Considering, Sadly, the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek

Most of you are familiar with the phrase “the Trail of Tears.” Perhaps many of you, though, don’t remember hearing anything about the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. Only recently did I learn that that was the name of the first removal treaty that initiated the trail of tears for Native Americans. 

Andrew Jackson instigated the removal of Indians from the eastern U.S. states. One of the major events of the War of 1812 was the Battle of New Orleans in 1814, led by General Andrew (“Old Hickory”) Jackson. He was then regarded as a war hero, and 14 years later, he was elected the seventh POTUS.

As I noted in my June 2012 blog post about the War of 1812 (see here), the greatest losers in that war were the Native Americans. Jackson fought against the “Indians” then, and subsequently, in his first State of the Union address (in December 1829), he asked Congress to pass Indian removal legislation.

In April 1830, the Senate passed the Indian Removal Act, and then on May 26, the House of Representatives passed the Act by a vote of 101 to 97. Four days later, it was signed into law by President Jackson. Then the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was enacted 195 years ago, on September 27, 1830.

Dancing Rabbit Creek was the name of a small geographical area in what is now Noxubee County, Mississippi. The Choctaw Nation occupied more than 2/3 of what became the state of Mississippi. The 1830 treaty was with those living in the northern part of the Choctaw’s land. Their removal began in 1831.

The 1831~33 journey westward was marked by hunger, exposure, disease, and death. During that terrible time, the Arkansas Gazette reported that a Choctaw chief lamented that his people’s removal from Mississippi resulted in a "trail of tears and death."*¹

The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek continued genocidal actions of the U.S. against Native Americans. Even though most USAmericans have not usually considered the nation’s treatment of Indians as genocide, that seems to be an apt description of what has gone on for centuries.

The 1948 UN Genocide Convention defines genocide as acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”

But according to Claude (whom I have repeatedly called my AI buddy), many genocide scholars now argue that the cumulative effect of European colonization, including disease, warfare, and deliberate policies, constitutes genocide even if individual components were initially unintentional.

For the Native Americans who lived in the northeastern part of what became the USA, a large percentage of the Native Americans in “New England” had already died before 1621 from diseases (mostly smallpox) brought by the Europeans who had come in the previous decade.*²

So, whether intentional or not, European colonists caused the genocide of Native Americans.

Much more needs to be done to correct past genocidal activities. Fortunately, it is generally said that the “Indian Wars” ended in 1890. But mistreatment of Native Americans continued long after that.

I was delighted that Deb Haaland became the first Indian Cabinet secretary in U.S. history in March 2021. But her maternal grandparents suffered under government regulations.*³   

Currently, up to 20% of Native Americans live on reservations. That represents several hundred thousand people out of a total Native American population of around 6-9 million. Many of those living on reservations suffer from poverty, unemployment, alcoholism, and relatively low life expectancy.

Native Americans have the highest poverty rate of any major racial group, and unemployment rates have averaged 50% for decades on many reservations. Alcoholism death rates among young Native Americans is over ten times the national average of the general population.

Further, Indian communities experience higher rates of suicide compared to all other racial and ethnic groups, and Native Americans have the lowest life expectancy among racial and ethnic groups in the U.S.

These negative considerations are all largely rooted in the shameful Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. And they are all issues that need to be addressed more fully by the federal government, seeking liberty and justice for all U.S. citizens.

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*¹ It should be noted that the term “the trail of tears” is most often associated with the removal of the Cherokee Nation from northern Georgia and bordering areas beginning in 1838.

*² This was mentioned in my Thanksgiving blog post made in November 2009: The View from This Seat: What About the First Thanksgiving Day?

*³ A January 2021 blog post was titled, “A Notable Nomination: Haaland for Secretary of the Interior.” That was certainly notable, for she became the first Native American to serve in a President’s Cabinet. Considerably after 1890, her maternal grandparents were, in Haaland’s words, “stolen from their families when they were only 8 years old and were forced to live away from their parents, culture and communities until they were 13.” They were forced to go to a federal Indian boarding school, and such schools continued until the 1960s.

