm is true, and the Ptolemaic geocentric paradigm is false. * A paradigm that is coherent, able to consistently explain and give meaning to phenomena, is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for soundness. A paradigm must be consistent, and true in order to be sound.
*(See details in my essay on “Part I: Paradigms of Truth and Logic.”)
For some philosophers the problem of knowledge is not that we can't know reality, but that we can know reality in so many different ways.
I have only explored here parts of Kuhn's study of scientific revolutions, and he has more to say about the institutions of scientific study, and the role of the community of scientists. And we can see some of the difficulties that Deloria encounters agreeing with Velikovsky's catastrophic narrative of a wayward planet that “... During the time of the Exodus and later in the eighth century B.C., Venus came into near collision with Earth and Mars, disrupting the orbits of each and at one point saving Earth from a fatal collision with Mars (DR3., p. 120).” Velikovsky's complete narrative (Ibid., p. 120-132) may not even meet Kuhn's criteria of a paradigm, and it fails the traditional scientific tests of verification and falsification while the problem of literalistic interpretation of a “comet's tail parting the Red Sea for the Israelites,” (DR3., p. 124) is presupposed by some of his adherents. If the miraculous events of the Old Testament actually occurred, there is no way to verify any of Velikovsky's proposed events especially if those events by definition are “miracles” i.e. not subject to physical laws. Velikovsky's alleged events cannot be repeated for scientific verification even if they were not miraculous. We cannot commit the informal logical fallacy known as “Appeal to Ignorance,” or Argumentum ad Ignorantiam that states, “X is true because X has not been proven false.” There are other counter Velikovsky arguments.
Mythological Consciousness
“But the literal is not more but less than symbolic.”
Deloria's book “God Is Red,” is about “A Native View of Religion” and directs the reader's attention to problems involving literalistic interpretations of Old and New Testament biblical events concluding, “We now recognize that the command of Genesis is not to be taken literally (DR3., p. 267).” He refers to the “.... 1925 Scopes trial in Tennessee...marking the conflict between literal believers of Genesis and those who regard it symbolically, either as an analogy or as a mythological representation of a greater spiritual reality (DR3., p. 84).” Deloria is critical of the deliteralization project by modern theologians such as Rudolf Bultmann, Thomas J.J Altizer, and Paul Tillich for a literalistic interpretation of some biblical events such as the appearance of the Christ of Saint John, but nonliteralistic interpretation of other narratives such as Genesis:
“Christians ask us to accept that there is a history, that there is a central event making the rest of the history intelligible, and that because there is a central event, there must necessarily be a history. The logic is clearly a precursor of the catch-22 rule. Whenever we focus on one of the very important events of that line of history, we are told by Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Jews alike that what happened was really just the growth of legend, folklore, and glorification, not a spectacular event. Yet these thinkers insist that a whole chronology of nonexistent events constitutes an important historical timeline that is superior to any other explanation of human experiences (DR3., p. 120).”
Deloria believes a literalistic interpretation of certain biblical narratives also has incoherencies that prepare the way ultimately to dogmatism, and oppressive hegemony: “There is another, more serious problem involved in the Christian doctrine of creation. For most of the history of the Christian religion, people have been taught that the description of the event of creation as recorded in Genesis is historical fact. Although many Christian theologians have recognized that at best the Genesis account is mythological, it would be fair to conclude on the basis of what is known of the Christian religion that many Christian theologians and a substantial portion of the populace take the Genesis account as historical fact (DR3, p. 84).”
Embracing either the nonhistorical or historical interpretation of religious texts and doctrines leaves one with either irrelevant secular legends, or dangerous dogmatic orthodoxy:
“A religion defined according to temporal considerations is placed continually on the defensive in maintaining its control over historical events. This is the problem of literalism that demands literal interpretation to maintain religious hegemony, not just abstract time.... If, however, the separation becomes more or less permanent, as in Christianity and Western concepts of history, then religion becomes a function of political interpretations as in the Manifest Destiny theories of American history, or it becomes secularized as an economic determinism as in Communist theories of history. Either way the religion soon becomes helpless to intervene in the events of real life, except in a peripheral and oblique manner (DR1., p. 82).”
I believe that Deloria would agree with Tillich on the question of literal, and nonliteral interpretations of Christian texts. Tillich writes:
“These symbols must be understood as symbols, and they lose their meaning if taken literally. In dealing with christological symbols, we were engaged not in a 'demythologization' but in a 'deliteralization.' We tried to affirm and to intercept them as symbols. “Demythologization” can mean two things, and the failure to distinguish between them has led to the confusion which characterizes the discussion. It can mean the fight against the literalistic distortion of symbols and myths. This is a necessary task of Christian theology. It keeps Christianity from falling into a wave of superstitious 'objectivations' of the holy. But demythologization can also mean the removal of myth as a vehicle of religious expression and the substitution of science and morals. In this sense demythologization must be strongly rejected. It would deprive religion of its language; it would silence the experience of the holy. Symbols and myths cannot be criticized simply because they are symbols (ST., vol. II, p. 152).”
Mythos and Logos
“Schelling recognized... myth as an essential modality of human thought.”
When philosophy looks into a mirror, it will see mythos. Logos (λόγος meaning 'reason') first emerged from mythos (μῦθος) meaning broadly anything delivered by word of mouth, word, or speech such as a proverb, or a purpose, or design. Myth also means, “a tale, story, or narrative.” The symbolic is much more than the literal, or the particular, but instead represent "universal" principles of reality in human experience. Mythological consciousness is not the spirit of advanced industrial society. The particular objects and beings in mythology correspond with spiritual consciousness, and the invisible dynamic creative/destructive forces within nature and life: mythos is not merely a vast collection of fantastic fictional ancient narratives but are symbolically the truest stories of all. We must distinguish between three mythical narrative forms. The first is Legend that hand down oral traditions to younger generations, laws, and general rules of conduct. Secondly, Myths that explain creation, fire, medicine, and wildlife. And lastly, Fables teach life lessons often through animals characters and tell trickster stories.
There is much mythology in modern movies such as the 1975 film written by Ken Kesey, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.” The book's introduction is narrated by an apparently deaf and mute American Indian, Chief Bromden played by actor Will Sampson, who is a psychiatric patient preparing to talk about his experiences in the hospital. The Chief tells the reader:
“It's gonna burn me just that way, finally telling about all this, about the hospital, and her, and the guys--and about McMurphy. I been silent so long now it's gonna roar out of me like floodwaters and you think the guy telling this is ranting and raving my God; you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But please. It's still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it's the truth even if it didn't happen (“One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,” Ken Kesey, 1962, Signet, p.13; bold added) (pdf.).”
Mythological consciousness distinguishes between signs and symbols. By inventing symbolism we are able to access other dimensions of existence that ordinary pragmatic instrumental language--i.e., scientific object language devised as a means to achieve an end-- fails describing human reality. Tillich writes of the symbolic in myth:
“The sacramental is nothing else than some reality becoming the bearer of the Holy in a special way and under special circumstances. In this sense, the Lord's Supper, or better the materials in the Lord's Supper, are symbolic. Now you will ask perhaps, 'only symbolic?' That sounds as if there were something more than symbolic, namely, 'literal.' But the literal is not more but less than symbolic. If we speak of those dimensions of reality which we cannot approach in any other way than by symbols, then symbols are not used in terms of 'only' but in terms of that which is necessary, of that which we must apply. Sometimes, because of nothing more than the confusion of signs with symbols, the phrase 'only a symbol' means 'only a sign.' And then the question is justified. 'Only a sign?' 'No.' The sacrament is not only a sign (TC., p. 64).”
A Phenomenology of Myth
“Mythology is inevitable; it is an inherent necessity of language, if we recognize language as the outward form of thought; it is ... the dark shadow which language casts on thought and which will never vanish as long as speech and thought do not fully coincide, and this can never happen.”
