"The true Indian sets no price upon either his property or his labor. His generosity is limited only by his strength and ability. He regards it as an honor to be selected for difficult or dangerous service and would think it shameful to ask for any reward, saying rather: "Let the person I serve express his thanks according to his own bringing up and his sense of honor. Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth, and the Great Silence alone!. What is Silence? It is the Great Mystery! The Holy Silence is His voice!
Whenever, in the course of the daily hunt, the hunter comes upon a scene that is strikingly beautiful or sublime -- a black thundercloud with the rainbow's arch above the mountain, a white waterfall in the heart of a green gorge, a vast prairie tinged with the blood-red of the sunset -- he pauses for an instant in an attitude of worship.
He sees no need for setting apart one day in seven as a holy day, because to him all days are God's days.
The first American mingled with his pride a singular humility. Spiritual arrogance was foreign to his nature and teaching. He never claimed that the power of articulate speech was proof of superiority over the dumb creation; on the other hand, it is to him a perilous gift.
Children must early learn the the beauty of generosity. They are taught to give what they prize most, that they may taste the happiness of giving"
-Ohiyesa
In due time the rabble were dispersed and their territory occupied. Borah now had the unenviable task of forging a lasting peace. The leadership of the Silver Legion had slunk off to sanctuary in Ford's realm. Borah couldn't pursue them and was left in the awkward position of having no one to surrender to him. Yet every week more soldiers were dying because of a handful of fascist partisans who seemed able to transverse the plains at will.
The solution to Borah's problem came to him courtesy of the renowned Sioux Chief Dr. Charles Eastman, or Ohiyesa as he was known by his people. The Silver Legion's treatment of the Red man was brutal. While Trumbo's security forces in the Intermountain Federation were hardly friendly with the Indians, they had a better reputation than the silver legion did. Over the the next few years a Sioux Militia took a larger and larger role in the occupation.
Ohiyesa proposed that Borah reward his allies with recognition and promise of full sovereignty to the reservations. Ohiyesa had additionally hoped that some territorial revisions were made so that the Sioux could have more land, but he never expected what Borah offered. Borah gave him the whole of the Great plains.
Oceti Sakowin's Government in 1938
The Sioux state had a major demographic problem on its hands. How could there be a Sioux country if most of the inhabitants were whites? True it was not as big of a majority as it had been before the depression. The region had already been depopulated because of the financial crisis and the chaos that brought abound the birth of so many new nations in the Americas. But it was still a white majority. For the Soviets it would be easy enough of a task to forcibly resettle the remaining population. But Borah wouldn't go along with their suggestions. “If our Federation is to retain its essentially republican character, we can not start acting like Genghis Khan,” Borah protested to Trumbo and Boyle. Trumbo insisted that the whole problem could be solved “with just a few boxcars.”
Soviet Clients in the Americas
Ohiyesa had offered a more moderate solution. He proposed that whites who did not wish to live under Indian rule be compensated to move to the Intermountain Federation or the Great Lakes republic. In the meantime he began work to encourage other tribes of Red men to migrate to and settle in the plains. The compensation and the establishment of self governing regions for whites cooled tensions somewhat, but in 1938 Ohiyesa and Borah still had a fascist insurgency on their hands. At any moment the Great Lakes Republic could invade the new country and the loyalty of the white population in that event was highly questionable. The following years would answer a question that plagued Ohiyesa, would his multicultural state be a success or would it fall like a house of cards the second that Soviet support was removed?
-A Short History of the Second World War James L. Stokesbury
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