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2024年3月18日发(作者：)

Lesson 1 The Wild West’s Legacy of Shame

By John Halford

1. THE LEGENDS of the Wild West still color many people’s impression of the

United States of America. Unfortunately, the romanticized Hollywood cowboys and

Indians have given a distorted picture of what really happened.

2. Certainly, America’s western expansion was in many ways an epic of courage

and endurance. Dogged pioneers opened up new territory and forged a nation from

the wilderness. This is the stuff of legends. But there was a dark side to this story. For

the Indians it was a sad, bitter tale of misunderstanding, greed and betrayal — and we

should know that too.

3. Before 1990 fades from memory, let’s pause to remember December 29 as the

100th anniversary of the Battle of Wounded Knee. This “battle” (it was more of a

massacre) marked the completion of the conquest of the North

the United States government.

American Indians by

Not Enough Indians

4. In the early days of settlement along the Atlantic shore the colonists and the

Indians got along together. Their ways of life were different, but there was room for

both.

5. The Indians were not unorganized hostile savages. The various tribes were often

confederations or nations, and at first, the new se tlers treated them as independent

powers. But as European settlement gathered momentum, mistrust began to build.

6. It was not long before the newcomers outnumbered the native peoples (It has

been estimated there were only about a million Amerindians in the continent north of

what is now Mexico).

7. In the struggle between the French and the British for control of North America

(1689— 1763), and in the later Revolutionary War (1775—1783) between the British

and the Colonists, the Europeans tried to win the support of the Indians.

8. They became pawns in the white man’s struggle to control North America.

Those who found themselves on the losing side suffered reprisals by the victors.

9. By the end of the 18th century, the independence of the United States was

established, and George Washington admonished Congress: We are more enlightened

and more powerful than the Indian nations. It behooves our honor to treat themwith

kindness and even generosity.

10.

But that’s not what happened. Might became right

①

, and fromthe beginning

of nationhood of the United States, the native people were exploited, forced from their

homelands by the relentless European expansion — usually after signing agreements

and treaties they did not really understand.

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