Analyzing Assassination Culture

The news media and the internet have been awash with news and opinions about the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk last week. I was amazed that his assassination garnered such wide coverage. Earlier this year, he talked about the current “assassination culture,” a topic worth analyzing.

There should be grief first and criticism later. On the day of Kirk’s killing, some spoke negatively of him. But on that afternoon of September 10, I posted words of Doug Pagitt on my Facebook page.*

Pagitt wrote, "I am outraged by the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk, and my heartfelt prayers are with him and his family. Political violence has no place in America.”

He went on to say, "Charlie Kirk and I disagreed on nearly everything when it came to politics, but disagreement belongs in the realm of ideas, debate, and voting, not in acts of harm.”

One of my good friends posted negative things about Kirk on Facebook not long after he was murdered, and I “scolded” him for doing that so soon after his assassination. As I said to my friend, I fully agreed with what Pagitt wrote that day.

I also disapproved of others on the political left who were quick to say harsh things about Kirk, even though they were true. I am surprised, though, that according to Copilot, Pagitt has not publicly mentioned Kirk since 9/10.

Perhaps he noted how many who spoke out against what Kirk had said through the years, and especially recently, were chastised and even fired from public positions for doing so.

Ironically, Kirk was a staunch advocate of free speech, but many who used that freedom to say negative things about him were punished for what they said/wrote—and apparently some even for publicizing what Kirk himself had said.

“Both sides” need to be analyzed accurately. Despite Kirk accusing the left of fostering an assassination culture, it seems clear that in recent decades, far more violent acts have been committed by right-wing advocates than by those on the left. I asked Copilot about this, and here is its response:

While figures like Charlie Kirk and Donald Trump have pointed fingers at the political left for fostering what they call “assassination culture,” there’s a substantial body of evidence showing that far-right rhetoric and behavior have significantly contributed to the escalation of political violence in the U.S.”

And here is what Claude, my AI “buddy” reports: “The data shows that while Charlie Kirk uses the term 'assassination culture' to criticize the left, the statistical evidence suggests that far-right extremists have been responsible for significantly more political violence and deaths since 2000.”

Claude goes on to say, “The disparity is quite stark - far-right extremists have committed over 6 times more deaths (520+ vs 78) and nearly 5.5 times more incidents (227 vs 42) than far-left extremists since 1990, with this trend continuing into recent years.”**

Take a look once again at the graph after the introductory paragraph at the top.

Beware of being misled by the Vice President or intimidated by the right-wing media. On Monday, filling in for Kirk on his regular program, VP Vance spoke about “festering violence on the far left.” He also reportedly said on Fox News that the accused assassin was “radicalized by the far left, by the social networks of the far left, by the ideas of the far left.”

Two days after her husband’s assassination, Erika Kirk said, “The evildoers responsible for my husband's assassination have no idea what they have done. They killed Charlie ….”

Gary Bauer, a well-known conservative evangelical, wrote on Thursday, Erika’s “use of the words ‘evildoers’ (plural) and ‘they’ was intentional. She was referring to the radical leftists who hated her husband, who smeared her husband, and who did everything they could to dehumanize him.”

But at this point, from what we know about Tyler Robinson, the alleged assassin of Kirk, he is not affiliated with any political party, and there is no evidence linking him to any organized leftist group or movement.

So, in analyzing the assassination culture that Kirk saw as defining the left, it seems much more likely to be a characteristic of the right, which was emphasized so much by Kirk and his organization, Turning Point USA.

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  * Doug Pagitt (b. 1966) launched Vote Common Good with a 31-city bus tour that began on October 2, 2018. On Oct. 14, I drove over to Overland Park, Kansas, to hear him speak and to chat with him briefly. Six days later, I posted a blog article about him and Vote Common Good (see here).  

