The World Will Not Mourn the Decline of U.S. Hegemony

by Paul Street
Truthdig

There are good reasons for any good progressive to bemoan the presence of the childish, racist, sexist and ecocidal, right-wing plutocrat Donald Trump in the White House. One complaint about Trump that should be held at arm’s-length by anyone on the left, however, is the charge that Trump is contributing to the decline of U.S. global power--to the erosion of the United States’ superpower status and the emergence of a more multipolar world.

This criticism of Trump comes from different elite corners. Last October, the leading neoconservative foreign policy intellectual and former George W. Bush administration adviser Eliot Cohen wrote an Atlantic magazine essay titled “How Trump Is Ending the American Era.” Cohen recounted numerous ways in which Trump had reduced “America’s standing and ability to influence global affairs.” He worried that Trump’s presidency would leave “America’s position in the world stunted” and an “America lacking confidence” on the global stage.

But it isn’t just the right wing that writes and speaks in such terms about how Trump is contributing to the decline of U.S. hegemony. A recent Time magazine reflection by the liberal commentator Karl Vick (who wrote in strongly supportive terms about the giant January 2017 Women’s March against Trump) frets that that Trump’s “America First” and authoritarian views have the world “looking for leadership elsewhere.”

“Could this be it?” Vick asks. “Might the American Century actually clock out at just 72 years, from 1945 to 2017? No longer than Louis XIV ruled France? Only 36 months more than the Soviet Union lasted, after all that bother?”

I recently reviewed a manuscript on the rise of Trump written by a left-liberal American sociologist. Near the end of this forthcoming and mostly excellent and instructive volume, the author finds it “worrisome” that other nations see the U.S. “abdicating its role as the world’s leading policeman” under Trump--and that, “given what we have seen so far from the [Trump] administration, U.S. hegemony appears to be on shakier ground than it has been in a long time.”

For the purposes of this report, I’ll leave aside the matter of whether Trump is, in fact, speeding the decline of U.S. global power (he undoubtedly is) and how he’s doing that to focus instead on a very different question: What would be so awful about the end of “the American Era”?the seven-plus decades of U.S. global economic and related military supremacy between 1945 and the present? Why should the world mourn the “premature” end of the “American Century”?

It would be interesting to see a reliable opinion poll on how the politically cognizant portion of the 94 percent of humanity that lives outside the U.S. would feel about the end of U.S. global dominance. My guess is that Uncle Sam’s weakening would be just fine with most Earth residents who pay attention to world events.

According to a global survey of 66,000 people conducted across 68 countries by the Worldwide Independent Network of Market Research (WINMR) and Gallup International at the end of 2013, Earth’s people see the United States as the leading threat to peace on the planet. The U.S. was voted top threat by a wide margin.

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The True Story of Pocahontas: Historical Myths Versus Sad Reality

Indian Country Today

Pocahontas had a Native husband and Native child; never married John Smith

Vincent Schilling • September 8, 2017

Despite what many people believe due to longstanding and inaccurate accounts in history books and movies such as Disney’s Pocahontas, the true story of Pocahontas is not one of a young Native Powhatan woman with a raccoon friend who dove off of mountain-like cliffs off the coasts of Virginia. (Note: there are no cliffs on the coast of Virginia.)

The true story of Pocahontas is a tale of tragedy and heartbreak.

Disney / Everett Collection

Disney’s Pocahontas -Buena Vista/courtesy Everett Collection

It is time to bust up the misconceptions perpetuated over 400 years regarding the young daughter of Powhatan chief Wahunsenaca. The truth—gathered from years of extensive research of the historical record, books, and oral histories from self-identified descendants of Pocahontas and tribal peoples of Virginia —is not for the faint of heart.

A Warning To Our Readers: Mature Subject Matter Not Suitable for Children

The story of Pocahontas is a tragic tale of a young Native girl who was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and allegedly murdered by those who were supposed to keep her safe.

Pocahontas’ Mother, Also Named Pocahontas, Died While Giving Birth to Her

This is in many historical accounts, though not always. It is important to note that Pocahontas was born to her mother, named Pocahontas and her father Wahunsenaca, (sometimes spelled Wahunsenakah), who later became the paramount chief.

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Her name at birth was Matoaka, which means “flower between two streams,” and according to Mattaponi history was likely given to her because she was born between the two rivers of Mattaponi and Pamunkey (York).

iStock

An image of a young Pocahontas.

Due to his wife’s death, Wahunsenaca was devastated and little Matoaka became his favorite because she looked like her mother. She was raised by her aunts and other women of the Mattaponi tribe at Werowocomoco.

As was custom at the time, as the Paramount Chief of the Powhatan Chiefdom, Wahunsenaca had other wives from the other villages and little Matoaka had many loving brothers and sisters.

Because of his lingering grief and due to the reminder she gave to him of her mother, Wahunsenaca often called his daughter the endearing name of Pocahontas.

John Smith Came to the Powhatan When Pocahontas Was about 9 or 10

According to Mattaponi oral history, little Matoaka was possibly about 10 years old when John Smith and English colonists arrived in Tsenacomoca in the spring of 1607. John Smith was about 27 years old. They were never married nor involved.

Pocahontas Never Saved the Life of John Smith

The children of the Powhatan were very closely watched and cared for by all members of the tribe. Since Pocahontas was living with her father, Chief Powhatan Wahunsenaca, at Werowocomoco, and because she was the daughter of a chief, she was likely held to even stricter standards and provided with more structure and cultural training.

When she was a child, John Smith and English colonists stayed near the Powhatan on the nearby Jamestown Island, but later began to explore outlying areas. Smith was feared by many Native people because he was known to enter villages and put guns to heads of chiefs demanding food and supplies.

