No Little Big Horn

It occurs to me that if you can turn the defeat of Custer into a victory by Terry/Custer, et al, never mind how much a victory, you may even be able to butterfly away Wounded Knee. The ghost dancing will still happen, but the cavalry won't have such a hard-on for Sitting Bull and his people; they were still pissed about the LBH 14 years later, maybe they don't open fire with so little provocation in this TL. Or is that hoping for too much, given the average American mind-set in 1890?
You're right. It's hoping for too much. The soldiers were seriously drunk.
 
GRRRRRR!

Its also not PC, to use the preferred term a people use for themselves; that is also just not being an a-hole. So the whole editing out Sioux and Indian is just a dickish move, so please grow up.
I admit, I SHOULD have waited until today for that "S****" insert, but April 1st is a working day for me with extended hours. I promise to grow up on the day YOU grow a sense of humor.:D
By the way, what ever anti-massacre sentiment there was in 1870s America was in the East. In the West? "Only good Injuns I's ever met was dead"-From "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee". If memory serves, the white man who said that got scalped.:p That pretty much sums up White attitudes in the West, and THOSE were the people who were enforcing "White Man's Law" out West. The whole reason Canada's record in dealing with Native Americans was so much better in the 1800's was that membership in the RCMP was restricted to citizens from Ontario and all provinces to the East. No inbred race hatred to be found in such populations. But with the US Constitution, such restrictions were illegal, hence...
 
It was a negative in the short terms as casualties among the Sioux, Cheyenne and others were far higher than what the US Army suffered, despite Custer being as inept as one can imagine.

The US could shrug off 200+ dead far more easily than the Native Americans could handle more than 1000 killed and injured.
 
In the West? "Only good Injuns I's ever met was dead"-From "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee". If memory serves, the white man who said that got scalped.:p

Actually, the quote, "The only good Indian I ever saw was dead," which has been appropriated by the said book, and has been sometimes rephrased as "the only good Indian is a dead Indian," was said by Philip Sheridan. And he was an easterner who most certainly was not scalped.
 
By the way, what ever anti-massacre sentiment there was in 1870s America was in the East. In the West?

yeah, mostly in the east... where the vast majority of the population was. A lot of the sentiment was against the corruption of the BIA, who managed to never properly feed the natives on the reservations, which often resulted in said natives going off the reservations. That, combined with the army's massacring of native villages with women and children, was pushing public sentiment towards treating the tribes better... mostly, keeping the natives quiet and fed on the reservations so they wouldn't go wandering away to cause trouble. And that was what most of the white population wanted, keeping them quiet and out of the way. Little Bighorn changed that around a lot, and it took quite a while for the general public to realize that Custer was rather an airhead who blundered himself and his troop into getting wiped out...
 
Or it could be because he's Native American himself...you go up to an African American and call him a Negro and see what happens...I'll be over in this corner, thanks.

Negro's not even the best comparison. Let someone try saying "boy" and see if they don't get decked, as they should.

You might be in the corner. I'd be right there cheering them on, dealing out a bit of justice.

Xchen is among a select few in here who refuse to see racism, ever. Most of the others in that thread were just clueless and didn't know the subject, compared to Xchen's willful blindness.
 
I've seen older people do it all the time. And since the black people I know are good educated people who aren't obsessed about race, they take it in the manner in which it was meant, and don't try to imply racism when it's obvious none is meant.

As a side note, by standards set down by AIHA himself, he is not a Native American. To wit, he is not of majority Native American descent, and does not reject all the rest of his heritage except for the Indian. Thus, he is not an Indian.

Thanks for showing everyone else your willful ignorance and outright lying about me and hijacking the thread with your unprovoked personal attack. Reported as you deserve. Hope you get booted for your trolling and flamebaiting.

As I've said many times, it is outsiders who go by blood quantum (% of blood) far more than Natives. To an Indian, if you have any blood and identify as an Indian, you are a fellow Indian. And only a self hating racist would deny any part of their background.
 
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I've been hesitant to comment, but the "political correctness" remark has just irked me to respond. Not using racial slurs isn't PC, its not being an a-hole. Now using Injun in a historical context is one thing, but causally using to describe Indians/Natives is another.

Its also not PC, to use the preferred term a people use for themselves; that is also just not being an a-hole. So the whole editing out Sioux and Indian is just a dickish move, so please grow up.

