James M. Redwine

Manifest Destiny

Ever Again

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Maybe it is because I was born and grew up on an Indian reservation and had many Native American friends, including my Osage Sunday School teacher, but there are things involved in the Gaza Peace Plan claimed by President Trump that remind me of the treaties between the United States government and numerous American Indian peoples. In general, those treaties put Indians out of sight and white people in possession of Indian lands. Although many of those peace plans did contain magnanimous conditions and gratuitous language such as, “As long as the rivers flow, etc.” It turned out those were a secret code that meant, until gold, silver or whatever thing the dominate culture wanted was discovered, say Riviera type real estate along the Mediterranean Sea or lush farmland along the West Bank of the Jordan River or holy sites in East Jerusalem.

While the Zionists of Israel assert the destruction and occupation of Gaza was a response to an attack by Hamas, Palestinians believe the initiation of the current invasion by Israel began in 1917, resulting in a Nakba (a catastrophe) in 1948 and became a full-blown Israeli occupation in 1967 that was exacerbated in 1973 and continues to today. For many Palestinians, October 7, 2023 was an act of resistance to Zionist occupation and oppression.

Many Jewish people feel a deep connection to that part of the world called Palestine. The reasons are historical and cultural and, for most, do not require a genocide of the original inhabitants. However, as with many non-Native Americans in the United States from 1492 until contemporary times who believed Indians were an impediment to Manifest Destiny, many Zionists see Palestinians the same way.

Peace negotiations in such an atmosphere may bring a momentary pause, but the conflict will never resolve until all Palestinians are eliminated or they have their own, fully functioning and self-governing state. It is a moral imperative upon all of us to recognize this reality and guarantee Palestine’s establishment. President Trump’s Peace Plan is a poorly disguised effort to accomplish only Israel’s objectives. A true, lasting peace in the Middle East must start by the U.S.A. recognizing the autonomous, independent, self-governing and self-securing State of Palestine along the borders set forth in 1948. If President Trump makes such a declaration, a real peace process can succeed. If not, the current peace plan is a chimera designed to accomplish Israel’s dreams of a country “from the river to the sea” without any Palestinians but one in eternal turmoil with its neighbors.

As our American Founders discovered, being some other country’s colonies leads to permanent second-class status and “taxation without representation”. America, better than most of the 157 countries that have already officially recognized the State of Palestine, should recognize President Trump’s peace plan “… is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing…” but more endless conflict. It is like ice cream on a hot day, momentarily sweet and cool, but soon melted into a faint memory and maybe a sop to the forgotten “noble savages” whose aspiration for freedom and independence have gone the way of the Little Big Horn and the Trail of Tears. Or for Palestinians, the Nakba and genocide.

 

Another Trail of Tears

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Israel’s actions in Palestine’s designated future capital, East Jerusalem, and in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, are a conundrum to many Americans. How can a country that arose from the ashes of the Jewish holocaust of World War II inflict similar atrocities on its neighbors? A related mystery is why the United States enables and abets Israel’s actions? In a country born out of occupation and oppression from our closely aligned cultural “First Cousins”, we yearned to breathe free. This is much as the Jews and their first cousins, the Arabs, are embroiled today.

Jews, Arabs and Muslims are intertwined by history, genetics, geography and religion. Hebrews look to the Torah, much of which is reflected in the Arab and Muslim culture and beliefs via the Quran. Religion is visceral to many Jews and Muslims who call themselves People of the Book. We Americans were similarly bound together with Great Britain. Christian religious beliefs were and are integral to each people’s psyche and Volksgeist. America’s Colonists and Revolutionaries as well as the people of Great Britain found inspiration and justification for their actions from The Book. The Book still provides much of the reason many Israelis want to expand their territory. And The Book provides much of the reason given by many Americans for supporting Israel’s actions.

