David Blakeslee….. I believe the effect of Native American Boarding schools cannot be considered as “either good or bad” in any monolithic way.

I have heard from or spoken with Native Americans who were of my parents age in Oklahoma, Arizona, and the Dakotas and all were equal in their condemnation of boarding schools. It was for them as if they were being orphaned from their parents. And the cultural loss was significant. I remember hearing from the Catholic Benedictine fathers from my home in Indiana speaking highly of their school in the Dakotas and yet later hearing horror stories from those who attended their schools.
There is much that is done in the making of this country which one would rather have been done differently. More often than not that occurred after the cessation of hostiliities. However, there comes a point when one has to simply put it aside and realize that this continent, this country, was fought for and won. Or as Spike, an English vampire, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer once said:

I just can’t take all this mamby-pamby boo-hooing about the bloody indians. …. You won. All right? You came in and you killed them and you took their land. That’s what conquering nations do. It’s what caesar did, and he’s not going around saying, “I came, I conquered, I felt really bad about it.” The history of the world isn’t people making friends. You had better weapons, and you massacred them. End of story.

Well, maybe not perfect but somewhat in that vein.

Fischer followed up by suggesting that Americans should be proud of the “displacement of native American tribes.” Finally, he wrote that if the native people had converted to Christianity, like Pocahontas did, then “their assimilation into what became America could have been seamless and bloodless.”

Yeah thats right!!! Just as was the case of christianized Black Americans whose assimilation was seamless and bloodless.

Native Americans were “morally disqualified from sovereign control of American soil” because of “superstition, savagery and sexual immorality.”

Sounds like what the european settlers said to us (Africans) until we dropped our spears and arrows and picked up guns, bombs, heavy artillery and rockets to engage them in armed warfare, which eventually convinced them to give up and—- either accept the authority to the native african peoples and be granted ordinary citizenship rights as a reward or acknowlegde defeat and flee back to Europe. The mistake of Native Americans was their inability to use the instruments of their oppressors to fight the oppressors. You don’t fight someone armed with Hiram Maxim Machine Guns and battlefield cannons with tomhawks, knives, spears and arrows.

If you want to express your agreement with the US apology to Native Americans, go to this Facebook page and hit the Like button.

Rather than give feeble apology, why not accept the demands of the native americans that their so-called “reservations” be granted more autonomy than they currently enjoy within the United States. I see no reason why US government cannot allow these “reservations” the right to use a separate passport and even currency if they so desire. Scotland in the UK not only have a separate parliament, they have a separate educational system, a separate national football team and a separate currency. Hong Kong enjoys so much autonomy that one might be tempted to call it a separate state from mainland China