Under The Sun

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”  -- Solomon, Ecclesiastes 1:9

A few years ago, on my first trip to Oregon via the trailer, I drove throughout the night from Rapid City, SD to Bozeman, MT – a 450-mile jaunt. I like to drive at night when traffic is less dense and tractor-trailer drivers are more courteous.

But as I passed through Montana, I passed by a sign that said “little big horn” sometime around 2 a.m. and didn’t stop. As this is my second westward journey along Interstate 90, I chose to drive by day and reached the site around 2 p.m. I have been learning something about the tribes of the Sioux: the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota. The Lakota have a museum in Wall, South Dakota, with a focus on the Wounded Knee massacre. I’ve been to a couple of reservations and finally to the Little Big Horn, site of what whites would call “Custer’s Last Stand.”

Monument to where most of the 7th Calvary were buried.

What have I learned? As a kid in the 1950s, much of my life was dedicated to playing “cowboys and Indians.” Of course, what I knew of Indians was based on the westerns I saw on television: Roy, Gene, Hoppy, Marshall Dillon, Maverick, The Lone Ranger (and Tonto) The Rifleman, Sugarfoot and dozens of other shows provided me with my information on the American Indian. One of the shows, “Broken Arrow,” was a fictionalized account of the historical relationship between Indian agent Tom Jeffords, played by John Lupton, and the Chiricahua Apache chief Cochise, played by Michael Ansara. It was the only one that portrayed the Indian as people instead of mindless warriors.

In talking to Native Americans, the politically-correct name for them these days, I learned that there is still much anger at white people and especially the federal government after many treaties were broken.

And I discovered I’m angry at the government for many of the same reasons. I am furious that the Bush Administration did not control the New York banks that caused a disastrous meltdown of the economy. Well, it isn’t the first time and corrupt New York banks were the seminal cause of the Indian Wars. The panic of 1873 was the worst economic mess the country had had until that date. Overstretched on loans to the railroads (instead of bad mortgages), the banks nearly collapsed, plunging the nation into what was then called the great depression, until the 1929 stock market crash ushered in an even greater one.

I don’t know which depression/recession came in second place – the one in 1873 or the one in 2008, but both were pretty damn awful.

Anyhow, prior to the 1873 panic, there had been treaties between the Sioux and the government. It basically said that the lands in Western Dakota, especially in the Black Hills, belonged to the Sioux.

But then gold was discovered in the Black Hills. And the desperately poor whites came in droves, hoping to emerge from the depths of poverty. But the Black Hills was sacred grounds to the Sioux. Buffalo, or American Bison, were the heart and soul of the Sioux way of life, and they were quickly disappearing from the Dakotas. And so many, led by Sitting Bull, moved westward into areas of what are now Wyoming and Montana. The government had tried to purchase the Black Hills, but Sitting Bull and others refused to sell it. So they government sent George Armstrong and his 7^th Calvary to take over the land by force and confine the Sioux to reservations.

I’ve been to a couple, and they are no place you want to live.

Eventually the government ordered Sitting Bull (who fled to Canada) and the others to return to the reservation. They refused. And Custer headed to the north.

This area is called The High Plains. Today it is mostly ranchlands. And my 250-mile route from Rapid City to Little Big Horn (named after a nearby river) was constantly uphill. I usually get about 11 miles to the gallon when towing my trailer, but this stretch had me down to 8.4 mpg.

And the Sioux had a legal right to be there as spelled out by the treaty.

Top: Sculpture at Sioux monument. Bottom, tombstones commorating names of those who died. Near the Sioux monument, there are tombstones of warriors who also died.

And so Custer advanced on the Sioux. But the encampment at Little Big Horn was not just hunters, there were women, children and the elderly there too. And so the Sioux, led by Crazy Horse, attacked. Custer’s tactics were poor. Just like the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, American soldiers were at a disadvantage as the enemy had an intimate knowledge of the territory.  And Custer split his forces into three groups, two of which were massacred and the third group managed to get away.

This was the last victory for the Sioux. The government sent troops in overwhelming numbers to force the Sioux to surrender and return to the reservation.

And the banks prospered. And the rich got richer, stealing even more.

And so I ask you. What is new under the sun? The rich remain greedy while the poor struggle to get a living wage that the political party serving the rich refuses to allow. The red men remain on the reservation, mired in alcoholism and crime instead of living the life they were meant to live – in a nomadic freedom.

And today we continue to extend our wars – this time against ISIS. And the rich will become richer and those who are not slaughtered will live a life of desperation and rage. There is nothing new under the sun, except perhaps we have graduated from buffalo shit to bullshit.