Lonesome Dove

Lonesome Dove (1985), by Larry McMurtry, is the most critically acclaimed western. It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1986 and is McMurtry’s magnum opus. More literary fiction in a western setting than a cowboys-and-Indians romp, Lonesome Dove tells the story of two ageing ex-Texas Rangers who lead a cattle drive from south Texas to the wilderness of Montana. It examines friendship, love and death through a host of larger-than-life yet painfully realistic characters. Texas Monthly calls it the state’s hero myth. 

Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call are the co-owners of the Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium, renting out horses and cows in the dusty border town of Lonesome Dove. In their youth, they were Texas Ranger captains, who fought Comanches in the state’s frontier days. Now Texas is becalmed, and the buffalo are nearing extinction.

Quick-witted, charming and thoughtful, McCrae spends his days indulging in alcohol and prostitutes while pining for an old flame who married a horse trader twenty years before. 

Woodrow Call is a tough and determined leader of men, with an iron sense of duty. He is stubborn and pragmatic but socially inept, particularly around women, and refuses to face his past mistakes.

McMurtry claimed the idea for two opposing men – the pragmatic and the visionary – came from Don Quixote. McCrae is an Epicurean, Call a stoic, and, although they are very different, their many conversations echo those of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

The call to adventure comes from their friend Jake Spoon. After ten years of absense, he appears in Lonesome Dove wanted, having killed a dentist in Fort Smith. Spoon tales of unclaimed land persuade Call and McCrae to leave Lonesome Dove and bring two thousand cattle to the last frontier. They hire a team of cowboys and set off.

The novel follows a host of characters including wistful whores, naïve sheriffs and sadistic bandits. The plotting is excellent. McMurtry’s narration is omniscient, slipping in and out of characters thoughts and opinions with ease. His dialogue and characterisation are superb, and often hilarious. The characters are not mere archetypes or cliches but bring a host of quirks and insecurities to the table – many with crippling emotional depth. 

Larry McMurtry, 2000:

“It’s hard to go wrong if one writes at length about the Old West, still the phantom leg of the American psyche. I thought I had written about a harsh time and some pretty harsh people, but, to the public at large, I had produced something nearer to an idealization; instead of a poor man’s Inferno, filled with violence, faithlessness and betrayal, I had actually delivered a kind of Gone With The Wind of the West, a turnabout I’ll be mulling over for a long, long time.”

Lonesome Dove does not paint the romantic picture of the Old West, so loved in the genre, nor does it indulge in hellish depictions in the vein of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, though there is violence aplenty. Instead, McMurtry paints the Frontier as-is: a time of adventure and possibility, but also immense hardship and cruelty. The innocents suffer most.

McMurtry wrote one sequel – Streets of Laredo (1989) and two prequels; Dead Man’s Walk (1995) and Comanche Moon (1997). I have read the latter, which is nearly as good and features more of the Native American perspective. 

Larry McMurtry of Archer City, Texas (1936 – 2021) – who later co-wrote Brokeback Mountain – began Lonesome Dove in 1972 as a screenplay. He sold the rights to Universal Pictures. The leads he envisioned, however – John Wayne and James Stewart – rejected the script. Twelve years later, McMurtry bought back the rights for $35,000 and rewrote it as a book. The gamble paid off – Lonesome Dove was an immediate success and spent 52 weeks on the bestseller list.

In 1989, CBS adapted Lonesome Dove as a TV miniseries starring Robert Duval as Augustus McCrae, Tommy Lee Jones as Woodrow Call, Diana Lane as Lorena and Donald Glover as Deets. The script maintained much of the book’s dialogue and was nominated for 18 Emmies, winning seven. It revived both the Western genre and the miniseries format. Four adaptations of the Lonesome Dove tetralogy followed but were subpar.

Standing at 843 pages, Lonesome Dove is one of those rare books which is easy to read while bearing literary clout. It is among the best books I have read, and will likely read again.

