I remember being told about shortages and at least one mutiny during the AmRev. The level of detail in what you posted would have gotten me into hard drugs if extrapolated to an entire U.S. history course. I think it’s more a question of how much detail can be conveyed to high school and even college students, rather than a conspiracy to hide vital portions of history from us. In the case of the mutinies, they may be relagated to a lesser importance since we still would have won the AmRev if they hadn’t occurred. Also, while I enjoy history greatly now (at age 31) I HATED it in high school. I didn’t have the attention span for it. That’s just me, though. :)
BTW, when Bulldog asked about the DU post, was he talking to you or me?
Has Howard Zinn shouldered a rifle or dug a trench?
Howard Zinn has neither shouldered a rifle, started a war, nor profited from war.
Well then, what was his whole point then if people can make decisions irrespective on whether they served or not?
ILoveAmerica - 25 July 2005 01:13 AM
Dick “5 deferments” Cheney, on the other hand has profited form war, and has never shouldered a rifle. To make matters worse, Cheney started the war he is currently profiting from!
To top it all off, even though he is using you and your buddies to war profiteer, you will probably defend him!! Incredible!! You are doing this willingly and joyfully!!!
Uh, when did I ever defend Cheney? I only am ridiculing Zinn.
Has Howard Zinn shouldered a rifle or dug a trench?
Howard Zinn has neither shouldered a rifle, started a war, nor profited from war.
Beg to differ (though only slightly) , Zinn makes a profit writing books about the evil history of the US Military escapades (which would not have been a profitable line of work without wars) . Indirect profit is still profit.
Cheney, who served as CEO from 1995 to 2000, continues to receive as much as $1 million a year in deferred compensation as Halliburton executives enjoy a seat at the table during Administration discussions over how to handle post-war oil production in Iraq.
If it was deferred compensation then he would have received it regardless of whether there was a war or not. Unless there’s something else Cheney’s getting, he’s technically not profiting from war while Zinn, as Jaxolo pointed out, is.
Also, if there’s thousands of historians that write history one way and a few come in and say the others are sanitizing it and it really happened this other way, why do those few often automatically get so much more credibility than the thousands?
Also, if there’s thousands of historians that write history one way and a few come in and say the others are sanitizing it and it really happened this other way, why do those few often automatically get so much more credibility than the thousands?
There’s a cynical ‘we are being lied to’ mindset among a segment of the population. These people tend to reflexivly believe a contrarian writing of history no matter how credible it actually is.
Zinn’s point is exactly that; that there is no completely objective and nuetral telling of hitory, it is all biased.
I realize that they could not get into too much detail in school about the AmRev details I pointed out; but it is the slant to what I am referring to. The slant I was given that all the sodleirs were happy and looking up at George Washington in fawning admiration; there was not even a hint or mention whatsoever of any kind of anger on the soldier’s part. They used the Valley Forge “no shoes” to brainwash me with jingoisic and patritic propaganda tactics to show how the sodlier’s fought on even with “no shoes and were freezing to death”. I should have raised my hand and said, “Teacher, how come Washington and the officer’s had shoes but the soldiers didn’t?”
Here is a peper I find that actually tells a different story that I was told in school about why men joined the Continental Army:
Coming from different approaches, Shy and Papenfuse reached similar conclusions about the composition of the Continental Army. John concluded that when looking at the hard-core troops from Peterborough, “they seem indeed to be untypical people...they were an unusually poor, obscure group of men even by the rustic standards of Peterborough....[many] reveal themselves near the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder."7 Papenfuse wrote, “...the preponderance of Smallwood’s recruits were members of the lowest social and economic class of whites in Maryland.” To support their supposition, they reported that 21 of Smallwood’s recruits had later applied for pensions under the 1818 Pension Act “under which applicants had to demonstrate poverty....” 8 Thus, they concluded, these men had enlisted “...not from a sense of duty or patriotism, but because Maryland society offered them few other opportunities for employment....” In summary they wrote that Smallwood’s recruits were “born in poverty, raised in poverty,” and spent their “adult lives in pursuit of an elusive prosperity...” 9
Based on the conclusion that Peterborough’s Continental troops came from the town’s lower sorts, John addressed the central question in his essay - what motivated men to enlist and fight? Long Bill Scott had confessed to Peter Oliver that he was motivated by his ambition to rise in status, not abstract ideas of liberty ("`for as to the Dispute between Great Britain & the Colonies, I know nothing of it; neither am I capable of judging whether it is right or wrong.’").
