Book Hippo

Friday, March 11, 2016

A Native Conspiracy

In the nineties, when I took to researching and history reading, I found myself drawn to the history of North, Central and South American. Most specifically, the native peoples, who they were and how their stories played out. I found this most interesting and after reading quite a few books I decided to check the newspapers at the National Archives to see what they reported on the subject at the time that events happened. I went to the oldest newspaper they had, a microfilm, actually, it was from the USA before it was USA. The date was in the 1600s on the east coast. At that time, the Cherokees lived in the east and were trying to get along with the white people in their midst. However, up north, in what is now southern Ontario, a group of white-hating natives called the Mingoes were wanting to start a war against white expansion. They were, in fact, prescient, and could see that white people would destroy the native world forever. They were also remnants of tribes that had already been disseminated by the whites. They knew of what they spoke. So the article was about a meeting that was supposed to take place between the Cherokees and the whites. The whites disappeared and it was put around that the Cherokees had kidnapped them. The Cherokees big men got together and approached the whites in the colony, said they did not do it. That it was a warrior named The Wolf who had kidnapped the whites and tried to blame it on the Cherokees. The plot: that the whites would attack the Cherokee in retaliation and start a war. Then the Cherokee would side with the Mingoes and together they would destroy the whites. Alas, the Cherokees wanted peace and promised to retrieve the kidnapped white people. I never read if there was a follow-up piece or what they did about The Wolf. I didn't have to, I know how the story eventually played out. Two hundred years later the Cherokees were displaced, sent to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears. The Mingoes do not exist anymore. We won, blah, blah, blah. but sometimes victory doesn't feel so good.