In the winter of 1607, the colonists and Smith met with Powhatan warriors and Smith was captured by the chief’s younger brother.

Because the English and Powhatan feared the actions of the Spanish, they formed an alliance. Eventually and according to oral history and contemporary written accounts by the Mattaponi, Wahunsenaca grew to like Smith, eventually offering him the position of ‘werowance’ or leader of the colonists as recognized by the Powhatan as well as a much more livable area for his people with great access to game and seafood.

AP Images

A portrait of Pocahontas saving the life of John Smith with Father Wahunsenaca. Oral history from the descendants of Pocahontas dictate such a thing could never have happened.

Years later, Smith alleged that Pocahontas saved his life in the four-day process of becoming a werowance. But according to Mattaponi oral and contemporary written accounts, there would be no reason to kill a man designated to receive an honor by the chief.

Additionally, children were not allowed to attend any sort of religious ritual similar to the werowance ceremony.

She could not have thrown herself in front of John Smith to beg for his life for two reasons: Smith was being honored, and she would not have been allowed to be there.

Pocahontas Never Defied Her Father to Bring Food to John Smith or Jamestown

Library of Congress

Captain John Smith.

Some historical accounts claim Pocahontas defied her father to bring food to the colonists of Jamestown. According to the history of the Mattaponi tribe as well as simple facts, these claims could not be true.

Jamestown was 12 miles from Werowocomoco and the likelihood that a 10-year-old daughter would travel alone are inconsistent with Powhatan culture. She as well as other tribal members did travel to Jamestown, but as a gesture of peace.  

Additionally, travel to Jamestown required crossing large bodies of water and the use of 400-pound dugout canoes. It took a team of strong people to lift them into the water.

It is likely Pocahontas served as a symbol of peace by simply being present as a child among her people to show no ill intentions when her people met with the Jamestown settlers.  

Pocahontas Did Not Sneak Into Jamestown to Warn John Smith About a Death Plot

In 1608 and 1609, John Smith’s role as the werowance (chief) of the colonists had taken an ugly turn. The colonists made inadequate attempts to plant crops to harvest, and Smith violently demanded supplies from surrounding villages after once again holding a gun to the heads of village leaders.  

Accounts from Mattaponi histories tell of one tribal woman proclaiming to Smith, “You call yourself a Christian, yet you leave us with no food for the winter.”

Pocahontas’ father, who had befriended Smith, once said to him, “I have not treated any of my werowances as well as you, yet you are the worst werowance I have!”

Smith claimed Wahunsenaca wanted to kill him, and asserted he knew of the plot because Pocahontas had come to warn him.

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Due to the icy conditions at the time and because of the many watchful eyes attending to the daughter of a chief, as well as gestures of peace by the Powhatan to include additional provisions, Native historians rebuff the historical claims of Smith as completely fabricated.

To further prove Smith’s tale was a fabrication, a letter by Smith written in 1608 was published without Smith’s knowledge. The letter makes no claim of Pocahontas trying to save his life on two separate occasions. It wasn’t until Smith published his book General Historie of Virginia in 1624 that he claimed Pocahontas had twice saved his life. Any of the people who could have refuted Smith’s claims by that time were no longer alive.

As Colonists Terrorized Native People, Pocahontas Married and Became Pregnant

The early 1600’s were a horrible time for tribes near Werowocomoco. Native tribes once comfortable wearing clothing suitable for summer — including exposed breasts for Native women and little or nothing for children — found themselves being sexually targeted by English colonists.

Young children were targets of rape and Native women in the tribe would resort to offering themselves to men to keep their children safe. The Powhatan people were shocked by the behavior and were horrified that the English government offered them no protections.

In the midst of the horrible and atrocious acts committed by the colonists, Matoaka was coming of age. During a ceremony, Matoaka was to choose a new name, and she selected Pocahontas, after her mother. During a courtship dance, it is likely she danced with Kocoum, the younger brother of Potowomac Chief Japazaw.

She married the young warrior at about 14 and soon became pregnant.

It was at this time rumors began to surface that colonists planned to kidnap the beloved chief’s daughter Pocahontas.

Pocahontas Was Kidnapped, Her Husband Was Murdered and She Was Forced to Give Up Her First Child  

When Pocahontas was about 15 or 16, the rumors of a possible kidnapping had become more of a threat and she was living with her husband Kocoum at his Potowomac village.

An English colonist by the name of Captain Samuel Argall sought to find her, thinking that a captured daughter of the chief would thwart attacks by Natives.

Hearing of her whereabouts, Argall came to the village and demanded Chief Japazaw, brother of Pocahontas’ husband, to give up Pocahontas or suffer violence against his village. Overcome with grief at a horrible choice, he relented with a hopeful promise that she would only be gone temporarily. That was a promise Argall quickly broke.

Before Argall left the village, he gave Chief Japazaw a copper pot. He later claimed to have traded it for her. This “trade” is still taught by historians. This is akin to the way that Smith ‘traded’ for corn by holding a gun to the heads of chiefs.

Before leaving the village, Pocahontas had to give her baby (referred to as little Kocoum) to the women of the village. Trapped onboard an English ship, she was not aware that when her husband returned to their village, he was killed by the colonists.

The tribal chiefs of the Powhatan never retaliated for the kidnapping of Pocahontas, fearing they would be captured and that the beloved daughter of the chief and the “Peace Symbol of the Powhatan” might be harmed.

