Freedom Served

4 of many great Native Actors
Graham Greene,
Tantoo Cardinal,
Will Sampson,
Michael Greyeyse

"Crowfoot stood and watched as the white man spread many one dollar bills on the ground.
“This is what the white man trades with; this is his buffalo robe. Just as you trade skins, we trade with these pieces of paper.”
When the white chief had laid all his money on the ground and shown how much he would give if the Indians would sign a treaty, Crowfoot took a handful of clay, made a ball out of it and put it on the fire.
It did not crack.
Then he said to the white man, Now put your money on the fire and see if it will last as long as the clay.
The white man said, No….my money will burn because it is made of paper.
With an amused gleam in his eyes the old chief said, Oh, your money is not as good as our land, is it?
The wind will blow it away; the fire will burn it; water will rot it. But nothing will destroy our land.
You don’t make a very good trade.
Then with a smile, Crowfoot picked up a handful of sand from the river bank, handed it to the white man and said, You count the grains of sand in that while I count the money you give for the land.
The white man said, I would not live long enough to count this, but you can count the money in a few minutes.
Very well, said the wise Crowfoot, our land is more valuable than your money. It will last forever.
It will not perish as long as the sun shines and the water flows, and through all the years it will give life to men and animals, and therefore we cannot sell the land.
It was put there by the Great Spirit and we cannot sell it because it does not really belong to us.
You can count your money and burn it with a nod of a buffalo’s head, but only the Great Spirit can count the grains of sand and the blades of grass on these plains.
As a present we will give you anything you can take with you, but we cannot give you the land.”
Chief Crowfoot : Blackfoot Confederacy

“Before I was six years old, my grandparents and my mother had taught me that if all the green things that grow were taken from the earth, there could be no life. If all the four-legged creatures were taken from the earth, there could be no life. If all the winged creatures were taken from the earth, there could be no life. If all our relatives who crawl and swim and live within the earth were taken away, there could be no life. But if all the human beings were taken away, life on earth would flourish. That is how insignificant we are.”
Russell Means, Oglala Lakota Nation (November 10, 1939 – October 22, 2012).

The Crow are also called the Apsáalooke, Absaroka, and Apsaroke. Their name was given them by the Hidatsa, and meant “people [or children] of the large-beaked bird.” Historically, they lived in the Yellowstone River Valley. A Siouan tribe, they once were part of the Hidatsa, living around the headwaters of the upper Mississippi River in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Later, the Crow moved to the Devil’s Lake region of North Dakota, before splitting with the Hidatsa and moving westward.
Settling in Montana, the tribe split once again into two divisions, called the Mountain Crow and the River Crow. They were first encountered by two Frenchmen in 1743 near the present-day town of Hardin, Montana. When the Lewis and Clark expedition came upon them in 1804, they estimated some 350 lodges with about 3,500 members.

Elsie Vance Chestuen was born in 1873, her Indian name was Chestuen. Her mother was Dilth-cley-ih, daughter of the Apache Chief Bidu-ya, Beduiat known as Victorio. Elsie's father is unknown, her mother married Mangus who was the son of Mangas Coloradas, Chief of the Chiricahua Apaches.Elsie was sent to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School on 4th November 1886 when she was 13 years old,she was enrolled as Elsie Vanci. Carlisle and other schools like this have been a contentious issue with the Native Americans, many say that children were forced to leave their families at very young age. They were forced to change their Indian names and give up their cultures, languages, and religion.

Elsie was only at Carlisle school for 3 years.On the 30th of May 1889, when she was 16 years old, she was sent to Alabama due to illness, she stayed with another Indian lady called Mollie. Elsie must have moved back to her home at some stage, as she died at Fort Sill on April 15th 1898, from tuberculosis. She was 26 years old, Elsie Vance Chestuen, is buried at the Beef Creek Apache Cemetery in Oklahoma.

"Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men,
we didn't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents.
Without a prison, there can be no delinquents.
We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves.
When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket,
he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift.
We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property.
We didn't know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being
was not determined by his wealth.
We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians,
therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another.
We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don't know
how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things
that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society."
- John (Fire) Lame Deer, Sioux Lakota - 1903-1976

Estos son los rostros de los auténticos norteamericanos.

Conocidos como apaches, sioux, los cheroquis o los cheyenes, existieron otras muchas etnias como los pies negros, los arapajó o los navajos. Los diversos pueblos forma­ban conjuntos humanos de demografía modesta, lo que les permitía tener siempre a su dis­posición grandes extensiones de terreno y jamás co­nocieron el hacinamiento ni los problemas urbanos. Con la llegada de los colonizadores europeos a partir del siglo XV, millones de estas personas han sufrido masacres, persecuciones y exclusión social. El racismo estructural de Estados Unidos los ha llevado a vivir marginados en reservas naturales, en un continente en el que son los auténticos habitantes originales.

NUBE ROJA, jefe de la tribu OGLALA y el único líder indio en ganar una guerra al todopoderoso ejercito de los ESTADOS UNIDOS

NUBE ROJA Líder político que dirigió la guerra que ha pasado a la Historia con su nombre (1.866 - 1.868), comandando una alianza de OGLALAS, HUNKPAPAS, BRULES, PIES NEGROS, MINICONJOUS, TWO KETTLE, SANS ARC, SANTEE, YANKTONAI, CHEYENNE y ARAPAHOE.

Tras la Guerra de NUBE ROJA, el Tratado de Fort LARAMIE suponía el abandono de algunos fuertes y el cierre del llamado "Sendero de Bozeman", ruta usada por los blancos para atravesar las tierras indias. La fiebre del oro desatada a mitad de la década de los setenta acabó con el tratado.

MAKHPIYA LUTA ( NUBE ROJA) murió el 10 de diciembre de 1.909 en la reserva de PINE RIDGE

Discurso de NUBE ROJA

"¿De quién fue la primera voz oída en esta tierra?. De los hombres rojos, armados tan sólo con arcos y flechas. Lo que se ha hecho con mi país no fue mi deseo, ni a petición mía. Nadie de mi pueblo quería que los hombres blancos atravesaran nuestras tierra. Su curso está marcado por un reguero de sangre. No quiero que el gran padre de Washington construya caminos en las BLACK HILLS ni en las Montañas de BIG HORN .
Tres veces he repetido estas cosas. He venido ahora a decirlo una cuarta vez
Fotografía de NUBES ROJA

𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐟 𝐃𝐚𝐧 𝐆𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞
Chief Dan George was actually a chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation in British Columbia, Canada from 1951 to 1963. Also an author and poet, George achieved his first acting job at the age of 60, appearing in the Canadian TV show, Caribou Country. But George’s acting career didn’t peak until 1970 when he starred in Little Big Man, a role for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Another great role for George was the part of Lone Watie in The Outlaw Josie Wales (1976), often considered one of the best American Westerns. And George’s performance in this American classic could be considered Oscar-worthy as well. George also appeared on TV shows such as Kung Fu. During George’s writing career, he was credited with fostering understanding between non-native and Native Americans, particularly with the release of his book, My Heart Soars .

Thank you for your interest in this post !

Iron Tail, Oglala Lakota. His image was used on the Indian Head Nickel.