Deloria had no need for Zecharia Sitchin's alien astronaut thesis and could even be interpreted as itself a longing for mythic consciousness missing in a post-Enlightenment millennium that only understands myth as fictional stories of imagination, and science as the totality of brute facts about the world. This was a serious concern for the Marburg Neo-Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer when he was appointed as professor at the University of Hamburg in 1919 and where he discovered a vast collection of library books on philosophy, art, literature, religion organized in the Warburg Library of the Cultural Sciences by founder Aby Warburg in a way that would resolve some of the philosophical problems he was studying. Cassirer told Dr. F. Saxl, “This library is dangerous. I shall either have to avoid it altogether or imprison myself here for years (PSF2., p. ix).” Cassirer describes a phenomenology of myth from his research in the Warburg library.
Cassirer thinks that art and religion develop out of the expressive language of myth, and from natural language science emerges. Mythic consciousness is the symbolic residuum of language so that, “The fundamental Kantian 'categories' of space, time, substance (or object), and causality thereby take on a distinctive configuration representing the formal a priori structure, as it were, of mythical thought (SEP: Cassirer),” These structures are the 'relative a priori,' or “relatively categorical” that is included in the summary list of the characteristics of paradigms.
The Dialectic of Mythic Consciousness
Cassirer writes: “The new ideality, the new spiritual dimension, that is opened up through religion not only lends myth a new signification but actually introduces the opposition between 'meaning' and 'existence' into the realm of myth. Religion takes the decisive step that is essentially alien to myth: in its use of sensuous images and signs it recognizes them as such--a means of expression which, though they reveal a determinate meaning, must necessarily remain inadequate to it, which 'point' to this meaning but never wholly exhaust it (PSF2., p. 239).”
An important influence on Cassirer was philologist Herman Usener (1833 – 1905) who traced the dynamic history of mythical gods from the earliest “momentary deities” described as momentary fleeting objectification of human experience, appearing and then dissolving overwhelming a single individual. “Special gods” are limited to certain human activities and are like the functional ceremonial gods in Greek and Roman religions. These two earlier stages of religion prepare for the conception of “personal gods” who are given names and act like human beings.
Myth offers a reality that can never be grasped or achieved, and so consciousness must use concepts as symbolic forms as representation of reality, or organs of reality. Mythology is the science of the “forms of religious conception.” Philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767 – 1835) influenced Cassirer's views on myth by defining humans as a “language animal” that "makes infinite use of finite means,” (meaning an infinite number of sentences can be created using a finite number of grammatical rules). Unlike Aristotle who defined humans as a rational animal, Cassirer defined humans as an animal symbolicum (symbolizing animal), “the same process whereby he spins language out of his own being, he ensnares himself in it; and each language draws a magic circle around the people to which it belongs, a circle from which there is no escape save by stepping out of it into another (“Language and Myth,” E. Cassirer, 1946, Dover, p. 9) (pdf.).” Schelling viewed language as a “faded mythology” having developed out of itself a formalized abstract linguistic logic-structure from a mythic point of view embedded in a living natural world of seen and unseen forces that speaks and acts.
Cassirer summarizes Schelling's view of mythological thinking:
“Nature itself is nothing other than a stage in the development and self-unfolding of the spirit--and the task of a philosophy of nature consists precisely in understanding it and elucidating it as such. What we call nature--and this is already stated in the system of transcendental idealism--is a poem hidden behind a wonderful secret writing; if we could decipher the puzzle, we should recognize in it the odyssey of the human spirit, which in astonishing delusion flees from itself while seeking itself.”
Part II
Part II: A Brief History of the United States Indian Removal Act of 1830
1. Native American Tribes of the United States
A. Major Indigenous Tribes of the American Southeast
B. Wildcat Banking: experiments in money creation
D. New American Slave Empire
2. The Politics of Aporia
A. Cherokee Chief Major Ridge
B. Chief John Ross
C. Supreme Court Rulings: Marshall Trilogy
D. Troublesome Christian Missionaries
E. Andrew Jackson's Reign of Caprice and Whim of Power
3. The Cherokee Trail of Tears
A. Jackson's CroniesB. The Exiled Cherokee Christians
4. Dangerous Insights
A. The Nationalistic gods of SpaceB. New Class Distinctions
C. Death of a Prophet
D. False Flags
E. Gaza: accumulation by dispossession
A Brief History of the United States
The written history of the Indian Removal Act signed into law in 1830 by then President Andrew Jackson serving from 1829 to 1837 is voluminous and includes vastly different fields of study including the political, economic, and socio-cultural structures of the new American nation during this early period. Historians see and write through specific cultural lenses whether they intend to or not. Even selecting this particular historical topic for study is not a value free decision. Earlier, we named these cultural lenses “relative categories,” and “paradigms.” An author may view time as a linear progression, or the repetition of a cycle, or even as a teleological spiral. An unconscious ethnocentric perspective is destructive to knowledge and is a disease of language. The logician, Ludwig Wittgenstein, described the function of language as a public tool for interpreting the private life. Scientific methodologies provide a way for understanding nature, but another dimension of reality is subjective human consciousness that include values, desires, emotions, intention, and reason. Scientific positivist-naturalistic-materialism may not be the only appropriate methodology to study our society and may even contribute to nihilism and a reflexive uncritical support for the status quo.
Culture is essentially a tool distributing knowledge for understanding societal relationships, relative categories, values, goals and ethical norms of behavior. The very word “culture” originates from the Latin term “cultura” meaning “cultivation,” “to tend,” or “to care” and is derived from “colere,” meaning “to dwell.” Because we are not born with inherent knowledge of how civil society and physical environment works, culture must teach us how to meet our needs, what we should eat, to build a family traditions, and what to do if we are sick. Some Sociologists bring an interdisciplinary approach to the study and research of society by including political sociology, history, psychology, economic sociology, anthropology, and the sociology of knowledge such as C. Wright Mills (1916–1962), Peter Berger (1929-2017), Karl Marx (1818–1883), Max Weber (1864-1920), and Emil Durkheim (1858-1917).
Native American Tribes of the United States
We grasp existence with language. The ancient Greek word for “nation,” “race,” or “ethnic group” is ἔθνος (“ethnic” is directly from the term éthnos) and is used to describe a group of people bound by a common culture, language, and heritage. It could also refer to a tribe, a nation, or a collection of people with shared characteristics. A “tribe” can have a broad definition, or a narrow legal definition. The federally recognized Seminole tribe originally from Florida is a good example of just how inclusive a tribe can be. The tribal name “Seminole” is originally from the Alabama Creek (Mvskoke) Indian word “simanoli “ meaning “runaway,” “wild,” or “outcast” referring to some tribes as escaped slaves, or separatists. “Muskoke,” is used to refer to the Creek Language, and “Muskogee” for the nation. Early British traders in Georgia named the Native Americans with an exonym according to the place they were found so the Indians living along the Ocmulgee and Ochesee rivers are referred to as “Ocmulgee Creek Indians,” and then colloquially shortened to “Creek Indians.” The Muskoke term itself may have been an exonym from the Spanish word cimarrón, meaning "runaway" or "wild one", referring to some of the sixty micro- tribes in Florida. The Seminoles culture was primarily Muskogean. (see details, “Indian Tribes of Oklahoma: A Guide,” by Blue Clark, 1947, 2009 ed., Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, pp. 209, 323: here after ITO)(pdf.).
“No tribe has the right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers ....Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?”
Much of Native American history is about litigation with the American judicial system, and is important to give context for understanding Native American Indian culture today. In California there are 109 federally recognized Native American tribes with some not recognized by the federal government, but prior to European arrival there were 500 micro-tribes with about 50 to 500 persons per group (Wikipedia: California Indigenous peoples). Oklahoma has 38 federally recognized tribes out of 42 tribes total, with about three unrecognized such as the “United Cherokee Nation,” the “Chickamauga Cherokee Nation,” and the “Yuchi Tribe” (ITO p, viii). Currently, there are 574 Native American tribes that are recognized by the federal government in the United States. Over the years, numerous tribes have merged with smaller groups, resulting in an evolved legal definition of a tribe as recognized by federal law.
