Rick Santorum says 'there isn't much Native American culture in American culture'
By: John Haltiwanger
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum sparked online backlash over recent remarks made at an event for a conservative youth organization in which he suggested Native Americans didn't contribute to the culture of the US.
"We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here. I mean, yes we have Native Americans but candidly there isn't much Native American culture in American culture," the Pennsylvania Republican said at a Young America's Foundation event on Friday, in comments first reported by Media Matters for America.
"It was born of the people who came here pursuing religious liberty to practice their faith, to live as they ought to live, and have the freedom to do so. Religious liberty. Those are the two bulwarks of America. Faith and freedom," Santorum, now a senior political contributor at CNN, went on to say. "I mean, you hear it all the time about faith and freedom, faith and freedom. But it is what makes America unique in the world."
Santorum was widely lambasted over his remarks, with many accusing him of whitewashing the atrocities committed against indigenous peoples.
Some accused Santorum of echoing the talking points of white nationalists.
Santorum's organization, Patriot Voices, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider. CNN also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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There was nothing here?
Not the Pennsylvania history I was taught. Every 9th grader is required to take PA history. He either failed or he had the worst teacher
To expand my comment...so many villages and rivers are named for NA tribes like the Susquehanna River, the Tioga, and many more that I'm having trouble remembering. Oh! The Monaghela!
Doesn't he know about Jim Thorpe????
Talk about trying to whitewash history.
Absolutely! My alma mater was the IUP Indians (now the Red Hawks). The town I went to school was named by George Clymer (signer of the Dec of Ind) for the natives that lived there (Indiana, PA)
Mississippi itself is an Indian name. As well as the counties, cities, rivers, etc.
Here the high school is the Biloxi Indians.
Arkansas is an Indian name (I think).
Which were a real tribe by the way.
But telling the true story to all those young white Christians growing up today would taint their optimistic view and the chosen narrative of white Christians coming to America and saving the few desperate poverty stricken barbaric natives who used to live here who then bequeathed their names on the white nation that was built around them out of respect and a desire to glorify the one true God of the bible and the white Christian people who saved them from their utter despair! /s
Michigan is derived from a Native word and for goodness sakes... I live in WYANDOTTE, named after the Wyandot / Ouendat.
Lakes, Huron, Erie, Michigan, etc... where most of my dad's family was born, Menominee. The list is very long so you are absolutely right!
It is a Quapaw name meaning the people of down river.
Thank-you. That makes a lot of sense since the Quapaws were natives of Central Arkansas
The man really isn't as intelligent as a box of rocks
He is basically calling them nothing.
How disgusting.
Is this guy f*cking joking??? SERIOUSLY!?
SOURCE
A short list of inventions / innovations from the above source:
I know that they "genetically" modified corn that is the corn we are all familiar with today. I saw a photo of what ancient corn looked like and it really was just a grass with a few kernels on it
Strange looking, isn't it?
Very. It made me look at it and wonder how the hell they managed to get that thing to grow to 7 feet tall and have 2-3 ears on it
They were smart.
Here's a link of a bit of explanation that scientists were able to determine... which really isn't a lot, but it's some.
I was taught that Thanksgiving was a coming together and sharing of ideas between the native population and the new worlders.
The teaching of growing corn etc.
And using fish as fertilizer
they should have switched to using republicans...
Add in potatoes, and the three sisters, corn, beans and squash.
Throw in tomotos.
I only used one source and didn't have to go very far to find that one source. I have no doubt that there are many other NA innovations that we use every day today.
Don't forget rickets which became ice hockey and lacrosse which evolved from stickball...
What a frickin idiot.
He may want to enlighten himself as to the American Indians and American Pharmacopeia.
Cut open and antique baseball to see what Santorum's brains look like.
Appalling comments by Santorum. Maybe he is trying to regain lost ground as a RWNJ.
As a revealing counterpoint to this story, yesterday during the Oscars pre-show, the president of the Motion Pictures Academy paid tribute to the native American tribes who lived on the land now occupied by Hollywood.
I have no idea why some "conservatives" have to go out of their way to offend people.
Guess Rick forgot how the Iroquois Confederation had this thing called the Great Law that the framers of the U. S. Constitution took many of the "laws" and placed them in the Constitution.
Congress passed a 1988 resolution formally acknowledging the influence of the Iroquois Confederacy on the U.S. Constitution. In addition to this recognition, the resolution reaffirmed “the continuing government-to-government relationship between Indian tribes and the United States established in the Constitution”—an acknowledgement of the legitimacy and sovereignty of Native nations and their governments.
Yeah, yer rite Ricky - no culture here - keep on mov'n.
