Rick Santorum says 'there isn't much Native American culture in American culture'

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

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."

Link to tweet

Santorum was widely lambasted over his remarks, with many accusing him of whitewashing the atrocities committed against indigenous peoples.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/rick-santorum-says-there-isnt-much-native-american-culture-in-american-culture/ar-BB1g4xUW

Just when you thought all that nastiness had been sealed off who oozes out but Mr. Frothy.

On edit: Many of the names of states, cities and geographical landmarks are from native Americans.

In my state for example Seattle (named after Chief Sealth), Snohomish (the name is used for a city, river and county in my state) and the Dakotas were so named because it was the area the Lakota Sioux inhabited.

I'm sure there are many other examples. Santorum like many other Republicans betrays his ignorance when he opens his mouth.

[TheRealNorth]

1. I suspect this is related to RW'rs trying the appropriate the term "native Americans"

to describe themselves, not the indigenous peoples of the American continents.

[katmondoo]

2. Where do all these idiots come from?

[Xipe Totec]

5. Inbreeding. nt

[4Q2u2]

3. Yes Because

The early settlers were sooooooooo inclusive of all ideas and Histories.
Native Americans had plenty of Faith and Freedom until you showed up. Just not your Faith and Freedom.

[True Dough]

4. There isn't ANYTHING

cultured about Rick Santorum whatsoever!

[shanti]

6. JFC...

I wonder why?????

[Arkansas Granny]

7. Does he know any history at all? Like many Americans, he must think that the entire continent

was inhabited by naked, howling savages until white men came along to "civilize" them. He apparently doesn't know that they had specific cultures, traditions, rules of governing, trade routes and alliances long before white men made it to these shores.

[Crunchy Frog]

18. He doesn't deal in real history, or facts. He's a propagandist.

[Caliman73]

24. Where would he have learned that?

This is not meant in any way to question your statement. It is right on. The thing is, where would he have learned about the diversity and the complexities of Native American cultures.

I took advanced placement history in high school and while we studied the effects of Manifest Destiny and the forced removal of native groups as the US spread westward, it was one unit of study , encompassing only the most prominent events in American History as told from the American (White) perspective. In college I took a couple of classes about Native American history but they were not required. They were electives. And again, they were just scratching the surface of myriad and complex societies. I doubt Santorum ever took any classes on Native American history. The vast majority of college students likely do not take any kind of Native American history. You can probably do an entire series of classes on how the Iroquois Confederacy influenced American society.

This is the problem of "American Exceptionalism". It makes people lazy and incurious. It turns out people like Santorum who are ignorant AND arrogant. Self satisfied and confident in their willful ignorance who can go out in front of other fools willing to be told that American society was self created with no influence from other cultures. Sure it was, just like Donald Trump is a self made man who got to where he is of his own efforts.

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

28. Well said and spot on!

[Demovictory9]

41. When Europeans arrived, the Native Americans had already developed new varieties of corn, beans, and

It is estimated that about 60% of the current world food supply originated in North America. When Europeans arrived, the Native Americans had already developed new varieties of corn, beans, and squashes and had an abundant supply of nutritious food. The foods of the Native Americans are widely consumed and their culinary skills still enrich the diets of nearly all people of the world today. This article provides only a small sampling of the rich and highly varied Native American food culture that has been passed down to modern civilization.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352618116300750

[ret5hd]

8. Somebody give this man a Covid blanket.

When you kill 90+% of the population using disease...yeah, you kinda killed the people and the culture.

https://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html

Within just a few generations, the continents of the Americas were virtually emptied of their native inhabitants – some academics estimate that approximately 20 million people may have died in the years following the European invasion – up to 95% of the population of the Americas.

[maxsolomon]

12. Are you implying that Smallpox was deliberately spread?

The 3rd paragraph of your link: "Europeans were aided by a deadly secret weapon they weren't even aware they were carrying: Smallpox."

[ret5hd]

20. Kind of the old MIHOP vs LIHOP argument, isn't it?

Either way, the effect was the same.

[maxsolomon]

51. I suppose if not explaining how Quarantines worked means they LIHOP, OK. It's a stretch.

At some point, some Colonists or Conquistadors surely knew that it was Smallpox that was killing the indigenous populations, but they had no way to stop it, and had very little understanding of it themselves.

[Doc Sportello]

53. The example I gave yo of Ft. Pitt shows that is wrong

They clearly understood the effect it would have and native peoples.