Pocahontas Was Raped While in Captivity and Became Pregnant With Her Second Child

According to Dr. Linwood Custalow, a historian of the Mattaponi Tribe and the custodian of the sacred oral history of Pocahontas, soon after being kidnapped, she was suffering from depression and was growing more fearful and withdrawn. Her extreme anxiety was so severe her English captors allowed Pocahontas’ eldest sister Mattachanna and her husband Uttamattamakin to come to her aid.

Dr. Custalow writes in his book, The True Story of Pocahontas, The Other Side of History, that when Mattachanna and her husband Uttamattamakin, a spiritual advisor to Chief Wahunsenaca, Pocahontas confided in her sister.

When Mattachanna and Uttamattamakin arrived at Jamestown, Pocahontas confided in that she had been raped. Mattaponi sacred oral history is very clear on this: Pocahontas was raped. It is possible that it had been done to her by more than one person and repeatedly. My grandfather and other teachers of Mattaponi oral history said that Pocahontas was raped.

The possibility of being taken captive was a danger to be aware of in Powhatan Society, but rape was not tolerated. Rape in Powhatan Society was virtually unheard of because the punishment for such actions was so severe. Powhatan society did not have prisons. Punishment for wrongful actions often consisted of banishment from the tribe.

Historians differ on where Pocahontas was held, but tribal historians believe she was likely held in Jamestown, but was relocated to Henrico to when she was pregnant.

Pocahontas had a son, Thomas.

John Rolfe Married Pocahontas to Create a Native Alliance in Tobacco Production

Mattaponi history is clear that Pocahontas had a son out of wedlock, Thomas, prior to her marriage to John Rolfe. Prior to that marriage, the colonists pressed Pocahontas to become “civilized” and often told her that her father did not love her because he had not come to rescue her.

Pocahontas often tore off her English clothes, because they were uncomfortable. Eventually, Pocahontas was converted to Christianity and took the name Rebecca.

Pocahontas as Rebecca Rolfe.

In the midst of her captivity, the English colony of Jamestown was failing. John Rolfe was under a 1616 deadline to become profitable or lose the support of England. Rolfe sought to learn tobacco curing techniques from the Powhatan, but curing tobacco was a sacred practice not to be shared with outsiders. Realizing the political strength of aligning himself with the tribe, he eventually married Pocahontas.

Though some historians claim Pocahontas and Rolfe married for love, it is not a certainty, as Pocahontas was never allowed to see her family, child or father after being kidnapped.

Library of Congress

The Pocahontas wedding with John Rolfe.

After the two were married, the Powhatan spiritual leaders and family to Pocahontas shared the curing practice with Rolfe. Soon afterwards, Rolfe’s tobacco was a sensation in England, which saved the colony of Jamestown, as they finally found a profitable venture.

The Powhatan tribal lands were now highly sought after for the tobacco trade and the tribe suffered great losses of life and land at the hands of greedy tobacco farmers.

It is worth noting that though it was custom for a Powhatan father to give away his daughter at a marriage, Wahunsenaca did not attend the wedding of his daughter to Rolfe for fear of being captured or killed. He did send a strand of pearls as a gift.

Virginia Historical Society

Pocahontas Portrait by Thomas Sully. c. 1852

As Dr. Custalow wrote in The True Story of Pocahontas, The Other Side of History:

Although Wahunsenaca did not attend the wedding, we know through sacred Mattaponi oral history that he gave Pocahontas a pearl necklace as a wedding gift. The pearls were obtained from the Chesapeake Bay oyster beds. The necklace was notable for the large size and fine quality of the pearls. Pearls of the size were rare, making them a suitable gift for a paramount chief’s daughter. No mention of this necklace has been found in the English writings, but a portrait of Pocahontas wearing a pearl necklace used to hang in the Gov.’s mansion in Richmond.

Pocahontas Was Brought to England To Raise Money and Was Then Likely Murdered

Rumors of the colonists desire to bring Pocahontas made its way to the Powhatan, who feared for her well-being and considered an attempt to rescue her. But Wahunsenaca feared his daughter might be harmed.

Rebecca “Pocahontas” Rolfe traveled to England with John Rolfe, her son Thomas Rolfe, Captain John Argall (who had kidnapped her) and several Native tribal members, including her sister Mattachanna.

Though many settlers were committing atrocities against the Powhatan, many elites in England did not approve of the mistreatment of natives. The bringing of Pocahontas to England to show friendship with Native nations was a key to continued financial support for the colonists.

Library of Congress

Pocahontas at Court of King James.

According to the accounts of Mattachanna, she realized that she was being used and desperately desired to return home to her father and little Kocoum. During her travels in England, Pocahontas did meet John Smith and expressed outrage due to the mistreatment of his position as leader of the colonists and the betrayal to the Powhatan people.

After the journey and showing off of Pocahontas to the English elites, plans were made to return to Virginia in the spring of 1617. According to a recounting by Mattachanna, she was in good health while in England and on the ship preparing to go home.

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Shortly after a dinner with Rolfe and Argall, she vomited and died. Those tribal members who were accompanying her, including her sister Mattachanna, said she was in previous good health and assessed she must have been poisoned due to her sudden death.

According to Mattaponi oral history, many of the Native people accompanying Pocahontas were sold as servants or carnival attractions or sent to Bermuda if they became pregnant after being raped and sold into slavery.

Wikipedia

Pocahontas grave, St. Georges Church Kent UK.

Pocahontas was just under 21 at the time of her death. Instead of being taken home and laid to rest with her father, Rolfe and Argall took her to Gravesend, England, where she was buried at Saint George’s Church, March 21, 1617. Though Virginia tribes have requested that her remains returned for repatriation, officials in England say the exact whereabouts of her remains are not known.    

