Life in the North American continent was changing fast towards the end of the 19th century because of the push of the white man to the wild West. After Christopher Columbus and his crew had discovered Americas both Spane and Portugal had greatly expanded their influence in South and Middle America and Spain had established strong northern footholds beyond Mexico. Names like Los Angeles, San Fransisco, San Diego and others are reminders of those earlier times of settlement by Spanish Catholics.
Towards the end of the century the independent United States had settled the Civil War and was rapidly expanding from the Atlantic coast towards the Pacific coast through the great plains. California was the golden land and economic incentives were strong to the easterners to leave everything, jump in the wagons and start new life far in the West despite of the dangers on the way. Gold rush was not the least among them but wonderful farming land, orange groves, cattle farms and many other things were calling.
But what to do with those native Americans who had lived on those plains since crossing the Bering straits in prehistoric times? Obviously something had to be done as these cruel primitives did not leave the Iron Horse to cross the plains in peace and those wagons had to be set into circles to defend the white woman from horrible fate in their hands. Most of us have experienced through American TV series and movies these feelings and taken part in the pioneer spirit and admired the courage of these settlers dreaming of new life in the West and felt the wonderful relief when US cavalry finally reaches the crisis spot with flags flying and horns blowing and Rin Tin Tin saving the child.
There were several methods how to secure the new settlements and the rail road and the wagon trails in the vast plains were crude pagan native Americans were riding those horses and dancing wildly in their camps around those totem poles and planning the next attack on the white man.
Selling whisky to them was one efficient medicine to the problem of their existence. The fire water had profound influence on them.
Preventing them from getting fire arms was crucial and those bastards who made money by selling deadly Winchesters to the people of "India" are common criminals in American Westerns.
A more fundamental solution was needed, one that approaches true genocide. While some native American tribes were farmers, others were totally dependent on that magnificent animal, bison or buffalo, that roamed freely and provided almost everything to the hunter-gatherer societies. Not all American Indians lived on buffalo hunting but many did.
So, the damned animals could block the rails stopping trains, they could crush the maize and other fields of white Christian Americans trying to make honest living along the wagon caravan routes and they provided nourishment and protection to those hated natives lurking in the dark.
A project was started to slaughter these animals.
William Buffalo Bill Cody was born on February 26, 1846 in the Iowa Territory near LeClare. This territory existed from 1838 to 1846 and it was admitted to the Union as State of Iowa (December 28, 1846).
From wikipedia we learn about the earlier inhabitants of Iowa territory:
"When the American Indians first arrived in what is now Iowa more than 13,000 years ago, they were hunters and gatherers living in a Pleistocene glacial landscape. By the time European explorers visited Iowa, American Indians were largely settled farmers with complex economic, social, and political systems. This transformation happened gradually. During the Archaic period (10,500-2,800 years ago), American Indians adapted to local environments and ecosystems, slowly becoming more sedentary as populations increased. More than 3,000 years ago, during the Late Archaic period, American Indians in Iowa began utilizing domesticated plants. The subsequent Woodland period saw an increase on the reliance on agriculture and social complexity, with increased use of mounds, ceramics, and specialized subsistence. During the Late Prehistoric period (beginning about A.D. 900) increased use of maize and social changes led to social flourishing and nucleated settlements. The arrival of European trade goods and diseases in the Protohistoric period led to dramatic population shifts and economic and social upheaval, with the arrival of new tribes and early European explorers and traders. ...
Approximately seventeen different American Indian tribes had resided here at various times including the Ioway, Sauk, Meskwaki (called Fox in many sources), Sioux, Potawatomi, Oto, and Missouri."
Wikipedia
But whats a few thousand years of history, even ten thousand, when these people stand on the way of the progress and legitimate needs and rights of the white man?
"From 1868 until 1872 Cody was employed as a scout by the United States Army. Part of this time he spent scouting for Indians, and the remainder was spent gathering and killing bison for them and the Kansas Pacific Railroad. In January 1872 Cody was a scout for Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia's highly publicized royal hunt."
Buffalo Bill got his Medal of Honor. Many other white men like him were involved in the politically motivated strategic slaughter of the American bison, the buffalo.
Why? Well, we all know why, don't we?
As for the olive tree, the symbol of peace
After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark.
He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.
Genesis 8:6-12.
Olive tree is also the beautiful symbol of the people of Israel and can live undisturbed over a thousand years. It is told that the slow growing tree begins to produce oil about thirty years after planting.
Olive oil production and export to Jordan and other countries is the most fundamental source of income for Palestinian farmers in the West Bank of Jordan.
The popularity of those John Wayne classic Wild West movies depicting bad Indians has steadily declined also in the United States after the publication of Dee Brown's book Bury my heart at Wounded Knee in 1970 which was adapted into a movie.
The other side of the coin can be told now when the conquest of the West is solid and Indians live in their reservates peacefully and without posing any danger to the white man. The social psyche can look at the 19th century conflict more broadly and bravely about hundred years after it is over.
A particularly strong description of the change and how modern Americans see their ancestors not so long ago on their way to settle West is the seven Academy Awards winning movie Dances with Wolves shot in South Dakota and Wyoming.
The Sioux Nation adopted Kevin Costner as an honorary member.