Even before the Five Tribes were forced marched to Oklahoma from about 1830 to 1838, the US government always plotted to detribalize the Native Americans ethnic groups on a tribe-by-tribe basis by passing land allotment laws such as the Dawes Act of 1887 that added other amendments tailored for specific indigenous groups. Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts falsely viewed communal land as inhibiting cultural assimilation, and breeding poverty. In some cases, African slaves formerly owned by tribes had zero Indian blood-quantum but were allotted smaller private parcels of land in Oklahoma as compensation. In this case a person can be identified as Indian just by their family name being listed on the Dawes tribal rolls. Between 1887 and 1934 the privatization of land by the Dawes Act resulted in Native Americans losing about 100 million acres of land or about two-thirds of the land base they held in 1887. The Five Tribes has faced at least two more diasporas: forced out of their Southeastern native home to Oklahoma, lost land again in 1907 when Oklahoma became a state and land was re-allotted, and again during the 1930s Great Depression many Indians left the reservations to seek work. The story of the Trail of Tears does not have a happy ending.
The United States census of 2020 reported a total population of 331.4 million with 3.7 million persons claiming full-blood American Indian, or Alaskan ancestry along with another 5.9 million persons reporting mixed-blood ancestry of these two groups. Native Hawaiians are counted separately as Pacific Islanders and were estimated in 2022 to be about 714,847 persons claiming some ancestry. (Wikipedia: Native Americans in the U.S.). The Navajo Times in 2012 reported the Navajo tribe has the largest number of persons with full-blooded ancestry totaling 286,000 in the 2010 census. In the 2020 census, the tribe is counted at 423,412 persons. The 2020 census notes that there are over 1,000 tribes and 326 tribal reservations composing a population of 2 million. Also, any person with ancestry in more than one tribe is counted more than once.
Major Indigenous Tribes of the American Southeast
I believe the most direct way to learn about the 1830 Indian Removal Act when 60,000 Native Americans were displaced from their homeland is to follow the histories of Cherokee Chief John Ross (1790 - 1866), Major Ridge (1771 – 1839), and his son John Ridge (1802 – 1839). These three mixed-blood Cherokee leaders were bilingual and effectively communicated the tribes' interests and requests to the US Congress. The Cherokee tribe had the most slaves. All three tribe leaders were slave owners themselves. Major Ridge was nearly a full-blood Cherokee, a tribal councilman, a lawmaker, and a warrior against the early American settlers. John Ross, and John Ridge were unusually highly educated and worked closely together in communication with Washington D.C. to challenge Jackson's Indian removal legislation and decide other tribal matters. John Ridge wrote four articles in the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper between 1828 and 1830 under the pseudonym of “Socrates” defending Cherokee rights and critiquing Andrew Jackson's arguments against Cherokee sovereignty.
The five Indian tribes in the Southeastern United States during the early 1800s that were recognized by the federal government were the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muskogee (Creek) and Seminoles. Early Americans originally named these tribes “The Five Civilized Tribes,” because the native groups had intermarried and assimilated with Anglo-American culture. The modern name used today is “The Five Tribes” to avoid ethnocentrism. “Cherokee” is a name passed down through multiple languages including Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English by late 1600s meaning “cave people”; however, the Cherokees named themselves “Ani-yunwi-ya,” or “real People.” (ITO., p. 61).The Cherokee language broke off from the Iroquoian language about 3,500 to 3,800 years ago and the tribe may have originated from the Appalachian Mountains before A.D. 1000. (ibid., p. 63). Prior to the Indian Removal Act of 1830, there were about 16,000 Cherokee Indians living in the Southeastern part of the United States. In the 2020 Census more than 1.5 million persons claim some Cherokee heritage while the tribal nation reports 450,000 citizens enrolled.
Wildcat Banking: experiments in money creation
Money is a singular thing.... Over all history it has oppressed nearly all people in one of two ways: either it has been abundant and very unreliable, or reliable and very scarce. However, for many there has been a third affliction: for them money has been both unreliable and scarce.
I am sure you can find more interesting reading other than American monetary banking policies of the early eighteen hundreds! I am not a total economic reductionist. The human spirit is not exclusively determined by material existence, but it certainly profoundly shapes spirit. In the German language the word “Geist” means both “spirit,” and “mind.” I believe the severe economic recessions that characterized this historical period was a powerful catalyst adding to the general desperation of the white settlers seeking capital in the form of land, and the indigenous people's desperation to continue life on communal land. The Indians were free of the need for money that saturates every level of life for most of their tribe's existence until the late Eighteenth century. A monetary system and the need to pay taxes in legal tender is a powerful force of cultural assimilation.
Earlier in part one, I mentioned banker's compound interest time as the kind of time overlooked in some historical reviews of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The new American nation experienced multiple economic depressions because of excessive note issued by state banks. Some Founding Fathers mimicked the monetary policies of Britain banking model, but Thomas Jefferson and others were suspicious of central banks fearing corruption and ruinous financial speculation such as occurred during the British Credit Crisis 1772-1773 believed to be England's first peacetime financial crisis that also greatly affected the American colonies, and the French financial crash of 1720 caused by escaped felon John Law's bank failure of Banque Générale. The dangers of excessive printing of currency and stocks were known from these devastating monetary scandals. The United States had no central banks by law: “The Constitution restricted the right of coinage to the Federal government. It expressly forbade the states to issue paper money. And, a far less convenient inhibition, it also forbade the national government to issue paper money as well (“Money, whence it came, where it went,” John K. Galbraith, Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1975, p. 68; referred to as MWW) (pdf.).”
The trend was the same then as it is today: a law is an obstacle--until it's ignored. The state legislature of Kentucky got around the prohibition of state-owned banks by only providing the funds to buy printing plates, the paper, and office furniture while all other expenses were to be paid by the money printed. Chief Justice John Marshall ruled the state bank unconstitutional, but he died in 1837, and the Supreme Court allowed the issuing of the “bills of credit” by the Kentucky bank. (See details, MWW., p. 87). This pattern of deceit will appear again when Jackson enforces the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
The United States didn't have a national central bank and so chartered the First Bank of the United States in 1791-1811 that was modeled on the British Bank of England system. The American monetary system at the time amounted to a collection of foreign currencies such as the pounds, shillings and pence. After a severe bout of hyperinflation caused by financing the War of 1812 against the British, a Second Bank of the United States was created with a twenty-year charter in 1816. A responsibility of The U.S. Second Bank was to make sure the uncharted wildcat banks did not make excessive loans and could redeem banknotes issued on “the promise to pay the holder a specific amount species money (gold and silver).” Wildcat banks issued paper currency within the United States but were inadequately backed by chartered states banks. During The Free Banking Era from 1836 to 1865 these two banks antagonistically existed together as the state-chartered banks forced all banknotes be redeemed into gold, or silver as soon as possible, but instead these notes were often collateralized by government bonds, or real estate notes. There was the constant risk of possessing unredeemable banknotes. Often the issuing bank was far away in a remote location making the notes difficult to redeem. Also, massive fraud was a problem. In one case the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Bank had $500,000 worth of notes issued backed by only $86.48 in specie reserves. The bank's species reserve requirement was 30% of notes in circulation. And in another case during bank inspection of gold and silver reserves by commissioners, boxes filled with nails, glass, lead shot, and a thin layer of gold coins on top were moved from bank to bank just ahead of the bank inspectors (See details MWW., p. 87).