[Doc Sportello]

22. There were a few cases of attempts to spread smallpox deliberately

In this one case it didn't work, but it was tried according to historical documents:
https://www.history.com/news/colonists-native-americans-smallpox-blankets#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThere%20is%20no%20evidence%20that,smallpox%20had%20already%20had%20it.%E2%80%9D

From the article on a research paper about attempts at Ft. Pitt in the 1760s:

snip
"The fort’s commander, Capt. Simeon Ecuyer, reported in a June 16 message to his superior, Philadelphia-based Col. Henry Bouquet, that the situation was dire, with local traders and colonists taking refuge inside the fort’s walls. Ecuyer wasn’t just afraid of his Native American adversaries. The fort’s hospital had patients with smallpox, and Ecuyer feared the disease might overwhelm the population inside the fort’s cramped confines.

Bouquet, in turn, passed along the news about the smallpox inside Fort Pitt to his own superior, Amherst, in a June 23 letter. In Amherst’s July 7 response, he cold-bloodedly saw an opportunity in the disease outbreak. “Could it not be contrived to Send the Small Pox among those Disaffected Tribes of Indians? We must, on this occasion, Use Every Stratagem in our power to Reduce them.”

On July 13, Bouquet, who at that point was traveling across Pennsylvania with British reinforcements for Fort Pitt, responded to Amherst, promising that he would try to spread the disease to the Native Americans via contaminated blankets, “taking care however not to get the disease myself.” That tactic seemed to please Amherst, who wrote back in approval on July 16, urging him to spread smallpox “as well as try. Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execreble [sic] Race.”


What Amherst and Bouquet didn’t know was that somebody at Fort Pitt had already thought of trying to infect the Native Americans with smallpox—and had attempted to do it."

end


While the exact transmission of deadly diseases wasn't known at the time, the whites knew that they were somehow bringing deadly diseases to the native population, and as this exchange shows, they were fine wit using it as a weapon of imperialism.

[ret5hd]

25. Thanks for the backup.

[maxsolomon]

50. Most of the population was infected decades or centuries prior to that.

1500s, 1600s.

[Doc Sportello]

52. That has nothing to do with the point that it was done intentionally

You asked if the poster was making the claim that it was done intentionally. I provided documentation that it was at least attempted, and the Europeans clearly knew the toll their diseases were taking on the native populations and were fine with using it as a tool of subjugation. The letters showed that.

You also don't back up your claim that "most of the population was infected centuries before" with any kind of historical data. And, again, even if true it doesn't justify the obvious attitude of Europeans that genocide against the natives in whatever was not only acceptable, but useful.

This attitude that some have of trying to minimize or justify what was done to the native peoples of the Americas is sad to say the least. You hear this "oh it wasn't the Europeans who committed genocide, it was the disease" from right wingers a lot. It ignores the gallows in Hispaniola the Spanish constructed to force the Tainos to submit, the Trail of Tears and numerous other forms of genocide committed intentionally by Europeans. You don't expect it here.

[Carlitos Brigante]

27. That's a terrible thing to say!....

I mean, Covid's a piece of shit. But it's not on purpose. It just doesn't know any better. Giving it Santorum almost seems cruel......

[Retrograde]

43. Cortez probably wouldn't have conquered the Aztec empire without smallpox

In this case, it wasn't deliberate: some Europeans carried the disease with them and spread it among a population that had no immunity. Europeans of the time knew that some percentage of the people who caught smallpox died from it, but others managed to survive, often with scarring, and were able to pass it on to others.

Worse, since there were Native American trade networks throughout North America, once the disease got a hold it spread to other communities. I can't remember just where I read it, but French explorers who first encountered cities such as Cahokia found them mostly deserted due to deaths, even though no Europeans were known to have been there before. The Pilgrims who settled the Massachusetts area met little resistance because a plague had ravaged the area recently, wiping out large numbers of the inhabitants.

A what-if I sometimes speculate on: what if the Native Americans had the same levels of disease resistance as the Europeans?

[Doc Sportello]

47. Europeans diseases are why Pilgrims found deserted villages and disease did not decimate Cahokia

The couple of villages the Pilgrims found abandoned were due to European diseases brought in earlier. Ships from Europe had been visiting the shores of America for about a century:
https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/exactly-new-englands-indian-population-decimated/

snip
"By 1519, a hundred European ships made round trips to the Grand Banks. The first tourist cruise to North America sailed from London in 1536, but food ran short and many died.

The European visitors brought with them diseases to which the Indians had no immunity, including smallpox, measles, tuberculosis, cholera and bubonic plague.

Maine’s Passamaquoddy Indians, among the first to make contact with Europeans, were devastated by a typhus epidemic in 1586. Other diseases brought the Passamaquoddy population to 4,000 from 20,000."

and

Cahokia was definitely NOT abandoned due to disease, and Natives continued to live in the area:

snip
"By the 1400s, Cahokia had been abandoned due to floods, droughts, resource scarcity and other drivers of depopulation. But contrary to romanticized notions of Cahokia’s lost civilization, the exodus was short-lived, according to a new UC Berkeley study."

https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/01/27/new-study-debunks-myth-of-cahokias-native-american-lost-civilization/#:~:text=By%20the%201400s%2C%20Cahokia%20had,a%20new%20UC%20Berkeley%20study.