 Sources: Texas Monthly

See Also:

• Don Quixote

America’s Empire and the Twenty Years Since 9/11

On the 11th of September, 2001, members of terror group Al Qaeda hijacked two US passenger planes and flew them into the World Trade Centre in New York City. 2,997 people died and US foreign policy changed irrevocably. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in history. Twenty years and two wars later, the USA enters the twilight of its superpower years.

The Second War World War ended dreams of German world domination, but it also helped end the British Empire. After fighting two world wars on their soil, the old empires of Europe were exhausted. In the following decades, their colonies in Africa and Asia gained their independence. Britain, who had ruled a quarter of the world’s people, resigned from its place as a global superpower and its two wartime allies – the United States and the Soviet Union, took its place.

When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the USA became the world’s undisputed superpower. The nations of Eastern Europe, now free from the shackles of Soviet-enforced communism, embraced American-style liberal democracy, and it seemed for a time the rest of the world would follow suit. Capitalism, democracy and mass media would unite the world and there would be no need for wars. Political scientist Francis Fukuyama called it ‘The End of History.’

But it wasn’t. Wars continued, most notably in former Yugoslavia and Kuwait. In Afghanistan, the rebel factions who had defeated the Soviets with American support turned on each other. In 1996, the Taliban seized the country.

Al Qaeda began as an Arab volunteer force that fought the Russians in Afghanistan. They saw themselves as Jihadis, protecting the Muslim world against aggressors like the Soviet Union. In the 90s, now based out of Afghanistan, they turned against the other remaining superpower.

Al Qaeda saw the encroachment of the USA’s political and cultural influence across the Muslim world, particularly after the fall of the USSR, as a threat to Islamic civilization. They deplored American support for dictators, its pursuit of Middle Eastern oil and, in particular, its support for Israel, a Jewish state on Arab land. As Al Qaeda could not match the military might of the USA and its allies, they turned to terrorism.

Their attack on the World Trade Centre shattered hopes of world peace and the security of the United States. The Bush Administration demanded the Taliban government hand over Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. They refused, and the United States invaded.

The Bush Administration also used the post 9/11 climate of fear and nationalism to invade Iraq in 2003 – a country with no link to Al Qaeda – on the false pretence of its leaders harbouring ‘weapons of mass destruction.

Both Afghanistan and Iraq fell quickly, but the US military found themselves bogged down supporting flimsy new governments and fighting vicious insurgencies. The Bush, Obama and Trump presidencies fought a practically invisible enemy for over twenty years.
If anything, the USA’s ‘War on Terror’ justified Al Qaeda’s worldview. The fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq birthed a climate of war and instability, giving rise to the Islamic State – a militant group who committed genocide from 2014 – 2016, while in Afghanistan, the Taliban rose once more. US special forces killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011.

At home, a recession hit in 2008, from 2016 the political divide reached its widest since the Civil War and, in 2020, a global pandemic hit that exacerbated all its problems.
The withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2020 was overdue, but it was also clumsy and rushed. In a matter of months, the USA pulled out its military, and the Taliban took back control, this time with the millions of dollars worth of tanks and guns the US left behind. For the second time, the US has lost a war to an underequipped and canny opponent in a decades long insurgency.

Empires do not last forever, nor do superpowers. While the US has wasted its resources and reputation fighting the War on Terror, rival China has built its strength and bided its time.

The USA spent over 780 billion dollars on the War on Afghanistan. When they invaded in 2001, the Taliban controlled 90% of the country – they now control 100.

See Also:

• Empire
• The World’s Strongest Militant Groups (2018)
• The 2010s

Victorio

Victorio (1820 – 81) was the last great Apache chief. A leader of the Chiricahua Apache from New Mexico, he led a breakout from the San Carlos Reservation in 1879. Victorio fought a guerrilla war against Mexico and the United States until his final defeat at Tres Castillos.

Victorio is his Spanish name. His other monikers included ‘Beduit’, ‘Checks His Horse’ and ‘Apache Wolf’. 

As a young man, he trained for strength by running up hills with a mouthful of water to force him to breathe through his nose. Victorio fought alongside Apache chiefs Mangas Coloradas and Cochise and surrendered with the other Chiricahuas to reservation life in 1871. When bandits and other Apache attacked settlers, they blamed Victorio’s band, so in 1877, the US military forced them into a new home.

