9/04/11 AN INJUSTICE TO ONE AMERICAN EVENTUALLY BECOMES AN INJUSTICE TO ALL

COUSINS

AUNTIE AND NIECE

Saturday, 8:00 AM.  63 degrees, wind W, calm.  The sky is partly cloudy, mostly clear in the W and N and dark in the SE.  The barometer predicts partly cloudy skies and the humidity is low.
    We managed to stay out of the way of real storms yesterday, but when we got to Plainfield there were trees down and cleanup operations going on all over the little town.  High winds in mid-morning came through and did a lot of damage to this and nearby towns, and several of my cousins' properties suffered damage, but evidently nothing major.
    Fields and roadsides are bright yellow with goldenrods everywhere now, but I couldn’t find a photo opportunity that did it all justice.  We saw hen turkeys with chicks about the size of Cornish game hens around Merrill, both going and coming.
    My Uncle Paul was a full blooded American Indian, so my cousins from the marriage of Uncle Paul and my mother’s sister Esther always were either blond, blue-eyed and fair skinned or black haired, black-eyed and copper skinned, and their offspring have sort of followed that pattern of gene linkage.  My Uncle Paul’s people were, I am told by my cousin Ted, part  of a group formed from seven Northeastern Indian tribes (The Bothertown Tribe)  that converted to Christianity  and turned to farming, and were granted American Citizenship by the U.S. Congress in 1839.  But that didn’t keep them from having their property confiscated or outright stolen and themselves pushed west with other Indian tribes during the hard times of the Indian removals of the 1830’s and '40's (go to the Devil, Andrew Jackson), and that’s how they came to Wisconsin from upstate New York. The actual history involved here is more than this blog can relate, but detailed information can be had by Googling Brothertown Tribe.  They probably escaped further removal west when President Polk granted the petition of Chief White Buffalo of the Ojibways not to remove Wisconsin Indians from their homelands.They have never been compensated in any way for their tribulations or property, because they are not considered a tribe, and they have been in limbo, trying to get Congress to again declare them Indians so they can gain some of the rights and privileges that other Native Americans tribes have.  How complicated America is!  But, it has indeed been a melting pot, and an injustice to one has a way of becoming an injustice to many, and finally an injustice to all.