Irregular militias rooted in American history

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Guest Column

Since the Oklahoma City bombing the general public has become justifiably concerned about the proliferation of irregular bands of people (mostly males) organized in paramilitary units and now referring to themselves as "militias". The essential nature of these groups of well-armed mostly or wholly white males is that they are "irregular" (that is, without any legal authority or official status) and that they have been allowed to wear military-style uniforms, acquire sophisticated weapons, and carry out maneuvers without any notable interference from the FBI or other law enforcement agencies. This is in sharp contrast to the FBI's extremely hostile reaction to the Black Panther Party, to the American Indian Movement, and other non-white efforts at militant or armed "defensive" action.

Native North Americans and African-Americans are especially well acquainted with irregular white paramilitary bands or groups. Not only do we hear rumors that some "militia" types are infiltrating onto certain reservation areas (in Montana, for example) but opposition to Native fishing rights in the Great Lakes region has featured the similar "spear an Indian" movement.

In the western United States, irregular 'militias ' have primarily been used to deprive First Peoples of their land rights and freedom. The most notorious examples include the Colorado militia of Colonel J.M. Chivington which carried out the Sand Creek Massacre against the peaceful Cheyenne of Black Kettle on Nov. 29, 1864. Up to 500 men, women and children were murdered, carved up, begging for mercy. This militia outrage was on the order of the infamous "My Lai" massacre in Vietnam coupled with extreme sexual sadism and hideous brutality.

The Oklahoma City bombing bears direct comparison with Sand Creek, as it does also with the repeated massacres of Native People carried out in California from 1849 through 1865 by white "militias" with genocidal inclinations. These bands of armed men usually acted on their own but were encouraged by government authorities.

In the Round Valley area the Yuki people were reduced from perhaps 5,000 people to 100 or less within a decade. The number of slaughters carried out by armed bands in the Far West are simply too numerous to list. Suffice to report that in California between 1850 and 1880 the population declined by 80,000 or more and about 3,000 individual murders of Native People were reported without a single white person ever being found guilty of any crime.

Let face it: terrorism by bands of armed white men was the primary means used by the United States to harass, weaken, and then to almost wipe out tribe after tribe in the far west. The U.S. Army was usually brought in after irregular armed militias had done the dirty work.

It should be stressed that U.S. state and local police authorities almost never interfered with, punished, or otherwise took strong measures to halt the use of terror by white male gangs against Native People, Black People or attacks upon persons of Mexican descent, or (in California) attacks upon Asians. Is it not this legacy of the use of violence by white males which is at the core of the current surge of paramilitary activity in the U.S today, coupled with idea that the land belongs to them to take and use as they please, without any restraints.

It has not been long since white cowboys and others led an irregular war against the Utes and Paiutes of the area of southeastern Utah (1880-1915), not long since white mobs attacked the colored section of Tulsa and even bombed it from the air (1921), and not long since white males were allowed (especially in the south) to organize lynch mobs, cross burnings and other assaults on Black People (1920's-1950's and later).

More recently, the U.S. government has contributed to the "legitimacy" of violence since it has organized, and funded and armed a campaign of terrorism against the citizens of Nicaragua (mostly of the indigenous race) carried ut by the notorious Contras, during much of the 1980s.

As a part of its effort to shore up right-wing regimes, the U.S. reportedly turned a blind eye to paramilitary groups in Florida, including Nicaraguan and Cuban exiles, staging maneuvers and boldly collecting weaponry. This, in turn, may well have provided direct encouragement to white supremacist and extremist groups to begin doing the same thing.

The term 'gang' has been used a lot lately as a way to refer to armed organizations created by some urban Blacks and Chicanos. Legislation has even been adopted which identifies a gang as a group of people dressed in a certain way and organized allegedly for illegal purposes. It seems to this writer that the white male militias may well fall under that heading, since violence against federal employees and environmentalists is already occurring throughout the west, in a pattern suggesting their possible involvement.

Professor Jack D. Forbes, Powhatan-Delaware, is the author of Columbus and Other Cannibals, African and Native Americans, and Only Approved Indians.