Native Americans — Transcript

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1. 0:02okay
2. 0:03uh i want to do a quick
3. 0:07mini recording here on uh native
4. 0:09americans and the life of native
5. 0:11americans
6. 0:12uh in the in the late 1800s and uh
7. 0:18and so so let me just start out talking
8. 0:21like this so i grew up in a small town
9. 0:23called rawls texas
10. 0:25r-a-l-l-s we were the fighting
11. 0:27jackrabbits we were
12. 0:28fierce we would eat the lettuce in your
13. 0:31garden
14. 0:32we would steal your carrots we were
15. 0:34terrible at
16. 0:35football today's school i think roles is
17. 0:381a now and it is
18. 0:39in the middle it's basically at the
19. 0:42beginning of what's called the llano
20. 0:44staccato so you come up the cap rock and
21. 0:46basically there's my town rawls
22. 0:48and it is a flat table top and it's
23. 0:52called the lana westacada the spanish
24. 0:53called it that
25. 0:54called the state plains because they
26. 0:56would put these stakes in the ground so
27. 0:57they wouldn't get lost i mean it is just
28. 1:00cotton fields you can see lubbock texas
29. 1:02the lights of lubbock from rawls 30
30. 1:04miles away at night that's just how flat
31. 1:06it is i can't even tell you about
32. 1:07no trees man we loved our trees there
33. 1:09there was this one tree
34. 1:10don't climb that tree because we love
35. 1:12that tree uh not a lot of trees out
36. 1:14there
37. 1:15so i grew up there 2242 people
38. 1:18salute i also grew up as i tell you more
39. 1:21about my life
40. 1:22watching a show called hee haw on
41. 1:24saturday nights at six o'clock it was
42. 1:26like a
43. 1:27country old school country music variety
44. 1:30show so
45. 1:30they would always do that salute home
46. 1:32towns he uh
47. 1:34salute rawls was only about 15 miles
48. 1:38from
49. 1:38an early native american battle between
50. 1:40the comanche and the american military
51. 1:42that occurred and it actually involved
52. 1:45quanah parker
53. 1:46and i remember going to this when i was
54. 1:49in fourth grade right going to the site
55. 1:51now again it's like this empty
56. 1:53top of a mesa out there because you
57. 1:55actually go into blanco canyon to get up
58. 1:57to this place so it's on private
59. 1:58property
60. 2:00to see this place where one soldier was
61. 2:03killed in this it was kind of an
62. 2:04it wasn't like a a battle where these
63. 2:06two armies met it was like a running
64. 2:08fight
65. 2:09and this man was this this american
66. 2:12soldier was killed in the battle so we
67. 2:14went to see what has happened
68. 2:16and so i grew up with these stories
69. 2:18about the comanche
70. 2:20in fact i remember doing a project after
71. 2:22project for a project about the buffalo
72. 2:24it was like every year
73. 2:25you know my school would do the
74. 2:27importance of the buffalo to the native
75. 2:28american it was like literally almost
76. 2:30every year
77. 2:31and really the buffalo was everything to
78. 2:32the native americans especially the
79. 2:33nomadic native americans
80. 2:34the nomadic plains native peoples
81. 2:38and i've read that it takes about five
82. 2:41buffalo
83. 2:42per person per year to sustain an
84. 2:44individual
85. 2:45five buffalo per person per year
86. 2:49also during this time in the early
87. 2:52i mean about 1860 1860s there was a lot
88. 2:55of buffalo so remember when
89. 2:56columbus came in 1492 after he'd sell
90. 2:58the ocean blue
91. 3:00buffalo uh didn't have natural predators
92. 3:04because so many native peoples had died
93. 3:06of disease
94. 3:08if if you took my 1301 class you might
95. 3:11remember
96. 3:12that in some places up to 90 of the
97. 3:14native american population died of
98. 3:16disease
99. 3:17and so that means that the natural
100. 3:19predator the buffalo was gone so the
101. 3:21buffalo flourished
102. 3:23until white settlers came
103. 3:26on the railroad and they began to kill
104. 3:28the buffalo in large numbers
105. 3:30for the ton for the pelt and also to
106. 3:34native people there's a famous movie
107. 3:36called the search which is considered
108. 3:38one of the greatest movies
109. 3:39of the ever made it's a john wayne movie
110. 3:42pilgrim and it tells the story of a man
111. 3:46who basically spends his life
112. 3:48hunting for this girl who was kidnapped
113. 3:51by the comanche by the way the actual
114. 3:53kidnapping took place very close to here
115. 3:55i'm pointing like i know it is uh near
116. 3:58near grossback at fort parker
117. 4:01her name was cynthia anne parker that's
118. 4:02what the story was based on and there's
119. 4:04a really interesting scene in this movie
120. 4:06where where john wayne carry the john