Manifest Destiny divined from the Bible and Zionism with reference to the Torah have numerous similarities with one another and with the tenants of the Quran. There are countless distinctions in the Torah, the New Testament and the Quran. However, the adherents of all three see themselves as believing in the same god but with different rituals for each faith and with dizzying variations of beliefs within each faith.

Christians, Jews and Muslims all profess a belief in justice, equality and a version of the Golden Rule. It has been demonstrated countless times that members of each group turn to their faith to support their actions that are sometimes diametrically opposed to their professed faith. This phenomenon has occurred repeatedly over many years. In America, many people of European descent drew upon their god for divining guidance each time they saw Native Americans as obstacles to territorial expansion. Manifest Destiny was often a deeply ingrained belief that justified the desires of the powerful; the Trail of Tears was one of many such divine tragedies.

In her book When the Wolf Came, Mary Jane Warde cites the account from a survivor of the forced removal from the Native Americans’ homes and traditional lands in the eastern states to Indian Territory. Sallie Forney, who was a member of the Muskogee-Creek tribe, described her experience:

“The command for a removal came unexpectedly upon most of us. There was the time that we noticed that several overloaded wagons were passing our home, yet we did not grasp the meaning. However, it was not long until we found out the reason. Wagons stopped at our homes and the men in charge commanded us to gather what few belongings could be crowded into the wagon. We were to be taken away and leave our homes never to return This was just the beginning of much weeping and heartaches.

…

Many fell by the wayside, too faint with hunger or too weak to keep up with the rest. The aged, feeble, and sick were left to perish by the wayside.”

One of the four carvings of U.S. presidents on Mount Rushmore is of Theodore Roosevelt who is quoted by writer Alysa Landry as having said in a January 1886 speech in New York City:

“I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are. And I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”

Such a cavalier attitude by an American President towards Native Americans sounds remarkedly similar to the Zionists’ view and actions toward Palestinians today. One might wonder if much of America’s support for Israel’s actions arises from a subconscious conflation of Native Americans and Palestinians with America’s faith in Manifest Destiny being morphed out of a Chosen People cultural myth.

It is difficult for us to do the right thing in Palestine when we built our empire using the same tactics the Zionists are using. However, we owe it to “ourselves and our posterity” to not aid and abet another Trail of Tears in Palestine. We certainly sinned ourselves, but we can partially atone by helping to alleviate the great Nakba being wrought by Israel’s Zionists today.

The Battle of Honey Springs

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In the Honey Springs Battlefield Gift Shop. Photo taken by Peg Redwine

Just as my public-school education failed to lead one to analogies involving America’s Manifest Destiny and slavery or the genocide of indigenous peoples, it often concentrated on the perceived benefits bestowed on both Negroes and first Americans by their white governors. Black and Indian contributions to our shared history were generally omitted or diminished. My knowledge of these significant influences on America’s unrelenting march from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico came mostly by coincidence. Such was the case when Peg and I heard about the Civil War Battle of Honey Springs.

Our first exposure to this most important Civil War conflict in Indian Territory came from a brief mention of it on PBS just this past spring. We researched it, on the Internet of course, and discovered it occurred July 17, 1863 near Checotah, Oklahoma which is only about an hour and a half from our home in Osage County, Oklahoma. It was readily apparent why this “Gettysburg of the West” is barely a blip in our nation’s consciousness. Although the battle determined whether the Union or Confederate forces would control the vital Texas Road that protected supply lines from Mexico to Kansas right through the heart of Indian Territory (Oklahoma), the soldiers who fought the desperate fight consisted of white, Black and several tribes of Native Americans who supported both sides.

Photo by Peg Redwine.

In fact, the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry was instrumental in the battle for the Union and several Black soldiers fought alongside Creek, Choctaw, Cherokee, Seminole and Chickasaw warriors who had divided loyalties for both the North and the South. The commander of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry was the only white man for that brigade.