Now that this thread has been derailed further, I'll add my two cents to the topic, for compensation. Well I think a confrontation of some sort was to occur at Big Horn/Greasy Grass; maybe if Custer hadn't a blundered in, he could have escaped, where reinforcements would be gathered to continue the war. Some results, is the US public wouldn't have been outraged, and the government not so pressed to avenge the defeat. So possibly the war would have lasted longer, but ended with similar results.

Thank you. For pete's sake, would we have had this discussion about whether or not to call Blacks the n word? Injun is an epithet, plain and simple. I really can't think of another forum that's actually questioned that fact, unless I were a masochist wanting to go to a Stormfront or KKK forum.

Someone's ignorance is no excuse. Now that you know, you should have the simple decency to not sound like David Duke or Limbaugh. "Old fashioned" doesn't cut it either. It makes someone sound like an old fashioned bigot, whether they intend to or not.

And no one ever said a thing about not using Indian. Indians like myself do it all the time. It's the preferred term.
 
I'll SEE your Stonehenge and RAISE you a Tenochticlan!

Thank you. For pete's sake, would we have had this discussion about whether or not to call Blacks the n word? Injun is an epithet, plain and simple. I really can't think of another forum that's actually questioned that fact, unless I were a masochist wanting to go to a Stormfront or KKK forum.

Someone's ignorance is no excuse. Now that you know, you should have the simple decency to not sound like David Duke or Limbaugh. "Old fashioned" doesn't cut it either. It makes someone sound like an old fashioned bigot, whether they intend to or not.

And no one ever said a thing about not using Indian. Indians like myself do it all the time. It's the preferred term.

AmIndHistoryAuthor

Hear!Hear!Hear!!

I regret that my own cracks were made too early for April the First for people to see that humor was all they were meant for. Hpwever, there is one detail you left out. Historically, throughout the (pre-)history of ALL tribal mankind, from the Picts, to the Sothos, to the Onas, to the Hmong, to the etc. etc. etc., ADOPTION was a common way for tribes to replenish the bloodlines of tribes. EVEN ANDREW JACKSON ADOPTED A CREEK INDIAN BOY AFTER SPENDING SO MUCH TIME KILLING HIS PEOPLE.

In other words, you don't have to have any tribal blood to be adopted into a tribe, ESPECIALLY if you are adopted nearly at birth.

PS I think, if I am right, is what you are saying sir, is that between the great Mesoamerican civilizations, and being MISTAKEN for the great civilizations of India and the Far East means the term "Indian" is no insult at all, yes?:):):D:D
 

Ian the Admin

Administrator
Donor
Don't worry. Nobody really thinks "injun" is racist or an epthet unless you specifically try to make it so. It's just archaic, like Negro. It's just AIHA, who has this thing about calling everyone and everything racist.

Try not to be a complete ass.
 
And no one ever said a thing about not using Indian. Indians like myself do it all the time. It's the preferred term.

I actually prefer Amerind because being an Indian myself I find it irritating that the Spanish and later the English went and continued lumping two entirely different cultural groups under one name (although IIRC in some European languages the words for American Indians and Indians are distinct).
 

Art

Monthly Donor
Personally I'm what you might call a Custer hater. When I was younger I watched all those stupid movies in which "Saint Custer" is almost saved. And then I read Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee. How could ANYONE who has read that book be racist against First American peoples I will NEVER know. I think Long Hair deserved to get killed, the idiot. I mean, he took on nearly 2,000 plus warriors with a force of 167 men or so! He was a glory hound and an idiot who got his men killed. And it was Sherman who had the original quote about the only dead indians.
 
And it was Sherman who had the original quote about the only dead indians.

Do a little research and you'll find it was Sheridan. Sherman never said anything like that, although he did support Sheridan's policies in the West.

EDIT: And even that is in dispute. Apparently, it had been said earlier in the same year, on the floor of Congress, by Representative James Cavanaugh of Minnesota, who phrased it thus...

"I like an Indian better dead than living. I have never in my life seen a good Indian - and I have seen thousands - except when I have seen a dead Indian."
From here.

Sheridan later denied making the statement, so Cavanaugh's statement may have been misattributed to him, or he may simply have paraphrased it when replying to Comanche Chief Tosawi's statement that he was a "good Indian."
 
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Red Wolf

Banned
I can't believe people were actually trying to argue there's nothing wrong with using the term "Injun".

Yes, there was a time when Americans regularly used that term along with a number of other terms such as "greaser" "guinea" "mick" "polack" "hunky" "chink" and a whole host of others.

