Re: [FRIAM] The Lost Land

[Steve Smith]

Boys and Girls!

I feel sad to be leaving this conversation just as it is heating up 
(this one and the one on the Iowa Markets predicting Obama well above 
Romney) but I'm likely to drop out for several reasons, some fun, some 
not so much.


On my way out of the conversation (hit and run), I'd like to thank Bruce 
for correcting my goofy errors in timing and identity re: Pueblo Revolt 
and DeVargas/Onate, etc.   I suppose I could fact check my rants and 
raves a little better... in any case, I thank Bruce for fixing that up 
for me and doing it in a polite and respectful way...


I have plenty opinions (and tedious anecdotes) about several things said 
here, but I just don't have the bandwidth to blurt them out (much less 
do some fact checking before hitting send)!


I *do* second Pamela's kudos to Tory on her comments (having just 
watched my vegetarian daughter stoicly crush and dispose of a cochroach 
just now).  I'm also with Tory and want to hear the colorly insightful 
perspective we used to get from Vlad.   I hope he's just napping, not 
fallen off the planet!


Also, I remember saying I didn't want to be political because despite 
what feels like a disproportionate number of Lefties (the risk of 
yuppiness and academia?), I know we have some pretty staunch righties 
too.A lot of folks here live most of their time in their heads so 
I'd not be surprised if there werent a few more staunch ???XXXYYzzz... s 
here roughly anarcho-libertarian-independent  ???  which I paint myself 
and Doug with BTW.   Doug and I seem to agree on a lot (including the 
taste of various distilled spirits), excepting I don't have an axe to 
grind with Joseph Smith (no relation) or his followers.


I'm not completely sure I think Peggy understood my point, but I was 
glad to hear her thinking this was a good conversation... I'm enjoying 
the sound of the hornets buzzing as well! (I suspect *this* is a 
mischaracterization of Peggy's comments!).


Carry on!
 - Steve



I draw everyone's attention to the widely unknown fact that violence
in the world has drastically diminished, which is something to be
celebrated (and extended). See the Stephen Pinker book "The Better
Angels of our Nature". To give just one striking example that he
cites, only a few hundred years ago the murder rate per year per
100,000 people in England was several hundred, but now it is ONE
murder! The huge fall in violence of all kinds has gone mostly
unnoticed in part because news reports concentrate on violence,
leaving the impression that violence has if anything increased.

Pinker also reviews the extensive scholarship devoted to trying to
understand the causes of this huge change.

Bruce

On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 9:45 PM, Alfredo Covaleda
 wrote:

Of course I was kidding. Doctrine is maybe the term that I like the less.
We, the human kind, need more objectivity, more generosity and less
fundamentalisms; but naturally it is an utopia to think that doctrines will
not rule the world. Societies will continue fighting because of ethnicity,
religion and politics. Doctrine makes us different and is the argument
behind the struggle for the power and the perfect excuse to do what humans
like the most: to make the war. What a savage and pitiful specie is the Homo
Sapiens!!.


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] The Lost Land

[Bruce Sherwood]

I draw everyone's attention to the widely unknown fact that violence
in the world has drastically diminished, which is something to be
celebrated (and extended). See the Stephen Pinker book "The Better
Angels of our Nature". To give just one striking example that he
cites, only a few hundred years ago the murder rate per year per
100,000 people in England was several hundred, but now it is ONE
murder! The huge fall in violence of all kinds has gone mostly
unnoticed in part because news reports concentrate on violence,
leaving the impression that violence has if anything increased.

Pinker also reviews the extensive scholarship devoted to trying to
understand the causes of this huge change.

Bruce

On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 9:45 PM, Alfredo Covaleda
 wrote:
>
> Of course I was kidding. Doctrine is maybe the term that I like the less.
> We, the human kind, need more objectivity, more generosity and less
> fundamentalisms; but naturally it is an utopia to think that doctrines will
> not rule the world. Societies will continue fighting because of ethnicity,
> religion and politics. Doctrine makes us different and is the argument
> behind the struggle for the power and the perfect excuse to do what humans
> like the most: to make the war. What a savage and pitiful specie is the Homo
> Sapiens!!.


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] The Lost Land

[Alfredo Covaleda]

Of course I was kidding. Doctrine is maybe the term that I like the less.
We, the human kind, need more objectivity, more generosity and less
fundamentalisms; but naturally it is an utopia to think that doctrines will
not rule the world. Societies will continue fighting because of ethnicity,
religion and politics. Doctrine makes us different and is the argument
behind the struggle for the power and the perfect excuse to do what humans
like the most: to make the war. What a savage and pitiful specie is the
Homo Sapiens!!.


