Originally posted by Eagler
"[The Sand Creek Massacre was] as righteous and beneficial a deed as ever took place on the frontier."
Theodore Roosevelt
Sand Creek Massacre
TR was not a friend of the american indians
whoever thinks he was should:
"Again, educate yourself about Roosevelt and then you'll be better able to discuss those things you don't like about the man. "
see pages 10 and 11 in James Bradley's Flyboy
With regard to the Sand Creek Massacre, I cannot locate where TR made the reported statement. TR is frequently quoted out of context by ignorant or unscrupulous writers to support their agenda.
For example, TR is often slammed for referring to Indians as "Lazy" and "drunken beggars". If read within its context, you see that TR is describing how "backwoodsmen" viewed the Indians.
TR wrote in Volume two of Winning The West:
"To them he was in peace a lazy, dirty, drunken beggar, whom they despised, and yet whom they feared; for the squalid, contemptible creature might at any moment be transformed into a foe whose like there was not to be found in all the wide world for ferocity, cunning, and blood-thirsty cruelty."
Yet, one author wrote the following, which indicates either remarkable stupidity or a clear cut attempt to deliberately misquote:
"In his book, "The Winning of the West," the American hero and Bigot Theodore Roosevelt wrote that the Indian was a lazy, dirty, drunken beggar, whom the frontiersman despised and yet whom they feared; for the squalid contemptible creature might at any moment be transformed into a foe whose like was not to be found in all the wide world for ferocity, cunning, and bloodthirsty cruelty. Theodore Roosevelt's last term ended in 1909. I am willing to bet that Congress had no intention of correcting this racist view"
It's quite amazing how people will distort facts to support an argument or simply libel the dead. The above is textbook example of taking a section of text and contorting it to suit one's agenda.
I've read Flyboys and found Bradley to be remarkably nearsighted in his analysis of the Roosevelt vis-a-vis his thoughts on the Japanese evils and those done to the American Indian. Bradley's argument is fundamentally flawed as is much of his reasoning. The book is loaded with contridictions and self-righteous bombast. Seriously, Bradley seems to justify Japanese atrocities by comparing them to what happened to the American Indians in the preceeding two centuries. Such an argument is untenable. He also refers to the four presidents portrayed on Mt. Rushmore as "white supremacists", which was not lost on many critics of Flyboys.
I have little regard for Bradley, who cannot write on historical events without framing it within his own social-political agenda.
You cannot measure historical figures by modern standards of social morals. Historical persons were creatures of their times, and should be judged according to the social standards of those times.
My regards,
Widewing