Wahunsenaca learned from Mattachanna that his beloved daughter had died but had never betrayed her people, as some historians claim. Heartbroken that he had not ever rescued his daughter, he died from grief less than a year after the death of Pocahontas.

The Descendants of Pocahontas

Oral histories of both the Mattaponi and Patawomeck and historical references say she mothered two children, Thomas Rolfe, who was left in England after the death of his mother, and ‘little Kocoum.’

According to Deyo, Little Kocoum was the name that Dr. Linwood Custalow used for the purpose of his book to reference a small child whose name was not yet known.  In the sacred oral history of the Mattaponi, the child was raised by the Patawomeck Tribe. The name of that child was passed down in the Patawomeck oral history was discovered to be Ka-Okee, a daughter.

This lineage to Ka-Okee includes the world famous entertainer Wayne Newton, a member of the Virginia state-recognized Powhatan Patawomeck tribe.

Thomas Rolfe stayed in England and was educated there. He later returned to the Powhatan as an adult. He was married and had many descendants. 

North Wind Picture Archives via AP Images

Statue of Pocahontas at the original site of Jamestown, in Colonial National Historical Park, Virginia.

Main Sources

A special thank you to the following sources:

Mattaponi Tribal Historian, Dr. Linwood ‘Little Bear’ Custalow, and Angela L. Daniel “Silver Star’ for the book The True Story of Pocahontas, The Other Side of History

Pamunkey Chief Robert Gray

Patawomeck Chief John Lightner

Powhatan Patawomeck Tribal Historian Bill Deyo

Countless council members and tribal members of the 11 Tribes in Virginia, who have been gracious in sharing their stories.

Follow the author of this article, Vincent Schilling (Akwesasne Mohawk) – ICMN’s Arts and Entertainment, Pow Wows and Sports Editor – Follow @VinceSchilling

America’s Long History of Warfare and Murder

by Lawrence Davidson
Consortiumnews.com

If you go to the Wikipedia page that gives a timeline of U.S. foreign military operations between 1775 and 2010, you are likely to come away in shock. It seems that ever since the founding of the country, the United States has been at war. It is as if Americans just could not (and still cannot) sit still, but had to (and still have to) force themselves on others through military action.

Photos of victims of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam galvanized public awareness about the barbarity of the war. (Photo taken by U. S. Army photographer Ronald L. Haeberle)

Often this is aimed at controlling foreign resources, thus forcing upon others the consequences of their own capitalist avarice. At other times the violence is spurred on by an ideology that confuses U.S. interests with civilization and freedom. Only very rarely is Washington out there on the side of the angels. Regardless, the bottom line seems to be that peace has never been a deeply ingrained cultural value for the citizens of the United States. As pertains to foreign policy, America’s national culture is a war culture.

It is against this historical backdrop that the recent Ken Burns 18-hour-long documentary on the Vietnam War comes off as superficial. There is a subtle suggestion that while those American leaders who initiated and escalated the war were certainly deceptive, murderously stubborn and even self-deluded, they were so in what they considered to be a good cause. They wanted to stop the spread of Communism at a time when the Cold War defined almost all of foreign policy, and if that meant denying the Vietnamese the right of national unification, so be it. The Burns documentary is a visual demonstration of the fact that such a strategy could not work. Nonetheless, American leaders, both civilian and military, could not let go.

What the Burns documentary does not tell us – and it is this that makes the work superficial – is that none of this was new. Almost all preceding American violence abroad had been rationalized by the same or related set of excuses that kept the Vietnam slaughter going: the Revolutionary War was about “liberty,” the genocidal wars against the Native Americans were about spreading “civilization,” the wars against Mexico and Spain were about spreading “freedom,” and once capitalism became officially synonymous with freedom, the dozens of bloody incursions into Central and South America also became about our “right” to carry on “free enterprise.” As time went by, when Washington wasn’t spreading “freedom,” it was defending it. And so it goes, round and round.

A Ghastly Process 

Understanding the history of this ghastly process, one is likely to lose all faith in such rationales. However, it seems obvious that a large number of Americans, including most of their leaders, know very little of the history of American wars (as against knowing a lot of idealized pseudo-history). That is why Ken Burns and his associates can show us the awfulness of the Vietnam War to little avail. The average viewer will have no accurate historical context to understand it, and thus it becomes just an isolated tragedy. While it all might have gone fatally wrong, the American leaders were assumed to be well intentioned.

President Lyndon Johnson meeting with South Vietnamese President Nguyen van Thieu on July 19,1968.

Describing the Vietnam War in terms of intentions is simply insufficient. In the case of war the hard-and-fast consequences of one’s actions are more important than one’s intentions. The United States killed roughly 2 million Vietnamese civilians for ideological reasons that its own leaders, and most of its citizens, never questioned.

Most of its citizens, but not all. There was, of course, a widespread and multifaceted anti-war movement. The anti-war protesters were, in truth, the real heroes, the real patriots of the moment. Along with the accumulating body bags, it was the anti-war movement that brought an end to the slaughter. However, once more Burns’s documentary comes off as superficial.

Burns leaves the viewer with the impression that the only truly legitimate anti-war protesters were veterans and those associated with veterans. But those were only a small part of a much larger whole. Yet the millions of other Americans who protested the war are essentially slandered by Burns. The documentary presents them as mostly Communist fellow-travelers. We also see various representatives of that non-veteran part of the movement apologize for their positions. There is the implication that the movement had bad tactics.

Here is an example: one of the points that the Burns documentary makes is how distasteful was the labeling of returning soldiers as “baby killers.” Actually this did not happen very often, but when it did, one might judge the charge as impolitic – but not inaccurate. You can’t kill 2 million civilians without killing a lot of babies. If we understand war in terms of the death of babies, then there might be fewer wars.