2012/8/19 Alfredo Covaleda 

>
> My Doctrine is: America for the American Indians. I mean the real native
> Americans from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego... like me or at least, almost
> the half of my genome.
>
> Regards
>
>
> 2012/8/19 Jochen Fromm 
>
>>
>> Steve, thanks for the long and personal response. If it understand it
>> right, then every American is living on occupied land, since every corner
>> of America once belonged to native Americans. You are not the only one. In
>> the land of the free and the home of the brave freedom apparently does not
>> mean freedom for American Indians to live as they would like to do. But you
>> can judge the situation better than I do. You are right, it really seems to
>> be a complicated issue.
>>
>> An old Chinese proverb says 'better to bend in the wind than to break':
>> although the native Americans have to bend, they still can remain firmly
>> rooted in their unique heritage and rich cultural history. Maybe art and/or
>> tourism can offer a way out of the crisis. Who knows..
>>
>> -J.
>>
>> Sent from Android
>>
>> Steve Smith  wrote:
>> Jochen -
>>
>> I appreciate this post.
>> > In the recent edition of National Geographic there
>> > is an article about Native Americans named
>> > "In the shadow of wounded knee"
>> > http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/pine-ridge/fuller-text
>> I am very sensitive to this issue because *I* literally own/live-on a
>> small piece of land that was expropriated from a Native tribe very
>> recently.I also listen regularly to strong rhetoric against the
>> Israelis for their handling of the Palestinians while living amongst our
>> own Native Americans who have been treated (in past centuries) even more
>> brutally and in present times, perhaps less so, but still less than ideal.
>>
>> Some on this list will perceive your post and my response perhaps as
>> "political"..  I try to remain relatively neutral in the politics, but I
>> believe this is a significant "humanitarian" issue.  And by humanitarian
>> I don't just mean the humanity of those being abused, I'm concerned for
>> the humanity of the abusers... roughly "us".   I am not religious so I
>> don't really think in terms of saved or lost "souls" but if I did, I'd
>> be much more worried about the souls of the occupiers than of the
>> occupied.
>>
>> And a simple answer to  simple question... NO, the cultural differences
>> (I'm reluctant to use the terms higher or lower) do not justify an
>> occupation.   And to this list we can add many more examples (e.g. South
>> Africa) and open questions such as the "Mongolian" occupation of much of
>> Eastern Europe and the middle east, or the Roman Occupation of north
>> africa, middle east, europe, or the Moorish occupation of Spain, or the
>> Native American (Asian?) occupation of North America (did they have a
>> big hand in the die-off of the megafauna of North America?).
>>
>> My house is built on 1.5 acres among a section of 5.5 acres which Public
>> Service of NM took ownership for the purpose of building a natural gas
>> compression station.  I do not know their mechanism for this, it *may
>> have been* a trade, but it also may have been a simple request to the
>> State or Fed to "condemn" the parcel they wanted, literally taking it by
>> (legal) force from the San Ildefonso Pueblo, a very small "tribe" on a
>> very small "reservation", Perhaps a thousand  people on a few hundred
>> square miles.   Apparently PNM changed their minds and decided not to
>> complete the project but managed to hold on to the land and sell it to a
>> private (Anglo) individual who then subdivided and resold (to more
>> Anglos).   4 homes were built on these properties in the 1980's and in
>> 2000 I bought mine from the original owner-builder.   Reviewing the
>> title search, I discovered the provenance.  It was a little
>> disturbing... the details I give here were not in the document, only the
>> record that PNM was the first "owner" after the pueblo itself.   The
>> rest I pieced together from other information.
>>
>> So I am now, just like many of the Zionists in Israel, an occupier. I
>> feel somewhat innocent in my motivations, however i have to admit to
>> having coveted this location since before the homes were built 30 years
>> ago, knowing that it was "embedded" in the "reservation"... appreciating
>> it for it's location, including the proximity to this pueblo.
>> Romantically, I wanted to believe it was some sm

Re: [FRIAM] The Lost Land

[Pamela McCorduck]

Tory makes an unarguable point, that we are far from alone as a species in 
opportunistic, invasive behavior. And, as she goes on to point out, we worry 
about it, other species don't. She also says "there is much to be worried over, 
examined, and…changed."

We can and slowly do change our behavior. When I wrote that attitudes about 
colonialism changed as time went on, that's just what I meant. I fear to say 
our notions of ethical behavior have evolved, but I'll say it anyway. Even when 
we went into Iraq, we didn't say: Hey, we need the oil, move over. Our then 
government felt obliged to clothe that invasion in all sorts of pious and fake 
excuses. The fact is, we--or they--thought we needed the oil, and American need 
was paramount. It isn't pretty, but there it is.

Effecting the change is neither simple nor easy.

P.

> 
> 
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org


"Bounded Rationality,"  by Pamela McCorduck, the second novel in the series, 
Santa Fe Stories, Sunstone Press, is now available both as ink-on-paper and as 
an e-book.


“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, 
must be intolerably stupid.” 
― Jane Austen







FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] The Lost Land

[Patrick Reilly]

To all:

My doctrine is that the Earth is the property of no species nor
ethnicity thereof.  Only Ethiopia has indigenous human. The land of
North America could no more be exclusively possessed by, or be stolen
from, any tribe or nation than can the sky be possessed or stolen.
All property is temporary.

