History of the American West: Killing Indian Warriors and Bringing Women and Children Home

This was a total war. The following is a relatively representative military order of the United States in the Indian Wars: "Start south along the Antilop Mountains, and then head toward Washi from there. Advance across the river, which is the supposed wintering ground of the enemy; destroy their villages and ponies, kill or hang all the warriors, and bring back all the women and children."

Plot to control the Pacific coast

In 1844, James Polk was elected President of the United States. During this period, the United States was still a small country, and almost all states in the United States were east of the Mississippi River. At that time, the United States had purchased Louisiana, but the region was still unorganized. The British claimed the northwest Oregon Territory, while Mexico once claimed Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California.

At the end of his inauguration, Polk told Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft that one of his main goals was to capture California. The U.S. Navy conducted a survey of the Pacific Coast in the early 1840s, which stated that San Francisco was "one of the best ports in the world, if not the best." Norman Graebner, a professor at the University of Virginia, wrote in the book "Empire on the Pacific":

It is the trade between the United States and the Far East that makes the United States pay more attention to Port of San Francisco. The United States hopes to realize its great cause of commercial prosperity in the Pacific region, but the port of San Francisco is not optimistic. From a geographical point of view, the Port of San Francisco is across the sea from Asia, which gives the Port of San Francisco a superior geographical location, and the inherent advantages of the Port of San Francisco will further strengthen its position. The port area's prevailing westerly winds have made it an important transportation hub for Pacific ports in India, China, the Philippines, Mexico, and Central and South America.

For its part, the Oregon Territory is home to some of the world's top ports, such as the Port of Seattle and the Port of Portland. In fact, a white American once declared: "If a country owned Oregon, it would not only control maritime transportation, commerce and the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific, but also China's trade activities in the Pacific." Maryland Congressman William Fair ·William Fell Giles said that the intention of the American Aryans was: "We must cross the ocean...directly to the Pacific...The only thing that can stop us is the roaring tide...This is the mission of the white man and the Anglo-Saxon The mission of the nation."

Very soon, Polk began to compete with Britain and Mexico in diplomacy. Although the British abandoned Oregon, the Mexicans firmly held important areas near the Pacific Ocean.

Invasion of Mexico

Mexico, with a population of seven million at the time, won independence from Spain in 1821 and modeled its own constitution on the United States. The internationally recognized border between Mexico and the United States is the Nueces River in southern Texas. President Polk believed that the border between the two countries should be 241 kilometers south of the Rio Grande. He ordered General Zachary Taylor to enter the Mexican territory between the two rivers. Mexican historians call the U.S. military's military operations the "American Invasion," while American historians call it the "Mexican-American War."

Taylor's invasion of Mexico was brutal. He massacred local Mexican civilians and women. (The New York Herald reported on the Mexican women raped by U.S. soldiers: "Like the Sabine girls, these women soon fell in love with their rapists.") Polk led the Seventh Order Thousands of soldiers launched a war of aggression. He thought that the war would end in a few days. This was a serious error in judgment. The war lasted for three years and involved more than 100,000 American soldiers. The number of casualties among American soldiers was as many as 13,000, and even more Mexicans died. countless.

Ulysses S. Grant, who had served in the military in Mexico, wrote in his memoirs that the war "was one of the most unjust wars ever waged by a powerful nation against a weak nation."

In the end, the United States was victorious and had planned to claim all of Mexico. However, this also meant that the United States absorbed too many non-Aryans. Senator John Calhoun of South Carolina has said in the past: "We never imagined that our United States of America would absorb any race other than the white race...our *** is white ***.” Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan also once said: “We neither want the Mexicans to become our citizens, nor do we want them to become subjects. All we want is this piece of land. Territory."

Slaughter of the Indians, Taking the West

In 1872, artist John Gast painted what is probably his most popular painting. A painting that euphemistically depicts the westward migration of Aryans from America. Guest named his painting "American Progress," which became the best-selling painting in the United States in the second half of the 19th century.

In "American Progress" painted by Guest, a beautiful blonde with flowing clothes, fair skin and plump body is painted, slowly drifting to the west. The "Empire Star" flashed on her forehead, and she held the "Textbook", the book of civilization, in her right hand, and a wire hung from her left hand. Beneath the blonde, American civilization grows: farmers working the fields, pioneers riding horse and ox carts, miners carving their way forward with picks and shovels, stagecoach express and three transcontinental railroads heading west. But between the Pacific and the advancing American civilization stands barbarism - a roaring black bear, wild wild horses, naked Indian women, and an Indian warrior holding an ax high in one hand and clutching his bow tightly with the other. As Americans marched westward, animals and Indians fled. There are no scenes of violence, no piles of dead Indians, no large herds of slaughtered buffalo. The painting shows a frontier developer wearing a deerskin suit, holding a rifle in his hand. However, no U.S. troops are visible throughout the painting.

This 1890 photo taken near the Wounded Knee River in South Dakota clearly illustrates how the United States occupied the West. The American Aryans stood triumphantly in front of a death pit into which they were throwing the cold corpses of Indians. The "battle" (as the white victors called it) or the "massacre" (as the losing Indians thought) at Wounded Knee was the final act of a quarter-century of brutal massacres of Indians by white Americans. This massacre was also the longest war in American history.

This was a total war. The following is a relatively representative military order of the United States in the Indian Wars: "Start south along the Antilop Mountains, and then head toward Washi from there. Advance across the river, which is the supposed wintering ground of the enemy; destroy their villages and ponies, kill or hang all the warriors, and bring back all the women and children."

General William Tecumseh Sherman, who directed the U.S. Indian War from 1866 to 1884, ordered the troops: "In military operations, there must be no pause to distinguish between men and women, nor to distinguish between men and women. Stop to differentiate between ages. "The soldiers really didn't stop. After decades of war, the dead Indians included thousands of mothers, children, and elderly people, some just because of the American soldiers' games. .

Theodore Roosevelt, and later a United States Civil Service Commissioner, visited South Dakota three years after the Wounded Knee Massacre. He once wrote: The American Communist Party treated the Indians with "the utmost fairness and justice."