[Trailrider1951]

9. That's because the European immigrants did their best to obliterate

the Indigenous and their cultures, you ignorant fool. Makes you wonder, who is more stupid? The republican politicians or their supporters?

[FSogol]

30. Why does CNN give this clown a voice? n/t

[edhopper]

10. Except the name of half the States

and thousands of cities, counties, rivers, mountains....

What a loathsome idiot.

[panader0]

16. No shit. I live in Cochise County, Az. We also have Gila, Pima, Maricopa Counties and more.

Santorum was a Senator from Pennsylvania, a state that has many Native American names:
The Allegheny Mountains and River
Monongahela River
Ohio River
Punxsutawney
Susquehanna River
just to name a few.

[ChazII]

31. Scottsdale School District

named the elementary schools after Indian tribes. I attended Tonto Elementary. At least the schools imparted some knowledge of the tribe our school was name after. Some schools had it easier - Pima, Navajo, Apache and Cherokee to name a few. Tonto and Tonalea received puzzling looks.

Edited to add: Rick is a jerk.

[Crunchy Frog]

21. A large percentage of the food we consume

was cultivated by pre invasion Americans. Every time you eat French fries with ketchup washed down with a chocolate milkshake.

[lastlib]

11. I guess Sicky Ricky FrothyMix never heard of this:

https://www.history.com/news/iroquois-confederacy-influence-us-constitution

Since he clearly knows nothing of the Iroquois Confederacy, it is clear that his education is SORELY lacking. He deserves all the ridicule we can heap upon his little pointed head.

[dameatball]

13. Yep, same thing I was thinking.

[Thomas Hurt]

14. Santorum is ignorant and racial obtuse...the usual for a christofascist.

His version of history is the western European one he learned in grade school.

[Crunchy Frog]

15. We birthed a nation on top of the bodies of people we genocided.

And with the forced labor of people we brought here in hellish slave ships.

Sicky Ricky is full of santorum.

[abqtommy]

17. The yogurt in my fridge has more culture than Rick Santorum. And Rick hasn't learned

the difference between "native" and "indigenous". Yet.

[Shermann]

19. Well from where did we learn how to create this harmonious balance with nature then?

Tens of thousands of years the previous stewards of the land were here, and you can barely find a trace.

[Haggard Celine]

23. People like Frothy always bring up the

founding of the Mass. Bay Colony and other early New England settlements as the basis for the U.S. government. they forget that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, a full 150 years before the Revolution and the adoption of the Constitution.

The Founders of our republic weren't the Puritans, they were men of the Enlightenment, and they were weren't religious fanatics. That fact is obvious if one reads the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution or any other early American writings.

[H2O Man]

26. What a fucking asshole.

Recommended.

[Cartoonist]

29. RWNJ's should be fined every time they say religious liberty.

They only mean it for xians.

[Baked Potato]

32. Santorum and his ilk always speak of "religious liberty" as if those words are magic.

He speaks of culture, but can only generalize American Culture as unique and comprising “faith and freedom.”

But, thanks to him and his flop of a Party, all they do is divide Americans and attempt to cancel the culture of everyone they deem unworthy of being in their club.

[ret5hd]

34. American "culture"...bland, heavily salted...

sameness from coast-to-coast! TGI Fridays! McDonalds! Expensive health care! Little to no paid vacation (unless you’re a cop who got videoed beating someone)! Gig economy job! Fracking! And best of all, GUNZ!!!

[Baked Potato]

36. I agree! Oh, and Rugged Individualism!

It’s actually a glaring weakness of America that is being exploited by “enemies.”

America is in dire need of a common American “experience” which can unite all while recognizing individual beliefs and have compromise and tolerance. Something besides religion and war.

[ret5hd]

39. Rugged individualists that live in fear of...

a toilet paper shortage.

[Grokenstein]

33. "Candidly" quickly becomes "the press is attacking me!"

Ah, yes, the all-holy origin story of 'Murika: the Pilgrims came here to worship freely as they pleased, force everyone else to worship their way, and murder anyone who defied them. In Jeebus' name, a-men.

[hunter]

35. My own bloodline has been severely contaminated by Native American Culture.

No regrets.

My racist Anglo Saxon ancestors are all good dead.

[Demovictory9]

37. ugh. such an ignorant comment

[Solomon]

38. Weren't the articles of confederation, antecedent to the constitution, inspired by the confederation

of Native American nations in the northeast?

Dumb ass. Native Americans were civilised. He stupid.s

Reminds me of how a lot of Greek architecture was derived from African temples.

