Custerland? Give it back to the Indians
There is talk of eliminating the Custer name from South Dakota geography. Fellow bloggers Tom Lawrence and Cory Heidelberger have written about the issue. To people who are acquainted with the facts of Custer's history, his name is a matter of shame, not honor. While Custer acted with dash and daring during the Civil War, his record on the frontier was not admirable.
Some years ago I participated in historical reenactment of the Civil War and frontier period. Some call it living history. It was a way to recreate some of the realities of the past ways of life and get sense of life as people experienced it. I joined a group that assumed the name of an infantry unit stationed for a time at Fort Sissseton (it was called Fort Wadsworth when the unit was there), the First U.S. Volunteers. The actual unit was composed of Confederate soldiers taken prisoner by the Union Army. They were men who were released from the prison camp in exchange for pledging allegiance to the Union and enlistIng in the U.S. Army. They were called Galvanized Yankees and were sent to the frontier to serve so they wouldn't be involved in any skirmishes with their own people in the Civil War. A point of the living history units was to get past superficial history and explore the full facts of what happened and what life was like in the past.
There were a number of re-enactment units that portrayed Custer's outfit, the Seventh Calvary. While some portrayed a glamorized version of Custer, others dug into the historical record and revealed that Custer was a bit of a jerk. During Civil War years, Custer impressed his commanders. But then Custer sought a reputation as an Indian fighter, and the pursuit of that role finally did him in. Historians and biographers are divided on Custer's reputation, but they all record how vainglory took over the latter part of his life. Custer donned swashbuckling clothing rather than his Army uniform and he perfumed his hair. And he did some militarily stupid things.
When he was supposed to be on a supply mission, he ventured off to visit his wife. He was court-martialed and suspended for a year from rank and pay. However, the Army was not doing well on the frontier as far as Indian fighting was concerned, and some commanders wanted the brash and eager Custer back, so before his suspension was up, he was returned to duty.
One of his major actions was the Battle of the Washita, often known as the Washita Massacre. He divided his force, surrounded a Cheyenne winter camp, and killed and took captive many women and children. Custer inflated the number of Indian casualties and his figures far outnumbered an official count, but nevertheless, the Indian Bureau termed the event a massacre. It demonstrated Custer's penchant for killing Indians.
Custer's name in western South Dakota commemorates atrocities committed against Indians, not the least of which is the outright theft of their land through the violation of the treaty that was supposed to guarantee their possession of it.
In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court acknowleged that the land, particularly the Black Hills. was wrongfully taken. The U.S. offered to compensate the Lakota people with more than $100 million, but they turned it down.
Custer was assigned in 1874 to make an assessment of the Black Hills, and in doing so he wrote accounts for newspapers that emphasized the lodes of gold. They inspired a gold rush into the Hills, which were designated Indian territory and off-limits. At first the government sent the Army to escort the invaders off of Indian land but soon gave up on the effort, and West River South Dakota was taken over by white settlers. The offer of money to the Lakota in 1980 was a recognition that the non-native residents were living on wrongfully occupied land. If the money were accepted, the government could claim it was purchased. The Lakota rejected the offer, so they have a claim to land on which the people who occupy it are, in historical and legal terms, squatters. The Lakota people have a valid claim to the land.
As indicated in the map, all of West River was designated as reservation. As a practical matter, the Lakota people would not try to exercise a claim on West River, except to assert in legal terms that such a claim was designated to them. The Black Hills are another matter. They have a special significance in the spiritual life of the Indian people which defines them culturally and geographically. And the non-native people who live in the Black Hills are the illegals. The illegals tend to dismiss the possibility of returning Black Hills land, but serious proposals have been offered for consideration. In the 1980s, a bill (called the Brady Bill) was put before Congress proposing to return 1.3 million acres of National Forest land to the Indians. It was, of course, defeated, but it kept alive the fact that the native people have a valid claim to the land. And it presented a way that the return of land could be negotiated.
The removal of the names of those who committed atrocities from the geography of the Hills is in process. Harney Peak in the Black Hills, named for Gen. William S. Harney who prided himself for killing Indians, in 2016 was renamed Black Elk Peak, an Oglala holy man whose dictated biography is a prime source in explaining the Lakota viewpoint regarding the land.