I prefer to work towards wise eco-stewardship and communal sharing of
the benefits of nature for all life rather than grieving about owning
and taking.

My Irish (an 1/4 Scott) heritage informs me that fighting over real
estate, even real estate inhabited for millennia by an "indigenous"
people, is an extreme waste of energy and blood.


Sincerely,


Patrick Reilly





On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 4:04 PM, Alfredo Covaleda
 wrote:
>
> My Doctrine is: America for the American Indians. I mean the real native
> Americans from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego... like me or at least, almost the
> half of my genome.
>
> Regards
>
> 2012/8/19 Jochen Fromm 
>>
>>
>> Steve, thanks for the long and personal response. If it understand it
>> right, then every American is living on occupied land, since every corner of
>> America once belonged to native Americans. You are not the only one. In the
>> land of the free and the home of the brave freedom apparently does not mean
>> freedom for American Indians to live as they would like to do. But you can
>> judge the situation better than I do. You are right, it really seems to be a
>> complicated issue.
>>
>> An old Chinese proverb says 'better to bend in the wind than to break':
>> although the native Americans have to bend, they still can remain firmly
>> rooted in their unique heritage and rich cultural history. Maybe art and/or
>> tourism can offer a way out of the crisis. Who knows..
>>
>> -J.
>>
>> Sent from Android
>>
>> Steve Smith  wrote:
>> Jochen -
>>
>> I appreciate this post.
>> > In the recent edition of National Geographic there
>> > is an article about Native Americans named
>> > "In the shadow of wounded knee"
>> > http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/pine-ridge/fuller-text
>> I am very sensitive to this issue because *I* literally own/live-on a
>> small piece of land that was expropriated from a Native tribe very
>> recently.I also listen regularly to strong rhetoric against the
>> Israelis for their handling of the Palestinians while living amongst our
>> own Native Americans who have been treated (in past centuries) even more
>> brutally and in present times, perhaps less so, but still less than ideal.
>>
>> Some on this list will perceive your post and my response perhaps as
>> "political"..  I try to remain relatively neutral in the politics, but I
>> believe this is a significant "humanitarian" issue.  And by humanitarian
>> I don't just mean the humanity of those being abused, I'm concerned for
>> the humanity of the abusers... roughly "us".   I am not religious so I
>> don't really think in terms of saved or lost "souls" but if I did, I'd
>> be much more worried about the souls of the occupiers than of the
>> occupied.
>>
>> And a simple answer to  simple question... NO, the cultural differences
>> (I'm reluctant to use the terms higher or lower) do not justify an
>> occupation.   And to this list we can add many more examples (e.g. South
>> Africa) and open questions such as the "Mongolian" occupation of much of
>> Eastern Europe and the middle east, or the Roman Occupation of north
>> africa, middle east, europe, or the Moorish occupation of Spain, or the
>> Native American (Asian?) occupation of North America (did they have a
>> big hand in the die-off of the megafauna of North America?).
>>
>> My house is built on 1.5 acres among a section of 5.5 acres which Public
>> Service of NM took ownership for the purpose of building a natural gas
>> compression station.  I do not know their mechanism for this, it *may
>> have been* a trade, but it also may have been a simple request to the
>> State or Fed to "condemn" the parcel they wanted, literally taking it by
>> (legal) force from the San Ildefonso Pueblo, a very small "tribe" on a
>> very small "reservation", Perhaps a thousand  people on a few hundred
>> square miles.   Apparently PNM changed their minds and decided not to
>> complete the project but managed to hold on to the land and sell it to a
>> private (Anglo) individual who then subdivided and resold (to more
>> Anglos).   4 homes were built on these properties in the 1980's and in
>> 2000 I bought mine from the original owner-builder.   Reviewing the
>> title search, I discovered the provenance.  It was a little
>> disturbing... the details I give here were not in the document, only the
>> record that PNM was the first "owner" after the pueblo itself.   The
>> rest I pieced together from other information.
>>
>> So I am now, just like many of the Zionists in Israel, an occupier. I
>> feel somewhat innocent in my motivations, however i have to admit to
>> having coveted this location since before the homes were built 30 years
>> ago, knowin

Re: [FRIAM] The Lost Land

[Alfredo Covaleda]

My Doctrine is: America for the American Indians. I mean the real native
Americans from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego... like me or at least, almost
the half of my genome.