Some white people really believe that only white people advanced civilization.

[Demovictory9]

40. about 60% of the current world food supply originated in North America. When Europeans arrived, the

It is estimated that about 60% of the current world food supply originated in North America. When Europeans arrived, the Native Americans had already developed new varieties of corn, beans, and squashes and had an abundant supply of nutritious food. The foods of the Native Americans are widely consumed and their culinary skills still enrich the diets of nearly all people of the world today. This article provides only a small sampling of the rich and highly varied Native American food culture that has been passed down to modern civilization.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352618116300750

[meadowlander]

45. Also potatoes and tomatoes.

Hard to imagine but Ireland didn't have potatoes and Italy didn't have tomatoes until after the colonization of North America started. When they were first introduced people refused to eat them because they thought they were poisonous. They're from the Nightshade family and that's all Europeans associated with that family of plants before then.

[Retrograde]

42. Pass the popcorn - oh, wait

A lot of American cuisine (yes, there is such a thing) has roots in Native American farming: corn, most beans, squashes, peppers, tomatoes and many others. What would New England culture have been without baked beans, based on a traditional Native American way of preparing them? Or the Southeast without hominy grits?

IMHO, Santorum is also making the East Coast assumption that there was nothing west of the Alleghenies before the intrepid Europeans (here meant as people of British descent) strove boldly across the so-called wilderness, conveniently forgetting earlier contacts by Spanish and French explorers and the multicultural societies that came from those contacts. Santa Fe was a thriving town - and one of its buildings, the Governor's Palace - built in 1608 before the English had gotten around to starving in Jamestown - is still in use today. It's construction, btw, was influenced by Native buildings.

No, Rick - this wasn't an empty continent. There were many different thriving cultures until people looking for "freedom" (usually the freedom to oppress others) came and stomped them into the ground.

[Vinca]

44. Uh, Rick. WE were the intruders.

[DFW]

46. Ah, yes, the YAF

In my last year of high school, I met some members of the so-called "Young Americans for Freedom." My friends and I called them the "Young Assholes for Fascism." They objected to the "Assholes" part, but didn't seem to mind the last part.

Republicans apparently think the North American Continent was uninhabited before they got there. They are always offended when they tell me they speak "American," and I tell them "no, you don't, you don't speak a word of American, all you can speak is European." When the predictable "what do you mean by that?" comes, I remind them that England and Spain are part of Europe, and their languages are equally European. Unless they speak Navajo, Cherokee, Lakota, Hopi, Iroquois, Apache, Tlingit, Cree, Nahuatl, Ojibwa, or whatever, then they don't speak "American" at all.

My town in Germany has a "sister city" in the USA which is located in South Dakota. One time they sponsored a Lakota to come address the town on the ways and situation of his tribe on the Pine Ridge reservation, and I was asked to translate into German, as he gave the address in English. We then set up a live feed into the Pine Ridge Lakota language radio station, and he started reporting live in the Lakota language. The Germans listened in total fascination, as none of them (or I) understood a word. I told the audience afterward, "Now THAT is what 'American' sounds like."

Most of us in the USA speak European languages. If Santorum thinks he speaks "American," or thinks his religion is "American," let him start praying in Lakota to the Great Spirit.

[timms139]

48. Appalachian

Mountains are named after the tribe completely wiped out by sickness brought by the white men.

[Wounded Bear]

49. Euro-whites have done their best to suppress and destroy Native cultures...

so in that aspect he's not completely wrong. I live in an area of the country (WA state) where many of the names of local municipalities and geographic features have names from the local Native nations, either directly or partially. I know this corner of the country is far from alone in that.

What's left of Native culture is still very much out there, and actually has been getting more visibility over the past few decades. That's a great thing.

[Cerridwen]

54. "Birth of a Nation" ... "we birthed a nation..."

Dog whistle red meat for the lone wolves.

[alphafemale]

55. He doesn't know how much of our government was based off the Iroquois nation?

Frothy mix indeed.

[lpbk2713]

56. What a dumbass.

It takes a special effort to create that kind of stupid.

[JohnnyRingo]

57. Santorum lived where the Allegheny and Monongahela meet

Allegheny County was the first county with a Native name, and his home in Penn Hills is rife with names from prehistory. Santorum probably spoke more Native American than most just reading a local road map.

[Marcuse]

58. Rick Santorum says 'there isn't much Native American culture in American culture'

Apparently there is enough to appropriate and defile.

[yellowcanine]

59. Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, Kentucky, Kansas, Tennessee, Indiana....

Not to mention the Dakotas and more.
What a dipshit.

[myccrider]

60. And then there's effing CORN!!!!!!!

and TOMATOES!!!!!!!

and CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!


[I keep editing because I keep thinking of something else. ]