It seems that L. Frank Baum, author of "The Wizard of Oz" at one point, before he wrote the famous children's story, called for the extermination of Native Americans in newspaper editorials of the day and that they may have been a catalyst for the well known massacre of Sioux Indians at the Wounded Knee Reservation. His descendants have publicly apologized for his actions. Hear the story on NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=5662524

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And this from Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia:
During the events leading up to the Wounded Knee Massacre, Baum wrote an editorial for the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer upon the death of Sioux Chief Sitting Bull stating:

"The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are."

After the Massacre he wrote a second editorial repeating his earlier opinion and criticizing the government for not taking even harsher measures. These two short editorials continue to haunt his legacy. Matilda Joslyn Gage, a white feminist who was later adopted into the Mohawk nation, was living with Baum at the time of the Wounded Knee massacre, and none of the Baum family letters or journals of the time suggest any home strife as a result of this writing. Matilda Joslyn Gage assembled and wrote the editorials for the final two issues of the Pioneer as well. Some argue that Baum's initial editorial stoked tensions and contributed to sparking the Massacre.

Yikes! WTF!

"stars upon thars..."

Wow, I never knew this. The interesting things you learn on here. So sad he was racist...

well yeah, his words certainly are racist and perhaps his intentions as well....but no doubt common back then when we, the european immigrants, were doing our best to take a lot of land away from the natives who had lived on it for generations...
...one way to make that okay to do is to turn your fellow landlovers into heathens of some sort.....that justifies the aggression ....

when i reread it, couldn't help thinking about Iraq and Lebanon and the mid-east... substitute "Hussein" and "insurgents" or "Hesbollah" for the native words and it sounds sorta like a White House press conference....

Wounded Knee was a scant 115+ years ago (December 1890). Not really all that long ago in the scheme of things. There are still some folks around who recall speaking with Elders who survived it. And, yeah...the parallel to the present administration's (and a lot of people's) mind set was something that crossed my mind when I was posting it.