Honey Springs, the location of this battle involving several thousand soldiers for each side, was named for a gigantic beehive that was attached to a large oak tree near the running spring. As with much of military history the outcome of the battle hinged on the weather. The Southern forces were in that location because the commander of Southern Forces in the Indian Territory, Maj. Gen. William Steele, ordered the capture of fairly nearby Ft. Gibson. Steele dispatched troops under Brig. Gen. Douglas Cooper to meet up with other Confederate troops under the command of Gen. Cabell whose men were about 25 miles from Honey Springs. His soldiers did a forced march through rain, mud and swollen streams but arrived late to the battle between Cooper’s and Union Gen. James G. Blunt’s soldiers. The fight was already a Union victory and the Texas Road as well as Ft. Gibson remained in Union control throughout the remainder of the Civil War.

Photo by Peg Redwine.

History may normally be written by the victors but America’s history has usually been written by white people east of the Mississippi River. Such is the case of Honey Springs. Some Civil War analysts posit this battle crippled any chance the Confederacy could recover from U.S. Grant’s victorious siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi that caused Southern Gen. John Pemberton to surrender to Grant on July 04, 1863, two weeks before the Union victory at Honey Springs.

Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi River and the South’s loss at Honey Springs prevented the South from circumventing the Mississippi via the Texas Road. Gen. Cooper blamed the loss on inferior gunpowder that the South had to purchase from Mexico. Also, the rain made the inferior powder even more defective.

But what I suggest I and other Americans should have learned is the service of Black and First American conflicting loyalties and the reasons for them. Also, it should be noted that the “Gettysburg of the West” was and is deserving of a place in our country’s Volksgeist. If you are prone to Civil War reenactments, Gentle Reader, the Battle of Honey Springs reenactment will take place after the intense Oklahoma July heat is more kind to woolen uniforms on November 8, 2025. You can find more information about the battle and the reenactment weekend activities online at www.okhistory.org.

 

Photo by Peg Redwine.

The Crusade Charade

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The Crusades were the outgrowth of many factors but they are generally categorized as a series of wars between European Christians and Middle Eastern Muslims occurring from 1096 to 1291 AD involving competing claims over the Holy Land, especially Jerusalem. The catalyst for the first Crusade was a call to Christians made by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in France in November 1095. Urban declared that God had willed Christians to oust Muslims from the sacred sites. Urban promised remission of sins for any Christian who died in this vital service of Christ. Thousands of English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and others “took up the cross.”

Later in the New World, priests, clerics and politicians and plain Americans have spent from the 15th century to 2024 spreading the gospel at home and continuing to attempt to control the beliefs and behaviors of Middle Easterners. Manifest Destiny was based on the premise that the god of Christians had ordained that America must eliminate paganism and not commit the sin of omitting to develop the land. Such “crusades” as the Trail of Tears were the outgrowth of European immigrants and their descendants’ beliefs that their god had ordained that America was the Promised Land for Caucasian Christians and that Native Americans had to be evicted, killed or converted to Christianity. This ingrained racial memory from 1492 until today may influence the justification for our invasions into the Muslim Middle East. Just as Native Americans had to be destroyed to save them, Muslims are still the enemies of Christ who must be saved from their misguided faith.

Most recently the United States has continued the tradition of the Crusades by invading Iraq twice and belligerently engaging Iran and such groups as ISIS, Hamas, Taliban, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda and others. America designates these groups as terrorists but they claim to be part of a resistance movement. These organizations are generally Islamic in their religion as were the native Arabs and Persians during the original Crusades. There were Jewish populations in the Holy Land during the time Christian Europeans were seeking to take over the Middle East, but they were a small minority and could not mount an effective resistance to the Crusades.