The American wildcat bank wars lasted generally from 1812 to about 1847. Many business owners believed it was their human right to print money. Railroads got into the banking business resulting in newly built railroads that led to nowhere and depositors holding mounds of worthless paper. Economist John K. Galbraith writes of how this flood of paper began: "Free from the discipline of the Bank and encouraged by the War of 1812 and the postwar boom, the number of state banks now multiplied — from 88 in 1811 to 208 in 1815. Their note issue increased from an estimated $45 million in 1812 to $100 million in 1817. The biggest expansion was in the new country in the Appalachians and the West...with a mass of counterfeit paper (MWW., p. 75). Galbraith follows the explosion of new state-owned banks: “Between 1830 and 1836, the number of banks more than doubled — the increase was from 330 to 713. Note circulation went up more or less in proportion — from $61 million to $140 million. Specie holdings — holdings of gold and silver — showed, as might be expected, a more modest gain — these increased only from $22 million to $40 million (MWW., p. 86).“ By the end of the wildcat banking era the damage was considerable confirming Thomas Jefferson's fear: “An estimated 7000 different bank notes were in greater or less degree of circulation, the issue of some 1600 different or defunct state banks. Also, since paper and printing were cheap and the right of note issue was defended as a human right, individuals had gone into the business on their own behalf. An estimated 5000 counterfeit issues were currently in circulation (MWW., p. 89).”
“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson... The country is going through a repetition of Jackson's fight with the Bank of the United States — only on a far bigger and broader basis.”
During the entire 1800s there were five depressions with the first appearing after the 1812 War as the Panic of 1819. The Bank of Baltimore nearly collapsed and the new head of the bank, Langdon Cheves, severely cut new loans and foreclosed on debtors. In 1823 Nicholas Biddle became head of the parent bank, The Bank of Philidelphia, enforcing even harsher regulations on state banks which started a bitter feud between banker Biddle and land speculator President Andrew Jackson. Biddle antagonized Jackson by suggesting his importance was equal to the President. Pro-banking groups and Senators attempted in 1832 to recharter the Second Bank of the United States before its official expiration in 1836 which was vetoed by an angry Jackson who wanted less state-bank regulations. Being accused of corruption by Jackson, Biddle did what is still done today when the Federal Reserve manipulates monetary policy: he withheld loans causing a recession while Jackson was running for reelection in 1832. However, Biddle's behavior so angered voters that Jackson won as the preceived lesser evil. Jackson got his second term and established U.S. Banking policy for the next eighty years. (see greater details; MWW., p. 80-81).
The Fertile Blackbelt
Already in 1831 the Choctaw and Seminoles were being forced out of their communal lands. During this economically precarious time, if one was careful, free land could be converted into hard money, gold and silver, in the form of easy bank loans for farming capital. The desire for free land is yet another driving force adding to the dark matter of desperation forcing the indigenous tribes to give up their communal lands only to be used as bank collateral. What was a great fortune of the indigenous peoples now became a misfortune: their homeland was in a unique geographical region with the richest black soil in the world reaching three feet deep not unlike the rich “Fertile Crescent,” or the cradle of civilization in the Middle East. The region known as the “Black Belt” of Alabama was once a shallow sea some 70 to 80 million years ago with vast deposits of dead shell fish collecting over eons enriching the soil with calcium then the receding waters exposed land ideal for growing cotton which absorbs the beds of ancient chalk. One old peach tree grove had tree trunks some 18 inches in diameter.
A map shows the crescent-shaped Black Belt Prairie includes tribal lands of the Creek, Choctaw, and the Chickasaw Nations. Yet, another factor added to Georgia's urgency to remove the Indian tribes: gold was found on Cherokee land in 1929. Cherokee territory covered eight states and the southern Appalahian Mountains from 1721 to 1819, but lost over ninety percent during the 1700s.
Map of Five Tribes homelands in 1830 - 1834
Professor Claudio Saunt ("Saunt" rhymes with "font") is a Richard B. Russell Professor in American History and Co-Director of the Center for Virtual History at the University of Georgia. In his book “Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory” (2020), Saunt explores the Indian Removal Act of 1830. He argues that the forced displacement of 80,000 Native American men, women, and children was part of a broader strategy aimed at establishing a large slave empire in the southeastern United States, extending even to the island of Cuba. Southern politicians, slave owners, planters, and land speculators were the primary forces seeking to remake the South into a super state by depopulating Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi of Indian tribes and replacing them with cotton plantation slaves. For the Southern Jacksonians cotton and free slave labor would result in more wealth than gold mining. The Democratic two termed President, Andrew Jackson, was a land speculator, veteran military leader, and experienced treaty negotiator making him a natural ally of Southern slave states. Dr. Saunt describes the multiple congressional voting procedures to pass the Indian Removal Act in his excellent video lecture resulting in its passage by only five votes out of 199 casted. (“White Supremacy and Indian Removal: Why the United States Dispossessed the Cherokees in the Age of Andrew Jackson,” )(2022)(here after SL). Even though the removal act was unpopular causing some procedural votes to pass by only one vote, the house was militantly Jacksonian. Also, up until after the Civil War in 1868 the U.S. Constitution's undemocratic Three-Fifths clause nearly guaranteed Southern states legislative advantage by adding the state population and the slave population with each slave counting only three-fifths of a human being, then calculating the number of House of Representatives votes each state would have for legislation. This padding of votes resulted in the Southern states having 21 more votes than the north.
The removal act granted half a million dollars to set up governments in former Indian lands and giving Jackson the power to trade Indian land for parts of the Louisiana Purchase, pay the tribes removal expenses, pay one year's subsistence income, and compensate the exiled tribes for lost land. Much of the monies set aside by the removal was stolen by corrupt government officials. (“The Oxford History of the American People,” Samuel Eliot Morison Vol. I, (1965) p. 446; OHAP.) (pdf.). Bands of Shawnee, Delaware, and Wyandot in the North were also moved east, but the Five Tribes were particularly troublesome. The Removal act made it illegal for an Indian to dig for gold on their own land. Already in 1930, some four thousand miners were working along the Georgia Yahoola Creek sub-watershed. The Georgia legislature passed laws making it illegal for any Indian to testify in court, or for tribal councils to meet.
The Greek term “ἀπορίᾳ” when translated with reference to place means “difficulty of passing.” “πορίᾳ” without an alpha “ἀ” means a “pathway,” but combined with the letter “ἀ” a negative prefix (alpha privative) changes the meaning to “no pathway, or “no way out.” However, when applied to persons, aporia means “poverty.” Native Americans who lived on private, individually owned lands were not subject to removal. The tribes were continually faced with the dilemma of abandoning their communal lands-- or, face death. But these dilemmas were human made Hobson's choices only giving the illusion of having a choice. Jackson's strategy was to divide the tribes into factions and instill fear to discourage tribal unity as each group dealt with their own situation and fears. Despite the fact that the United States entered into treaties to safeguard Cherokee citizens, white settlers would often threaten them, shoot them on sight, steal their livestock, intentionally kill the local wild animal population, and restrict access to ammunition needed for hunting. These actions were aimed at pushing the Cherokee people further west. One consequence of such hyper-factionalization of the Indian nations was tribal and inter-tribal violence. The tribal people either believed removal could be halted by appeal to the courts and American public, or that removal was enviable. Principle Chief John Ross belong to the first group, and Major Ridge the second.
I would like to avoid simply presenting a lot of data about the key figures connected to the removal of the Five Tribes. Instead, I want to paint a picture of the experiences of those who suffered during this period of profound injustice inflicted upon an understandably bewildered ancient people.
Cherokee Chief Major Ridge
Major Ridge was a child refugee in the conflict between Indians and settlers. As a young boy he once got lost in the countryside, but, he managed to navigate his way back home by following a familiar ridge-line, which earned him the nickname “Ridge.” As he grew older, Major Ridge became involved in the Cherokee-American wars, fighting against murdering frontiersmen taking his first American scalp when he was only seventeen. He later earned the title “Major” after fighting along side General Andrew Jackson during the Red Stick War, which pitted the more radical northern Upper Creeks against settlers. The Upper Creeks were aligned with the British and were actively resisting settler expansion. Ridge's involvement in these conflicts also extended to the battles against the Seminole tribes, contributing to the annexation of Florida from Spain. Even in 1813, General Jackson was playing various tribal factions against each other, including the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Lower Creeks, to undermine the Upper Creeks. Following the Upper Creeks’ defeat at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Jackson exacted revenge by forcing all Creeks to relinquish over 21 million acres of land, which included parts of southern Georgia and central Alabama. Historian Ronald Takaki reports in his book, “A Different Mirror,” (2009) that after the Battle of Horseshoe Bend Jackson's soldiers made bridle reins from skin cut from Indian corpses, and cut off the tip of the nose of the dead to verify body counts. Major Ridge, like all tribal Chiefs, in the hope of keeping their land had to constantly choose sides in conflicts between the American government, British, Spanish, Northern abolitionist, Southern slave states, and inner-tribal factions. He believed that establishing positive relationships with the U.S. government and culturally assimilating was the best way to protect their homeland. Ridge exemplified this belief through his actions, setting up one of the most modern plantations in all of Georgia tended by thirty African American slaves. Some indigenous Indians dressed better in deerskin clothing, lived in better houses, and were more literate in their native language than the invading white settlers. His pragmatic approach to leadership is reminiscent of a pragmatist.