The reacquirement of land for Indians was given a big step forward with the settlement of a 15-year-long law suit against the government for the mismanagement of tribal lands. The Cobell Settlement in 2009 awarded Native Americans $3.4 billion. $2 billion was provided for the restoration of lands which had been fragmented away back to the tribes, designated as the Cobell Land Buy-Back Program. $100 million was sent to Pine Ridge to restore land to the reservation. On the eastern side of South Dakota, the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate have used funds from the program to reconsolidate land on the Lake Traverse Reservation.
https://northernbeacon.blogspot.com/2012/05/give-mt-rushmore-back-to-indians.html
17 comments:
I appreciate this article except for one detail - the use of the term "illegals" as a pejorative label on human beings. Using such language detracts from any argument, reflects poorly on the writer, and has the potential to cause harm to those so labeled. While non-Native residents of the Black Hills may be acting, or have acted, in violation of a law, that does not make them any more "illegal" people than every other person that has violated some law.
il·le·gal | i(l)ˈlēɡəl |
adjective
contrary to or forbidden by law, especially criminal law: illegal drugs.
noun derogatory, mainly North American
a person present in a country without official authorization.
This looks like an online dictionary definition. I note that it shares characteristics with the online definitions of similar words, such as kike, wop, and similar derogatory or offensive labels which also are generally inappropriate and unnecessary despite the fact that dictionaries might acknowledge such uses.
That is an entry from the New Oxford American Dictionary supported online by Apple. Its lexicographers base their definitions and citations of usage on etymology, which is quite different for the word you find objectionable than for the ones you try to compare it to. I consult accomplished etymologists in matters of word choice.
The New Oxford dictionary you quoted describes the term as "noun derogatory" and consistent with such description, it is a simple fact that in modern usage labeling a human an "illegal" is understood by a substantial portion of the community, including many of those so-labeled, as a dehumaninzing and demeaning insult. See e.g.,
"When you label someone an “illegal alien” or “illegal immigrant” or just plain “illegal,” you are effectively saying the individual, as opposed to the actions the person has taken, is unlawful. The terms imply the very existence of an unauthorized migrant in America is criminal.
In this country, there is still a presumption of innocence that requires a jury to convict someone of a crime. If you don’t pay your taxes, are you an illegal? What if you get a speeding ticket? A murder conviction? No. You’re still not an illegal. Even alleged terrorists and child molesters aren’t labeled illegals.
By becoming judge, jury and executioner, you dehumanize the individual and generate animosity toward them. New York Times editorial writer Lawrence Downes says “illegal” is often 'a code word for racial and ethnic hatred.' "
https://www.cnn.com/2012/07/05/opinion/garcia-illegal-immigrants
If you are still comfortable labeling people as "illegals" then that is certainly your perogative. As a reader that recognizes the high value given by rational readers to your frequent blog posts, however, I fear your use of the term gives it a harmful legitimacy, hence my initial and follow up comments. Nevertheless, I do respect your responses and your efforts to defend using this "noun derogatory" term.
In the convention of dictionary citations, the Oxford indicates that when used in North America as a noun, "illegal" may be derogatory. In our history, people like Trump have used the word as a synonym for the term "wetback." However, the entry has a prior meaning to designate someone who resides in a place in violation of existing law. I do not defend the use of a word with an established meaning outside the connotations someone may choose as its primary definition. My point, as illustrated by the 1980 Supreme Court decision, is that the existing applicable law (the Treaty of 1868) makes any non-Natives residing in West River illegals. The entry from the Legal Dictionary addresses your concerns more extensively:
illegal
1) adj. in violation of statute, regulation or ordinance, which may be criminal or merely not in conformity. Thus, an armed robbery is illegal, and so is an access road which is narrower than the county allows, but the violation is not criminal. 2) a person residing in a country of which he/she is not a citizen and who has no official permission to be there. (See: alien, illegal immigrant)
Copyright © 1981-2005 by Gerald N. Hill and Kathleen T. Hill. All Right reserved.
ILLEGAL. Contrary to law; unlawful.
2. It is a general rule, that the law will never give its aid to a party who has entered into an illegal contract, whether the same be in direct violation of a statute, against public policy, or opposed to public morals. Nor to a contract which is fraudulent, which affects the defendant or a third person.
3. A contract in violation of a statute is absolutely void, and, however disguised, it will be set aside, for no form of expression can remove the substantial defect inherent in the nature of the transaction; the courts will investigate the real object of the contracting parties, and if that be repugnant to the law, it will vitiate the transaction.
4. Contracts against the public policy of the law, are equally void as if they were in violation of a public statute; a contract not to marry any one, is therefore illegal and void. See Void.
5. A contract against the purity of manners is also illegal; as, for example, a agreement to cohabit unlawfully with another, is therefore void; but a bond given for past cohabitation, being considered as remuneration for past injury, is binding. 4 Bouv. Inst. n. 3853.