121. 4:08wayne character is just trying to kill
122. 4:09as many buffaloes as he can
123. 4:11because he wants to the ability
124. 4:14of the comanche to fend for themselves
125. 4:17and so the these native peoples are
126. 4:20under tremendous tremendous pressure
127. 4:22as more and more people were coming out
128. 4:24as you might get sick from disease as
129. 4:27you meet these different people and as
130. 4:28your main food stores your main source
131. 4:32of sustenance is being
132. 4:33basically whittled away and so
133. 4:38i talked about the battle of little
134. 4:39bighorn but i also wanted to talk about
135. 4:41kind of some responses to the native
136. 4:43peoples how
137. 4:44how the public at large treated the
138. 4:46native peoples because things go really
139. 4:47bad right they're put on reservations
140. 4:49and all this land is taken out from
141. 4:50under them and there's broken promise
142. 4:52after broken promise
143. 4:53and these indemnities these these
144. 4:55financial subsidies are supposed to get
145. 4:57never come and the food they get never
146. 4:59comes or if it comes it's rotted
147. 5:01and just terrible and the and the native
148. 5:04american agents oftentimes were
149. 5:06stealing off the top and there were few
150. 5:08people
151. 5:09who were trying to protect uh
152. 5:13native american rights four responses
153. 5:16four main responses and again
154. 5:17this is a tremendous oversimplification
155. 5:20so i'm very sorry tremendous
156. 5:21oversimplification response number one
157. 5:23comes from a woman
158. 5:24named helen hunt jackson who wrote a
159. 5:26book called a century of dishonor i have
160. 5:28the book right here look at that i
161. 5:30actually have the book i've not read the
162. 5:31book it's like all these books in my
163. 5:32library
164. 5:33that i haven't read it's very
165. 5:34embarrassing
166. 5:36she had come across a speech in
167. 5:39the late 1870s early 1880s from this
168. 5:42native american leader and was so
169. 5:43horrified at treatment so horrified at
170. 5:46the way things have gone
171. 5:47that she basically wrote this book about
172. 5:51a sketch of the united states
173. 5:52governments dealings with some of the
174. 5:54indian tribes
175. 5:55published in 1881 and not a lot of
176. 5:58people read the book it's a famous book
177. 6:00but not a lot of people read the book
178. 6:02and so she wrote another book called
179. 6:04ramona
180. 6:04where instead of writing a non-fiction
181. 6:06account she basically
182. 6:08wrote a fictional account that had all
183. 6:10of this true information and and let me
184. 6:12just say this i read a lot of fiction
185. 6:15a lot of fiction and sometimes fiction
186. 6:18in my mind can be
187. 6:21as true as non-fiction even though
188. 6:24it's a fictional story and what i mean
189. 6:27by that is you can read something that
190. 6:28is so true to your heart that you think
191. 6:30that's
192. 6:30that's true i don't know how to explain
193. 6:32it but
194. 6:34and so she wrote a book called ramona
195. 6:37and ramona was a fictionalized account
196. 6:38about this native american girl
197. 6:40and it becomes a massive bestseller so
198. 6:43in every way that a century of dishonor
199. 6:45didn't sell
200. 6:46ramona sold and she kind of based this
201. 6:49on what
202. 6:49uh harriet beecher stowe had done with
203. 6:52uncle tom's cabin
204. 6:53and the way that it had changed the way
205. 6:54people thought about slaves
206. 6:57before the civil war she was hoping to
207. 7:00change the way people thought about
208. 7:01native americans in this book and
209. 7:04it was very popular but the sad thing is
210. 7:08legislatively not much change besides
211. 7:10this bestseller being written
212. 7:12and people becoming cognizant of this
213. 7:14problem so that but that was the that
214. 7:15was
215. 7:16one response kind of a sympathetic
216. 7:19response and maybe it helped bleed into
217. 7:22the second
218. 7:23example the second example which seems
219. 7:26very harsh
220. 7:26but it and this phrase had been said by
221. 7:29several individuals
222. 7:31kill the indian save the man and the
223. 7:34idea was basically
224. 7:37almost re-educate native americans
225. 7:40especially beginning with their children
226. 7:42and this is most
227. 7:43famous at a place called the carlisle
228. 7:46school in pennsylvania and these schools
229. 7:47were in daughters and places
230. 7:49but native american children were pulled
231. 7:51out of their tribes and brought into
232. 7:53this school
233. 7:54tribes basically affiliations were
234. 7:57broken down
235. 7:58the native american children their hair
236. 8:00was cut they were given a new name