In America Goes to War Charles Patrick Neimeyer debunks the myth of the virtuous yeomen citizen-soldier who won the Revolutionary War. Instead, he argues that the Continental Army filled its ranks with “African Americans, ethnic minorities, and ‘free white men on the move.’” These groups proved “least able to resist the blandishments of a recruiting party and most willing to part temporarily with their civil liberties in exchange for a steady wage”
Neimeyer asserts that the soldiers’ belief in such ideals explains the unrest that plagued the Continental Army, especially in the war’s later stages. Rather than mere reactions to sporadic pay and inadequate provisions, mutinies, and desertions represented attempts by the rank and file to defend their legitimate rights. The soldiers had enlisted for a set period of time and for specific compensation and expected these to be honored. When Congress attempted to extend terms of service for the duration of the war and proved unable to provide for the army, soldiers reacted with a variety of individual and collective actions. Neimeyer notes that such responses parallel American resistance to the seemingly arbitrary acts of Parliament which sparked the Revolution. He also believes that these actions were consistent with a larger pattern of resistance to authority that existed in the eighteenth-century Atlantic community.
I don’t have a problem with history being told from another perspective, but it seems they don’t acknowledge the mainstream perspective. I haven’t read Zinn myself but a lot of his readers, if not he himself, seem to dismiss mainstream history as contrived and promote Zinn (et al.) as the real truth. This is incompatible with, “there is no completely objective and nuetral telling of hitory, it is all biased.” I don’t have any good references, but the people I know who are Chompski fans largely deny the mainstream history. It’s almost as if they have to.
A good place to go to see the bias active in recording history is actually Wikipedia. Pick a controversial article (Iraq war, Israeli/Palestinian conflice, etc.) and view the discussion page. The editors’ biases flow freely there, but they often settle on an article that most of them accept. I’m not dissing Wikipedia; I use it every day. It was just fascinating to see the biases so actively bouncing around. If those biases impact the telling of history as it unfolds today, imagine biases affecting much older history where documentary evidence is probably much more slim!
I love wikipedia, and use it to try to get a clear perspective on things muddied by politics. Of course I’ve seen articles that still need work, but it’s amazing the sheer volume that they’ve produced, and how overall neutral it is.
I also love how there’s a big tag at the top of an article indicating when there’s a dispute about the article’s neutrality. The tag links to the discussion page where you can read the entire dispute. Of course, sometimes that’s like watching sausage being made. :)
I do not want to dismiss the mainstream version of history completely; but I do want us as a scoiety that a large percentage of US histoy taught in public schools is sanitized, edited, revised, and told from a certain, skewed perspective.
We should not dismiss this version of history; but we should inform students that this is but one version and there are other versions. They should be told things are left out and spinned in a light to present a certain viewpoint.
----------------------
Bu the way, I thought of a neccessary, and pure ‘self-defense war”. I was watching this cool documentary on the “Battle of Little Bighorn” on the History Channel yesterday. When I was growing up, I was told these Indians had attacked and massacred the 7th Cavalry because they were uncivilized dark-skinned savages.
Actually, the truth was the 7th Cavalry came to attack the camp of familes, including women, old men, and children in order to get at the gold that was recently discovered in the Black Hills. This land was given to the Indian in good faith and in a ceremony marked with a treaty; but all of a sudden the wealth was lusted after and the Indians had to go.
This special, called “Little Big Horn: The Untold Story “, told the story form the perspective of 3 Crows that were hired by Custer but told to leave right before the attack. The interviews were done by this photographer (the name escapes me right now) and shows that even though these 3 and many other Indians had tried to tell their side of the story, since they did not have PHD by their name, and of course probably since they were brown-skinned, their sides of the story were never told. There is even the part that was omitted in the story for years that Custer stood by while Reno’s detachent were being slughtered and did nothing; but this would have gotten in the way of the heroic “They died with their boots on” mythology springing up around Custer at the time so it was squashed. More revisionist history.
Turns out, this was a purely defensive battle of the Indians defending their women and children from attack by Custer’s men. A very noble and justifeied use of violence. Custer and his men deserved to be massacred, they were the aggressors and the Indians were merely defending themselves.
Custer died for our sins......400 treaties with Native Americans, all 400 broken......
Reno had 140 men going in, Benteen had 150, Custer kept the other 200+ under his own command. They all separated, and were out of communication with each other.
Reno’s troops attacked first, meeting heavy resistance, he broke off the attack and retreated to high ground where he dug in with 100 of his men. Benteen moved south but never made contact and turning back, ended up rejoining Reno on that high ground. Custer’s men were wiped out in what was apparently a running battle, only the latter part of which was within sight of Reno and Benteen.