John Ridge
Major Ridge also focused on education for his family. He sent his son, John Ridge, to the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut, to receive a European American classical education. John Ridge later followed in his father’s footsteps and became a Cherokee tribal leader in 1835. However, when he married a white woman named Sarah Bird Northrup, the local community expressed outrage, which culminated in an attack on the Christian seminary that burned down in 1826. John Ridge played a significant role in negotiating better terms with President Adams concerning the Treaty of Washington (1826) on behalf of the Upper Creeks. He gained considerable experience as a negotiator through his involvement in numerous tribal delegations, meeting with U.S. officials in Washington, D.C.
*Author Rebecca Nagle is a direct descendant of Major Ridge and has published “By The Fire We Carry,” (Fall 2024) that reviews this historical era in greater detail with insights into the judicial consequences for Native Americans leading to today.
Chief John Ross
"My people have kept me in the harness, not of my seeking, but of their own choice. I have never deceived them, and now I look back, not one act of my public life rises up to upbraid me. I have done the best I could, and today, upon this bed of sickness, my heart approves all I have done. And still I am, John Ross, the same John Ross of former years, unchanged.”
John Ross is a thought-provoking character in American history. He has an Indian name, "Kooweskoowe," which means "Mysterious Little White Bird," a reference to a mythical bird from Cherokee oral tradition. The Cherokee people regarded Ross as a profound thinker, and I would describe him as a rational idealist or an idealist, shaped by his education from these mysterious missionaries. Ross's only surviving daughter, Jane, attended a Moravian Female Academy, Salem in North Carolina for a time. Under the mentorship of Chief Major Ridge, Ross served as the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1828 to 1862. In 1810, he was designated a U.S. Cherokee Indian agent and fought alongside General Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, similar to Major Ridge. Chief Ross, who had only one-eighth Cherokee heritage, was later targeted by certain U.S. Indian agents that included Georgia Governor G.R. Gilmer, Colonel John W. A. Sanford, and the nihilistic Reverend John F. Schermerhorn, who was referred to by the Cherokees as “the devil’s horn”. They attempted to take advantage of Chief Ross's mixed ancestry to drive a wedge between the full-blood and mixed-blood members of the Cherokee Nation. But growing up working in his father's store, Ross built strong connections within the Cherokee community and eventually became one of the wealthiest Cherokees, owning a plantation that employed 20 enslaved individuals, along with a trading business and a ferry service. His father, Daniel Ross, valued education highly; he established a large home library, hired tutors, and enrolled his son into a Christian seminary that offered advanced courses. Although John Ross was not fluent in Cherokee, his impressive proficiency in English garnered the attention of tribal leaders and government officials leading to his selection in 1816 as part of the first Cherokee delegation to Washington, D.C. In 1819, he was appointed to the Cherokee National Committee, which was the only empowered body to negotiate treaties on behalf of the tribal nation. Throughout his career, Ross focused on resisting the ongoing pressures from the U.S. War Department to cede ever more Cherokee land. Ross wrote the complex constitution that was first adopted by the Cherokee Nation in 1827, and the following year, he was elected as the first Principal Chief.
Georgia tried every pretext imaginable to test and extend control over Cherokee territory. The term "Marshall Trilogy" refers to a series of three landmark Supreme Court cases adjudicated by Chief Justice John Marshall, which addressed the jurisdictions of Cherokee laws and Georgian sovereignty. Ultimately these cases led to the passage of the Indian Removal Act by President Andrew Jackson and are as follows: 1. Johnson v. McIntosh (1823) established that private individuals could not acquire land in violation of Cherokee law. 2. Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) held the Cherokee Nation possessed a right to self-governance within its territory and dodged the question of Cherokee soverignty by categorizing its territory as a "domestic dependent nation" rather than a foreign nation. 3. Worcester v. Georgia (1832): The state of Georgia imprisoned missionary Worcester and ten others for entering Cherokee territory without state permission. Chief Justice Marshall determined that individual states lack the authority to regulate Indian affairs, which fall exclusively under the purview of the federal government.
These Supreme Court cases required careful attention from Chief John Ross, who needed to inform his fellow citizens about Georgia's legal and probing efforts to remove the Five Tribes from their land. After Sequoyah, also known as George Guess, developed a functional writing system for the Cherokee language both Chief Ross and the respected Moravian convert, Chief Charles Hicks, established in 1828 the first Cherokee language newspaper of the tribe, named the Cherokee Phoenix. Publishing a weekly newspaper was made possible by Samuel Worcester, a missionary from the American Board mission at Brainerd Mission, who received donated board funds to purchase the printing press, and type faces. Elias Boudinot, also known as Buck Watie, later took on the role of editor. However, the press was later seized by Major General Winfield Scott just before the forced removal of the Cherokee people in 1838.
Troublesome Christian Missionaries
Samuel Austin Worcester also played a significant role supervising the translation of classic literature and the Christian Bible into Cherokee. A blend of Protestant Reformed groups among the missionaries advised the Cherokee leaders that they were being cheated in treaty negotiations with the federal government. They encouraged the Cherokee to litigate Supreme Court case against the state of Georgia in order to protect their land and rights—this was Worcester's message. Ironically, his name in Cherokee meant "the messenger." Georgia's governor, G. R. Gilmer, wanted to kill the messengers by driving these subversive Christian missionaries out of the state. Jeremiah Evarts was an official on the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, a largely Congregationalists and Presbyterian organization that loyally supported the Five Tribes against removal. In response, Georgia passed a law requiring white men to obtain a license to settle in Cherokee territory and Christian missionaries to sign a pledge of allegiance to Georgia. Missionary Rev. Worcester and eleven others refused to comply with this law, recognizing that it was a tactic to undermine their material and spiritual support for the Cherokee people. Consequently, they were arrested by Georgian soldiers and sentenced to four years of hard labor. While nine of the men were pardoned, Worcester and Elizur Butler chose to reject their pardons to allow their cases to proceed to court for a decision. Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee Nation was solely under the jurisdiction of the federal government, leading to Rev. Worcester and Butler's release. Throughout this entire court process, politicians in the South who supported removal continually warned of the possibility of civil war if the southern states did not achieve their desired outcome.
Andrew Jackson's Reign of Caprice and Whim of Power
“On all important questions, when a difference of opinion arise in regard to their rights and interests, the sentiments of the majority should prevail. . .. The duty of the minority to yield, and unite in the support of the measure, this is the rule of order, sanctioned by patriotism and virtue; whilst a contrary course would lead to faction, confusion and injury.’’
While officials in Georgia feigned ignorance about the boundaries of tribal lands with the goal of expanding their laws over the Cherokee territory, they overlooked the presence of land-hungry intruders who harassed and committed crimes against Native Americans. Many settlers viewed Chief Ross as a significant barrier to the acquisition of free Indian land. On November 30, 1831, Chief Ross was visiting Major Ridge when a man named Harris approached and inquired if Ross had seen a horse thief who had used his ferry the day before. Ross stated that he had not seen the thief. The following day, as Ross was riding alongside his brother Andrew, Harris rode up behind them and shouted, "Ross, I have been wanting to kill you for a long time (JR., p. 47).” Reacting quickly, Ross turned his horse and rode away just as a gunshot was fired, missing him.