Their new home was San Carlos, a stretch of Arizona desert with little water or shade. Apache called it ‘Hell’s 40 Acres.’ Unsanitary, crowded conditions made tuberculosis rife. After three years, Victorio decided to leave.

He had two key allies:

• Old Nana (1810-1896, right) was a veteran of the Apache Wars and a skilled strategist with a reputation for cruelty. At 70 years, despite being half blind and rheumatic, he could still ride and fight.

• Lozen (1840 – 1889), Victorio’s younger sister, was a warrior and seer. She could allegedly foretell the future and track enemy movements from a distance.

Victorio claimed:

“Lozen is my right hand … strong as a man, braver than most, and cunning in strategy. Lozen is a shield to her people.”

Victorio and Lozen persuaded 300 men and women to escape from San Carlos. The band stole horses from a nearby ranch and fled the US cavalry into the Sierra Diablo mountains.

The US refused his demands for a return to his traditional lands. In response Victorio raided both sides of the border, fighting over 200 skirmishes and raids. His warriors hid in the mountains, ambushed unsuspecting soldiers, and poisoned wells to evade pursuit. Victorio defeated a four companies at Los Animas and slaughtered 43 civilians at Los Alma. 

In 1880, Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry and Texas Rangers pursued Victorio across the desert. They intercepted him at a wellspring and forced his band to cross the Rio Grande.

Victorio’s band arrived in Mexico tired and hungry. Lozen left to escort a pregnant mother back to a friendly reservation in Arizona.

The others made camp on a redoubt called ‘Tres Castillos’ – Three Castles. Old Nana took half of the band on a raiding party for ammunition and supplies. The next day Colonel Joaquin Terrazas and seasoned Indian fighter, Juan Mata Ortiz attacked. Their force of 250 included local millitia and scouts from the Tarahumara – a Native people with renowned endurance.

The Battle for Tres Castillos was one-sided. Victorio was shot early in the battle, and his fighters fought hand-to-hand against Mexican rifles. After one day of fighting, Victorio killed himself with a knife.

Colonel Terrazas killed the men and took the women and children captive, parading them to cheering crowds in Chihuahua city then selling them into slavery. A Tarahumara took Victorio’s scalp and later sold it for 2,000 pesos.

When he heard the news, Old Nana went on a revenge spree, killing soldiers and civilians. He captured Juan Mata Ortiz, burned him alive then fled into the Sierra Madre. Three years later, both Lozen and Old Nana would fight alongside Geronimo in the last Apache uprising.

Sources: James Kawaykla and Eve Ball – In the Days of Victorio (1970), Legends of America, Legends of the Old West Podcast, South Arizona Guide

See Also:

• The Apache

The Apache

The Apache are a Native American people from the southwestern United States. They resisted the Spanish and Mexicans for centuries and were the last Native Americans to submit to the USA. Today, they live in seven reservations across Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma.

The Apache were never a single nation. They lived in different tribes, including the Chiricahua, Lipan and Mescalero, who spoke a common language and shared a common way of life. Historically, the Chiricahua were the most defiant. 

Apaches speak an Athabaskan language, closely related to Navajo, and distantly to Tlingit. Their ancestors migrated from Siberia thousands of years after the initial settlement of the Americas and lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers. Over the centuries, Apache drifted from Alaska to the Great Plains of the USA, where they hunted buffalo and trained dogs.

In the 18th century, the Comanche drove the Apache into the deserts and mountains of the American Southwest. As the land was barren and lacking in buffalo, Apache raided for supplies, their victims the settled Puebloans and Spanish colonists.

Traditionally, Apache lived in wikiups and tipis. They mainly hunted deer, pronghorn and rabbits, gathered a range of wild plants and made clothing from leather and buckskin. Women fought alongside the men.

In the Southwest, the Apache became expert guerrilla fighters. They struck isolated farms and villages, seizing resources and livestock, then melted away into the mountains and deserts. Their unsurpassed tracking skills and ability to survive in extreme climates made the Apaches a tenacious foe. Hundreds of Apache scouts would serve in the US military.