He also may want to understand that large very advanced cities were here long before the Europeans showed up.
Cahokia and the Pueblos would be a place to start. Cahokia was larger than Paris or London in the time frame.
great link.
I used to live very close to Cahokia. Went there many times to play on Monks Mound.
"We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here."
In the Americas, just 100 years after Christopher Columbus first set foot on the Bahamas in 1492, 56 million indigenous Americans were dead, mainly in South and Central America. This was 90% of the population. Most were killed by diseases brought across the Atlantic by Europeans, which had never been seen before in the Americas: measles, smallpox, influenza, the bubonic plague. War, slavery and wave after wave of disease combined to cause this “ great dying ”, something the world had never seen before, or since.
In North America the population decline was slower but no less dramatic due to slower colonisation by Europeans. US census data suggest the Native American population may have been as low as 250,000 people by 1900 from a pre-Columbus level of 5 million , a 95% decline.
We birthed a nation from nothing.
Hey Rick! Penn State called. They want their diploma back.
And their birth certificate?
His ignorance is epic and he knows nothing of the history of the US nor the history of his own religion. He should read the ''Doctrine of Discovery'' and in particular the papal bull, “Inter Caetera," Under the Marshall Trilogy (SCOTUS) much of which was embedded into US law and has had a profound effect on NA property rights. It has never been rescinded by the Roman Catholic Church.
As for the freedom of religion only if it was a Christian religion as NA religions were outlawed and it wasn't until 1978 that The American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 (AIRFA) (42 U.S.C. § 1996.) protects the rights of Native Americans to exercise their traditional religions by ensuring access to sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonials and traditional rites.
This is a brief explanation of the Doctrine of Discovery
What is the Doctrine of Discovery
Papal Bulls of the 15th century gave Christian explorers the right to claim lands they “discovered” and lay claim to those lands for their Christian Monarchs. Any land that was not inhabited by Christians was available to be “discovered”, claimed, and exploited. If the “pagan” inhabitants could be converted, they might be spared. If not, they could be enslaved or killed. The Discovery Doctrine is a concept of public international law expounded by the United States Supreme Court in a series of decisions, initially in Johnson v. M’Intosh in 1823 . The doctrine was Chief Justice John Marshall’s explanation of the way in which colonial powers laid claim to newly discovered lands during the Age of Discovery. Under it, title to newly discovered lands lay with the government whose subjects discovered new territory. The doctrine has been primarily used to support decisions invalidating or ignoring aboriginal possession of land in favor of colonial or post-colonial governments. John Marshall, who is most credited with describing the doctrine, did not voice wholehearted support of the doctrine even while using it to justify judicial decisions. He pointed to the doctrine as simple fact, looking at the possession-takings which had been supported by it as things which had occurred and had to be recognized. The supposedly inferior character of native cultures was a reason for the doctrine having been used, but whether or not that was justified was not relevant for Marshall. This Doctrine governs United States Indian Law today and has been cited as recently as 2005 in the decision City Of Sherrill V. Oneida Indian Nation Of N.Y.
Informative. Thanks.
This guy was always an embarrassment to PA Republicans and Catholics
Indian named rivers and towns in Pennsylvania
Local tribes in PA
The major Pennsylvania Indian tribes were the Delaware , Susquehannock , Shawnee , and Iroquois .
I grew up in the ancient territory of the Delaware and Lenape tribes.
Santorum is such a putz, he probably doesn't think that 'white privilege' is real either.
My chidhood playgrounds were the Toxony/Tookany Creek and Wingahocking Creeks which found their way down to the Tacony neighborhood where they emptied into the Delaware.
Nuthin Indian about those names, huh, Santuram, you maroose!
In Anishinaabe Santorum would qualify as a moosh noosh.
24 States have Native American names along with two of the greatest rivers in the US. The Mississippi and Missouri rivers.
I knew somebody would have a list...
One of my playgrounds was in Tioga County in the Canoe Camp Creek. This creek was a stopping place for the Iroquois when they canoeing from the north to reach the Tioga River which is part of the Susquehanna River Valley.
I spent decades spelling Conshohocken to people and explaining the origin of the word. Situated in Montgomery County
on a large bend in the Schuykill River with a full skyline view of the overhead lights, panorama and traffic noise of the venerable
Schuykill Expressway (76) on the south side of the river, which connects King of Prussia to downtown Philly and NJ.
Between the Expressway traffic 24/7 and Bethlehem Steel, it's a wonder people in Conshohocken and Bridgeport ever sleep.
Santorum has proved again that his opinion about anything is worthless.
Proving that even village idiots can get elected, once.
Santorum is no longer an elected anything anymore...
The man is a fucking retard.