Ross commented to the Tennessean, David Crockett of Jackson's removal policy: “Cupidity and Avarice by sophistry intrigue and corruption may for a while prevail—but the day of retributive justice must and will come, when integrity and moral worth will predominate and make the shameless monster hide its head (JR., p. 42).” Philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a letter to President Martin Van Buren on April 23, 1838, protesting the removal of Cherokee Indians from Georgia, in part warning, "... However feeble the sufferer and however great the oppressor, it is in the nature of things that the blow should recoil upon the aggressor.....”
Ross was threatened with arrest for not agreeing with the unauthorized New Echota Treaty (1835) signed by only a minority of Cherokees which gave legal authority to Georgia for Indian removal. Some US Indian agents, settlers, and con-men continually sought any person--sober or not--willing to sale public lands for some ridiculous price. As a deterrent, Chief Major Ridge rewrote in 1829 an ancient “blood law” that forbade any person from selling public land without approval of the Cherokee nation or otherwise suffer the death penalty by any citizen “in any manner most convenient.” Ironically, Major Ridge himself was accused by some Cherokees for violating the blood law by signing the Echota Treaty. In 1834, Major Ridge was part of a faction that supported the treaty, which included his son, John Ridge, as well as Elias Boudinot, David Vann, Andrew Ross (who was the son of John Ross), and T.J. Pack (a cousin of Ross)--and of course the state of Georgia backed by the executive office of the President. Ross and sixteen other persons composed the anit-treaty group. John Ross closely followed the blood law restriction, which aimed to ensure that no treaties could be negotiated without the full knowledge and unanimous approval of the entire nation. (see details, JR., pp. 56, 68, 114).
President Jackson simply ignored Marshall's Supreme Court ruling in Worcester v. Georgia and continued enforcing the Indian Removal Act of 1830 which guaranteed Georgia would not violate any earlier Indian treaties. In 1831, Georgia enacted a law that prohibited the Cherokee General Council from holding meetings, imposing a penalty of four years of prison labor for those who violated this law. As a result, Chief John Ross had to conduct council meetings in Red Hill, Tennessee, instead. Already in 1833 Georgia had surveyed the land into small lots granted all Cherokee land to Georgian citizens by lottery so that any Cherokee could be approached by a stranger with a lottery ticket demanding they leave their home and possessions. During 1835 Ross returned from Washington to his farm in Alabama arriving at evening and discovered that his family was gone, and a total stranger was living in his home! While Ross is enroute from Washington the Head of the Georgia Guard, Colonel William N. Bishop placed all of Ross's property in the possession of a new rightful “legal claimant” including the estate's fields, ferry, and farm improvements. Ross had to search for his missing family and move to a small log cabin in Red Hill. (See details, JR., p. 62).
John Ross was a target of President Jackson for his refusal to sign the fraudulent New Echota Treaty, along with several other questionable agreements that granted Georgia the authority to carry out Indian removal. To exert more pressure on Ross, Jackson halted the payment of the agreed-upon annuities that were owed to the Cherokees, resulting in severe financial difficulties for both the Cherokee people and their government. On November 7, 1837, Ross was in his modest two room cabin at Red Hill, hosting the renowned American actor, poet, and playwright John Howard Payne, who had extensively documented Cherokee history, culture, and language although his work was never published. Without warning, around twenty-five armed members of the Georgia Guards stormed into the cabin, arresting both Payne and Ross. Payne was accused of being a French spy and an advocate for abolition, and was slapped around by Sergeant Young. Ross is accused of obstructing a census of the Cherokee people. Ross was released ten days later, and Payne four days after Ross. There was speculation by both men of the involvement of Benjamin F. Currey, the Jackson-appointed emigration agent for the Cherokees, and Colonel William N. Bishop for setting up the arrests--the same Georgia Guardsman that signed away Ross's home and business. Also, Ross's brother, Lewis Ross, had been threatened with property seizures by Currey if he opposed signing the Echota Treaty. Lewis was arrested days before his brother and released from jail. (see details, JR., p. 69). The land owned by pro-treaty Chief Major Ridge was protected from being seized by Georgia Governor Wilson Lumpkin. This action was taken to maintain divisions among tribal groups and facilitate their removal.
During 1835, Tennessee Governor William Carroll appointed the despised Reverend John F. Schermerhorn as commissioner to oversee negotiations for the removal of the Cherokee people. However, when Chief Ross declined Schermerhorn's request for a meeting, the Reverend responded by presenting forged documents that questioned Ross's status as a Cherokee citizen. Later on, Schermerhorn would criticize Ross, alleging that he exerted "unrestrained influence over the Indigenous people... trained like a Swiss guard, to obey only orders (JR., p. 64)." Then as now every accusation is a confession. Additionally, Schermerhorn and Curry permanently seized the Cherokee printing press to prevent publication of material by anti-treaty delegates.
The Cherokee Trail of Tears
“ 'Cherokees,' we are answered, 'You're only Indians, and you cannot expect us to quarrel among ourselves over you. We know we have made promises. Oh yes, the white man is honest and a Christian. We know we're a Christian', said to white men, 'We know we're honest, but don't expect us to keep promises made to you. You're only Indians!' “
After some thirty years of effort by the U.S. Government to move native American tribes from east of the Mississippi river, Jackson was able to make removal a reality by forcing some twenty-six tribes to cede land with eight-six treaties hoping they would “...cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community (1830 speech).” In 1837 Martin Van Buren became President, but continued removal. Here are the removal dates and estimated death tolls of the Five Tribes:
15,000 Choctaw moved from 1831 to 1836 resulting in about 2,000 to 4,000 deaths.
20,000 Creek (Muskogee) moved 1834 to 1837 with 3,500 to 4,500 deaths.
4,600 Chickasaw moved 1837 to 1847 with 500 to 800 deaths.
16,000 Cherokees moved 1836 to 1838 with 4,000 to 8,000 deaths. The Bureau of Indians Affairs reported that by 1841 some 25,911 Cherokees had moved.
2,833- 4,000 Seminoles moved 1832 to1842 with 5,500 war dead in the Second Seminole War resisting removal from Florida.
We must remember that one hundred years after Christopher Columbus arrived in North America about 90% of Native Americans died from war, slavery, and disease in the era know as the “great dying” amounting to about 56 million deaths. Many Choctaws, especially children, died on the long trek to Oklahoma from influenza, measles, and the first cholera epidemic ever to infect North America in 1832.
John Ross engaged in legal battles and achieved a significant victory in the Supreme Court case Worcester v. Georgia, which validated his legal strategies as effective means of resisting forced removal. However, despite this ruling, President Jackson and the state of Georgia disregarded federal law. They proceeded with the removal of the Cherokee people after the minority pro-treaty faction signed the New Echota Treaty in 1835, which authorized their displacement. Throughout this period, Ross endured continuous persecution from the state of Georgia. This included attacks on his character, judicial harassment, the withholding of treaty funds while U.S. commissioners subsidized pro-treaty party, unlawful searches of his home, seizure of his documents including all property, as well as death threats, a failed assassination attempt, unjust arrests of himself and brother, and the stirring of dissent among factions fueled by outside agitation propaganda agents. Federal government officials created material dependency in treaty agreements only to withhold promised supplies to force removal. Because of the huge imbalance of power, all of Ross's appeals to democracy, morality, and logic were ineffective. Ross came to realize in May or April in 1838 that removal was inevitable and redirected his attention to assisting the Cherokee people making the over 800-mile journey to Oklahoma by boat, wagon, and foot a little less brutal. Chief Ross was able to convince General Scott to allow thirteen detachments of Cherokees to organize their own removal. Ross later discovered someone forged his signature on the bogus Echota Treaty.