Not going to try to justify the attack, or the manner it was carried out in. Certainly the strategy was cruel and beyond the pale by modern mores, and the tactics are still studied as an example of what not to do. But anyone claiming that Custer stood by while Reno’s men were slaughtered has no idea what happened that day.
Since there’s been no further kerfuffling on the Wikipedia page, I’m posting the final arguments for anybody who might have been interested. You may need to skim some of the original conversation to regain the context. I’ll repost the last thing I posted at the creation of this topic.
Recap of Seth’s brief rebuttal and invitation:
I imagine the editors of this article would not be pleased with us mucking up the discussion page with such partisan smegma. If an authority on this page doesn’t actually mind, then I’ll continue posting here. In anticipation of them minding, I have copied this conversation to a forum on another website and invite those interested to go to the website instead.
As a teaser to continue, however, I’ll mention the following briefly and say that my full response is posted on the other website:
- I do believe that it is largely human nature (among other animals) that makes aggression, and war by extension, sometimes necessary.
- Comparing deaths caused by Hussein in the period of 1991-2003 against deaths caused by the U.S. during it’s entire 230 year history is ridiculous.
- When referring to human behavior, generalizing across a population IS stereotyping. So hhamdy was stereotyping.
- I identify with America. French people identify with France. Why am I the arrogant one?
- What does it mean to be an Italian? And is 24.72.227.2 regretting the diversity of people that have come to our country because, “...we don’t really have a national identity...”?
--Seth (July 23, 2005)
Rama to Seth:
I really cannot understand how you can say thing like “French people identify with France” right after saying “generalizing across a population IS stereotyping”. Rama 08:56, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Seth to Rama:
Is it as bad as, “...whereas the US is the most racist ‘culture’ on the face of the earth?”
--Seth (July 24, 2005)
Rama to Seth:
Probably worse. “...whereas the US is the most racist ‘culture’ on the face of the earth?” is an idiotic generalisation. Your own rant was also self-contradicting, on top of that, since you allow yourself to condemn a user for making generalisations, and then start making one yourself (for the record, I know plenty of French nationals who do not “identify with France”, whatever this can be supposed to mean). Why don’t you go and edit this site of your and stop wasting our time and ressources here ? Talk pages are for discussing improvements to articles, not soapboxes. Rama 16:18, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Seth to Rama:
I’ll accept that it would have been more accurate to say “some” or “many” or “most” _____ identify with _____. But you berate me for a benign stereotype when people here were defending the HATEFUL stereotype? Then accuse me of ranting? As for the alternate site, I’m the one that realized that this wasn’t the best place to conduct this conversation. I made the effot to relocate it and invite anybody who was interested. Nobody from here has accepted the invitation. Then you reply here and berate me for conducting this conversation here? Why the hell didn’t you go to where you were invited if it ticked you off so much to have this conversation here? I won’t originate any new conversation here but I will still reply to anything directed at me.
--Seth (July 24, 2005)
P.S. I didn’t “condemn” the user. You read a lot into what I said. I pointed out how ridiculous it was to say, paraphrasing, “it’s ironic that you’re accusing me of stereotyping when Americans are the most racist culture on Earth!” It was funny too, because he said it in a single sentence. --Seth
How can anyone justify an opinion that America is ‘the most racist culture’, when there are so many people from all over the world living here in relative harmony, esp compared with some of the countries they come from. Just look at parts of Africa, the Balkans, The middle East, India/Pakistan.
But anyone claiming that Custer stood by while Reno’s men were slaughtered has no idea what happened that day. Just to keep the facts straight.
It is a startling charge, but in the documentary I watched, it was the account given to this famous photographer who through interviews wrote an account of the whole battle; but left out the part out of Custer standing there doing nothing, it surfaced later. The 3 Crows who were acting as scouts for Custer shortly before battle took off the US Cavalry outfit, and were putting on Indian regalia. They said they expected to die, and wanted to die with Indian gear on. Custer did not want their fatalistic attitude to spread to the other men, and told them to leave. Later on, they brought the photographer to the bluff that Custer was supposedly looking down at Reno’s attack; and the Crow scout’s account was Custer could have gone to his rescue, but stood there and did nothing. Were the Crows lieing? I don’t see what there motivation would be. There weren’t actually many survivor’s to supply eye witness acount last time I heard.
The special was called “Time Machine: Little Big Horn, The Untold Story”, and I saw it on the History Channel. You should try and check it out if you get a chance.
I am trying to research and find the name of the photographer and more evidence to support this.
