Saturday, January 16, 2010
Response to Elias Boudinot's "An Adress to the Whites"
After hearing the history behind Elias Boudinot's story in class on Thursday I believe that since Boudiont committed a capital crime he received the punishment that he deserved. I do not think that Boudiont and the 31 other people from the Cherokee nation that were involved in the treaty made the decision in the best interest of the Cherokee people. I think the 32 thought about themselves first, and the rest of the Cherokee nation second. Unfortunatly the action of 32 directly resulted in the death of 4,000 Cherokee people. In regards to the question that was brought up in class, I do not think that the treaty prevented a larger amount of deaths that would have occured if the Cherokee people would have stayed and fought for their land. Even if this would have been the case, and more people would have died if they stayed and fought for their land they would have died for the dignity and human rights of their people, rather than being forced to Oklahoma and dying along the trail.
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Yeah, Boudinot is a hard one to think about. I'm inclined to agree with you, and I was kind of surprised at the Boudinot sympathizers. It made me think about my own positioning of the history. I wondered if I made him sound sympathetic. I mean, I do think it is impossible for us to know why people make the decisions that they do -- especially when those decisions occurred so many years under unimaginable duress -- but I think you might be on to something about how to choose to go out, and I'm not sure Boudinot chose the strongest way. You might check out the blogs "ideas on indians," and "squamelon," who also address this issue.
ReplyDeleteI personally think he did what he did with good intentions. I think he felt educated enough on the situation to try to make a strategic move to avoid mass genocide. Also think that a massacre was to happen anyway given the context of the events. I could say that if I were in his shoes and people weren't listening to me, I'd flee for myself. It's a really tough situation nonetheless.
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