PRESIDENT BUSH went to Europe in the spirit of James Duane. In 1784, when the new United States was trying to get the Iroquois out of the way for white expansion, a so-called treaty meeting was held in upstate New York. Duane, a federal treaty agent, urged the white delegates to dispense with any pretense of negotiating with the Indians as equal human beings.
''Instead of conforming to Indian political behavior, we should force them to adopt ours,'' Duane said. ''I would never suffer the word `Nation' or `Six Nations,' or `Confederates,' or `Council Fire at Onondaga' or any other form which would revive or seem to confirm their former ideas of independence.... they are used to (being) called Brethren, Sachems, and Warriors of the Six Nations. I hope it will never be repeated.... They should rather be taught ... that the public opinion of their importance has long ceased.''
As recounted in the 1994 book ''500 Nations,'' Duane's advice turned the treaty meeting into an ambush. The white delegates ''seized Iroquois hostages and conducted negotiations literally at gunpoint, threatened military action against women and children in the Iroquois villages, and treated Indian spokesmen in an arbitrary, high-handed manner, intentionally insulting them and threatening a continuation of the war against them.
''In the end, although the Iroquois considered themselves unconquered in war, their negotiators were forced to cede all their lands west of New York and Pennsylvania ... and accept a reservation of diminished area in New York for themselves.
''In the following two years, American commissioners made similar treaties, first at Fort McIntosh near Pittsburgh in 1785 and the next year at Fort Finney on the Ohio River, using bribery, threats, alcohol, and manipulations of unauthorized representatives to attempt to wrench land away from Delawares, Wyandots, Ottawas, Chippewas, Shawnees, and other Ohio nations.''
Duane's strategy worked well to steal this continent for European Americans. How would it work to exploit the whole planet? It seems that Bush is trying to find that out. To Bush, treaties are not a bond of compromise, they are annoyances that prevent unfettered greed and unchecked power.
First, even though the United States is the world's greatest polluter, Bush pulled out of the Kyoto accords on global warming. Instead of recognizing the overwhelming stacks of data that warn of a catastrophic rise in ocean levels, that warn that the exhaust from our Ford Expeditions might one day sink the Maldives, Bush decided that world opinion has ceased to matter.
Bush pulled out without offering any alternative plan to fight global warming. He has since pursued plans to drill for more oil to feed the Expeditions. He took back a campaign promise to cut industrial emissions of carbon dioxide. He has said, ''I will not accept anything that will harm our economy.''
When a young United States would not accept anything it felt was a threat, the result was the extermination of Indians and the enslavement of Africans. The young presidency of George Bush, from forcing the carbon monoxide of American cigarettes into South Korea to forcing the rest of the planet to accept the carbon dioxide of our cars, has shown that not even the air inside and outside our lungs will stand in his way.
Then again, we may not have to worry much about breathing, given how Bush also wants to break the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Most of the world still considers the treaty critical for arms stability. Though we are the nation most capable of blowing everyone else up, Bush has declared that the treaty is no good. He says we need even more missile defense.
Echoing the negotiations with Indians at gunpoint, Bush is negotiating at missile point with new Minuteman intercontinental tests. In bypassing the nations who worry that this dubious technology may provoke a new arms race, Bush has said, ''The Europeans heard me once, and they'll hear me again ... we should not adhere to a treaty that prevents the United States and other freedom-loving people from developing defenses.''
To Duane, freedom meant breaking treaties to release European Americans from any responsibility to respect Indians. Bush is showing that on the global stage, he is either does not learn from history or has learned history's lessons all too well. He has spent his first six months working very hard to release America from any responsibility to respect the world.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company
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