Fort Laramie National Historic Site

It’s been a wild ride visiting 8 new national parks in just a few weeks with Fort Laramie (my 82nd National Park visited) finishing off the list. We regretted skipping past it on our way North through Nebraska, but we hadn’t even realized it until we were well past a turn-around point. But, with family matters prompting Kerri’s return to California via Denver International Airport, we were going to slide right past the Fort again, so we made sure to stop in for a quick tour, which was moderately boring and uncomfortable in the heat (and bugs) of the mid-west plains.

Besides the bug bites to us both, the one thing that stuck in my memory of Fort Laramie was the placards around the fort describing just how “helpful” the military was to the local Indians; feeding, medicating, offering them trade and treaties, and educating them. This really pisses me off!

Originally established as a private fur trading fort in 1834, Fort Laramie evolved into the largest and best known military post on the Northern Plains before its abandonment in 1890. This “grand old post” witnessed the entire sweeping saga of America’s western expansion and Indian resistance to encroachment on their territories. – NPS.gov

Those final words that the National Park Service have in their description just doesn’t do it justice. I’m sorry, but the Indians deserve to have the truth told not this watered down elementary school version. And honestly, why aren’t our school kids being told the truth too? The truth is that these “forts” were needed only to commit genocide against the natives of this land, so we could further steal the land they have lived on for generations for our own profit.

The Indians only needed food because we stole their hunting lands. They only needed “education” to be indoctrinated into white-society. They only needed medical help because we were so filthy we killed a third of them simply by sneezing and showing them the ways of alcoholism. Those treaties we forced them to sign, we broke time and time again only to force them into signing a new treaty after our repeated broken promises. If they did not, we simply rolled in with the military from these forts and killed enough of them until they signed the treaty. It worked every time, and we continued to break the treaties every time.

None of this is mentioned on the placards. None of this is taught in our schools. None of this is recognized as a flaw of the American government, military, or people of the day. I got nothing nice to say here, so yea… we visited another National Park Fort and learned only lies.

I will be a happier Van-Tramp in my next post