Regards

2012/8/19 Jochen Fromm 

>
> Steve, thanks for the long and personal response. If it understand it
> right, then every American is living on occupied land, since every corner
> of America once belonged to native Americans. You are not the only one. In
> the land of the free and the home of the brave freedom apparently does not
> mean freedom for American Indians to live as they would like to do. But you
> can judge the situation better than I do. You are right, it really seems to
> be a complicated issue.
>
> An old Chinese proverb says 'better to bend in the wind than to break':
> although the native Americans have to bend, they still can remain firmly
> rooted in their unique heritage and rich cultural history. Maybe art and/or
> tourism can offer a way out of the crisis. Who knows..
>
> -J.
>
> Sent from Android
>
> Steve Smith  wrote:
> Jochen -
>
> I appreciate this post.
> > In the recent edition of National Geographic there
> > is an article about Native Americans named
> > "In the shadow of wounded knee"
> > http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/pine-ridge/fuller-text
> I am very sensitive to this issue because *I* literally own/live-on a
> small piece of land that was expropriated from a Native tribe very
> recently.I also listen regularly to strong rhetoric against the
> Israelis for their handling of the Palestinians while living amongst our
> own Native Americans who have been treated (in past centuries) even more
> brutally and in present times, perhaps less so, but still less than ideal.
>
> Some on this list will perceive your post and my response perhaps as
> "political"..  I try to remain relatively neutral in the politics, but I
> believe this is a significant "humanitarian" issue.  And by humanitarian
> I don't just mean the humanity of those being abused, I'm concerned for
> the humanity of the abusers... roughly "us".   I am not religious so I
> don't really think in terms of saved or lost "souls" but if I did, I'd
> be much more worried about the souls of the occupiers than of the occupied.
>
> And a simple answer to  simple question... NO, the cultural differences
> (I'm reluctant to use the terms higher or lower) do not justify an
> occupation.   And to this list we can add many more examples (e.g. South
> Africa) and open questions such as the "Mongolian" occupation of much of
> Eastern Europe and the middle east, or the Roman Occupation of north
> africa, middle east, europe, or the Moorish occupation of Spain, or the
> Native American (Asian?) occupation of North America (did they have a
> big hand in the die-off of the megafauna of North America?).
>
> My house is built on 1.5 acres among a section of 5.5 acres which Public
> Service of NM took ownership for the purpose of building a natural gas
> compression station.  I do not know their mechanism for this, it *may
> have been* a trade, but it also may have been a simple request to the
> State or Fed to "condemn" the parcel they wanted, literally taking it by
> (legal) force from the San Ildefonso Pueblo, a very small "tribe" on a
> very small "reservation", Perhaps a thousand  people on a few hundred
> square miles.   Apparently PNM changed their minds and decided not to
> complete the project but managed to hold on to the land and sell it to a
> private (Anglo) individual who then subdivided and resold (to more
> Anglos).   4 homes were built on these properties in the 1980's and in
> 2000 I bought mine from the original owner-builder.   Reviewing the
> title search, I discovered the provenance.  It was a little
> disturbing... the details I give here were not in the document, only the
> record that PNM was the first "owner" after the pueblo itself.   The
> rest I pieced together from other information.
>
> So I am now, just like many of the Zionists in Israel, an occupier. I
> feel somewhat innocent in my motivations, however i have to admit to
> having coveted this location since before the homes were built 30 years
> ago, knowing that it was "embedded" in the "reservation"... appreciating
> it for it's location, including the proximity to this pueblo.
> Romantically, I wanted to believe it was some small homestead from the
> 1800s which had been deeded to the family of the hispanic original
> occupants when NM became a state in 1912.   Of course, the truth was not
> nearly that romantic.
>
> The Natives have a much less adversarial stance with the non-native here
> than say in Palestine.  They were completely crushed into submission
> centuries ago and have lived in relative peace with their "occupiers"
> since then with only small abuses of the relationship such as the one
> that lead to the expropriation of the piece of property that I live on.
> I have a number of Native friends from cultures distributed mostly
> throughout the southwes

Re: [FRIAM] The Lost Land

[Roger Critchlow]

On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 11:29 AM, Steve Smith  wrote:

>  I am not sure that "few people share this view anymore" regarding divine
> rights or maybe more to the point, "manifest destiny" or "might makes
> right".   I agree that in spirit most of us are on that page together, but
> in practice we may not be.
>

 http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/312830/culture-does-matter-mitt-romney

During my recent trip to Israel, I had suggested that the choices a society
makes about its culture play a role in creating prosperity, and that the
significant disparity between Israeli and Palestinian living standards was
powerfully influenced by it. In some quarters, that comment became the
subject of controversy.

But what exactly accounts for prosperity if not culture? In the case of the
United States, it is a particular kind of culture that has made us the
greatest economic power in the history of the earth. Many significant
features come to mind: our work ethic, our appreciation for education, our
willingness to take risks, our commitment to honor and oath, our family
orientation, our devotion to a purpose greater than ourselves, our
patriotism. But one feature of our culture that propels the American
economy stands out above all others: freedom. The American economy is
fueled by freedom. Free people and their free enterprises are what drive
our economic vitality.


Blessed be those who prosper, for they are prosperous.