U.S. leaders also sent 58,000 of their own citizens to die in Vietnam. Why did these citizens go? After all, this was not like World War II. North Vietnam had not attacked the United States (the Bay of Tonkin incident was misrepresented to Congress). The Vietcong were not Nazis. But you need an accurate take on history to recognize these facts, and that was, as usual, missing. And so, believing their politicians, the generals, and most of their civic leaders, many draftees and volunteers went to die or be maimed under false pretenses.

The inevitable post-war disillusionment was seen by subsequent U.S. leaders as a form of mental illness, and they labeled it “the Vietnam Syndrome.” The “syndrome” was as short-lived as popular memory. In March 2003, President George W. Bush invaded Iraq under false pretenses and U.S. forces proceeded to kill half a million civilians.

In the end, American behavior in Vietnam was not just tragically flawed – it was criminal. But it was also historically consistent – an expression of a long-standing and deep-seated war culture, a culture that still defines the American worldview and has become the very linchpin of its domestic economy. That is why the wars, large and small, never stop.

A Gun Culture, Too

America’s propensity to violence in other lands is but one side of a two-sided coin. Callous disregard for civilian lives abroad is matched by a willful promotion of violence at home. That willful promotion is the product of a right-wing ideological orientation (stemming from a misreading of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution) that demands a nearly open-ended right of all Americans to own an almost unlimited number and types of firearms. The result is gun regulation laws that are embarrassingly ineffective.

Air Force F-105s bomb a target in the southern panhandle of North Vietnam on June 14, 1966. (Photo credit: U.S. Air Force)”

Again, the consequences of this position are much more profound than any claim that its supporters’ intentions are to defend citizens rights to own guns. Since 1968 about as many Americans have been killed in-country by gun violence (1.53 million) as have died in all of America’s wars put together (1.20 million). The numbers are too close to be dismissed as coincidence. Both reflect a culture of exceptionalism that grants at once the United States government, and its citizens, extensive rights to act in disregard of the safety and security of others.

You would think Americans would recognize an obvious contradiction here. You cannot maintain a safe population and, at the same time, allow citizens the right to own and, largely at their own discretion, use firearms. Nonetheless, some Americans imagine that they have squared this circle by claiming that their guns are for “self-defense” and therefore do make for a safer society.

This is just like the U.S. government’s constant exposition that all its violence is committed in the name of civilization and freedom. In both cases we have a dangerous delusion. Ubiquitous gun ownership makes us unsafe, just as does the endless waging of war.

The inability to see straight is not the sort of failing that can be restricted to one dimension. If you can’t grasp reality due to ideological blinkers or historical ignorance, you are going to end up in trouble both at home and abroad – not just one place, but both.

And, the more weaponized you are, both as a state and as a citizen, the greater the potential for disaster. In the end the United States cannot stop killing civilians abroad unless it finds the wisdom to stop killing its own citizens at home – and vice versa. That is the U.S. conundrum, whether America’s 320 million citizens realize it or not.

Lawrence Davidson is a history professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He is the author of Foreign Policy Inc.: Privatizing America’s National Interest; America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood; and Islamic Fundamentalism. He blogs at www.tothepointanalyses.com.

Native American Rape Survivors Tell How Deck Is Stacked Against Them

by Amelia Pang
Truthdig

WHITE EARTH RESERVATION, Minn.—Candice (not her real name) awoke with a start. Someone was pulling down her sweatpants. It was a male friend.

“Stop!” she shouted.

He kept groping her. She kicked him and he fell off the bed. She dashed out of the bedroom, tripping and tumbling down the stairs. Gripped with fear, she heard his footsteps behind her in the dark and forced herself to stand upright as she staggered out to the porch.

Candice was still intoxicated. She got into her car and drove into a ditch. A white police officer pulled up. She struggled to hold back tears as she told him about the attempted rape.

All the officer saw was a drunk and disorderly Native American woman. He dismissed Candice’s report of sexual assault as a lie she had made up to avoid getting a DUI. He did not take her to the hospital for a forensic exam. The sexual assault was not recorded in his police report.

“The cops didn’t do anything,” Candice said as she recalled the 2008 sexual assault. “What’s the use of even saying anything?”

Candice, 43, had been sexually assaulted on four separate occasions. Her first perpetrator was a family member who molested her behind some trees by a lake when she was 5 years old. She doesn’t remember whether he was arrested. The next three perpetrators were not arrested. Two of Candice’s three daughters have also been raped. Their perpetrators were never arrested.

The Department of Justice estimates that one in three Native American women reports having been sexually assaulted during her lifetime. They are 2.5 times more likely to experience sexual violence than women of any other ethnicity in the U.S.

Candice’s repeated encounters with sexual violence are part of what Native American women call an epidemic of sexual assault on reservations.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the White Earth Indian Reservation has a population of 5,044. Twenty-four rapes were recorded in 2015 from the region; 13 in 2014; 12 in 2013; 15 in 2012; and 17 in 2011.

The Mahnomen County Sheriff’s Office recorded no rapes in 2010 and 2013, even though the county consists entirely of White Earth Indian Reservation land.

Rape survivors say these statistics illustrate the indifference by law enforcement to sexual assault.

Of the 28 officers in the White Earth Tribal Police Department, only four are Native American. Most are white. Predominately white police officers from the three neighboring counties—Mahnomen, Becker and Clearwater—also patrol on reservation land.

White Earth Indian Reservation sprawls over 1,300 square miles that stretch across rural northwestern Minnesota. I drive for miles on long rural roads without stoplights or streetlights. At night, the only light sources are the moon and the dancing flames in the distant fields where farmers burn weeds.

