Thursday, November 8, 2012

The Indian Wars & Dances with Wolves

Later, Crook would work to register peaceful relations with the Indians, and eventually he resigned his command in protest over the mistreatment of Indians.

Captain Bourke's draw, originally published in 1891, is essentially a narrative of his experiences in Crook's command. In the turn tail of his account, however, Bourke combines elements of a social history of the Western frontier, an anthropological account of the Plains Indians, and a guide to the difficult military problems which the Plains Indians posed to their opponents. Finally, it is a bitter indictment, by one in a office staff to know best, of how the policy of Indian pacification was carried out in practice: a pattern of neglect and broken promises that take to much needless bloodshed.

Bourke writes in the style of the nineteenth century, so compared to a modern military memoir he is some wordy, with many stylistic flourishes. Nevertheless, he has a sharp mettle and a keen mind. Early in the book he paints a vivid word-picture of Tucson, then a frontier frontier settlement with two restaurants -- one called the "Shoo-fly" -- several gambling halls, and no hotels (pp. 56ff). Now-familiar items of Mexican cuisine are introduced to the reader as exotic novelties. To Bourke's eyes, not long after the famous re-discovery of Troy, garb hop on-piles on Tucson streets resembled archeological strata:

The age of the garbage piles was distinctly defined by geol


The Indian policy of the government during this consummation was supposed to combine a carrot and a stick. superior general Crook, so successful in wielding the "stick," also devoted himself to fetching the "hearts and minds" of the Indians. His efforts at peaceful settlement were constantly hindered, in part by poor communications and bureaucratic bungling, and in part by the very nature of frontier settlement. Marginally-pacified Indian tribes found themselves living alongside settlers who were often eager to overwork the Indians, or were simply hotheaded. In these conditions, with a general neediness of law and order, "incidents" were inevitable, and some exploded into major uprisings.
Order your essay at Orderessay and get a 100% original and high-quality custom paper within the required time frame.
In the backdrop were repeated violations of treaties, and the suspicions of Indian leaders that any treaty they do would be broken when it was convenient for the settlers to do so.

The conditions that led to the Sioux and capital of Wyoming risings were repeated throughout the plains and desert West. By 1882, conditions in azimuth had deteriorated to the point where General Crook was sent back thither to pacify the Chiricahua Apaches (p. 433ff) who were rising under Geronimo. Crook ultimately succeeded, though outbreaks by Chiricahua groups continued. When order had finally been restored, loyal Chiricahua were treated as harshly by the government as the hostile ones who were captured:

As a man of his times, Bourke (and, presumably, Crook) did not doubt the white man's " certify destiny" to rule the American west, but as the know sentence of the above suggests, he was not naive more or less the nature of frontier settlement.

This remark is characteristic of Bourke's view of Indians, and it seems to invite been Crook's view as well. But there was little drippiness in their view. They saw Indians not as noble environmentalists and victims but as brave and dangerous enemies, and above all they reckon the Indians for their military skills and qualities. After describing an Apache ambush that t
Order your essay at Orderessay and get a 100% original and high-quality custom paper within the required time frame.

No comments:

Post a Comment