The remains of shellfish once eaten on the site were carbon dated. The results were sensational. The earliest date is 730 B.C. This means that the settlement could have been founded 2,700 years ago. What has been discovered has changed our entire view of the people who once lived here. ibid.
They (the Mormon townspeople) sent messengers requesting that the Paiutes go into town and hear a letter read to them. Many did. They gathered in the meetinghouse to hear Bishop William Allred address them. According to a previous plan, the Circleville men who outnumbered the Indians three to one came in unarmed and intermingled with them. The bishop read the message from Fort Sanford, stressing that the settlers wanted only peace with their band, but the Indians would have to help by lending them their guns. In return, the Paiutes could work for the whites and be paid in goods. When the Indians showed reluctance to give up their weapons, the settlers acted: ‘Each man knowing his place and what was expected of him, grabbed hold of his Indian … to disarm [him]. They all showed resistance but their bows and arrows and knives were taken from them’. Next, ‘their arms were tied to a stick which was passed behind their backs and under their arms’. Bishop Allred would later put his own twist to the incident in his report to LDS church authority George A Smith, writing that it took some time to convince the Indians, but they ‘reluctantly surrendered their weapons’. Captain James Allred (Mormon army) and his men went to the camp to apprehend those who had earlier refused the ‘invitation’.
... The rest of the Paiutes were taken to the meetinghouse, where the women and children were separated from the men and taken to an unused cellar that had been dug for a proposed flourmill. The prisoners numbered about sixteen men and probably about as many women and children. Linda King Newell, A History of Paiute Country, citing the James Munson and Oluf Larsen journals
Towards evening … some of the [captives] succeeded in getting loose and commenced an attack upon the guard, knocking two of them down. The guard was afraid of a general break … hence the guard opened fire and shot two of the Indians ... after a short consultation it was decided that the settlement would be in danger if the Indians were allowed to escape. Though the people loathed the thought of killing them, it was nevertheless concluded to do so. ibid. citing Rex Fullmer’s account from James Munson’s journal
The truth is that Native Americans have occupied the New World for at least 13,000 years. This is an indisputable fact that the LDS Newsroom overlooks. They widely colonised North and South America for TEN THOUSAND years before Lehi allegedly arrived. For over a century mainstream archaeologists, geneticists and anthropologists studying Native Americans have believed their ancestors migrated from Asia across dry land (Beringia) exposed during the last ice age. The DNA evidence suggests a slightly earlier arrival date of about 16,000 years ago. It hasn’t changed things much.
... The problem is all that Asian DNA (99.5%) which arrived in the Americas in excess of 15,000 years ago. The only non-Asian DNA (0.5%) is either European or African and derived from post Columbus admixture. Simon Southerton, board post February 2014, ‘Book of Mormon and DNA Studies’
It’s one of the great mysteries of north America: a prehistoric native American civilisation builds an enormous Mecca in the middle of nowhere that lures thousands from across the south-west. Secret Worlds: The Anasazi, 2010
Spectacular fortresses built into the edges of cliffs. But crippled by fear and paranoia as the culture tears itself apart, then they vanish. ibid.
They were a culture of skywatchers. ibid.
Without the buffalo the plains Indians simply could not survive. How the Wild West Was Won with Ray Mears II, BBC 2014
When I was a kid my heroes were sheriffs, gunman, outlaw, train robbers and Indian fighters. Tony Robinson’s Wild West I, Discovery 2015
These are genuine 3-D photographs of real Cowboys and Indians ... Stereograph prints were popular all over the world. ibid.
Before the Europeans arrived there were around two million Native people living in America. ibid.
The Sioux lived on the Great Plains ... These were a nomadic people. ibid.
Sitting Bull: people joined his resistance. ibid.
Only seven years ago we made a treaty by which we were assured that the buffalo country should be left to us forever. Now they threaten to take that from us also. Sitting Bull
They mastered this tough environment to develop a culture that has lasted over ten thousand years. Jago Cooper, Masters of the Pacific Coast: The Tribes of the American Northwest I: Arrival, BBC 2016
They had developed a thriving, sophisticated and hierarchical society … There were hundreds of tribes living here, each with distinct identities and different languages, yet similar cultural traditions. ibid.
In 1774 a Spanish exploration vessel arrived on the uncharted Pacific coast of North America. Next morning dozens of war canoes approached the ship … Jago Cooper, Masters of the Pacific Coast II: Survival
Within a hundred years of contact with Europeans, they had suffered a near-extinction level catastrophe. Their lands were occupied; the population decimated. An entire culture faced extinction. ibid.
Entire civilisations like the Aztec and the Inca were destroyed … The people here were among the last indigenous American cultures they [Spanish & British 1770s] encountered. ibid.
British Columbia: these islands are to this day the homeland of the Haida people; one of the most powerful of the west-coast nations. ibid.
Native Americans are still getting the short end of the stick. Rich Hall’s Inventing the Indian, BBC 2017
Just a name that invokes fear – Geronimo. ibid.
These headbands were invented by a costume designer. ibid.
Only soldiers had saddles on their horses. ibid.
The Last of the Mohicans: the book is a bloated turgid orotund work of spectacular historical misrepresentation. ibid.
‘Everything is ridiculed.’ ibid. Charlie Hill, Oneida comic & writer
Frankenstein amalgam of what they imagined an Indian to be. ibid.
Pine Ridge doesn’t have a problem with just drink-driving, Pine Ridge has a problem with drink-walking. ibid.
The massacre at Wounded Knee – many of whose victims are buried in this mass grave – marks the end of 50 years of hostility between the Calvary and the Plains Indians. ibid.
A Man Called Horse: probably no film has pissed Indians off more. ibid.
1969: A group of American Indians occupied Alcatraz Island. ibid.
In California a genocidal campaign had reduced the indigenous population from 150,000 in 1846 to 30,000 by 1870. Plutocracy: Political Repression in the USA I: Divide and Rule, 2015
[For] the settlers along the American frontier it was the ultimate horror, a fate worse than death to be carried off by Indians. But for more than two centuries it happened to thousands of men, women and children. What was their fate? In Search of History s1e6: Captives, History 1996
Adoption was an ancient custom. ibid.
‘The act of capture is nearly always extraordinarily gentle.’ ibid.
Iwo Jima: An obscure mystical language is heard crackling … One of America’s greatest military secrets: a language spoken by Navajos. In Search of History s3e4: Navajo Code Talkers, History 1998
Summer 1911: In a remote area of northern California an Indian in hiding for 40 years walks out of the Stone Age and into modern civilisation. This intriguing survivor, the last of his tribe, will have a profound impact on all those who meet him. In Search of History s3e11: Ishi, The Last of His Kind
The Badlands, South Dakota. There’s been a homicide on Indian land. Several in recent years. There’s a militant group operating on the reservation: call themselves ARM, Aboriginal Rights Movement. Extremely violent … It’s turned into a civil conflict. Thunderheart 1992 starring Val Kilmer & Sam Shepard & Graham Greene & Fred Ward & Fred Thompson & Sheila Tousey & Ted Thin Elk & John Trudell & Julius Drum & Sarah Brave & Patrick Massatt & Rex Linn et al, director Michael Apted, chief rozzer
You guys are just the second coming of the same old cavalry. They don’t want you here and nobody’s gonna talk to you. ibid. Crow Horse