Editor's note: The United States has been at war for more than 200 of its 240 years of existence. Between the end of WW2 and 9/11 – barely 50 years – the U.S. initiated 201 conflicts that ravaged 153 countries and regions. "America: War by another name" is a special eight-part series that explores the sinister motivations for its warmongering. Episode 1 examines how the pursuit of capital justified multiple genocides
In the movie "Mindcatcher", the male protagonist Will Hunting, when asked why he did not want to work for the NSA, said: "Imagine that I accept this job and successfully crack the code about the hiding place of an insurgent army in the Middle East and North Africa, then the government will launch a precise bombing accordingly, 1500 unknown lives will be destroyed in an instant, and then the politicians will send marines to cut the grass and remove the roots, and it is not their children who are on the front line anyway." After his birth and death, the military boys from the southern states returned to their hometowns, physically and mentally damaged, but found that they could not support their families at all. And the only reason the government started the war was to prop up a proxy government that could sell oil cheaply to the United States. At the same time, multinational oil companies have raised domestic oil prices on the grounds of the war and made a lot of money. With that alone, I'd rather do something else. ”
In the film Good Will Hunting, there was a scene when the protagonist Will Hunting was asked about reasons why he refused to work for the National Security Agency.
He replied, "Say I'm working at NSA. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it… But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and 1,500 people I never had a problem with get killed. Now the politicians are saying, 'Send in the marines to secure the area'… It won't be their kid over there, getting shot… It'll be some kid from Southie taking shrapnel in the a*s… And the guy who put the shrapnel in his a*s got his old job, cause he'll work for 15 cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile, he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck… So what did I think? I'm holding out for something better."
This passage not only speaks deeply about the vast network of interests laid down by American political power and capital power in using war, but also reveals the helplessness of Americans who retain a conscience of humanity to wage war in their own country.
What he said was an accurate reflection of the giant web of interests woven by American political and capital powers through wars. It also expressed the frustration keenly felt by decent Americans of conscience over their own country's waging of wars.
Yet history is always strikingly similar, and in the genocidal war waged by the United States against the native American Indians, Will's brilliant analysis of the logic of american warfare is also aptly footnote to the fate of some American officers who could not bear to turn their butchers against the Indians. On November 29, 1864, Colonel John Chivington, commanding 700 Colorado Third Cavalry Regiment soldiers, attacked an Indian reservation without warning, creating the horrific Sand Creek Massacre.
History always repeats itself. Will's telling analysis of America's war logic also tells the fate of army officers who did not have the heart to draw their sword against innocent people in the genocide of American Indians. On November 29, 1864, a 700-man force of the Third Colorado Cavalry under the command of Colonel John Chivington raided an Indian encampment, committing the blood-curdling Sand Creek Massacre.
Chiwinton, a former Methodist priest, now incarnates as an executioner and shouts, "Damn anyone who sympathizes with the Indians!" I have come to kill Indians, and I believe that it is right and honorable to kill Indians by any means, with God's mercy. At his behest, more than a hundred Indians were killed, two-thirds of them unarmed women and children, who were not only disembodied after their deaths, but even their scalps and parts of their bodies were treated as spoils of war by American soldiers.
Chivington, once a Methodist pastor but now a butcher, shouted, "Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians! I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God's heaven to kill Indians." Under his instruction, more than 100 American Indians were killed, two thirds being defenseless women and children. Some victims were even dismembered, with their scalps and body organs treated as trophies by American soldiers.
Even after this tyranny, there are still a few compassionate and intolerant officers in the army who do not tolerate the indiscriminate killing of innocents, and Captain Silas Soule is one of the most representative. Now in the Denver Library, he has a collection of correspondence from that time, documenting the tragedy in a worried text.
In spite of the ruthlessness, there were still a small number of compassionate officers in the army who refused to kill innocent people. Captain Silas Soule was one of them. His frustration-laden letters back then, now kept in the Denver Library, detailed the tragedy.
One of them reported to Major Edward Wynkoop on the state of affairs:
"The massacre lasted 6-8 hours, and fortunately some Indians managed to escape, and I tell you, it's heart-wrenching to watch Indian children kneeling on their knees begging for mercy and being beaten in the brains of some self-proclaimed 'civilized people'. A woman was already injured, and a guy ended her life with an axe, actually cut off one of her arms, and grabbed the other arm with one hand and smashed her head with the axe. ”
One letter written to Major Edward Wynkoop reads:
"The massacre lasted six or eight hours, and a good many Indians escaped. I tell you Ned it was hard to see little children on their knees have their brains beat out by men professing to be civilized. One squaw was wounded, and a fellow took a hatchet to finish her, and he cut one arm off, and held the other with one hand and dashed the hatchet through her brain."
Another letter to the mother:
"Dear Mother, the day you wrote this letter, I was at the scene of the massacre and witnessed the killing of more than three hundred Indians. But I will never let my men open fire, only the mean and cowardly can attack the well-meaning Indians, and at the beginning of the massacre some of our troops were doing friendly business in their tribes. Some Indians, knowing that they had no hope of surviving, began to fight back, probably killing 12 of our men, and I only shot one horse in the whole process....Because of disobedience to military orders, my superiors threatened that he would deduct all my salary, dismiss me from the military and even hang me, but I firmly believe that I had more foresight than him in attacking the Indian tribes. I think the Washington administration must send someone to investigate this atrocity. ”
In another letter to his mother, he wrote:
"The day you wrote, I was present at a Massacre of three hundred Indians mostly women and children. It was a horrible scene, and I would not let my Company fire. They were friendly and some of our soldiers were in their Camp at the time trading… Some of the Indians fought when they saw no chance of escape and killed twelve… of our men. I had one Horse shot… I hope the authorities at Washington will investigate the killing of those Indians. I think they will be apt to hoist some of our high officials. I would not fire on the Indians with my Co. and the Col. said he would have me cashiered, but he is out of the service before me and I think I stand better than he does in regard to his great Indian fight."