237. 8:01they were given new clothes they were
238. 8:03basically re-educated
239. 8:05in a very kind of american victorian
240. 8:08fashion uh and and basically the idea
241. 8:12was to to to take away the culture
242. 8:15of these native american children and
243. 8:17replace it with white
244. 8:19culture and there were many of these
245. 8:22schools the schools basically varied
246. 8:24in terms of brutality
247. 8:28some of the schools better than others
248. 8:29some of the leaders and teachers better
249. 8:31than others
250. 8:32but at the basic idea of the school was
251. 8:34basically take these kids away from
252. 8:35their mom and dad
253. 8:37bring them to this new place and kind of
254. 8:41force white american culture
255. 8:44down their throats take them away from
256. 8:46where they were
257. 8:47and kind of re-educate these these kids
258. 8:50that was
259. 8:51most famous in the carlisle school again
260. 8:54kill the indian save the man the third
261. 8:57is really interesting and i'm still not
262. 8:59sure what i
263. 8:59have to think about it i don't really
264. 9:00even know how to label it but it could
265. 9:02maybe best be personified by buffalo
266. 9:04bill cody bill cody
267. 9:06got his nickname by killing buffalo we
268. 9:09don't know how many he killed
269. 9:10he created kind of a persona about
270. 9:12himself he was featured in a dime novel
271. 9:14dime novels were early novels that
272. 9:16people read that were cheap
273. 9:17a lot of times were exaggerated content
274. 9:20he had started in a play about himself
275. 9:22and he realized that he could monetize
276. 9:24this and so we began these
277. 9:25buffalo bill wild west shows
278. 9:28and these shows were massive
279. 9:31extravaganzas
280. 9:32massive like you would have up to 300 to
281. 9:35500
282. 9:36uh participants in these shows that
283. 9:37would come out and they would travel
284. 9:39around the country along the railroad
285. 9:41lines
286. 9:42they would create these uh basically it
287. 9:44was like a circus it was like going to
288. 9:46the circus
289. 9:47and and you would have these different
290. 9:50it was like a variety show
291. 9:51it was like a wild west variety show you
292. 9:54would have a girl named annie oakley who
293. 9:55was known as this great shot
294. 9:56who would go out and shoot uh her gun
295. 9:59and you would and in these shows he
296. 10:02would recreate native american life
297. 10:04and he would recreate battles including
298. 10:06the battle i mean different native
299. 10:07american battles out on the frontier
300. 10:09and what he does is he basically
301. 10:12exploits
302. 10:13and stereotypes the life of the native
303. 10:16americans
304. 10:17and gives the people back east kind of
305. 10:20something that they want to
306. 10:21see now uh
307. 10:24he also paid his workers well gave them
308. 10:26gave them a good wage
309. 10:29but in many ways he was exploiting
310. 10:32the lifestyle of native americans to
311. 10:35sell
312. 10:36something for profit it's very
313. 10:39complicated because from what i've read
314. 10:42he did not treat people poorly he
315. 10:44treated people
316. 10:45very well he became good friends with
317. 10:46sitting bull remember sitting bull had
318. 10:47been
319. 10:48the leader of the combined cheyenne
320. 10:50comanche for
321. 10:51cheyenne sioux force that had defeated
322. 10:54uh
323. 10:54custer in 1876 and for about a month
324. 10:58uh sitting bull traveled with him he
325. 11:00gave he gave
326. 11:02uh sitting bull this this trick pony the
327. 11:05opponent could juggle
328. 11:06tell jokes not really uh
329. 11:10hey why the long face
330. 11:13and uh and so he he knew a lot of these
331. 11:16different people
332. 11:18but it's an interesting it's interesting
333. 11:22uh and again maybe it doesn't even need
334. 11:25to be defined why do i need to decide
335. 11:28if what he did was good or bad he did
336. 11:29what he did what he did he
337. 11:31basically employed native american
338. 11:34people they traveled to
339. 11:35europe twice paid them well but
340. 11:38allowed them to in some ways mis-betray
341. 11:40who they were
342. 11:41to eastern audiences the fourth is the
343. 11:44most insidious in some ways and it's
344. 11:45actually from the federal government the
345. 11:46federal government
346. 11:47has a long history of treating native
347. 11:50american peoples
348. 11:51poorly and in 1887
349. 11:54they passed what was called the dawes
350. 11:56act and as they passed the dawes
351. 11:59act basically this eradicated tribes
352. 12:02and pushed native americans onto land it
353. 12:04reallocated land
354. 12:06and pushed native americans on to land
355. 12:08and opened up new land that could be