Yes, many older folks may have grown up at a time when there was nothing wrong with saying "Injun" and they did because they didn't know any better, but just as we don't say "Jap" anymore we shouldn't say "Injun" anymore.

I also don't get the really bizarre attacks on AmInd which come very close to being racial and suggestions that somehow he's not a real Indian because he's not "%100" Indian. Leaving aside the fact that by such a standard most people who consider themselves black wouldn't be black, having spent a little time in areas near reservations I can say that many if not most Indians are of mixed blood and also no one except a few well-meaning whites get offended by the use of the term "Indian" instead of Native American(though I admittedly use it quite a bit).

Edit:

I can certainly understand why Flocc doesn't like the use of the term Indian, but if people in Columbia, Argentina, and El Salvador don't get upset at people in the US being referred to as "Americans" I think we can use phrases like "Indian" without too much of a problem.
 
Let He Who Be Without Sin...

Personally I'm what you might call a Custer hater. When I was younger I watched all those stupid movies in which "Saint Custer" is almost saved. And then I read Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee. How could ANYONE who has read that book be racist against First American peoples I will NEVER know. I think Long Hair deserved to get killed, the idiot. I mean, he took on nearly 2,000 plus warriors with a force of 167 men or so! He was a glory hound and an idiot who got his men killed. And it was Sherman who had the original quote about the only dead indians.
Boyoboyoboyoboy. Am I with YOU, Art. We must be about the same age because I was inundated with all those movies as well. And YES, I wore out my copy of "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee". But as I posted earlier, check out what will be the last Saint Custer movie ever made: "Son of the Morning Star". The look on Custer's face as he comes over the rise and gets a good long look at the REAL SIZE of that encampment! "MY GOD!!:eek: This isn't the end of the village, IT'S THE MIDDLE!":D Dumbass thought they were 1/3 the strength his scouts were telling him.

But about that quote? It wouldn't suprise me at all if it were uttered by the first Virginia settlers in the 1610's.

Oh, and please don't get mad, but there is evidence of a race of people living throughout the Americas tens of thousands of years ago. That is, BEFORE the Ice Age recession about 20,000 years ago that allowed the Paleo-Indians to cross via the Siberian-Alaskan land bridge. These people were apparently distant cousins of the Aborigines of Australia and Tasmania. Oddly enough, they were relatively white, but NOT Caucasian by any stretch of the imagination. The Paleo-Indian migrants were FAR more advanced than these Aboriginal Americans, especially their methods of food collection. This meant they could support a population base the Aboriginals simply could not withstand. Sounds like we ALL have some 'splainin' to do.
 
Efore the battle Custer was offered Maxim machine guns, just think the look on dusters face when the Natives slaughter his men, S*** shouldve gotten the machine guns :D:D
 
Efore the battle Custer was offered Maxim machine guns, just think the look on dusters face when the Natives slaughter his men, S*** shouldve gotten the machine guns :D:D

Since Maxim machine guns hadn't been invented yet, that is very unlikely, unless perhaps he had been visited by a group of time-traveling Afrikaners. :D

The 7th Cavalry, like most cavalry units in those days, did have some GATLING guns assigned to it, which Custer did not take along because he felt (rightly) that they would have slowed down his advance too much. Gatling guns were big, heavy, and difficult to move. In the sort of rough country in which the Battle of the Little Big Horn was fought, dragging what were, in effect, big pieces of artillery around with him would not have been very feasible.
 
Is this thread really about the difference between 'injun' and 'indian'? Technically, they are both wrong, as Native American is the P-C term these days.
American Indians dont seem offended by the term Indian, so Native American and American Indian are both acceptible terms in common use. Injun, like nigger, negro, Hindoo, Oriental, chink, Musulman, is not.

Oh, and please don't get mad, but there is evidence of a race of people living throughout the Americas tens of thousands of years ago. That is, BEFORE the Ice Age recession about 20,000 years ago that allowed the Paleo-Indians to cross via the Siberian-Alaskan land bridge. These people were apparently distant cousins of the Aborigines of Australia and Tasmania. Oddly enough, they were relatively white, but NOT Caucasian by any stretch of the imagination. The Paleo-Indian migrants were FAR more advanced than these Aboriginal Americans, especially their methods of food collection. This meant they could support a population base the Aboriginals simply could not withstand. Sounds like we ALL have some 'splainin' to do.
What evidence?
 
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