-- rec --

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] The Lost Land

[Jochen Fromm]

Steve, thanks for the long and personal response. If it understand it right, 
then every American is living on occupied land, since every corner of America 
once belonged to native Americans. You are not the only one. In the land of the 
free and the home of the brave freedom apparently does not mean freedom for 
American Indians to live as they would like to do. But you can judge the 
situation better than I do. You are right, it really seems to be a complicated 
issue.

An old Chinese proverb says 'better to bend in the wind than to break': 
although the native Americans have to bend, they still can remain firmly rooted 
in their unique heritage and rich cultural history. Maybe art and/or tourism 
can offer a way out of the crisis. Who knows..

-J.

Sent from AndroidSteve Smith  wrote:Jochen -

I appreciate this post.
> In the recent edition of National Geographic there
> is an article about Native Americans named
> "In the shadow of wounded knee"
> http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/pine-ridge/fuller-text
I am very sensitive to this issue because *I* literally own/live-on a 
small piece of land that was expropriated from a Native tribe very 
recently.    I also listen regularly to strong rhetoric against the 
Israelis for their handling of the Palestinians while living amongst our 
own Native Americans who have been treated (in past centuries) even more 
brutally and in present times, perhaps less so, but still less than ideal.

Some on this list will perceive your post and my response perhaps as 
"political"..  I try to remain relatively neutral in the politics, but I 
believe this is a significant "humanitarian" issue.  And by humanitarian 
I don't just mean the humanity of those being abused, I'm concerned for 
the humanity of the abusers... roughly "us".   I am not religious so I 
don't really think in terms of saved or lost "souls" but if I did, I'd 
be much more worried about the souls of the occupiers than of the occupied.

And a simple answer to  simple question... NO, the cultural differences 
(I'm reluctant to use the terms higher or lower) do not justify an 
occupation.   And to this list we can add many more examples (e.g. South 
Africa) and open questions such as the "Mongolian" occupation of much of 
Eastern Europe and the middle east, or the Roman Occupation of north 
africa, middle east, europe, or the Moorish occupation of Spain, or the 
Native American (Asian?) occupation of North America (did they have a 
big hand in the die-off of the megafauna of North America?).

My house is built on 1.5 acres among a section of 5.5 acres which Public 
Service of NM took ownership for the purpose of building a natural gas 
compression station.  I do not know their mechanism for this, it *may 
have been* a trade, but it also may have been a simple request to the 
State or Fed to "condemn" the parcel they wanted, literally taking it by 
(legal) force from the San Ildefonso Pueblo, a very small "tribe" on a 
very small "reservation", Perhaps a thousand  people on a few hundred 
square miles.   Apparently PNM changed their minds and decided not to 
complete the project but managed to hold on to the land and sell it to a 
private (Anglo) individual who then subdivided and resold (to more 
Anglos).   4 homes were built on these properties in the 1980's and in 
2000 I bought mine from the original owner-builder.   Reviewing the 
title search, I discovered the provenance.  It was a little 
disturbing... the details I give here were not in the document, only the 
record that PNM was the first "owner" after the pueblo itself.   The 
rest I pieced together from other information.

So I am now, just like many of the Zionists in Israel, an occupier. I 
feel somewhat innocent in my motivations, however i have to admit to 
having coveted this location since before the homes were built 30 years 
ago, knowing that it was "embedded" in the "reservation"... appreciating 
it for it's location, including the proximity to this pueblo. 
Romantically, I wanted to believe it was some small homestead from the 
1800s which had been deeded to the family of the hispanic original 
occupants when NM became a state in 1912.   Of course, the truth was not 
nearly that romantic.

The Natives have a much less adversarial stance with the non-native here 
than say in Palestine.  They were completely crushed into submission 
centuries ago and have lived in relative peace with their "occupiers" 
since then with only small abuses of the relationship such as the one 
that lead to the expropriation of the piece of property that I live on.  
I have a number of Native friends from cultures distributed mostly 
throughout the southwest of the US, and a few from farther north, but 
really hardly any from the East.    I also work with the Institute of 
American Indian Art in Santa Fe which puts me in contact with native 
students and faculty from all over North America.  And I *should* put in 
a plug for them... they accept students from

Re: [FRIAM] The Lost Land

[Bruce Sherwood]

Steve, you're mixing two different periods in your statement, "As more
Europeans arrived, things got worse of course and In the early 1600's
the natives pulled together and managed a widespread rebellion large
enough to push the Spanish back south of what is modern day El Paso,
the entire occupied Rio Grande River Valley for nearly 400 miles was
expunged of these foreign devils. A few years later, Juan de Oñate
returned with a much more significant force and overwhelmed the
natives with their "modern weaponry", horses, and brutality.  A
relatively small but significant group held out against this force on
top of a mesa within view of my house... these native warriors were
able to use their knowledge of the terrain and some help from their
people now subjugated in the region to remain at large for months.
Once they finally fell, Onate and Spain "owned" the region again, and
his first act to make the point that rebellion would not be tolerated
was to cut one foot off of every able-bodied male of age to be a
warrior as a preventative and a reminder of his power (and
intolerance)."

