primitive clothing

[Mortblanc]

Ahh, an historical diversion.

In the U.S. Native people are considered "dependent internal nations" so that the government can make treaties with their leaders and hold the entire group accountable. Out government is the only power that can negotiate with these "internal nations". No other government can do so and no individual can do so.

The Apache were a very loosely knit group of clans sharing a language group and it was the Europeans that labeled them by the region they inhabited, or in one case by the liquor they favored (Mescal). The largest group belonging to the Apache language segment is the Navaho.

Subduing them was a 400 year effort but it was accomplished. They were systematically forced onto reservations late in the 19th century. They all signed agreements to live under control of the government.

As in all such efforts, there were rebellions on the reservations when the terms of surrender were not met, with small groups leaving to raid and pillage. Just like in our current situation, these breakout groups were treated as bandits and not combatants. When captured they were placed in prison, not back on the reservation.

We still have the occasional "Indian uprising". There was a major hostile action at Wounded Knee back in the 1970s and I believe they had one in Canada, of all places, back in the 1990s.

The Seminole were an unusual group. As a conglomerate group they were refugees from other areas and many of them had been well educated and prosperous plantation owners before the Indian Removal Act of 1838. They took to the forest to fight a gorilla war against the government that was seizing their property. As things turned badly they simply drifted into the swamps and palmetto thickets and waited it out. It was absolutely too dangerous to conduct military operations in those areas so the government decided containment was good enough.

Soon afterward the eastern intellectual establishment went into a romantic period enshrining the "Noble Savage". The eastern intellectuals were not being butchered along the frontiers and they could afford that attitude. At any rate, since the remnants of the Seminole were on the waste areas the government would have placed them in anyway, the government decided to let things ride.

Rather than force them onto worthless reservation land the government simply declared the wasteland where they were a reservation! While the Seminole hunted and fished the swamps and forest the United States built out state of Florida around them.

Eventually, the Seminole decided that making money off the tourist was better than fighting wars and taped into the "noble savage" thing so they could charge more for their goods and keep steady cash flow.