Baum was a jerk, to say the least. From the two excerpts that are presented in the paper we were told to read, he was basically saying that Indians are no good and useless, that they lost all of their spirit, and that they should just be wiped from the faces of the Earth now than to let them continue to waste air. What is worse is that he is actually trying to rally people to do so! While reading this article, I couldn't halp to think "What, is he the Native American version of Hitler, but without the political power?"
Charlot was right, and I agree completely with what she was saying at the time. The white man had no right to ask for money of any kind from the people that they basically imprisoned. We took so much from the Native Americans, and asking for taxes doesn't reverse that process. In fact, we should have been giving them money on the reservations as compensation for their cooperation.
Deloria wrote about something rather interesting to me. That the Boston Tea Party was such an organized event is impressive, but there were two things that caught me off guard. First, that the guards of the ships were 'sympathetic' and let the "Indians" onto the ships after not but a verbal warning is strange. Why would the guards be sympathetic? Did they think that the Import Taxes on the tea were wrong? Second, why on Earth would the band of misfit "Indians" that just came onto the ships "forcefully" and trashed the ship's cargo take the time to stay after the raid and clean up? It presents a sort of gentleman-ly view of the Tea Party, but provides and interesting contrast. Why would they be acting so nice and civilized while dressed up as the Native Americans if they thought that the Native Americans were nothing but savages? Maybe some of the Americans of the time actually sympathized with the Native Americans' plight.
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