The Pueblo Revolt was in the late 1600’s, 1680 to be exact, and the
reconquest in 1692 was led by De Vargas, not  Oñate. The reconquest is
nowadays characterized as “peaceful”, which is basically not true, as
can be seen at http://www.newmexicohistory.org/filedetails.php?fileID=482.

Juan de Oñate was the original colonizer of New Mexico, in 1598. From
http://www.newmexicohistory.org/filedetails.php?fileID=312:

“In December 1598, on their way to Zuni, Capt. Juan de Zaldívar and
his soldiers stopped at Acoma for provisions. While there the Acomas
accused one of Zaldívar’s soldiers of stealing, and violating an Acoma
woman. The Acomas proceeded to kill Zaldívar and nearly a dozen of his
men, later claiming that the soldiers had demanded excessive amounts
of provisions. A Spanish punitive expedition ascended on Acoma
resulting in a three-day battle. When the fighting ended, several
hundred Indians were dead, and hundreds of surviving Acomas were held
prisoner and taken to Santa Domingo Pueblo to stand trial. Oñate
severely punished the people of Acoma. Men over twenty-five had one
foot cut off and were sentenced to twenty years of personal servitude
to the Spanish colonists; young men between the ages of twelve and
twenty-five received twenty years of personal servitude; young women
over twelve years of age were given twenty years of servitude; sixty
young girls were sent to Mexico City to serve in the convents there,
never to see their homeland again; and two Hopi men caught at the
Acoma battle had their right hand cut off and were set free to spread
the news of Spanish retribution.”

I think that it’s misleading to say about the early 1600’s, “The
Natives in the area submitted somewhat willingly, being a relatively
peace-loving people and the Spanish were not brutal unless there was
resistance to their presence whereupon their horses and steel weapons
and armor allowed them to be crushingly brutal.” When the Oñate
colonization expedition came to Okehowingeh (called San Juan Pueblo by
the Spaniards) near Española, they stole essential food supplies from
the Pueblo. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was triggered by the large-scale
Spanish execution of native priests. This doesn’t sound like “the
Spanish were not brutal unless there was resistance to their
presence”.

There’s an interesting twist to Oñate’s brutality to the Acoma
prisoners. A few years ago a memorial to Oñate was established north
of Española, on the way to Abiquiu. In front is an equestrian status
of Oñate. One morning it was discovered that in the night someone had
sawed off one of Oñate’s feet...

The Pueblo Revolt was fundamentally a success. Before 1680 Spanish
oppression was intolerable, hence the revolt, the first time a large
number of pueblos had collaborated on something. Immediately after the
revolt the leader, Popé, tried to eradicate all Spanish influences,
but his people were unwilling to follow his lead. For one thing, wool
is better than cotton for many uses. Also, during the period
1680-1692, in the absence of Spanish soldiers, the pueblos again faced
serious damage by Apaches and other marauders, and they came to
appreciate the protection that those Spanish soldiers had provided.
When the Spaniards returned, a new and better accommodation was worked
out. The Spanish eased off on their oppression, especially with a
“don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude toward native religion, which is part
of the reason for the secrecy even today about native rituals. And the
Pueblo peoples appreciated the greater security provided by the
Spanish presence.

The anthropologist Ruth Underhill wrote a book, “Red Man’s America”,
that I found very helpful in thinking about the conquest of the
Americas in a larger context. Although (because?) Underhill was both
knowledgeable about and sympathetic to Amerindian problems, part of
her book is a kind of “tough love”. She (like you, Steve, 

Re: [FRIAM] The Lost Land

[Sarbajit Roy]

shameless plug for this book
http://transbooks.com/cata/lus02.html
for Lost Lands a little further south.

