Dear Editor,
Mr. Cheek must have lost his mind, or is suffering from
temporary insanity. To say that Americans stole Native American
land is the equivalent of spitting in the face of generations of
heroes and desecrating the graves of the men and women who made
this nation the
”
last best hope of humanity
”
to quote Lincoln.
Dear Editor,
Mr. Cheek must have lost his mind, or is suffering from temporary insanity. To say that Americans stole Native American land is the equivalent of spitting in the face of generations of heroes and desecrating the graves of the men and women who made this nation the “last best hope of humanity” to quote Lincoln.
Frederick Jackson Turner’s “manifest destiny” theory was an attempt to explain our history. Mr. Cheek may be more enlightened by Theodore Roosevelt’s four-volume “The Winning of the West” (1889-1896), or Woodrow Wilson’s “A History of the American People” (1901), or Charles and Mary Beard’s “America in Midpassage” (1939).
The Indians did steal, rape, torture and kill.
Americans conquered the wilderness to create the best that civilization has achieved. On behalf of my ancestors who fought in the Revolution, the War of 1812 and in the Allegheny Mountains of Western Pennsylvania with the revered Pennsylvania rifle, my great uncle who fought at Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville with the Pennsylvania Volunteers, my uncle Jake who was a doughboy in WWI, my father and uncles who fought and died in WWI and Korea, and my cousin who returned from Vietnam a mental basket case, and all the other men and women who help make and keep this democracy, I demand an apology.
I’ll bet my history degree, my law degree and my bar card that Mr. Cheek would not be enjoying his freedom of expression if Amen-cans returned this “stolen” nation back to the Indians. Would he have us return California to Mexico, undo the treaty ending the Mexican-American War, and resume the war? Would Mexico have to return California and Mexico to the Aztecs and Incas? Would we have to give the other states back to England? Does time run backwards?
Joe Thompson, Gilroy
