as small as a world and as large as alone, clatterbane: Recommended reading: George...

10:18pm July 4, 2013

clatterbane:

Recommended reading:
George Washington’s War on Native America by Barbara Alice Mann

The Revolutionary War is ordinarily presented as a conflict exclusively between colonists and the British, fought along the northern Atlantic seacoast. George Washington’s War on Native America recounts the tragic events on the forgotten western front of the American Revolution—a war fought against and ultimately won by Native America. Although history texts often erroneously present the Natives, primarily the Iroquois League and the Ohio Union, as “allies” (or lackeys) of the British, Native America was in fact working from its own agenda: to prevent settlers from invading the Old Northwest.Throughout the war, the unwavering goal of the Revolutionary Army, under George Washington, and its associated settler militias was to break the power of the Iroquois League, which had successfully held off invasion for the preceding two centuries, and the newly formed Ohio Union. To destroy the Natives who stood in the way of land seizure, Washington authorized a series of rampages intended to destroy the League and the Union by starvation. As a result, uncounted thousands of Natives perished from New York and Pennsylvania to Ohio. Barbara Alice Mann tells how, in the wake of the massive assaults, Native America nonetheless won the war in the West and managed to maintain control of the land west and north of the Allegheny–Ohio River systems.

That wasn’t the only region where similar happened. The expansionist splitting-off colonists rightly identified us as a huge threat. This was, however, the part that Washington was very directly involved in.
Some very disturbing shit here, meticulously documented. Including very purposely targeting and keeping captives as “comfort women". (Not much of a surprise, but good that someone is actually researching and writing about the war crimes. Even if it seems to take a Seneca historian.)
Washington gets a lot more well-deserved attention over being a major slave-owner who profited off other people’s misery that way. But nobody seems to want to talk about the direct involvement in genocide and shedloads of what would now be war crimes. Yes, the man gave openly genocidal direct orders.
As quoted elsewhere, since I don’t feel like digging through a very information-dense book to find some of this:

He insisted in killing as many Indians as possible without taking into account age or sex. The survivors were to be given as agricultural slaves to the colonists who deserved them “Destroying not only the men but the settlements and the plantations is very important. All sown fields must be destroyed and new plantations and harvests must be prevented. What lead can not do will be done by hunger and winter.”

And yes, there was still Native slavery in 1779. And you rarely hear anything about any of this, unless you go digging.
“Father Of Our Country”, yep.

Recommended reading:

George Washington’s War on Native America by Barbara Alice Mann

The Revolutionary War is ordinarily presented as a conflict exclusively between colonists and the British, fought along the northern Atlantic seacoast. George Washington’s War on Native America recounts the tragic events on the forgotten western front of the American Revolution—a war fought against and ultimately won by Native America. Although history texts often erroneously present the Natives, primarily the Iroquois League and the Ohio Union, as “allies” (or lackeys) of the British, Native America was in fact working from its own agenda: to prevent settlers from invading the Old Northwest.

Throughout the war, the unwavering goal of the Revolutionary Army, under George Washington, and its associated settler militias was to break the power of the Iroquois League, which had successfully held off invasion for the preceding two centuries, and the newly formed Ohio Union. To destroy the Natives who stood in the way of land seizure, Washington authorized a series of rampages intended to destroy the League and the Union by starvation. As a result, uncounted thousands of Natives perished from New York and Pennsylvania to Ohio. Barbara Alice Mann tells how, in the wake of the massive assaults, Native America nonetheless won the war in the West and managed to maintain control of the land west and north of the Allegheny–Ohio River systems.

That wasn’t the only region where similar happened. The expansionist splitting-off colonists rightly identified us as a huge threat. This was, however, the part that Washington was very directly involved in.

Some very disturbing shit here, meticulously documented. Including very purposely targeting and keeping captives as “comfort women". (Not much of a surprise, but good that someone is actually researching and writing about the war crimes. Even if it seems to take a Seneca historian.)

Washington gets a lot more well-deserved attention over being a major slave-owner who profited off other people’s misery that way. But nobody seems to want to talk about the direct involvement in genocide and shedloads of what would now be war crimes. Yes, the man gave openly genocidal direct orders.

As quoted elsewhere, since I don’t feel like digging through a very information-dense book to find some of this:

He insisted in killing as many Indians as possible without taking into account age or sex. The survivors were to be given as agricultural slaves to the colonists who deserved them “Destroying not only the men but the settlements and the plantations is very important. All sown fields must be destroyed and new plantations and harvests must be prevented. What lead can not do will be done by hunger and winter.”

And yes, there was still Native slavery in 1779. And you rarely hear anything about any of this, unless you go digging.

“Father Of Our Country”, yep.