Mahnomen County has substantial farmland but very few businesses. There’s a Dollar General, a handful of diners, a Subway restaurant, the Shooting Star Casino and a company that sells John Deere tractors. The Mahnomen County jail was condemned and shut down a few years ago, forcing tribal police officers to drive four to five hours to the next nearest jail whenever those in the two neighboring counties are full.

White Earth is an important reservation to examine, because it has concurrent jurisdiction, defined as “the ability to exercise judicial review by different courts at the same time, within the same territory, and over the same subject matter.” This means White Earth, for the most part, is free from the complex jurisdictional problems that plague most other reservations.

The vast majority of state and tribal courts do not have the legal authority to prosecute serious crimes that occur on a reservation. Most criminal cases that occur on a reservation must go to the feds.

Yet the feds have a staggering backlog of cases. For example, they declined to prosecute more than 65 percent of major crime cases that originated from reservations in 2006, perpetuating an environment in which rapists and domestic violence abusers can act with impunity. This is particularly the case if the perpetrator is not a Native American. Most tribal police departments lack the legal authority to arrest a non-Native American who commits a crime on the reservation.

This is not the case on White Earth Indian Reservation. It received federal jurisdiction in 2013, which means its tribal police can arrest anyone. It also allows the three surrounding state courts to prosecute most criminal cases that originate from the reservation.

Of the nation’s 326 Indian reservations, White Earth is the first of three to receive concurrent jurisdiction.

But rape is still rampant on White Earth.

Todd Thompson’s 17-year-old Native American daughter was raped last December.

“I had trouble contacting tribal police. I don’t feel like I got much support at all, if any,” said Thompson, a 47-year-old personal care assistant on the reservation.

Although official statistics show that one in three Native American women reports having been sexually assaulted during her lifetime, Lisa Brunner, an advocate on White Earth, estimates the number is much higher.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if every woman here has been raped,” she said. “Not just once, but multiple times.” Brunner and her daughter are both survivors of sexual assault.

When I asked Candice how she dealt with the trauma of surviving four sexual assaults, she said, “The drugs numb you.”

Candice said she resorted to meth for a year to cope with her pain. Two of her daughters, also rape survivors, are currently in drug treatment.

Candice’s lined face glistens under an unseasonably hot May sun. She has a habit of rocking herself from side to side. A strand of black hair slips out of her loose bun. She rarely looks people in the eye when she speaks.

“You have a hard time trusting anyone after that. You don’t trust guys. You don’t trust family members,” she said. “You have issues, all the time.”

Her experience is in stark contrast to that of Ryan Seeger, a 28-year-old Caucasian White Earth Tribal Police sergeant. He describes situations in which he believes women “feel guilty about cheating on their boyfriends or husbands and cry rape afterward.”

Seeger admits he had a biased view of Native Americans before joining the police department.

“I didn’t grow up here. I’m not Native American at all,” Seeger said. “I grew up in DL [Detroit Lakes, Minn.]. I grew up always being told, ‘Oh don’t go to the reservation. It’s dangerous up there. If you’re driving through the res, you better lock your doors.’

“It took a little bit of getting used to, to get past the bias that I had because of the way I was raised,” he said. “In all reality … there’s plenty of people on the reservation who are good people … who work and are good to their kids and have good family lives.”

Seeger said he has gotten past his biases. But he went on to express a particularly unsympathetic view of a Native American rape victim he encountered recently at the Shooting Star Casino.

“It was kind of a weird deal. After talking with her, it turns out she’s got a boyfriend from back home. Apparently, earlier in the night she had consensual sex with another guy who is not her boyfriend. Later on in the night, she claims she got raped by this guy,” Seeger said. “She’s possibly got two different guys in her on one night. One consensual and one not. The guy that is supposedly the suspect is married. He has some kids. He has a family.”

Seeger said the alleged perpetrator and his friends were more credible than the victim.

“There’s multiple people in the room. No one heard or saw anything. We knew it happened around six. There were some friends of the suspect. They pretty much said, ‘We left the room at five. There’s no way our friend could have done it. He was literally blackout drunk and passed out hard … There’s no way he could have gotten up. There were other people sleeping in the room.’ They’re like, ‘There’s no way this happened,’ ” Seeger said.

The victim gave a highly detailed account, which is typically a sign that the victim is telling the truth, so Seeger called the county attorney to ask for a third opinion. The county attorney advised him to arrest the perpetrator, which Seeger did, reluctantly. He continues to defend him.

“It was very embarrassing for the guy too, obviously. Here’s the thing: When I look at sexual assault cases, I take them very seriously. I take the accusation very seriously. But I also take in the fact that if the accusation is false and you go ahead and make an arrest, you could potentially have really screwed over somebody’s life,” Seeger said. “Here you got a guy who is a father. Married. This girl who is, whatever, claiming she was raped by this guy. If I arrest this guy, I’m going to have to tell his wife, ‘Hey we arrested your husband for, you know.’ And apparently, this guy is really well-respected in the community. Goes to a lot of powwows. He’s really well known and really well liked. So I take all that stuff very seriously. It’s a very hard decision to make, because on one hand, this very well might have happened. On the other hand, it might not have happened and you could be screwing the guy’s life over. It’s a bad deal. We did make an arrest on the guy. Basically just because of this woman’s testimony.”

Karen Kellerhuis, a sexual assault nurse examiner who has worked in emergency rooms on White Earth Reservation for 30 years, said Seeger typifies the attitudes of both tribal and nontribal police officers, who often question the credibility of Native American women.

Kellerhuis recalls receiving a call from a Mahnomen County officer a few years ago.