The pro-treaty leader Major Ridge knew the purpose of the military Georgia Guard led by Colonel William N. Bishop was to exterminate the Indians if they refuse to obey state orders to remove. Land-greedy Georgians who could not control themselves began driving Indians out of their homes even before evacuation decrees were announced. Most likely the pragmatic Major Ridge decided to sign the Echota Treaty out of concern for the safety of his people. If the tribes refused to leave, they would be slaughtered without any reserved land whatsoever. In contrast, John Ross held an unwavering faith in the U.S. Constitution and the democratic process, while President Jackson placed his trust in brute military violence. Both Ridge and Ross witnessed Jackson's willingness to use violence and inflict cruelty upon Native Americans during wartime. A member of the Tennessee militia named Davy Crockett witnessed the actions of Jackson’s troops during the conflict with the Upper Creek Indians, known as the "Red Sticks." He described harrowing scenes in which militia members shot women and children "like dogs." In one instance, the militia set fire to a house containing Indian women and children, tragically allowing a 12-year-old boy to burn alive. The following day, when the militia found themselves short on supplies, they returned to the charred remains of the house in search of food. Crockett recounted the grisly scene:
“No provisions had yet reached us, and we had now been for several days on half rations. However, we went back to our Indian town on the next day, when many of the carcasses of the Indians were still to be seen. They looked very awful, for the burning had not entirely consumed them, but given them a terrible appearance, at least what remained of them. It was, somehow or other, found out that the house had a potato cellar under it, and an immediate examination was made, for we were all as hungry as wolves. We found a fine chance of potatoes in it, and hunger compelled us to eat them, though I had a little rather not, if I could have helped it, for the oil of the Indians we had burned up on the day before, had run down on them, and they looked like they had been stewed with fat meat (“Davy Crockett's Own Story,” 1955, M. Glaser, p. 71)(pdf.).”
The
term “Wetico”
(alternatively spelled “Wetiko” or “Witiko”) originates from
Cree and other Algonquian languages, denoting a cannibalistic
spirit
or monster characterized by greed, excess, and selfish consumption.
However, Wetico encompasses more than just the act of cannibalism; it
also signifies the "eater of life." In essence, the
European settlers acted as parasites upon the Indigenous peoples.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 only granted the President the legal power to negotiate the exchange of federal lands in the East for Western lands. President Martin Van Buren gave Major General Winfield Scott command of six thousand federal U.S. and state militia troops in the Cherokee Nation during April 1838 and began the roundup of 16,000 Cherokees on May 26th. Stockade prison camps were built to hold Indians for removal, an invention inherited from the experienced British imperialists. Following Scott's orders, soldiers began actively seeking out Native Americans, apprehending families at mealtime, men working in the fields, and children playing. No one was spared from the extensive trauma inflicted, including the young, sick, elderly, and disabled. As these persons were forcibly taken to the stockades, they often faced violence during the journey. In many cases, groups of looters followed Scott's soldiers, burning the abandoned homes of the Native Americans, stealing livestock, and even robbing graves to pilfer jewelry--and teeth for sale to dentists. Meanwhile, John Ross, who had tirelessly fought to protect the Cherokee people from such injustices, received the grim news that his wife, Quatie Ross, had died of pneumonia while on a steamboat to Oklahoma. Her illness came after she selflessly gave her blanket to a sick child during a snowstorm.
Jackson's Cronies
Professor Claudio Saunt's historical research reveals that the government officials responsible for the removal process lacked the necessary logistical expertise to manage such a massive operation. Army officer George Gibson was appointed by President Jackson as the Commissary General of Subsistence. His job involved overseeing about a half-dozen War Department accountants who tracked the costs associated with supplying troops and the expenses related to treaty-negotiated migrations. John Ross scrupulously tracked the costs charged against the Cherokee Nation for removal. Notably, Gibson was a longtime friend of Jackson, which led to the Office of Indian Affairs (which would later become the Bureau of Indian Affairs) being completely bypassed. Professor Saunt points out the federal government bureaucracy amounted to 10,000 employees of which 8,000 delivered the U.S. Mail. Gibson's team of accountants back in Washington D.C., “had no experience transporting families, the elderly, sick people, pregnant women, infants, toddlers who were all unwilling to move in the first place and were not really likely to cooperate (SL., @ 33:54 min).” The critical necessity for essential supplies— food, tents, medicine, clothing, materials for bridge crossing, and other resources—to reach weary migrating groups navigating unclear maps and routes westward amidst harsh winter storms, was unfortunately entrusted to self-serving subcontractors.
I think the next two incidents epitomize how Native American land was confiscated by Alabama and the United States as a whole. Women were easy targets of the lowest of the white settler land-grabbing class as in the case of Taki Gehelo from Tallahassee Town, Alabama during the summer of 1834. She was invited by her neighbors to join them to eat peaches, but when she arrived the neighbor forced her to sign a paper warning that otherwise she would lose her land. She signed the paper and lost her land. In return, the white neighbor gave here three handkerchiefs, and a bag of flour. In a separate incident, Hatsuka, a Creek Indian, found herself in a difficult situation involving her former husband, who was also the white father of her child. He persuaded a government census taker that he was the legitimate owner of Hatsuka's land. After the ownership title was changed, he went ahead and sold the property without obtaining his wife's consent.
These next cases epitomize the vulnerability of Native American people during the diaspora. In the summer of 1834, a woman named Taki Gehelo from Tallahassee Town, Alabama, became a victim of these land-grabbing tactics. Her neighbors invited her to share a meal of peaches, but upon her arrival, they pressured her into signing a document, threatening that she would lose her land if she refused. Unfortunately, she signed the paper and subsequently lost her land, receiving only three handkerchiefs and a bag of flour in return. In another incident, a Creek Indian woman named Hatsuka was deceived by her former husband—the white father of her child. The husband persuaded a Government Census taker that he was the true owner of Hatsuka's land. Once land ownership was transferred to him, he sold the land without her consent. A woman named Sully was threatened with death by a man and signed away her land in fear.
The Exiled Cherokee Christians
Some dedicated Christian missionaries faced arrest and imprisonment for being too helpful to the Native Americans. Now, their converts became part of the great 1830s diaspora. Before embarking on their arduous journey to Oklahoma, a congregation of Christian Cherokees meticulously disassembled their church, labeling the position of each wooden board to ensure that nothing was misplaced. They transported the lumber to Westville, Oklahoma, where they then meticulously reassembled their former church piece by piece to recreate the Old Baptist Mission. (see, ITO., p. 68). In general Moravians and Methodists favored removal. On the other hand Baptists, Presbyterians, and the American Board of Commissioner of Foreign Missions (ABCFM) opposed removal. (See, ITO., p. 67).
All written histories contain inaccuracies because they often omit details deemed unimportant, and the historian's own cultural biases, values, traditions, and implicit assumptions can distort facts, leading to misinterpretations of events. Historian David Hackett Fischer identifies 122 common fallacies in his work, “Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought.” I tried to avoid those fallacies. Once factual information is gathered, the challenge shifts to how to interpret these facts, specifically which interpretive principles should be applied. Understanding the significance of facts is one of the most complex issues when examining historical events. The comprehensive discussion in Part I regarding scientific paradigms is essentially a hermeneutical inquiry aimed at "saving the appearances"—organizing our experiences into coherent understanding. Our challenge is not that we cannot know reality; rather, it is that we can know reality in so many numerous and diverse ways.
The Nationalistic gods of Space
As I delve into the history of the Indian removals—often viewed as a form of ethnic cleansing—during the 19th century, I look for recurring patterns that illustrate the broader context of these events. Ethical reasoning is fundamentally teleological, meaning that a moral agent aims to achieve goodness through free will and righteous actions, which can be understood as the pursuit of justice. This perspective informs the critique by Christian theologian Paul Tillich, who challenges the imperialist conceptions of divinity—what he refers to as the "gods of space." Tillich’s understanding of history is teleological, rooted in the Christian theological notion of justice. Tillich bases his interpretation of history on the prophetic figure Amos of Judah, who lived around 755 B.C. and is featured in the Hebrew and Christian Old Testament, rejected the title of "professional prophet." Amos distanced himself from such labels due to the disreputable history of prophets who had succumbed to nationalism and overlooked the injustices perpetrated by those in power. Although Judah is located just west of the Dead Sea, Amos preached in the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the reign of Jeroboam II (781-741 B.C.), a time marked by the conquest of regions like Syria, Moab, and Ammon. He warned of the impending downfall of Israel, which was fueled by its nationalistic idolatry and mistreatment of the impoverished. Amos faced persecution for his messages; he was tortured by Amaziah, a priest of Bethel, and subsequently exiled, thereby becoming the first known literary prophet to write down his warnings. He emphasized that there is a singular universal divine justice that applies to all nations and peoples, thereby leveling the playing field in the eyes of a righteous deity. Amos argued that mere adherence to ritual sacrifices is inadequate for true righteousness; it is essential that worship is unforced, intentional, and participatory. Amos warned that for a nation to have a meaningful relationship with God, it must actively seek economic justice and denounce injustice in every form.
