[VDARE.COM Note: OK, OK, we should have posted this yesterday, on Columbus Day. But, as a bonus, here's David Yeagley's Indian perspective on Columbus Day.
A belated Happy Bad Eagle Day to all our readers!]
As an Indian - a direct descendant of the Comanche warrior Bad Eagle, 1839-1906 - I've always been fascinated with foreigners. I've admired their great courage and determination. They made a perilous journey from their homeland. They learned a new language, and new ways, all in a new land. They brought the world to me.
("Indian"? Naturally, most tribes prefer their own name. But that's in their own language, and no one but themselves would know of whom they speak. There is no collective name for "Indians" in any tribal language. The modern term "Native American," created in the 1970s by leftists, is ambiguous. Most Indian people don't use it - only what I call the "university tribe," college-educated Indians led by white radical professors; and the would-be politically correct media. The name we first held, in the white man's eyes, was "Indian." That's what we have been since Columbus. That's what our most famous warriors were called. Believe me, Indians prefer the name "Indian." It is historically specific, whatever its origin. The name holds the emotional, psychological associations of the warrior. The Left, of course, wants to remove that. Hey, call me savage!)
Playing host to strangers has always been an Indian tradition—as the Pilgrims so famously learned. However, some might say that we Indians were too hospitable for our own good.
America today is making the same mistake we Indians made nearly four centuries ago. America is letting in too many foreigners. And we Indians could end up losing this country all over again. It may come as a surprise to many white people who have been brainwashed by the media to see Indians as the ultimate liberals, but there are few groups in America today who take a dimmer view of mass immigration than the American Indian.
According to ProjectUSA.org, the U.S. population will double within the lifetimes of our children, as a direct result of the massive, uncontrolled influx of foreigners who began flooding our land after passage of the 1965 Immigration Act.
All Americans will suffer. But Indians will suffer most of all.
I'm not talking about competition for jobs, land, housing, energy, water and other finite resources—though these are all important. I'm talking about something deeper. The demographic destruction of Anglo-America will bring the final catastrophe on our people.
What catastrophe? The catastrophe of waking up one day and realizing that white people no longer control this country.
Now why should an Indian care about that? After all, white people are supposedly our enemies.
Well, yes, they were. But, as warriors, we found them to be worthy and formidable adversaries. Defeat is bitter. But when you respect your conqueror, it is a lot easier to swallow.
If Anglo-America turns this land over to blacks, Mexicans, Asians, Middle Easterners and other foreign peoples, for the Indian, it will be like losing this country for the second time. We have had generations to reconcile ourselves to white America. But we do not know these new people who are coming. We fought no battles with them, made no treaties with them, and have no reason to accord them any special respect.
If things keep going the way they are, we Indians could find ourselves bowing down to foreign peoples who never defeated our forefathers in battle—and who certainly never could!
We Indians—especially the more warlike tribes such as my people the Comanches—recognize a kindred spirit in the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. He is like us in more ways than he knows.
The Comanches were one of the most intolerant of all Indian peoples. We had no use for anyone else, white, Mexican or Indian. When we came thundering down on the southwest plains, we took the land we wanted and ran everyone else off. We created the life we wanted, at the expense of other people.
The white man did the same. Only he did it on a grander scale.
In the old days, Comanches were known to honor strength in other people. Comanche warriors even adopted white captive boys, if they happened to show courage and fight.
In many ways, Indians see the white man as a kind of adopted son—naïve, reckless and destructive, at times—but nevertheless cut from the same warrior cloth as we were.
We do not see blacks, Mexicans, Asians, Arabs and others in this light. These peoples may have their own virtues and traditions, but they have no history with us. They are strangers.
If they want to rule us, they must conquer us the way the white man did—on the battlefield, by force of arms. That is the only honorable way for a warrior.
The white man seems to have lost his spirit, and we Indians see it. We see that he is giving this country away to others. And this fills our hearts with fear. For we are part of the land he is giving away. He is turning us over to strangers the way medieval barons turned over their serfs when they sold their land.
But we are not serfs. We are warriors. And we will not be ruled by people who have never fought us.
The white man must regain his warrior soul and take back his land.
In that fight, I will stand by his side and offer whatever strength I have to ensure his victory. Ha tu vi chat! *
* Comanche for, "It will all work out."
Dr. David A. Yeagley [email him] is an enrolled member of the Comanche Nation, Elgin, Oklahoma. His articles appear in TheAmericanEnterprise.com, FrontPageMagazine.com, and on his own Web site BadEagle.com, and he is a regular speaker for Young America's Foundation. David Yeagley's columns for VDARE.COM include An American Indian View of Immigration, and To Deport or not to Deport. David Yeagley is the author of Bad Eagle: The Rantings of a Conservative Comanche.
October 15, 2002