On 8/19/12, Steve Smith  wrote:
> Yes Tory, thanks for the correction to iaia.edu !
>
> And thanks also to Pamela for noting my omission of the Anglo takeover
> of Hispanic (but no longer Spanish, after the original colonists from
> Spain, now mixed with the indigenous population, asserted their own
> independence to form Mexico).   The Anglo takeover started with the
> establishment/expansion of the republic of Texas and then was completed
> when Texas joined the Union and the railroad came roaring into town.
> And yes, every colonization, every expansion (as noted with the Dine...
> Navajo/Apache who had "colonized" a large region near this area not long
> before the arrival of the Spanish) includes harm to those already there.
> Ghengis Khan's depradations being perhaps the most extravagant or most
> noted example excepting that I'm not sure he and his were claiming to
> bring either civilization nor salvation, but perhaps they had that idea
> too?
>
> I am not sure that "few people share this view anymore" regarding divine
> rights or maybe more to the point, "manifest destiny" or "might makes
> right".   I agree that in spirit most of us are on that page together,
> but in practice we may not be.
>
>   We continue to this day colonizing through popular culture and
> multinational extractive interests in the third world, and each of us
> when we ask for more copper wiring for our houses, more teak furniture
> for our condos, more rare earth magnets for our wind turbines and
> electric vehicle motors are participating... or so my bleeding heart
> believes.   I intended not to get political and I think I'm still on the
> good side of that, but I know this is very near (or over) a line that
> many accept as an obvious and given humanitarian position.  Many do
> believe that *we* have some right to the resources of the world
> independent of the impact on those already living where those resources
> are.  It is an old plan we have lived on for millenia... and I don't
> have answers either (I liked Pamela's use of the word "vexed").
>
> - Steve
>
>
>> Great informative post, thanks, Steve.
>>
>> I suspect the link you mean is www.iaia.edu 
>>  although you are so eclectic, who knows.
>>
>> Best-
>> Tory
>>
>> On Aug 19, 2012, at 9:12 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
>>
>>> Jochen -
>>>
>>> I appreciate this post.
 In the recent edition of National Geographic there
 is an article about Native Americans named
 "In the shadow of wounded knee"
 http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/pine-ridge/fuller-text
>>> I am very sensitive to this issue because *I* literally own/live-on a
>>> small piece of land that was expropriated from a Native tribe very
>>> recently.I also listen regularly to strong rhetoric against the
>>> Israelis for their handling of the Palestinians while living amongst
>>> our own Native Americans who have been treated (in past centuries)
>>> even more brutally and in present times, perhaps less so, but still
>>> less than ideal.
>>>
>>> Some on this list will perceive your post and my response perhaps as
>>> "political"..  I try to remain relatively neutral in the politics,
>>> but I believe this is a significant "humanitarian" issue.  And by
>>> humanitarian I don't just mean the humanity of those being abused,
>>> I'm concerned for the humanity of the abusers... roughly "us".   I am
>>> not religious so I don't really think in terms of saved or lost
>>> "souls" but if I did, I'd be much more worried about the souls of the
>>> occupiers than of the occupied.
>>>
>>> And a simple answer to  simple question... NO, the cultural
>>> differences (I'm reluctant to use the terms higher or lower) do not
>>> justify an occupation.   And to this list we can add many more
>>> examples (e.g. South Africa) and open questions such as the
>>> "Mongolian" occupation of much of Eastern Europe and the middle east,
>>> or the Roman Occupation of north africa, middle east, europe, or the
>>> Moorish occupation of Spain, or the Native American (Asian?)
>>> occupation of North America (did they have a big hand in the die-off
>>> of the megafauna of North America?).
>>>
>>> My house is built on 1.5 acres among a section of 5.5 acres which
>>> Public Service of NM took ownership for the purpose of building a
>>> natural gas compression station.  I do not know their mechanism for
>>> this, it *may have been* a trade, but it also may have been a simple
>>> request to the State or Fed to "condemn" the parcel they wanted,
>>> literally taking it by (legal) force from the San Ildefonso Pueblo, a
>>> very small "tribe" on a very small "reservation", Perhaps a thousand
>>>  people on a few hundred square miles.   Apparently PNM changed their
>>> minds and decided not to complete the project but managed to hold on
>>> to the land and sell it to a private (Anglo) individual who then
>>>

Re: [FRIAM] The Lost Land

[Pamela McCorduck]

Those of us who live in Santa Fe have what Steve has written thrust into our 
faces daily. He speaks of the indigenous people who have been colonized, with 
all the miseries that entails (and who had themselves, in some cases--e.g., the 
Diné--moved late into the land of others). He doesn't mention the Anglo 
takeover of Hispanic New Mexico, which is a sad tale in its own right. 

Steve is right; the subject is vexed. It gets even more vexed when the issues 
are about psychological colonization--of minorities, of ethnic groups, of 
women. I have no answers either. My privileged life is very different from the 
lives my forebears led as Irish immigrants in England, as colonized Irish in 
Ireland, as (it seems) conquerors of the Irish from Scotland. 

What is different is attitude: white Europeans believed in their divine right, 
even obligation, to do these things. The Israeli settlers in Palestine may also 
feel they have a divine right to their Biblical homeland, but few people in the 
world share this view any more.

Pamela



"Bounded Rationality,"  by Pamela McCorduck, the second novel in the series, 
Santa Fe Stories, Sunstone Press, is now available both as ink-on-paper and as 
an e-book.


“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, 
must be intolerably stupid.” 
― Jane Austen







FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] The Lost Land

[Steve Smith]

Jochen -

I appreciate this post.

In the recent edition of National Geographic there
is an article about Native Americans named
"In the shadow of wounded knee"
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/pine-ridge/fuller-text
I am very sensitive to this issue because *I* literally own/live-on a 
small piece of land that was expropriated from a Native tribe very 
recently.I also listen regularly to strong rhetoric against the 
Israelis for their handling of the Palestinians while living amongst our 
own Native Americans who have been treated (in past centuries) even more 
brutally and in present times, perhaps less so, but still less than ideal.