“’Is there anybody up there who can help if someone was raped’?” she remembered him asking. “’I’m sure she wasn’t even raped. She’s just making it up. … Well, if you’re going to be there, go get her then.’”

Kellerhuis said that the victim was crying when she arrived at the hospital. She was extremely descriptive as she recounted the rape that occurred at a party, and she agreed to a rape examination.

Victims, Kellerhuis said, are unlikely to complete a rape examination if they are lying about sexual assault. The two- to four-hour exam is invasive and often unpleasant, involving combing and pulling pubic hair, doing swabs around the genitalia and inserting a medical camera to take pictures of genital injuries.

During that particular examination, Kellerhuis found bruises in the shape of handprints on the victim’s legs, as well as vaginal tears—a sign of forced penetration. Her face was red from apparently being slapped by the perpetrator.

Kellerhuis called the officer back and asked him to take a statement from the victim.

“’Oh, did she put on a show for you? I don’t believe her. She wasn’t even emotional with me,’” Kellerhuis remembered the officer saying. “’Are you sure she was raped?’”

“He just would not believe me,” Kellerhuis said. “And that wasn’t the first time that happened.”

Kellerhuis said the police are even more reluctant to believe male rape victims.

She recalls a teenage Native American boy with dark hair and round cheeks who was brought to the Mahnomen County Hospital emergency room in 2014. As he removed his gray sweatpants and blue T-shirt, Kellerhuis saw horizontal scratches on his body, as if someone had sliced him with a sharp object. The word “faggot” was written across his forehead in a red marker.

The perpetrator also wrote “Someone Came Here” on his stomach and drew a red arrow pointing to his penis. Then he turned over. Kellerhuis saw a second red arrow pointing to his buttocks and the words, “I was here.”

“I’m so sorry this happened to you,” she told him. “You are worth more than this.”

Though there were tears in his eyes, he sat in silence as she collected evidence and documented his anal tears.

She saw semen smeared all over his body. She found red and blond pubic hairs on his scrotum. His own hair was black. The evidence showed there were multiple perpetrators.

Yet the tribal police officer in charge of the investigation found it hard to believe that a male could be raped.

“Can you prove he didn’t do this to himself?” Kellerhuis recalled the officer asking. “Do you know whose semen it is? It could have been his own semen. He could have easily done this to himself.”

“It’s not my job to prove anything. My job is to collect evidence,” Kellerhuis said. “It’s their job to investigate. They’re not doing their jobs.

“[The teenager] didn’t know how he was going to live after this. He felt so shameful. Then, on top of that, the officer asked him if he did this to himself,” Kellerhuis said. “He asked me many times, ‘Do you think he could have done this to himself?’ ”

According to Kellerhuis, the problem isn’t limited to the police—there is a systemic bias against Native American rape victims that extends to health care providers.

Kellerhuis worked with one Native American rape victim in 2015 who agreed to a rape examination. The victim, who knew the perpetrator, gave a highly detailed account of the rape, even though she was intoxicated.

Medical providers are required to give rape victims emergency contraception pills and prophylactic antibiotics to prevent sexually transmitted infections. But according to Kellerhuis, the provider responsible for the girl’s health care refused to give the girl any preventative medicine because she was intoxicated.

Kellerhuis recalled the provider saying the assault was the victim’s “own goddamn fault” because she had been under the influence.

“They did not treat her for any [sexually transmitted infections],” Kellerhuis said. “They treated her like, ‘Oh, well. Too bad, so sad.’ ”

“The police don’t care. They act like it’s your fault,” said an elder on White Earth Reservation who wished to remain anonymous for this story. “The cavalry is still here.”

When asked about police response to violence against women, White Earth Tribal Police Chief Michael LaRoque defended his department. “Most of our officers are trained for sexual assault investigations and domestic violence investigations,” he said. “All of our officers are equipped to handle anything.”

“We also have a law enforcement liaison that works with DOVE (Down On Violence Everyday),” he added. “It’s a very successful program. They have domestic violence advocates. They have sexual assault advocates. They have a women’s shelter.”

DOVE and its law enforcement liaison both declined to comment for this story.

Native American rape victims are often reluctant to call the police or press charges because they risk violent retaliation by their attackers or the attackers’ families. Calling law enforcement is frowned upon on many reservations. There is an inclination toward “street justice.”

“They’ll beat the hell out of you for talking to the police,” said a White Earth elder who did not wish to be named because her granddaughter was raped six months ago. “They’ll break your windows. It happens all the time.”

“He threatened to kill me. He said he had guns with the serial numbers scraped off,” said Brunner, a rape survivor and advocate at White Earth. Brunner was describing an incident in which she was too afraid to call the police after her daughter was molested.

“He’d brag to me about how he used to work with drug cartels, about burying people in an Arizona desert,” she said.

According to Marvin Manypenny, a white Mahnomen County police officer raped his daughter in 2002. She had been arrested her for a misdemeanor and raped while she was in handcuffs.

She reported the rape to two departments—the Becker County Police Department and the White Earth Tribal Police Department. Manypenny said neither department followed up with her.

“We raised questions to no avail,” Manypenny said. “We’re still caught up in colonialism.”

Manypenny complained at a White Earth public forum a year later about the lack of response to Native American sexual assault victims—particularly the case if the perpetrator was an officer. The Mahnomen County Sheriff’s Office sued him for defamation.

Manypenny was charged with exposing a particular officer “to hatred, contempt, [and] ridicule,” according to court documents. But a video recording of the forum later revealed that Manypenny had not named any specific officers. The charges were dropped.

Although Manypenny had not named the officer, the Mahnomen County Sheriff’s Office knew who he had been referring to.