Today, due to the world’s post-holocaust revulsion of the Nazi atrocities and the beliefs of many American fundamentalist Christians, such as dreamers in the Rapture, the United States is defending Israel’s aggression and is allied with the Zionists against Muslims, especially Iranians. Many of our politicians and much of the national media are on a crusade to support the hegemony of Israel under the guise of its self-defense. Israel has nuclear weapons it developed by spying on the United States and has an extremely modern and powerful military. It has nothing to fear from the rag-tag Muslim militias even if they are backed by countries such as Iran, China and Russia. Israel does not need our military support. And its current aggression in Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Gaza and elsewhere, to say nothing, as most media does, about Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, clearly proves Israel does not deserve our support.

Israel is conducting its own crusade against Muslim countries in the Holy Land. If the United States cannot find the moral courage to confront this decades long injustice, we should, at least, not supply it with weapons and diplomatic immunity. It is long past the time America atoned for its own sins against our native population and that we not repeat those sins in the Middle East. To do so, all we need is to be guided by those principles of our Constitution and the philosophy of that Christian faith many Americans profess. Perhaps, if we make a good faith effort to act in the Middle East as the country we claim to be, we will not be misled by the Zionists among the Israelis into the same type of disaster those holier than thou European Crusaders had to endure a thousand years ago.

 

20,000 “Accidents”

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Photo by Peg Redwine

Israel’s soldiers killed three former Israeli Jewish hostages December 15, 2023 in the Gaza Strip. According to Israeli Defense Forces accounts the three men were unarmed and shirtless. They carried a white flag with the word “HELP” written in Hebrew. The men cried out to the soldiers for help in Hebrew as they held their arms up while emerging from a building. The Israeli soldiers immediately shot and killed two of the men and wounded the third man who retreated back into a building. The soldiers followed him, and even after their commander ordered the firing to stop, the soldiers killed the third man.

Israel called the incident a “tragic accident”. But the killings were intentional, not accidental. Those three killings of unarmed Israelis were the same as the 20,000 intentional killings of Palestinian civilians by Israel since the October 07, 2023 intentional killings of 1,200 Israelis by Hamas.

Israel is responsible for the destruction of water resources, hospitals, mosques, churches, businesses and homes in Gaza. By preventing humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza, Israel is responsible for the endemic disease, thirst and starvation of up to 2.2 million Palestinians, 70% of whom are women and children. The armaments, money and political cover given to Israel by the United States enable this deliberate genocide.

Israel asserts that by dropping leaflets that order civilians to abandon their homes Israel is absolved from killing them. But the people have nowhere to go as the 2.2 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza have the Mediterranean Sea to their north, Egypt to their west and are otherwise surrounded by Israel. Egypt and Jordan have taken some refugees in but have no obligation to do so. Israel is responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and should be mainly responsible for assuaging it.

Gaza is an area of 360 square kilometers and Israel has 22,143 square kilometers. If, in fact, Israel wishes to avoid civilian casualties, it should allow the Palestinian civilians to shelter inside Israel, especially East Jerusalem, until the war ends and Gaza is re-built for human living. Border crossings from Gaza into Israel could be opened with quick and efficient security checks. Aid from the United States could provide temporary shelters, food, water and medical care. Great Britain, that created Israel out of Palestine starting in 1917 through 1948, also could and should help provide border security and humanitarian aid.

A reasonable alternative, if Israel does not wish to have the Palestinian civilians sheltered within the borders of Israel, would be to have non-Hamas Palestinians moved to the current illegal Israeli settlements in both Gaza and the West Bank. These areas are already free of Hamas fighters and have shelters, water, medical facilities and security checkpoints in place. The illegal Israeli squatters would have to be ordered to vacate the areas. But that is already called for by international law. If East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank were used to shelter Palestinians, that would be consistent with the pre-1967 borders and consistent with the Oslo Accords for a two-state situation.

Of Gaza’s 2.2 million population, at the most 40,000 are with Hamas. Screening the refugees would not be onerous as anyone who has walked through a magnetometer or who has been scanned with a hand-held unit can attest. Once the conflict ends, that is, once Israel is satisfied Hamas is no longer a threat, the United States, Great Britain, Israel and the United Nations could carry out a Marshall Plan to repatriate the Palestinians or the state of Palestine could finally be established.