Found it! The photographer was named Edward S. Curtis, and the exact same text was used for the documentary I watched:
Custer’s Crow Scouts
The four scouts are, from left, White Man Runs Him,
Hairy Moccasin, Curley, and Goes Ahead. Custer Battlefield 1908
One of these other versions of the events of June 25, 1876 is from the scouts that were employed by Custer right up until the day that he died on Custer Hill. They go by the names “Goes Ahead”, “Hairy Moccasin”, “Curley”, “Half Yellow Face”, “White Swan”, and “White Man Runs Him”. They were the Crow Scouts that guided Custer to the Indian encampment that fateful day. On the eve of the battle they offended Custer by changing from their soldier garb into traditional Crow Warrior regalia. Their idea was to die like Crow Indians and not as White Men. Custer thought their attitude was defeatist and dismissed them. This saved their lives. Before departing they watched the battle from afar. Their account of what happened is different than the “official account”. It casts a shadow on the nobility of Custer and calls into question his mindset and the decisions he made that day.
My knowledge of their account comes from the writings of Edward S. Curtis as recorded in Herman J. Viola’s book LITTLE BIGHORN REMEMBERED:THE UNTOLD INDIAN STORY OF CUSTER’S LAST STAND, pages 152-163. This is a beautiful book and is recommended reading for any who would make even a casual study of June 25, 1876.
It is the part of the story that never made it into Curtis’ official publication in 1907 or into the account after 1876. Curtis was writing a multi volume work on the Plains Indians and Custer’s Last stand was to be a part of that. A good friend of Curtis at the time was President Theodore Roosevelt. It was he that urged Curtis to not include the Crow Scout’s accounting of the matter in his book. Curtis acquiesced but kept his notes. They were finally made available in the 1990’s.
The scouts say that when they returned from the Indian Village and got back to Weir point they met Custer. He and all his men were seated on the hill and watching the battle below. The Scouts and Custer and everybody could see that Reno and his men were already engaged with the Camp in the valley below. Reno halted his command at the southern edge of the village because he was encountering more and more warriors pouring from the village in his direction. Reno and his companies dismounted and formed a skirmish line.
The Scouts told Curtis that it looked to them like Reno needed help and quickly. At this point Reno was doing o.k. He was holding his own and taking few casualties. It will be remembered that after Reno’s scout is killed by a shot to the head that splattered brain matter all over Reno’s face Reno sounds a disorganized and hasty retreat that costs him many men. To the Scout’s thinking Custer should ride down there immediately and support Reno. “White Man Runs Him” became agitated and went up to Custer and told him that this is what Custer should do. “White Man Runs Him” relayed the exchange between him and Custer this way:
[White Man Runs Him] “I said, ‘Why don’t you cross the river and fight too?’ I scolded him. Custer replied ‘It is early yet and plenty of time. Let them fight. Our turn will come.’”
White Man Runs Him” said to Curtis, “…all the Sioux charged upon Reno’s men and he retreated up the river on foot.” Curtis went on to write the rest of the story as told him by “White Man Runs Him”.
“”White Man Runs Him” turned along the bluffs to the South to see if any of Reno’s men…had crossed the river…He rode along the top of a ridge leading down towards the river. Five men ran out of the point of the ‘V’ formed by the brush and headed for the ridge on which “White Man Runs Him” sat on horseback…”White Man Runs Him” shot over the heads of these soldiers towards the pursuing Sioux. The five men clambered up to the crest of the ridge, some had no hats and some no trousers. “White Man Runs Him” conducted them back to Custer’s soldiers. He does not know what became of them after that. Custer was sitting on the high point when he went down to rescue the men, and he was still there when he returned.” Little Bighorn remembered, p. 158-59.
Only after Reno’s command was obliterated did Custer depart Weir Peak and make his way down. Custer moved northward and down towards the river. “White Man Runs Him” assumed that Custer was going to a place in the river where there was good crossing. Custer was not. About 200 yards from the River Custer came under fire from the camp. Some of Custer’s men returned fire. The rest moved to the right to a ridge known as Greasy Grass. It was at this point that Mitch Bouyer told the scouts what Custer had told him to tell them. Bouyer in friendly terms than Custer intended told the Scouts that they had done their job and could go home. The Scouts returned to Weir Peak. There they met the survivors of Reno’s command and Benteen who had joined Reno. These had left their position upon hearing shots in Custer’s direction and made their advance to Weir Peak to support Custer. “White Man Runs Him” relates to Curtis what happened as the scouts got to Weir Peak:
“[We] looked back and saw Custer and his men moving North toward where he made his last stand. The Sioux were circling around him and his men. When we got near the other [Reno’s] soldiers, they shot at the Sioux, and made an opening, so we could join them. I said: ‘This is a dangerous point. They will shoot us from every side. Let us move up the river.’ Benteen gave the command to move. Then we moved back and saw Custer still fighting. We went toward a hill where there was a breastwork of mules [the present Reno-Benteen Battle site]…The soldiers could see the Sioux fighting Custer from the point where they turned around to go to the breastworks. After we were in the breastworks, the Sioux circled around us. We shot so hard the guns burned our hands, and we lay down to clean them among the cracker boxes. Towards evening, we three scouts left Benteen and started east for the Pine Bluffs.” Little Bighorn Remembered, p. 159-160.