Some on this list will perceive your post and my response perhaps as 
"political"..  I try to remain relatively neutral in the politics, but I 
believe this is a significant "humanitarian" issue.  And by humanitarian 
I don't just mean the humanity of those being abused, I'm concerned for 
the humanity of the abusers... roughly "us".   I am not religious so I 
don't really think in terms of saved or lost "souls" but if I did, I'd 
be much more worried about the souls of the occupiers than of the occupied.


And a simple answer to  simple question... NO, the cultural differences 
(I'm reluctant to use the terms higher or lower) do not justify an 
occupation.   And to this list we can add many more examples (e.g. South 
Africa) and open questions such as the "Mongolian" occupation of much of 
Eastern Europe and the middle east, or the Roman Occupation of north 
africa, middle east, europe, or the Moorish occupation of Spain, or the 
Native American (Asian?) occupation of North America (did they have a 
big hand in the die-off of the megafauna of North America?).


My house is built on 1.5 acres among a section of 5.5 acres which Public 
Service of NM took ownership for the purpose of building a natural gas 
compression station.  I do not know their mechanism for this, it *may 
have been* a trade, but it also may have been a simple request to the 
State or Fed to "condemn" the parcel they wanted, literally taking it by 
(legal) force from the San Ildefonso Pueblo, a very small "tribe" on a 
very small "reservation", Perhaps a thousand  people on a few hundred 
square miles.   Apparently PNM changed their minds and decided not to 
complete the project but managed to hold on to the land and sell it to a 
private (Anglo) individual who then subdivided and resold (to more 
Anglos).   4 homes were built on these properties in the 1980's and in 
2000 I bought mine from the original owner-builder.   Reviewing the 
title search, I discovered the provenance.  It was a little 
disturbing... the details I give here were not in the document, only the 
record that PNM was the first "owner" after the pueblo itself.   The 
rest I pieced together from other information.


So I am now, just like many of the Zionists in Israel, an occupier. I 
feel somewhat innocent in my motivations, however i have to admit to 
having coveted this location since before the homes were built 30 years 
ago, knowing that it was "embedded" in the "reservation"... appreciating 
it for it's location, including the proximity to this pueblo. 
Romantically, I wanted to believe it was some small homestead from the 
1800s which had been deeded to the family of the hispanic original 
occupants when NM became a state in 1912.   Of course, the truth was not 
nearly that romantic.


The Natives have a much less adversarial stance with the non-native here 
than say in Palestine.  They were completely crushed into submission 
centuries ago and have lived in relative peace with their "occupiers" 
since then with only small abuses of the relationship such as the one 
that lead to the expropriation of the piece of property that I live on.  
I have a number of Native friends from cultures distributed mostly 
throughout the southwest of the US, and a few from farther north, but 
really hardly any from the East.I also work with the Institute of 
American Indian Art in Santa Fe which puts me in contact with native 
students and faculty from all over North America.  And I *should* put in 
a plug for them... they accept students from anywhere, there is no 
in/out state tuition... they are very affordable... many of their 
students and studying there would be an amazing opportunity for anyone.  
www.iaia.org


New Mexico, as you may know, has the longest history of Native-European 
interactions in the US.   The first incursion of the Spanish into what 
is now the USA and the first permanent settlement happened about 30 
miles from my house in the early 1500's well before the pilgrims or 
Spanish settlements in Florida.  They were (as the Spanish did in those 
times) looking for vast hoards of gold.  The Natives in the area 
submitted somewhat willingly, being a relatively peace-loving people and 
the Spanish were not brutal unless there was resistance to their 
presence whereupon their horses and steel weapons and armo

[FRIAM] The Lost Land

[Jochen Fromm]

In the recent edition of National Geographic there
is an article about Native Americans named
"In the shadow of wounded knee"
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/pine-ridge/fuller-text 


It contains a map ("the lost land") which shows
the shrinking land of the Indian reservation (esp. the 
ones from the Sioux) during the 19th century. Once the 
native Americans owned the whole country, from the 
Apache in the south west to the Massachusett in the north 
east. Then the British settlers and European colonists came, 
and in the name of their god they occupied and invaded 
the country. Now the Indians live in ever shrinking 
reservations.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/pine-ridge/reservation-map

Somehow this reminded me of the shrinking land
of the Palestinian people. Palestinians are a bit
like the native Americans, they are the native
inhabitants of a countried occupied by foreign
settlers. Today they live in a small confined area.
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2006/05/10/the-shrinking-map-of-palestine/

In both cases, the occupying force justify the 
occupation with an higher entity which gave 
them the right to live there. Expelled from 
there original countries, the settlers (Puritans 
in American, Jews in Palestine) came to stay.


In Australia, the native Australians ("Aborigines")
are confined in aboriginal reserves. Like the
native Americans, the indigenous Australians had 
not developed a system of writing. Does this

lower cultural level justify an occupation?

-J.








FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org