** In the next paragraph, Claude went on to say, “This data comes from multiple credible sources, including the National Institute of Justice, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Anti-Defamation League, and academic research published in peer-reviewed journals.” 

    After receiving the above information, I saw this article with similar content on Time magazine’s website: “Trump Called for a Crackdown on the ‘Radical Left.’ But Right-Wing Extremists Are Responsible for More Political Violence.” The graph included in the article is what I posted above.

Celebrating Sun Day 2025

Earth Day is widely known as an annual event first held on April 22, 1970, and observed on that day every year since. But this year, Sun Day will be observed/celebrated in the U.S. for just the second time. It will be part of a global day of action focusing on solar energy and other forms of clean energy. 

The first Sun Day was celebrated on May 3, 1978, when Jimmy Carter was President. It was proposed by Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis.) and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), then President. Carter threw his support behind it.

Before that first Sun Day, Carter created the Department of Energy and pushed tax breaks for clean energy in 1977. Two years later, he famously put solar panels on the White House roof, calling them a symbol of America’s future.

Sadly, Carter lost the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan, and during his two terms, Reagan gutted the renewable energy programs, killed the tax incentives, and in 1986 had Carter’s solar panels removed from the White House.

The promoters of Sun Day 2025 hope to revitalize what Carter started nearly fifty years ago.

Sun Day 2025 will be celebrated on September 21, the day before the autumnal equinox. Bill McKibben has been the primary proponent of Sun Day 2025, and his new book, Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization, was released less than a month ago.

McKibben (b. 1960) is widely known as one of the leaders in the founding of 350.org in 2008. It quickly became the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement.**

Nearly ten years earlier, McKibben wrote The End of Nature, one of the earliest warnings about climate change. That book of “dark realism” helped establish McKibben as a leading voice in environmental activism long before he founded 350.org.

Now, though, McKibben says on the first page of his new book, “for the first time I can see a path forward. A path lit by the sun.” He concludes his Introduction with these words: “Our species, at what feels like a very dark moment, can take a giant leap into the light. Of the sun.”

So, Sun Day 2025 especially stresses the importance of solar energy, although wind energy is also acknowledged.

Solar energy is widely considered the best form of clean energy when factoring in both cost and limitless availability.

Regarding cost, solar photovoltaic (the term that describes the process of converting light directly into electrical voltage) is now less than half that of producing electricity by fossil fuels. For homeowners, solar panels drop electricity bills to near, or even below, zero during the hot summer months.**  

Not only is there an outstanding cost advantage, there is also an unlimited supply of solar energy. The sun delivers more energy to Earth in one hour than humanity uses in a year, and scientists indicate that that will continue to be true for the next five billion years.

Moreover, solar energy produces no negative impact on the environment. There are no emissions of harmful substances, and neither is there any noise pollution. In addition, there is minimal land disruption compared to wind farms (windmills/turbines used for wind power).

Finally, solar systems are quick to install, scalable (=easily able to be changed in size or scale) from rooftops to utility-scale farms, and increasingly paired with battery storage to provide power even when the sun isn’t shining. What could be better than energy that is cheap, clean, abundant, and scalable?

Have you taken the “giant leap into the light” that McKibben wrote about? If not, isn’t now the time to do so? Indeed, we all need to latch on to this “last chance for the climate” and this “fresh chance for civilization.”

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** The name 350.org comes from McKibben’s view that the world will not be safe from global warming unless the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere falls to 350 parts per million or below.

** My wife and I had solar panels installed on our house in 2019. This year, our electricity bills for the summer months of June, July, and August combined showed that we were given more than $26.50 of “overgeneration credit.” Thus, rather than paying high electricity bills for air conditioning in addition to normal year-round charges, we were paid for producing more electricity than we used. (Here is a link to “Let’s Go Solar!”, the blog article I posted in February 2019.)