New Class Distinctions
A group of Cherokees who opposed removal, deeply upset by the loss of their homeland and the thousands of lives lost, resolved to uphold the Blood Law. On June 22, 1839, a band of 25 men ambushed and killed Major Ridge, shooting him five times. On the same day his son, John Ridge, and nephew, Elias Boudinot, were brutally beaten and stabbed to death at their homes. Stand Watie, Elias Boudinot's brother, later survived an assassination attack. The result of deliberately organized hyper-factionalization is internal violence that destroys communities and rendering them vulnerable to further injustices and exploitation. Jackson consciously worked to keep the Indigenous peoples permanently divided and therefore manageable. A new situation arose that the Indigenous tribes had never encountered before: significant class divisions formed due to vast disparities in power and wealth. This development led to further fragmentation among individuals, as they began to see each other as economic rivals rather than members of a community.
Death of a Prophet
Another example of this factionalization pattern is the Cherokee prophet, Tsali (Sally) who adamantly refused to surrender any land to settlers. Tsali foretold a significant impending apocalypse and believed the only place where they would find safety was in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, where he and others sought refuge from federal troops. Eventually, Tsali and his family were captured by soldiers, who cruelly whipped and beat a Cherokee woman holding her baby leading to breaking the skull of the infant. In a fit of rage, Tsali and his sons beat two soldiers to death with clubs while one soldier escaped. General Winfield Scott negotiated with the fugitive Cherokees, promising that if they surrendered the Tsali family, the rest of the group would be allowed to go free. Tsali and his family immediately surrendered, but another fugitive, Chief Lichen, ordered and carried out the execution by firing squad of Tsali, Lowney (his brother) and Ridges (his Son). General Scott ordered the executions to prevent any future alliances between the tribes. However, the decision to execute Tsali might have reflected Scott's conscious or unconscious interpretation of a biblical metaphor, symbolizing a community's betrayal of the prophet sent to liberate them.
False Flags
The story of the Boston Tea Party is a source of pride for American patriots who resisted British colonial exploitation. In 1773, Parliament enacted the Tea Act, which permitted the East India Company to import tea from China without having to pay a tea tax. This led to outrage among American tea merchants, who felt that local tea shops were being unfairly burdened by high prices. In an act of defiance, these merchants disguised themselves as Native Americans and boarded an East India ship, where they dumped approximately one million dollars' worth of tea into Boston Harbor. However, this incident can also be viewed through the lens of a false flag operation. The settlers viewed Indigenous tribes as adversaries, which led them to portray Native Americans as the instigators of the protest. Many people may not recognize that this event was essentially a false flag operation that endangered innocent persons, or they may compartmentalize this knowledge as collateral damage from colonial conflicts. Even after the true identities of the tea tax protesters were revealed, the stigma against Native Americans persisted. Occasionally, government agents would spread false rumors about specific tribes allegedly stockpiling weapons in preparation for a surprise attack on another tribe, with the aim of inciting conflict.
Gaza: Accumulation by Dispossession
The conflict in Gaza involving the Palestinian people can be compared to the historical wars waged by the United States against Indigenous tribes in North America, as well as similar colonial wars experienced by numerous other nations throughout history. Such wars are not simply natural occurrences; they stem from the ways in which human societies organize themselves to sustain particular cultural and economic structures. In both the current conflict and past imperial wars, we see common factors: land that is rich in resources, indigenous communities with distinct cultures, an abundance of cheap labor, cyclical economic instability, and sometimes a lack of established military forces within the affected territories. Empires have an inherent need to expand its markets; if they do not, their economic system will become unstable, or collapse. An empire's need for "expansion” is euphemistically called “expropriation,” that means the seizure of land and natural resources for commodity production. A “commodity” is anything produced for the sole purpose of selling for a profit—not necessarily for the good of humanity. Scholar David Harvey calls this periodic process of resource seizure, “accumulation by dispossession.”
As of October 29, 2024, the Gaza Health Ministry has reported a shocking death toll of at least 43,000 Palestinians, including 16,000 children, with approximately 1.9 million people displaced of a population of 2.3 million. 22,500 Palestinians have experienced life-changing injuries. At least 10,000 people are missing of which 4,000 are children are most likely buried under bombed building debris. This situation is characterized by immense human suffering and loss. It's important to note that 47% of Gaza's population is under the age of 18. Furthermore, between 70% and 80% of all structures in northern Gaza have been destroyed.
Some historical context is critical showing the continuity of efforts to dispossess the Palestinians. Middle-Eastern history is the most complex history to study with maybe the exception of ancient Chinese history. During another criminal act against humanity known as the Nakba (or "catastrophe") in 1948, Zionist militias forcibly exiled around 750,000 Palestinians and carried out over 70 massacres. Throughout Middle Eastern history, there have been many tragic massacres committed against Palestinians, including: - The Massacre of 1953, where Israeli forces killed more than 275 Palestinians. - The Khan Yunis Massacre of 1956, resulting in the deaths of over 275 Palestinians. - The Rafah Massacre, also in 1956, during which more than 111 Palestinians lost their lives. - The Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre in 1994, where Israeli settlers killed 29 individuals. - The Nuseirat Refugee Camp Massacre in 2024, which resulted in the deaths of over 274 Palestinians.
U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has described the current destruction in Gaza “genocide as colonial erasure,” highlighting the severity of the crisis (see the interview “Genocide as Colonial Erasure” on The Chris Hedges Report). The tactics employed today bear resemblance to those used against the Five Tribes in the southeastern United States, albeit with modern cybernetic advancements. The Israeli government is implementing a blockade, deliberately preventing food supplies from reaching the starving population in Gaza resulting in at least 34 deaths from malnutrition documented by September 14, 2024. Local communication systems have been shut down, about 130 Palestinian journalists s have been murdered by snipers to limit international coverage. Palestinians who are hungry and exhausted frequently have to relocate from one designated "safe zone" to another nine to ten times . They often discover that their temporary shelters are vulnerable to attacks from remotely operated kamikaze drones provided to Israel by the United States and its proxy allies. The modern arsenal of democracy such as GPS guided missiles, advanced tanks, and artificial intelligence enhanced warfare are being deployed against a civilian population, nearly half of which consists of teenagers.
Chris Hedges presents a detailed overview of the recent attacks in Israel. As of October 20, 2023, he reports that 233 staff members from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) have lost their lives in Gaza since the conflict escalated on October 7. He also highlights that 32 out of 36 hospitals have sustained damage, with 20 hospitals and 70 of 119 primary healthcare centers rendered nonfunctional. By August, there had been a total of 492 attacks on healthcare facilities. In another incident, Israel besieged Al-Shifa Hospital for a second time in March and April, resulting in the deaths of over 400 individuals and the detention of 300 people, which included doctors, patients, displaced individuals, and civil servants. Additionally, a forced evacuation left only 100 of the 650 patients remaining in Al-Aqsa hospital. (See details, Genocidal Scorecard by Chris Hedges, Nov. 17, 2024).”
Over the past three hundred years, the methods of cruelty implemented during the removal of the Five Tribes have been refined and repeatedly applied to both ancient and contemporary societies. Even George Orwell would be taken aback by how these historical strategies of authoritarian control have been adapted to fit our modern digital age, all in pursuit of the same goal: the accumulation of wealth through the dispossession of a people.
