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[Minimalist]

The American Indians sided with the Confederacy?

At the Battle of Pea Ridge there was a Confederate Brigade made up of Cherokee and Choctaw - two groups which did not fare too well on the Trail of Tears thanks to the US Army - But I think that was their only significant engagement.

Some Indians from New York - Mohawks, etc - joined local regiments in the Upstate Region.

[Rev. Rye]

The American Indians sided with the Confederacy?

At the Battle of Pea Ridge there was a Confederate Brigade made up of Cherokee and Choctaw - two groups which did not fare too well on the Trail of Tears thanks to the US Army -  But I think that was their only significant engagement.

Some Indians from New York - Mohawks, etc - joined local regiments in the Upstate Region.

So, presumably Tizheruk is one of those two nations, unless he's speaking in a Pan-Native American sense? Does anyone know what tribe he's actually a member of? The name "Tizheruk" comes from Inuit mythology, but given the US only purchased Alaska after the Civil War, it's highly unlikely they were involved. 

And is it unusual that I'm picturing Tizheruk as looking like this IRL?






(on a side note, Gary Farmer in Jim Jarmusch movies for the win!)

Pea Ridge is not a battle I remembered very well, if at all. Searching my Ebook copy of Battle Cry of Freedom, here's everything JAmes McPherson has to say about it:

... plus three regiments of Indians from the Five Civilized Nations in Indian Territory. The latter, mostly Cherokees, served under chiefs who had made treaties of alliance with the Confederacy in the hope of achieving greater independence within a southern nation than they enjoyed in the United States—an ironic hope, since it was mostly southerners who had driven them from their ancestral homeland a generation earlier. In any event, with Indian help the old Indian fighter Van Dorn intended to " "make a reputation and serve my country. . . . I must have St. Louis—then Huzza!"

[vorlon13]

Snopes has some interesting, if complex, information on Native Americans and the issue of slavery.

[Rev. Rye]

Snopes has some interesting, if complex, information on Native Americans and the issue of slavery.

Well, I suppose it's interesting to see the myth of the "noble savage" being trampled upon so definitively. Evidently, even the Native Americans, as sympathetic as their plight has been, could still end up being just as ignoble savages as the white people who committed numerous atrocities against them over 400 years, and in much the same way. Et in Arcadia ego. In America, everyone is a victim, and everyone is a perpetrator. It seems to be how our history has worked, and any attempt to understand how fucked up we are without understanding that has failed, in much the same way McMurdo Station has failed at being a thriving summer beach resort.