The Apache fought the Spanish for 120 years, the Mexicans for 80 and the Americans for 25. 

While Apache saw raiding as a necessary peacetime activity, their enemies considered it an act of war. In 1835, the Mexican government issued ‘scalp bounties’ for killing Apaches– 100 pesos for a man, 50 for a woman and 25 for a child. Bounty hunters made a living murdering Apache, and revenge killings intensified. 

The US – Apache Wars (1853 – 1886) were the longest in American history. When the USA took over Arizona and New Mexico, they found themselves at odds with their new neighbours. Apaches raided with ferocity, while the US broke treaties constantly and forced Apaches onto barren reservations. Disaffected Apache broke out and fought as guerrillas in the hills.

Four great leaders fought the Americans and Mexicans:

• Mangas Coloradas (Red Sleeves) – raided both sides of the border, murdered at peace talks in 1863.
• Cochise – fought the United States for ten years after being wrongfully accused of kidnapping, died of natural causes in 1874.
• Victorio – led a breakout of 200 warriors, killed at Tres Castillos in 1881.

Geronimo (pictured right) led the last rebellion in 1886. With only 37 warriors, he held out in the Dragoon Mountains of southern Arizona for one year while 5,000 soldiers – a quarter of the US army – hunted him down. When Geronimo surrendered, the US took him and 300 Chiricahua to captivity in Florida then to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where most died of tuberculosis. They did not return until 1912. Geronimo became the most famous Apache and a figure of American myth.

As of 2010, there are 111,810 people of Apache descent. Most live one of 11 federally recognised reservations:

• Apache Tribe of Oklahoma
• Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma 
• Jicarilla Apache Nation, New Mexico 
• Mescalero Reservation, New Mexico 
• Fort Apache Reservation, Arizona 
• San Carlos Reservation, Arizona 
• Tonto Apache Tribe of Arizona 
• Camp Verde Indian Reservation, Arizona

Sources: Dan Carlin – Apache Tears, Chiricahua Apache Nation, Indians.org, Legends of the Old West, Mescalaro Apache Tribe

See Also:

• Victorio
• Plains Nations
• Haida
• Were We Better off as Hunter-Gatherers?

Plains Nations

The Plains Nations, or Plains Indians, are the indigenous peoples of the North American prairie. Many of the traditions outsiders associate with Native Americans in general, such as tipis, buffalo hunts and war bonnets, are specific to the plains.

Prominent Plains Nations include:

• Arapaho
• Blackfeet
• Cheyenne
• Comanche
• Osage
• Pawnee
• Kiowa
• Sioux

The Great Plains extend from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the Mississippi in the east, from Alberta to Texas. Like the steppes of Eurasia, they are a flat land of endless grass. In ages past, millions of buffalo roamed. 

The plains people lived for thousands of years in small bands that fought and traded with one another. Some hunted game and lived in tipis as nomads. Others farmed maize and tobacco in small villages. Some did both. For many plains people, buffalo were essential. They provided not only food but raw materials for clothing, tipis and tools. 

Plains people were among the tallest in the world, averaging a foot taller than their white American counterparts, and enjoying better nutrition. Today on plains reservations, obesity and alcoholism are rife

Plains Nations shared belief in a ‘Great Spirit’ and a female earth deity. Most tribes celebrated the Sun Dance, an annual ceremony of singing and dancing lasting four days. Medicine men healed and provided spiritual guidance. The modern Native American Church interprets Christianity through a Native American framework and uses peyote as a sacrament.

Horses revolutionised life on the Great Plains. Starting with the Comanche, Plains Nations acquired horses from the Spanish and embraced a nomadic culture. Instead of farming and hunting small game, they could move with the buffalo herds and hunt them at will. In war they fired arrows at full gallop.

Comanche, 1850s

Plains nations raided the Mexican and white-American settlements which encroached on their land, taking livestock and captives and disappearing before their foes could track them down. The ferocity of these raids and the barrenness of the landscape discouraged white settlement – for over a century, they halted Spanish, Mexican and Texan expansion. Instead, settlers chose the safer and more fertile coasts and river valleys of the continent. By 1850, the USA claimed both coasts, but the Great Plains remained free. 