This is the Scouts’ account. It is upside down from the “official” accounting. Here Reno is valiant and Custer an oaf. Here Custer is the weak link and by his actions doomed the campaign. It was thought by the Scouts that if Custer had supported Reno in the Valley then Custer and his men would have indeed won that day. What were the reasons for Custer’s actions that day? We may never know. The Indians had told him that if he ever broke his promise and attacked the tribes he would die. Was he succumbing to Strong Indian Medicine? After the battle his body was found unmolested except for his eardrums that were punctured with needles. The Indian explanation for this was that Custer did not listen.
I believe this is closest to what actually happened. The Indians have less reasons to lie than the white men who got their asses whipped and wanted to vault Custer to hero status.
How can anyone justify an opinion that America is ‘the most racist culture’, when there are so many people from all over the world living here in relative harmony, esp compared with some of the countries they come from.
Yeah, I would expect that kind of thing on a political board but I was pretty disappointed to see it from a Wikipedia editor. I’m trying to not let it affect my opinion of Wikipedia as a resource, but there’s a fair amount of ignorant bunkum in some of those discussion pages.
I believe this is closest to what actually happened. The Indians have less reasons to lie than the white men who got their asses whipped and wanted to vault Custer to hero status.
Interesting, but a bit outdated.
The 3 Indians in question could well have been trying to put a better face on their own actions, Indians are no more or less likely to lie about something than a Caucasian, but that’s unprovable either way. What is provable is they told that story 26 years after the fact. And the unreliability of eyewitnesses over years is very well documented and one of the reasons many crimes have statutes of limitations.
What doesn’t decay in so unreliable a manner is forensic and archaeological evidence. Digs were done during the 1980, bullets, weapons, uniform pieces, even human remains were gathered. Using forensics and computer tracking, Doug Smith and others found they could trace the actual movements of many individual fighters across the battlefield. His analysis, using physical evidence not old eyewitness testimony, differs considerably from your eyewitnesses.
I do not want to dismiss the mainstream version of history completely; but I do want us as a scoiety that a large percentage of US histoy taught in public schools is sanitized, edited, revised, and told from a certain, skewed perspective.
We should not dismiss this version of history; but we should inform students that this is but one version and there are other versions. They should be told things are left out and spinned in a light to present a certain viewpoint.
----------------------
Bu the way, I thought of a neccessary, and pure ‘self-defense war”. I was watching this cool documentary on the “Battle of Little Bighorn” on the History Channel yesterday. When I was growing up, I was told these Indians had attacked and massacred the 7th Cavalry because they were uncivilized dark-skinned savages.
Actually, the truth was the 7th Cavalry came to attack the camp of familes, including women, old men, and children in order to get at the gold that was recently discovered in the Black Hills. This land was given to the Indian in good faith and in a ceremony marked with a treaty; but all of a sudden the wealth was lusted after and the Indians had to go.
This special, called “Little Big Horn: The Untold Story “, told the story form the perspective of 3 Crows that were hired by Custer but told to leave right before the attack. The interviews were done by this photographer (the name escapes me right now) and shows that even though these 3 and many other Indians had tried to tell their side of the story, since they did not have PHD by their name, and of course probably since they were brown-skinned, their sides of the story were never told. There is even the part that was omitted in the story for years that Custer stood by while Reno’s detachent were being slughtered and did nothing; but this would have gotten in the way of the heroic “They died with their boots on” mythology springing up around Custer at the time so it was squashed. More revisionist history.
Turns out, this was a purely defensive battle of the Indians defending their women and children from attack by Custer’s men. A very noble and justifeied use of violence. Custer and his men deserved to be massacred, they were the aggressors and the Indians were merely defending themselves.
And it was clearly [ILA]eeeeeeeeeevil conservatives[/ILA] who were responsible for lusting after this gold?
Custer died for our sins......400 treaties with Native Americans, all 400 broken......
I don’t get your point, you are saying we should take back their casinos?
And...nice avoidance of your incorrect statement that Zinn has never profited from a war. He wouldn’t have a livelyhood if it wasn’t for the existence of wars.