The office was aware of sexual assault allegations against this officer, yet he was never disciplined. He is currently a sergeant at another police department.

Manypenny believes the Mahnomen County Sheriff’s Office used the lawsuit as a scare tactic to prevent other Native Americans from speaking out about officers who rape.

“They were trying to shut our mouths,” he said.

A sense of hopelessness is rife among many Native American rape survivors.

“I actually don’t wish to relive that part of my life. … It was horrible enough as it is, and I want that shame off my mind,” Manypenny’s daughter, Danielle Manypenny, wrote to me in a Facebook message. “I don’t believe telling my story is going to do any good for anybody.”

Another former Mahnomen County deputy used his authority to regularly rape Native American women for years before getting fired. He frequently picked up victims in his police car, according to the charges. He sometimes made illegal arrests in order to do so. He was eventually charged with 11 counts of criminal sexual conduct and 29 other charges of brutality and misconduct in 1995—including bribery and unlawful use of tear gas.

Brunner said the slow accountability or complete lack thereof “laid a precedent for the current atmosphere.”

“Women in the community have expressed fear for years when it comes to calling 911, not knowing which officer will respond,” she said.

A sliver of hope has emerged as Native American advocates put their heads together to find ways to address the epidemic of violence against women.

Desiree Coyote, who advocates for victims of family violence on the Umatilla Indian Reservation in northeastern Oregon, said she recently realized that contacting police certifying agencies to hold officers accountable is an effective strategy.

When I met her in Oregon, Coyote, a stately woman with a contagious laugh, told me the Umatilla reservation also has a predominantly white tribal police department.

She recalled an incident in which one tribal officer, who often showed an insensitive attitude toward rape victims, was fired.

At the scene, there was blood on the floor. Shards of glass lay scattered on the ground. The rape victim had attempted to escape by jumping through the window. But the tribal police officer refused to take a statement from her because she was inebriated.

“He didn’t investigate. I call him ‘the lazy officer,’ ” said Coyote, who reported this incident and the officer’s other misconducts to the Oregon State Law Enforcement Academy, which certifies officers and has the ability to discipline.

To her surprise, he was eventually removed from the police department.

“People need to start asking, ‘What is the grievance policy?’ ” Coyote said, explaining that in her experience, police certifying agencies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are typically responsive to complaints about officers. “I wish I knew about this years ago. A lot of reservations don’t know this.”

The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation is one of eight tribes that gained special jurisdiction under the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act in 2013. These tribes can exercise special jurisdiction to prosecute non-Native Americans who commit domestic assault or dating violence or who violate a protection order. It doesn’t, however, help women who were raped by non-Native American strangers.

But the reservation has implemented a number of effective new programs, including a court-ordered Batterer Intervention Program, as an alternative to incarceration.

“We help the offender change his beliefs, not only about women and the roles of different genders, but also having them engaging and reflecting on the choices they make,” Coyote said.

This has been a popular choice in the community, one that protects women from retaliation.

“Most of the time, they’re happy to find some type of help for him. The aunts, uncles, family members, are the same way,” Coyote said. “They like the person. They just don’t like the behavior.”

The Umatilla Indian Reservation has come a long way in rebuilding trust between the police department and the Native American community. Its domestic violence office has experienced a 50 percent increase in calls from the community in the last three years—not because the violence has increased, but because people are starting to trust the system.

Coyote has been sharing what she’s learned with advocates from other reservations.

In May, the Umatilla Indian Reservation hosted “Sliver of a Full Moon,” a play about jurisdictional issues on reservations, chronicling the stories of Native American sexual assault and domestic violence survivors who helped get the Violence Against Women Act reauthorized.

It was the 16th performance by an acting group that has been touring across the United States since 2013. The performers—who are from various tribes across North America—were there to learn from each others’ progress, celebrate what they have achieved and strengthen their belief that they will win more rights for Native American women.

The cast included five Native American women who retold their personal stories.

Billie Jo Rich, a survivor of domestic violence and a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, traveled from North Carolina to participate in the play. She recounted an incident in which her white ex-husband threatened to murder her in front of tribal officers.

“He said he was going to kill me, going to drown me. He once described to two police officers, in great detail, how he was going to ‘put me in the water.’ The police officers stood there and said nothing, like they didn’t hear him. They stared at their feet,” she said. “When you’re in that situation and you know no one is coming to help you. It minimizes you so much. You’re not worthy of protecting. It sends a message to the abuser: You can do whatever you want. That was the worst feeling.”

Melissa Brady, a domestic violence survivor from the Spirit Lake Tribe in North Dakota, sings to fill the silence if one of the performers breaks down crying during the play.

“We try not to cry. We don’t think we’re going to cry. But sometimes those emotions come,” Brady said. “So I sing a song.”

Brunner also plays herself in the production. She received a Bush Fellowship in 2016 to study how other indigenous communities in the U.S. and Canada protect and heal their sexual assault, domestic violence and sex-trafficking victims.

After the performance at the Umatilla reservation, she returned to White Earth with a renewed determination to protect and heal the women in her community. She performed an ancient healing ceremony in her home. Under the dappled light of a setting sun, she burned sage to cleanse herself of negative energy.

A wisp of smoke rose from the blackened sage. Her eyes rested on the row of houses outside her window. On a reservation where everyone knows everyone’s business, she knows that most women on White Earth have been raped. Many have survived multiple rapes.

Brunner fanned the smoke with an eagle feather, spreading its healing scent throughout her house and beyond, into the reservation. She was raped. Her daughter was raped. But she felt, in her bones, that her granddaughter won’t be.

Amelia Pang is an award-winning journalist, formerly with the Epoch Times.