 The United States is almost alone in its support of Israel’s genocide of Gaza’s Palestinians. The United Nations has called repeatedly for a humanitarian ceasefire and humanitarian aid to Palestinians, but until December 22, 2023 the U.S. blocked such action by veto. Finally, the U.N. Security Council managed to pass a weakly worded resolution allowing some humanitarian aid; the United States abstained. However, Israel has indicated it will not cooperate with the resolution, so innocent civilians will continue to be killed by Israel and those not directly killed by Israeli military action will die from or be degraded by deprivation of basic humanitarian necessities.

Why is America putting its prestige on the line to support Israel’s position? The answer may lie in history. Israel claims its god gave Palestine to the Hebrew people and helped them escape bondage in Egypt. Most estimates are the Book of Exodus was written during the 13 century B.C. A part of that divine intervention was the killing by Israel’s god of the first-born child of every Egyptian from Pharoah’s, to those of prisoners in dungeons and even the first-born of maidservants. The Israelis still celebrate this genocidal slaughter of innocent humans on Passover. Also, their god caused the Red Sea to part and drown all of Pharoah’s army. Then, according to the Jewish myth, their god gave the Hebrews the land already owned and inhabited by the Canaanites and others. See the Book of Exodus, Chapters 10-13.

Many of our early American ancestors of mainly European descent believed their Christian god gave us mainly white Americans all the land from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, Manifest Destiny, even though it was already inhabited by millions of Native Americans. And just as Israel has demonized Palestinians as terrorists for many years, America’s Declaration of Independence describes Native Americans as:

“He (King George III) … has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

The cultural memories and Volksgeists of America and Israel are strikingly similar and the religions of both assuage any moral dilemmas from eliminating the original inhabitants of coveted land and resources by any means deemed necessary. The German philosopher Friedrich Carl von Savigny (1779-1861) and the Austrian philosopher Hans Kelsen (1881-1973) described these memories as the Volksgeist or spirit of a people. And the German psychologist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) said these subconscious suppressed memories can actuate behaviors. Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) was a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist who posited humans act and react as archetypes based on historical myths that are sometimes misinterpreted or misapplied.

What this may mean for America is we Americans often see ourselves as always doing good. As French sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) said, “America is great because she is good”. Many of us tend to believe that whatever we do is divinely inspired and cannot be wrong. Israel may see itself as an historic victim that must always be in a self-defense mode, a Volksgeist of being in constant fear of annihilation. And many of us Americans have often seen ourselves as that miraculous shining city on a hill that gives light to the world and is always on the side of right.

That may be why Israel and America stand virtually by ourselves on the developing genocide in Gaza. We both may need to re-examine the validity of our myths and the morality of our actions.

Scene of Washita Massacre. Photo by Peg Redwine

 

Hot Lead or Cold Water

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At the Washita Battlefield, November 21, 2021. Photo by Peg Redwine

Charles Brill’s account of the November 27, 1868 incident between Black Kettle’s Cheyenne tribe and U.S. 7thCavalry troops led by Lt. Col. George Custer is entitled, Conquest of the Southern Plains: Uncensored Narrative of the Washita and Custer’s Southern Campaign. Brill’s 1938 publication relied on eyewitness accounts from aged Indian survivors of the conflict. Brill personally took Cheyennes Magpie and Little Beaver and Arapaho Left Hand along with government interpreter John Otterby, a.k.a. Lean Elk, to the site of the attack. This article relies on the 2001 republication of Brill’s accounts by the University of Oklahoma Press re-titled Custer, Black Kettle, and the Fight on the Washita.