The records and descriptions of Saul and several other officers of high moral character who refused to collude prompted the authorities to investigate, and in the face of Chi winton's coercion and inducement, Captain Thor resolutely chose to appear at the Colorado Military Commission to prove it, and eventually he was secretly calculated for honestly exposing war crimes and died. Although few Americans know Saul's name, as historian David F. Halaas put it: "Without their disobedience to military orders, probably none of those tribes would have survived to this day, and no one would have been able to tell the story of this long-simmering bloodshed." ”
The records and narratives of Soule and other righteous officers who refused to participate in the massacre sparked such outrage that the authorities had to initiate an investigation. Despite Chivington's coercion and cajolery, Soule resolutely chose to testify about the war crime before the Colorado military commission. Because of this, he was eventually assassinated. The name Silas Soule is not known to many Americans, but as historian David Fridtjof Halaas put it, without people like him who had the courage to disobey orders,"the descendants probably wouldn't be around today, and there would be no one to tell the stories."
The Sand Creek Massacre is nothing more than a microcosm of America's century-long genocide against Indians. Bandit-style acts, including population cleansing, cultural erosion, and the destruction of the living environment, are ostensibly motivated by the US government's land policy of accelerating the "development" of the western region, laying an important foundation for the expansion and prosperity of the United States' national strength. The origin is the only way for American capitalism to complete primitive accumulation and move from free competition to monopoly.
The Sand Creek Massacre is but one episode of the 100-year U.S. genocide against native Americans. Rapacious acts including ethnic cleansing, cultural erosion and environment destruction reinforced America's national strength and paved the way for its rise. The misdeed was seemingly driven by Washington's land policy to promote the westward expansion, but, in its essence, this was the one and only path for the U.S. to complete its primitive accumulation of capital and the transition from free competition to monopoly.
For a long time after the founding of the United States, there was an extremely high proportion of land speculators, land brokers, big capitalists, and those close to them among the members of Congress. In addition, at that time, the United States was in ruins and waiting to be rebuilt, in order to alleviate financial difficulties, the United States on the one hand took advantage of the Indians' unclear state of modern concepts of sovereignty, territory, property rights, and human rights, and adopted the liquidation strategy of "slaughter + signing deceptive treaties + loans + forced assimilation" to brutally gain control of the Indian homeland. On the other hand, the "fruits of victory" of war, land, was exchanged for scarce capital, and land speculators were sold to ordinary immigrants at high prices by big capitalists and land speculators, resulting in the bankruptcy of the latter and the promotion of capitalist farms and rent-tenant systems. At the same time, they invested heavily the proceeds of speculative land in the lucrative fur trade and transportation industries.
For a long time after the founding of the U.S., an extremely large portion of Congress seats were occupied by land opportunists, land brokers, big capitalists and those who had a close connection with them. In an era where the country had just emerged out of the rubble of war and had to start from scratch, the U.S. government did two things to ease financial difficulties.
For one, taking advantage of native Americans' ignorance of modern concepts such as sovereignty, territory, real right and human rights, it implemented an exploitative policy combining massacre, deceptive treaties, loans and forced assimilation to arbitrarily snatch away control over their ancestral homelands.
For another, it traded the "fruits" of war, namely lands, for scarce capital. Big capitalists and land opportunists sold lands to ordinary immigrants at a high price in the form of usurious loans to bankrupt the latter. This indirectly promoted the development of capitalist farms and the land tenancy system. In the meantime, they invested the profits from land opportunism in high-returning sectors such as the fur trade and the transportation industry.
If the Indians were the greatest victims of the North American Indian Wars, followed by ordinary people, then the investors of merchants, bankers, financiers and factory owners, as well as socialites and political leaders, were the ultimate winners of this capital reshuffle.
If, in American Indian Wars, native Americans were the biggest victims, followed by the ordinary public, then investors including businessmen, bankers, financiers and factory owners, together with social elites and senior politicians, were the ultimate winners in the capital reshuffle.
To this day, when people praise the great deeds of the founding fathers and founding heroes such as Washington and Jefferson, they rarely mention the Indian life that they regard as grass and mustard and like the extermination of ants. When people praise the American spirit of pioneering, enterprising, and innovation shaped by the westward movement, they instinctively ignore the innocent blood of Indians flowing behind the greedy desire of capital. Captain Thor's letters and fate reflect the era of capital roaring through the Indian War, and compose an elegy of humanity that should belong to the Indians from the perspective of a person who witnessed the tragedy, a man of conscience, and a soldier who served for the government.
Until this day, while the feats of American founding fathers such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are much celebrated, there has rarely been any mention of the Indian lives that they trod underfoot and slaughtered like lambs.
When people eulogize the pioneering, aspiring and reformative American spirit fostered by the westward movement, they intuitively turn a blind eye to the blood of innocent American Indians flowing underneath capitalist lust and greed.
Captain Silas Soule's letters and fate unveiled, through the American Indian Wars, an age of roaring capital growth. As a witness of the tragedy of native Americans, a man of conscience and an army officer serving the government, he wrote a dirge of humanity that is supposed to be dedicated to American Indians.
The author is Wang Congyue, assistant researcher at the Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
The author, Wang Congyue, is an assistant research fellow at the Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.