Most people didn’t see the value in California 'til after 1848, but those who did saw the same vision the Combine had, and with a very small initial investment of 20k the transcontinental railroad was underway and heavily subsidized to drive the land speculation markets. Because of the rails maneuvering their way into prominence through clever marketing (as it remains cheaper to ship by sea just as it was back then) and began to sell land along the rails to settlers moving across the west.

The next morning the first passenger car passed from the Union Pacific to the Central Pacific tracks, and the inaugural batch of imported tea departed for the East, linking West Coast international trade to the nation’s financial centers via rail. This was more branding than anything else-goods from the East were just as easy to send to New York by boat, especially with the Suez Canal up and running-but the settler nation celebrated nonetheless.

In 1862 is when this happened, and this disregard (or most likely contempt) for Indigenous nations was an obvious underpinning of a long standing California and American history, of working class people organizing genocide campaigns for low wages and poor compensation. By 1866 the wanton murder and economic turmoil brought by the railroads, and the mining oligarchs funding them, are similar to the oil man camp issues we see today. Destruction of land, stealing of resources, rape and murder of women, children and elders; would lead to Red Cloud’s War and the 1868 Treaty of Ft. Laramie which established our nation on the basis of the Missouri and Montana River’s watershed. This was done by extensive multi-year survey but to this day we have Lakota people who are Asian because of Chinese workers who fled to our communities after being sold to white trading posts by their family if debt got to high. A sad reality, but one people forget when they think Indigenous is a race, and that you can homogenize all of us.

It was only the year before the treaty was signed, that Marx wrote his famous Das Kapital, meanwhile the Oceti Sakowin had won a war and wrote the treaty demanding communal ownership of land, continued self-determination, continue denial of the use of the money form in our economy, infrastructure like blacksmiths to create pig iron, and so much more it is no wonder our later leaders like Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull presented a People’s War. Their guerilla tactics being as well studied as anything Che did.

In reality the railroads primary purpose was the destruction of the Plains nations, this railroad wasn’t economically useful UNTIL the genocide and displacement of our nations. This is most exemplified by the fact the 60 million strong continent traversing herd was split by these rail roads, and a Army sponsored campaign (whose motto was ‘one dead buffalo is a dead Indian’) that provided bullets and guns to wantonly murder buffalo to ease the boredom on passenger trains. This is also the history the term ‘R*d-Skin’ comes from where buffalo hides were valued at the same price as our scalps and were interchangeable, again because ‘one dead buffalo is a dead Indian’.

This railroad was the long standing dream of Indian killers that founded the US, so it should be no surprised when someone like Grant Shows us perfectly the extent that liberalism would never have been enough even if reconstruction went perfectly; and perhaps the words of Harvard fellows and graduates shouldn’t be as valued as they are by Marxists (looking Cornel West as well as pre-Marxist Du Bois being cited by ‘patsocs’ to deny Indigenous sovereignty, or famous NDNs who had fellowships there and now love to let billionaires and actors tokenize them without standing up) This is to say genocide is normal in liberalism and waiting for genocide to begin calling liberalism fascism, misses an important fact, that MANIFEST DESTINY INSPIRED ZIONISM, FASCISM, NAZISM and whatever else you want to call it; America is its origins. So anyway the mountains in the way were the people, the people of the Oceti Sakowin resisting class society being forced on them after already overcoming these contradictions multiple times before.

Leland liked reading more than he liked working, and he didn’t like reading all that much.

Just like me fr fr

Great thread, Comrade Sungmanitu always hits hard af and they inspire me, as honestly I don’t know how they keep up the good fight with the absolute tsunami of indigenous erasure that’s prevalent across the political spectrum. Even on the left by otherwise well meaning comrades.

So anyway the mountains in the way were the people, the people of the Oceti Sakowin resisting class society being forced on them after already overcoming these contradictions multiple times before.

Wonderful framing here, really enjoyed it and got the point across well. What book are those quotes from? I’d love to read it! Or any other books about this kind of stuff. I’ve read kind of general indigenous histories and some books mainly focused on peoples in the Eastern half of Turtle Island, but very little out West, so any recommendations would be helpful. Thanks for posting here, I always learn from you.

Good post I didnt know most of this stuff

This is great, thank you!

@[email protected]

Hey, can any mod post a thread in the “top posts” of Hexbear any time they want?

I want to post a thread or make a post for the top section of Hexbear.