U.S. History We Choose To Ignore

It's amazing how we go through high school, taking college course after college course, writing research papers and taking final exams; Yet, we will never learn all there ever is to learn about our country, our politicians, and who they truly were.  Some leave it out, some refuse to teach it, some just simply ignore it.  I came across this blog this morning and had to share it.

"My morning run took me past the oldest tree in Central Park. This London Plane tree is over 150 years old and was planted sometime shortly before the Reservoir in Central Park was constructed in 1862. To give a little historical perspective, at about the time this tree was planted America was fighting the Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln began the process to free African slaves by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, but would also move to brutally eradicate Native Americans by ordering the largest mass hanging in United States history of 38 Santee Sioux and gave a presidential promise to kill or remove every single Native American from the state of Minnesota."

Still think of President Lincoln as God's gift to mankind?  **cough** Not so much.

Our Native American Lands

It's mind-blowing to me, that as a "Land of the Free" we managed to strip-away millions upon millions of acres from those who called this their home hundreds of years before we did.  This chart will give you a perspective on what has transpired over the past 224 years alone.

This is a series of maps charting the shrinkage of Native American lands over time, from 1784 to the present day.  Made because I was having trouble visualizing the sheer scale of the land loss, and reading numbers like “blah blah million acres” wasn’t really doing it for me.  The gif is based on a collection of maps by Sam B. Hilliard of Louisiana State University.  You can see the original map here.

For those who do prefer dealing in numbers, here are some:

By 1881, Indian landholdings in the United States had plummeted to 156 million acres. By 1934, only about 50 million acres remained (an area the size of Idaho and Washington) as a result of the General Allotment Act* of 1887. During World War II, the government took 500,000 more acres for military use. Over one hundred tribes, bands, and Rancherias relinquished their lands under various acts of Congress during the termination era of the 1950s.
By 1955, the indigenous land base had shrunk to just 2.3 percent of its original size.

Source: Somersaultr