The fertile Washita River valley area on the western edge of Indian Territory (Oklahoma) had been a common peaceful wintering ground for numerous Indian tribes for countless years before 1868. There was an abundance of water, game, shelter and vegetation. It was also an area set aside for the Indians in several treaties with the United States between Black Kettle’s Cheyenne and other tribes. On the bitterly cold, snow-covered morning of November 27, 1868 the Indians’ only concerns were keeping warm and tending to their horses. Then Custer’s seven hundred mounted soldiers came charging at the sleepy Indians from all sides with rifles blazing and sabers slashing.

Black Kettle & Medicine Woman Later Crime Scene. Photo by Peg Redwine

Black Kettle was alerted by a woman who had been tending to the horses and first saw the approaching soldiers. When she yelled out “Soldiers, soldiers!”, Black Kettle fired a warning shot with his rifle to awaken the camp. Then Black Kettle drew his wife, Medicine Woman, up behind him on his pony and attempted to flee as he and Medicine Woman shouted warnings to the camp. He and Medicine Woman were then shot and killed. Magpie, one of the eyewitnesses Brill relied upon, heard Black Kettles’ warning shot and exited his lodge just as he heard a trumpet blast from the nearby trees and then saw the mounted soldiers charging into the village from all sides. Magpie was shot in the leg but managed to escape death by entering the freezing water and hiding in the brush along the banks.

As reported by Brill at page 159:

“From every side came the heavy report of carbines. Occasionally an Indian rifle answered. But these were notable for their infrequency. So sudden had been the attack, only a few of the red men had opportunity to arm themselves. Most of those who did so had only bows and arrows. They were powerless to offer serious resistance. Flight was their only objective.

Those villagers whose tepees stood nearest the stream fared better than their friends in the center and on the south side of the camp. First to dash through the icy waters of the Washita and scramble up the opposite bank found themselves running into scouts and sharpshooters who had deployed in the timber there. They also encountered troopers, mounted and dismounted. Seeing escape shut off in that direction, the fugitives accepted the only avenue left open to them, the channel itself. It was misery to wade its ice-fringed waters, but it was either that or bullets.

Women and children, as well as braves, plunged into the stream. Most of them were scantily clad. Many were without moccasins on their feet. Frequently the water reached to the armpits of adults who had to carry the children through these deep pools to prevent their drowning. Desperately they splashed their way beyond the lines of their enemies.”

Sometimes the fog of history eventually is pierced by uncomfortable facts. The Washita massacre was originally reported as a great military victory over savage foes by courageous heroes. Those reports originated from the “heroes”. The facts managed to slowly ooze out over a great deal of time. Those facts established the betrayal of morality and violations of treaties. They do not tell us, “Why?” The reasons may be explained by Pawnee attorney and scholar of law and history Walter R. Echo-Hawk in his book on bad court cases involving Native American treatment by the dominant white culture.

In the Courts of the Conquerors, The 10 Worst Indian Law Cases Ever Decided contemplates the roots of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny and its raison d’être, The White Man’s Burden:

“A popular justification for colonialism among the colonizing nations was the white man’s burden. Originally coined by Rudyard Kipling, the term is a euphemism for imperialism based upon the presumed responsibility of white people to exercise hegemony over nonwhite people, to impart Christianity and European values, thereby uplifting the inferior and uncivilized peoples of the world. In this ethnocentric view, non-European cultures are seen as childlike, barbaric, or otherwise inferior and in need of European guidance for their own good. As thus viewed from European eyes, colonization became a noble undertaking done charitably for the benefit of peoples of color.” See p. 16

The concept of exterminating Native American culture as justified because it was replaced with the blessings of Christianity and civilization is hardly a new idea. The Romans by force of arms visited their supposed superior culture on “lesser” peoples as have many dominate societies for thousands of years. The germ of “destroying a culture to save it” is easily discovered by any powerful society that wants to take what some weaker society has. However, that there was ample precedent for the massacre at the Washita does not expiate Custer’s assault and does not obviate the moral imperative to remember it.

Washita Battlefield. Photo by Peg Redwine