6. All contracts which have for their object, or which may in their consequences, be injurious to third persons, altogether unconnected with them, are in general illegal and void. Of the first, an example may be found in the case where a sheriff's officer received a sum of money from a defendant for admitting to bail, and agreed to pay the bail, part of the money which was so exacted. 2 Burr. 924. The case of a wager between two persons, as to the character of a third, is an example of the second class. Cowp. 729; 4 Camp. 152; 1 Rawle, 42; 1 B. & A. 683. Vide Illicit; Unlawful.
A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856.
I would introduce two more words into this exchange, to wit: pettifogger and pedant.
Those are pe(e) words, which seem to denote a pissing duel.
I see that the legal dictionary definition in your comment uses the term "illegal" only as an adjective and references human behavior and a non-human entity, i.e. a contract. It seems quite appropriate to use "illegal" as an adjective describing unlawful human behavior, such as "illegally occupying a piece of real estate like the Black Hills," illegally murdering someone, illegally parking in front of a fire hydrant, etc., or to describe some inanimate object, such as an illegal contract, illegal substance, etc.
And you are certainly right "that people like Trump have used the word as a synonym for the term 'wetback,'" which seems to confirm my objection. After all European occupiers of Native lands (or their direct ancestors by definition crossed the Atlantic fron Europe just as the people derogatorily labeled "wetbacks" crossed the Rio Grande. Either term is quite dehumanizing.
Yes, if you prefer it to be.
Actually, it's not my preference, it is a statement of reality for the labeled people. The decision to use this term to label people is a choice. The fact that people can be hurt by such labeling is not a choice.
And calling the attempt to challenge the use of a particularly odious term "a pissing duel" doesn't seem to add much to any attempted intellectual defense for the use of the the derogatory term to label people.
The responses to my comments here, however, provide evidence that suggest, despite my repeated efforts, I have simply failed to adequately explain the harm caused by the term. That is on me. So be it.
I worked as a court administrator with my last job in a federal court that covered South Dakota. In recent years, there was a movement to “drop the i-word” from usage because when applied to immigrants it had become a pejorative, Our policy manual took up the issue. ‘ “Illegal” is a simple word with a supposedly simple meaning that has, as words often do, become so laden with undefined meaning that different people think very different things when they use or hear it.’ So, some judges recommended that we stop using it and substitute the word “unauthorized.” But that term did not cover all the situations that “illegal” encompasses, especially when it refers to a status that is outside the purview of the law.
After the Supreme Court decision of 1980 on Indian lands, legal scholars explored the status of West River residents on land that still carried the legal designation of The Great Sioux Reservation and where the Court found fault with legal actions that subsequently fragmented the reservation. In papers that discussed possible settlement of the land issues, the lawyers referred to affected residents as “illegals,” specifically meaning people whose status regarding their title to land was not covered by law. Some objected to use of the term, to which a judge asked for a term that adequately described the same circumstance. No one could come up with one, which resulted in a stern lecture. In court, the judges said, words will be understood in their lexical sense, not in any degenerate sense that some may use them. The court will not defer to malice and ignorance, they stated.
Does everyone agree that it's time to give back the land, at least a significant portion, as indicated in the title of this essay?
Interesting background Anne - thanks. I note that Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, has stated
"I always use ‘illegal aliens’ and I have when I was assigned to the Department of Justice, when I worked at the FBI, when I was assigned as the director of the foreign terrorism task force because it’s a term, it’s a legal term, it’s in statute, it’s a federal term--and it’s not intended to degrade anybody in any way, shape or form."
Politifact decided to check this claim out and found:
"The term appears--yet scarcely--in federal law. Best we can tell, though, no law defines the term as referring to all individuals living in the U.S. without legal authorization. Where the term does appear, it’s undefined or part of an introductory title or limited to apply to certain individuals convicted of felonies.
On balance, we rate McCraw’s claim Half True." (My italics)
The analysis is at:
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/may/09/steve-mccraw/illegal-alien-legal-term-federal-law/
This research seems to support an inference that the term "illegals," alone to refer to human beings, is not used at all in federal statutes, but I could be wrong.
It is doubtful that such a term would be used in a law, but case transcripts would be a different story.
Jerry K. Sweeney I agree.
FWIT: New rules for ICE and CBP officials: Terms like "alien" and "illegal" are out, and words like "migrant" and "undocumented" are now authorized, according to a memo making the rounds today for department chiefs at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/illegal-alien-assimilation/2021/04/19/9a2f878e-9ebc-11eb-b7a8-014b14aeb9e4_story.html
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