Friday, January 18, 2008

1865-1869: The Final Solution To The Indian Problem And The Invasions Keep On Coming

1865-69: UNITED STATES. The "Black Codes” are introduced in the southern states, severely restricting the rights and lives of "freed" slaves. Laws vary from state to state, but most establish the same types of retrictions on freedom. Typically, the Codes force freed slaves to work. In many states, unemployed blacks face being arrested and charged with vagrancy. The Codes often take away the right of freed blacks to choose their own way of making a living, forcing them to work as agricultural laborers or domestics for whites. The Codes prevent freed slaves from raising their own crops and, in some states, from leasing or renting land. Blacks are prohibited from entering towns without permission. Residency within towns and cities is only possible if a white employer agrees to take responsibility for his employee's conduct.

The Almighty has fixed the distinction of the races;
the Almighty has made the black man inferior,
and, sir, by no legislation, by no military power,
can you wipe out this distinction.
Fernando Wood
Mayor of New York City

1865-1890: UNITED STATES. Now that the ongoing genocide of Native Americans is so successfully opening up areas for railway construction and white settlement, there are unimaginable fortunes to be made building the railways and then speculating in stolen Indian land. The genocide, carried out by federal troops, is, of course, paid for by ordinary Americans via the federal government. The construction of the railways is, of course, massively subsidized by ordinary Americans via the federal government and involves an endless series of frauds and scams. The profits, of course, go into the pockets of a tiny handful of the rich and powerful. The whole thing is put together under the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, a one time lawyer for the railroads.

During the era of transcontinental railroad construction, robber barons and the politicians they owned worked together to pull off one of the biggest scams in American history, the Union Pacific Railroad. Thomas C. Durant first aquires a controlling interest in the Union Pacific using illegal tactics and then buys some of America's leading politicians including two vice presidents, a Speaker of the House, a future president (James Garfield) and almost every important Congressional committee chairman. Durant hands out $435,000 in cash and $250,000 in bonds to legislators, their representatives, friends and relatives. Congress obediently passes a revised railroad bill in the summer of 1864.

The act so kindly passed by the recently bribed Congress doubles the grant of stolen Indian land given to the railroad companies for each mile constructed, permits the railroads to borrow money in advance of the line being built and gives away all mineral rights on the land grants to Durant and the boys. Durant then sets up a separate company, America's first limited liability corporation, Credit Mobilier, which is nothing but a shell game. Durant himself owns most of Credit Mobilier which borrows money on land it doesn't even own. The construction of the railroad, using federal money, is carried out through Credit Mobilier. Aside from all the tricks to artificially increase the mileage and therefore the amounts of cash and land grants received from the federal government, Credit Mobilier charges twice what the construction per mile actually costs, with the cash going into Durant's pocket. An interesting sidelight is that Durant had been guilty of treason during the Civil War, making a fortune on contraband Southern cotton but, hell, we can't let a little thing like treason stand in the way of handing out tens of millions of dolars of government money, can we?

The amounts stolen by Durant through the good graces of America's leading politicians were vast. The Union Pacific actually cost about $50 million, including all the artificially increased mileage, to build, but Durant and the boys got about $110 million from the taxpayers plus millions of acres of stolen Indian land and all the mineral rights. The amount of money stolen by Durant and his cronies is equal to many billions of dollars today.

And, aside from America's honorable politicians and a few million dead native Americans, who made this all possible? Thousands of Chinese and Irish laborers working for thirty dollars a month less room and board. Aged from thirteen to sixty they did backbreaking work for up to twelve hours a day to make people like Durant unbelievably wealthy.

Part way through the scam, Grenville Dodge, a friend of Lincoln's, is named head engineer of the transcontinental railway. Unsurprisingly, Dodge is something of a genocide artist having been in the business of slaughtering Indians with the U.S. Army and is also deeply involved in railroad investment frauds. He is also guilty of treason. While a major general in the Union Army during the Civil War, Dodge had a sideline providing secret information to his good buddy Thomas Clark Durant who then made a fortune smuggling contraband cotton from the Confederate States.

In 1866, Dodge was elected to Congress. He managed to spend just enough time in Washington to lobby for the the Union Pacific scam.

And, to make it all possible, in July of 1865, General William Tecumseh Sherman had been put in charge of the Military District of Missouri (all land west of the Mississippi) and given the assignment of exterminating the Plains Indians in order to make way for the transcontinental railroad. Sherman was undoubtedly the man for the job, anticipating Adolf Hitler by calling for “the final solution to the Indian problem.” By happy coincidence, Sherman was also a friend of Grenville Dodge and a railroad investor.

We must act with vindictive earnestness
against the Sioux,
even to their extermination,
men, women and children.
General William Tecumseh Sherman

Sherman issues the following order to his troops, "During an assault, the soldiers cannot pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age. As long as resistance is made, death must be meted out." Most of the attacks on Indian camps are conducted in the winter, when families are together and can killed en masse. All livestock are to be killed so that any survivors will be more likely to starve to death. A key element of the genocide is the massive slaughter of buffalo, a primary source of food for Native Americans. By 1882 the American buffalo will be essentially extinct.

By 1890, Sherman’s Final Solution had been achieved. The majority of Plains Indians had been murdered, the survivors forced into reservations. But always the perfectionist, Sherman wasn’t happy with a 99% successful genocide, expressing disappointment that, if it were not for "civilian interference," his army would have "gotten rid of them all" and killed every last Indian in the U.S. Zieg Heil!