356. 12:10given to settlers in fact
357. 12:11the oklahoma land rush the land from the
358. 12:15land rush that was opened up was
359. 12:17actually land taken away from
360. 12:19native peoples and opened up to white
361. 12:22settlers in the late 1880s in fact i am
362. 12:25let me just tell you this i am a massive
363. 12:26baylor bear fan i don't know why i went
364. 12:29to baylor's
365. 12:29undergraduate i even went to seminary at
366. 12:31baylor i don't know why i'm pointing
367. 12:33back that way
368. 12:34i grew up with my grandpa paying
369. 12:37attention to baylor
370. 12:38games i i mean just i don't know
371. 12:43and i'm a big college football fan and
372. 12:44back in the early 1990s
373. 12:46uh no not in early 1990s early 2000s
374. 12:50baylor was especially bad at football
375. 12:53bad at football i mean we're talking
376. 12:55historically back
377. 12:56and i remember babe would have to go up
378. 12:58to and would have to go up to oklahoma
379. 13:00to play
380. 13:01and uh whenever oklahoma scores a
381. 13:04touchdown
382. 13:06they they they come out on this
383. 13:07conestoga wagon and remember
384. 13:09oklahoma does this thing called boomers
385. 13:11sooner boomers sooner the oklahoma
386. 13:13sooners
387. 13:15they scored so many touchdowns a couple
388. 13:17of times that they actually had to get
389. 13:19extra horses right because it's we need
390. 13:21new horses
391. 13:23these two these horses are too tired the
392. 13:25offense keeps scoring
393. 13:27anyway the oklahoma land rush was this
394. 13:30really interesting
395. 13:31development that came out of taking land
396. 13:34away from the native peoples where they
397. 13:35line people up at noon
398. 13:38on this specific day shot a cannon
399. 13:42and then you raced out
400. 13:45trying to find trying to get to to where
401. 13:48the land you wanted was and get title to
402. 13:50land so of course
403. 13:52people were at the line they went out
404. 13:54and those are the boomers by the way the
405. 13:56boomers
406. 13:57who were at the line when the cannon
407. 14:00went
408. 14:00off and then of course there are the
409. 14:03people that cheated
410. 14:04the sooners human nature you know this
411. 14:07is going to happen in a certain day at a
412. 14:08certain time
413. 14:09at 12 o'clock noon even as far as three
414. 14:12to four hours away
415. 14:13no one could have even gotten there
416. 14:15people started to emerge
417. 14:16in these different places and from trees
418. 14:19and
419. 14:20holes in the ground and basically claim
420. 14:22this territory and so again you have the
421. 14:24boomer and the sooner
422. 14:26but that comes out of land taken from
423. 14:28the native american in 1887 in the dawes
424. 14:30act
425. 14:31and they tried to take native americans
426. 14:33and put them basically in this
427. 14:34land and to force them away from their
428. 14:38family groups
429. 14:39a lot of native americans were naturally
430. 14:41polygamous they they forced you into one
431. 14:44household with a husband and wife and
432. 14:45your children a nuclear family
433. 14:47they separated families they forced you
434. 14:49to farm 160 acres of land oftentimes
435. 14:52it was bad land the land wasn't good
436. 14:56it was tragic and basically the goal was
437. 14:59the federal goal was to
438. 15:01at that time in the 1897 dos act was to
439. 15:03to to eradicate the tribes of course it
440. 15:06never happened um
441. 15:09this is policy until the 1920s um
442. 15:14you you have these different responses
443. 15:18to native people and and and that and i
444. 15:20think again
445. 15:21you have helen hunt jackson sympathetic
446. 15:24and then kill the indian take the man
447. 15:26and then maybe exploitation for
448. 15:27financial purposes with buffalo bill
449. 15:29and then a really hostile federal
450. 15:30government and i think that in some ways
451. 15:34native peoples
452. 15:38are still recovering from these
453. 15:41injustices
454. 15:42especially federal injustices that
455. 15:44allowed people to come in and take this
456. 15:46land
457. 15:48and force native peoples onto these
458. 15:49reservations
459. 15:52uh it's a tragic tragic story
460. 15:56about what happened to native americans
461. 15:57sometimes we only think about the trail
462. 15:59of tears that happened under
463. 16:00uh the jackson and then van buren
464. 16:02administration
465. 16:03but it it's it's much greater and
466. 16:06encompasses a much greater area
467. 16:09with much greater consequences that
468. 16:12uh i feel like even today
469. 16:16there are still consequences to this
470. 16:18anyway
471. 16:20oh this is good thanks for watching uh
472. 16:24and thank you