Since 2016 my faith in this [un]United States of America has sorely been dwindling - however much I try to remain hopeful. As the world crumbles around us - the petty grievances we manage to turn into raging divides - are all the more heart rending.
George Washington, Mount Rushmore, Black Hills - Scott Olson/Getty Images
As our constitution is turned against us [we, the people] to be misappropriated and willfully misinterpreted by the select few - trust is being whittled away while we are brought to our knees. Whether in prayer or burdened beyond breaking point - this is what matters most now.
The constitution is the symbol for the highest laws of our land. Mount Rushmore too is the shrine of democracy and another iconic symbol of the United States - attracting over three million visitors annually to South Dakota. Few of its awed gawkers bother with the true story and cost of this monumental American build. What many are proud to honor is actually a desecration and insult to Native American nations.
Six Grandfathers prior to defacement - circa 1905
The Black Hills are considered sacred for millennia to Native American nations of the United States and Canada. What is now better known as Mount Rushmore is what the Sioux call their Six Grandfathers.
Mount Rushmore was carved into the land that was promised in perpetuity through the Treaty of 1868. The Black Hills are central to the creation stories of the Lakota who prayed and lived on this sacred land. Then when gold was found in the hills, our founders took back this promised land and ruined it with toxic greed.
Originally commissioned to honor the west’s greatest heroes, both Native Americans and pioneers. Instead, the monument embodies the age-old struggle and desecration of a government over its people.
 |
| photo by MPI - Getty Images |
The four presidents that are now carved on it had some terrible Indian policies that continue to plague native people to this day.
Abraham Lincoln was responsible for hanging the Dakota 38+2, the largest mass hanging in U.S. history. George Washington declared an all-out extermination against the Iroquois people in 1779. Thomas Jefferson supported a policy of assimilation and failing that he ordered the extermination of the Cherokee and the Creek.
original concept was not done due to lack of funds
Theodore Roosevelt, after being elected governor of New York, announced, “This continent had to be won. We need not waste our time in dealing with any sentimentalist who believes that, on account of any abstract principle, it would have been right to leave this continent to the domain, the hunting ground of squalid savages. It had to be taken by the white race.”
Black Hills Indian Camp - their way of life demolished & lost
The Six Grandfathers (Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe) was named by Lakota medicine man Nicolas Black Elk after a vision. “The vision was of the six sacred directions: west, east, north, south, above, and below. The directions were said to represent kindness and love, full of years and wisdom, like human grandfathers.”
The granite bluff that towered above the Hills remained carved only by the wind and the rain until 1927 when Gutzon Borglum began his assault on the mountain. America needs to remember this always.
History may have been written by the conquerors of that day. Today the conquered are telling the real story - we need to listen to them. Or this land will be lost to us all.
stone carver hangs on to Thomas Jefferson’s eyelid. 1936
An apt reminder this Independence Day, 4th of July 2022.
No comments:
Post a Comment