1865-ongoing: UNITED STATES. Hundreds of racially motivated riots take place in the United States from 1865 to the present day. The targets of the rioting are usually black, although Italians, Greeks, Catholics, Hispanics, French Canadians and other minority groups are also targeted. Thousands of people are killed. Thousands of homes and businesses and neighborhoods are destroyed. There are far too many such incidents to detail every one in Making The World Safe For Hypocrisy. Only a sample will be given through the years.

1866: UNITED STATES. White civilians and police kill forty-six black Americans and injure many more in Memphis. Ninety houses, twelve schools and four churches are bured in the black section of the city.
1866: UNITED STATES. In a pre-meditated attack, police storm a mixed-race Republican convention in New Orleans killing more than forty people and wounding more than a hundred and fifty.

1866: CHINA. U.S. forces invade and occupy parts of China for three weeks in order to “punish” China following an “assault” on a U.S. consul.

1866-1951: UNITED STATES. With the Civil War over, and a lot of strong, young black men wandering around more or less free, at least the ones who can avoid getting lynched, Congress authorizes the creation of new segregated black units in the U.S. Army: two regiments of black cavalry and six regiments of black infantry, the so-called Buffalo Soldiers. In a classic divide and conquer operation, the U.S. government orders the troops to the west to take part in the government's ongoing genocide of native Americans. The corrosive power of American propaganda will ensure that many black people will look with pride at such institutions as the Buffalo Soldiers and at the role of black soldiers in America's endless wars to enslave and/or exterminate other races and nations.

Segregated black regiments will become tools of the ruling elite in American wars against the people of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. During the twentieth century, blacks in the U.S. military will be used largely in "service" units but, in 1945, when white U.S. combat troops are getting a little thin on the ground, General Eisenhower will offer "Negro soldiers in service units an opportunity to volunteer for duty with the infantry." Why, thanks massa.

The U.S. military will remain strictly segregated until 1951.

1866-present: UNITED STATES. One of the America's most heinous terrorist organizations, the Ku Klux Klan, is founded. Over the years it will wax and wane but its fundamental goal of intimidating minority groups, especially blacks, through torture, lynching and burnings will remain fairly consistent. In its early years, the Klan also carries out political assassinations.

1866: MEXICO. U.S. forces invade Mexico and occupy the town of Matamoros.

1866-71: CANADA. With some exceptions, the U.S. government generally turns a blind eye to terrorist raids conducted by Civil War veterans of Irish ancestry into Canada. During a five year period, five of the so-called Fenian Raids are launched from the U.S. across the border.

1867: NICARAGUA. U.S. Marines invade Nicaragua and occupy the cities of Managua and Leon.

1867: UNITED STATES. Slave-owner cum U.S. president Andrew Johnson delivers the classic all-American blend of racism, genocide and religious delusion when he says to Congress, “If the savage resists, civilization, with the Ten Commandments in one hand and the sword in the other, demands his immediate execution.” Praise the Lord.

If blacks were given the right to vote,
that would "place every splay-footed,
bandy-shanked, hump-backed,
thick-lipped, flat-nosed, woolly-headed,
ebon-colored Negro in the country
upon an equality with the poor white man."
Andrew Johnson

1867: FORMOSA. The U.S. invades Formosa and burns villages to “avenge the murder of a seaman”.

1867: MIDWAY ISLAND. U.S. naval forces invade and occupy Midway Island in the Hawaiian group and construct a naval base.

1868: JAPAN. The U.S. invades Japan at Osaka, Hiogo, Nagasaki, Yokohama and Negata to “protect American interests”.

1868: UNITED STATES. When twelve blacks come to the rescue of a newspaper editor being beaten by a mob in Opelousas, Louisiana they are arrested and, later that night, lynched. In the following days, mobs of armed white Americans scour the countryside around Opelousas hunting and killing blacks. It is estimated that between two and three hundred blacks were murdered by the gangs.

1868: URUGUAY. The U.S. invades Uruguay to “protect American interests”.

1868: UNITED STATES. Ten thousand U.S. Army troops attack previously disarmed Cheyenne Indians camped along the Washita River in Oklahoma, slaughtering one hundred and fifty people on the spot and causing the deaths of thousands more by starvation and exposure. The massacre is part of the U.S. government’s plan to dishonor the Treaty of Fort Laramie and to steal the land the treaty guarantees to the Cheyenne, including almost all of the Great Plains.

1868: COLOMBIA. The U.S. invades Colombia to protect “treasure being shipped”.

1868-1871: UNITED STATES. The notorious Tweed Ring gains control of the government of New York City. Alderman William Marcy Tweed places his cronies in key city posts including the former District Attorney, A. Oakey Hall, who becomes Tweed's handpicked mayor. Every business contracting with the city has to pay off the Tweed Ring. The financial drain eventually drives New York into financial trouble and the city's credit rating plummets.

1869: UNITED STATES. U.S. troops massacre one hundred and seventy three women and children of the Piegan Indian nation on the banks of the Marias River in Montana. Survivors flee to Canada. U.S. Army General Philip Sheridan, who had sent the U.S. cavalry out to attack the Piegan, largely succeeds in covering up the massacre. The only casualty among the heroic troops conducting the massacre is one who fell off his horse during the slaughter and broke his leg. Sheridan was, of course, well practiced in war crimes having carried out "scorched earth" campaigns during the Civil War.

1869: UNITED STATES. Robber barons Jay Gould and James Fisk almost corner the gold market in the U.S. until the Treasury releases some of its own gold stocks, leading to the Black Friday panic of September 1869

I can hire one half of the working class
to kill the other half.
Jay Gould