[News] Requiem of the American Indian Holocaust

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Requiem of the American Indian Holocaust

Posted by 
<http://narcosphere.narconews.com/users/brenda-norrell>Brenda 
Norrell - May 27, 2008 at 3:27 pm

The Transformation of Scott Mandrell: When the 
requiem of the American Indian Holocaust 
transformed 'Lewis' of the Lewis and Clark Expedition

By Brenda Norrell

WOOD RIVER, Illinois – When Scott Mandrell walked 
onto the Earthcycles radio bus on the Longest 
Walk, there was a surreal moment. Could this be 
the same person that was dressed in those “funny 
clothes,” as Carter Camp called them, and 
postured as Meriwether Lewis on the Lewis and 
Clark Discovery Expedition in South Dakota.

Was this the same Mandrell that sat in a circle 
of Lewis and Clark re-enactors as Lakota, Ponca 
and Kiowa delivered a requiem, recalling the 
holocaust and genocide of American Indians.

Yes, it was the same Mandrell and memory served 
up the legacy. Carter Camp, Ponca, and his son, 
Vic Camp, had revealed that Mandrell had left the 
Lewis and Clark Discovery Expedition after that 
fateful encounter on the banks on the Missouri 
River in Chamberlain, South Dakota, in September 
of 2004, when an American Indian delegation 
delivered an ultimatum to the expedition.

What had happened? Here, four years later in the 
relentless rain of Illinois in May of 2008, 
Mandrell dipped into memory and poetry.

“The hoop has come full circle," Mandrell said.

Mandrell described his transformation, from Lewis 
re-enactor to the host of the Longest Walk 
Northern Route at Camp Dubois, near the 
confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi River 
in Illinois. In a beautiful land now saturated 
with toxic spills and asbestos, with most its 
Native people long gone, Mandrell welcomed the 
Longest Walkers who spent three months walking here on their way to Washington.

As Mandrell, a science teacher, sat in the 
Longest Walk radio bus, I read the words 
delivered to the Lewis and Clark Expedition by Lakota, Ponca and Kiowa in 2004.

Surrounded by a heavy buildup of federal agents 
and police, Carter Camp told the Expedition in 
2004 that Lewis and Clark were harbingers of the 
Holocaust. “What they wrote down was a blueprint 
for the genocide of my people. You are 
re-enacting something ugly, evil and hateful. You 
are re-enacting the coming of death to our 
people. You are re-enacting genocide.”

<http://bp0.blogger.com/_McMU28y8NxQ/SDtWInRBYvI/AAAAAAAAINI/0AmuOIWWQ34/s1600-h/deb.jpg>Deb 
White Plume, Lakota from Pine Ridge gave the 
expedition a symbolic blanket of small pox. 
Another Lakota woman from Pine Ridge said she 
carries the DNA of the Lakota women who survived 
the slaughters that Lewis and Clark opened the 
door to. She said she is prepared to die for this 
cause.“I believe in armed struggle,” Wicopy Wakia 
Wi of Pine Ridge said. “The act of genocide stops 
here. We are tired of living poor. We are not 
afraid to die. I am willing to die.”

She told them they would not proceed up the river.

“You are not going on. I will organize every 
sister from here to Oregon to stop you.”

After that day in 2004, Mandrell did stop. He 
left the Lewis and Clark Expedition and formed 
his own journey, his own adventure that included 
American Indian friends that he made along the way.
Seated on the radio bus, Mandrell remembered 
meeting with Carter Camp’s son Vic Camp from Pine 
Ridge, on that day in 2004. “I still have his number on my speed dial.”

Earlier, Vic Camp had remembered the victory of 
hearing Mandrell had left the Expedition. During 
an interview in April, 2005, Vic Camp said, “That was a great victory for us.”

But on the banks of the Missouri River in South 
Dakota on that day in 2004, Lakota elder Floyd 
Hand, among four bands of Lakota spoke from the 
well of Holocaust that was chilling.

“We are the descendants of Red Cloud and Crazy Horse.”

“I did not come here in peace.”

Hand said they would not smoke the pipe and if 
the expedition continues up the Missouri River, 
the families of the expedition members would 
suffer the spiritual consequences of small pox.

Referring to the tribal governments who welcomed 
the expedition, Hand said those tribal 
governments reflect the same type thinking as the 
re-enactors and are not the voice of the grassroots people.

“The tribal governments are not a voice for us. 
They are imitating us, like you are imitating Lewis and Clark.”

“We want you to turn around and go home,” Alex 
White Plume, Lakota from Pine Ridge, told the 
expedition.White Plume said Lakota are here on 
this land for a reason.“We were put here by the 
spirits.” He said the Lakota never lost their 
language or ceremonies and now they are making 
these requests: Lakota want their territory back, 
their treaties to be honored and to be able to continue their healing ways.

White Plume said many Indian people have become 
assimilated and colonized. “We pray for our own 
colonized people. We say they are in a prison in 
the white man’s world.” White Plume said there 
was no point in the expedition coming here.

“All you did was open up these old wounds.”

Carter Camp warned the expedition to halt or they 
would be stopped. He said the expedition has been 
told lies and are spreading lies.

Camp said Lewis and Clark are a part of the American lie.

“They had no honor. They came with the American 
lie. They murdered 60 million people.”

Read more from that day on the Missouri River of 
the Stop Lewis and Clark movement in 2004, 
including the words of Russell Means and Alfred Boneshirt:
<http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout4.php&id=1957&blz=1>http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout4.php&id=1957&blz=1
Listen to Scott Mandrell (Earthcycles, Longest Walk Radio May, 2008)
<http://www.earthcycles.net/audio/longestwalk/2008-05-13_scottmandrel.mp3>http://www.earthcycles.net/audio/longestwalk/2008-05-13_scottmandrel.mp3
PHOTOS: Scott Mandrell welcomes the Longest Walk 
to Camp Dubois at Wood River, Illinois in May, 
2008. Photo 2: Deb White Plume delivers symbolic 
blanket of smallpox to the Lewis and Clark 
Discovery Expedition in Chamberlain, S.D., in 2004. Photos by Brenda Norrell.
<http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/>http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/


Posted by brendanorrell at gmail.com




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