"The point is that for all of America's leaders' sincere concern for the fate of the Indians, they had a higher loyalty. The men who made national policy, from the eighteenth century onward, supported by a broad consensus among the white population, have had as their first loyalty the doctrine of material progress. They have believed in that doctrine more than in their Constitution or their treaties or their religion. America's leaders and America's white population have allowed nothing to stand in the path of progress. Not a tree, not a desert, not a river, nothing. Most certainly not Indians, regrettable as it may have been to have to destroy such a noble and romantic people.
Well, it was regrettable, but who is to say they were wrong? Who can possibly judge? Who would be willing to tell the European immigrant that he can't go to the Montana mines or to the Kansas prairie because Indians need the land, so he had best go back to Prague or Dublin? Who wants to tell a hungry world that the United States, cannot export wheat because the Cheyennes hold half of Kansas, the Sioux hold the Dakotas, and so on? Despite hundreds of whites ashamed of their ancestors, and despite the equally prolific literary effort on the part of the defenders of the Army, here if anywhere is a case where it is impossible to tell right from wrong.
The United States did not follow a policy of genocide; it did try to find a just solution to the Indian problem. The consistent idea was to civilize the Indians, incorporate them into the community, make them a part of the melting pot. That it did not work, that it was foolish, conceited, even criminal, may be true, but that doesn't turn a well-meant program into genocide..."
The words of Stephen A. Ambrose call to the mind, the true dilemma of America's Manifest Destiny vs. the question of legitimate ownership of this land. What will historically be, will be, when superior forces meet less civilized peoples... kinda like us vs. them OWS ( Occupy Wall Street) protestors.
