Basically, We Suck.

Zinn. chapter 7.    He professes that school history classes rarely give mention to the terrible crimes committed against the Native Americans in America's Westward expansion.  However, it is there that he exaggerates a bit much.  We were told.   My picture of Andrew Jackson was negative long before reading his book due to his decision to completely disregard the supreme court and send thousands of Native Americans to die on the trail of tears.   Basically, we suck.   A quote that particularly struck me was from chief Black Hawk's speech.  He wrote, "The white men do not scalp the head; but they do worse-they poison the heart"(131).   His description of America's actions against Native Americans in order to fulfill a sense of Manifest Destiny struck me as particularly relevant.  Indeed, America often justifies its actions with the law or some great idea contrary to another group, all the while ignoring the damage and harm we inflict.   It is interesting reading this in light of our discussion of trains, for Zinn mentions that it was a soaring sense of industrialism, coupled with new technology such as the railroad, that helped to bring about a new sense of ruthless capitalism and entitlement in America.  Emerson, one of our lovely Transcendentalists, himself commented on this, saying, "The soul of man, the justice, the mercy...does abhor this business...you, sir, will bring down that renowned chair in which you sit into infamy if your seal is set to this instrument of perfidy; and the name of this nation, hitherto the sweet omen of religion and liberty, will stink to the world"(147).   He expresses that what seems right to the law or to the interests of a nation may not, and is often not morally correct and that there can and will be ramifications far beyond the scope of the isolated acts of brutality.  This indeed has been shown to be true, in the subsequent deaths of thousands of Native Americans, their cornering into small areas of the country, and poverty which continues to afflict Indian tribes to a great extent.   It is challenging to read material such as this and hold onto the idea of the American Dream as we discussed in Semester 1.  In a way that was different than for slaves, Americans ruined the dreams of Native Americans- not by denying them, but rather by forcing upon them "Americanism,"   and American "laws."    It is sad to see that these conditions are still not fully rectified today, as Native Americans, given constitutional rights, no longer have the same sense of their own culture, but also have not been able to be fully let into the American Dream, either.