New technology allowed the USA to settle the plains in the late 1800s.

• Nitrate fertiliser allowed farming on previously infertile grassland.
• Semi-automatic guns could outpace the native bow-and-arrow.
• Railroads allowed fast travel across great distances.

The US ended raids and opened the land for settlement by killing the buffalo and the tribes who hunted them. Disease decimated the native populations and left them outnumbered. Those who could no longer fight back signed treaties and moved onto reservations.

Ogalala Sioux, 1800s

In the 1870s, settlers discovered gold in South Dakota and thronged into Sioux lands. A Cheyenne-Sioux-Arapaho coalition defeated the US at Little Bighorn in 1876 but surrendered by the 1880s. The Ghost Dance movement briefly revived hopes of independence, but the 7th Cavalry crushed the dream in 1890 when they massacred 200 at Wounded Knee.

In the 20th century, many Plains people lived in poverty on reservations. Meanwhile, the 19th century Sioux brave, mounted with bow and arrow and wearing a feathered war-bonnet, became the image of the stereotypical Native American in world media. Western literature and cinema either romanticised the plains peoples or painted them as bloodthirsty killers. Today, activists campaign for the US government to honour past treaties and compensate for their past crimes.

Standing Rock, 2017

Sources: Akta Lakota Museum Cultural Centre, Indians.org, Legends of America, Scientific American

See Also:

• Steppe People – their Old World counterparts
• The Apache
• Haida
• Inuit
• Fuegians

Can’t Get You Out of My Head

Can’t Get You out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World (2021) is a six-part documentary series by British filmmaker Adam Curtis. It explores the challenges and adaptions of power structures from 1945 to the present day with a focus on Britain, the USA, Russia and China. Through extensive archival footage and a haunting soundtrack, Curtis explores how corruption, finance, conspiracy theories and behavioural psychology twist and defy individualism to uphold the interests of the powerful. 

There are six episodes:

1. Bloodshed on Wolf Mountain – covers growing frustration with the old power structures in the 1950s.
2. Shooting and Fucking are the Same Thing – examines the failure of 1960s revolutionary movements like the Black Panthers and the Red Army Faction.
3. Money Changes Everything – the effects of dropping the gold standard, and how money replaced the idealism of the 60s.
4. But What if People Are Stupid – the alliance between business and politics in the West, China’s abandonment of communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
5. The Lordly Ones – how Britain made mythologies to obfuscate their bloody past.
6. Are We Pigeon or Are We Dancer? – computers, technocracy and the creation of the world today.

Curtis presents a gloomy worldview. Idealists might seek to change the world, but power always wins in the end. Eerie sound production – reminiscent of 1980s science fiction and often bizarre or juxtaposed music conjures an unsettling atmosphere – the modern world is a dystopia where our leaders have no ideals or vision of the future and the masses shuffle about in a dull and meaningless existence.

Putin’s nationalism is a façade to shroud the corruption that defines post-Soviet Russia. What the CIA attempted in the West through MK Ultra is realised through the social programming of the internet. China abandoned Marxism in the 1980s and built a totalitarian state based on money, control and little else. As they instil helplessness and suspicion, conspiracy theories ultimately serve the interests of the powerful.

Can’t Get You out of My Head presents its ‘emotional history’ through intertwining narratives of individuals who tried, and often failed, to challenge the status quo. These include both politicians like Jiang Qing – wife to Mao Zedong, and lesser-known, but no less significant figures such as Michael X, Afeni Shakur, Abu Zubayda and Eduard Limonov. A key theme is the struggle of individualism against collective authority and how, in the end, the latter always wins.

It’s a lot to take in. But, despite everything, Curtis ends on an optimistic note. If we can get ourselves into this mess, we can get ourselves out. What we need is new ideas. The documentary’s strength lies in explaining the way the world is, through an untold narrative that is both unique and compelling. It is not, however, an easy viewing.

Links:

• Internet Archive
• Thoughtmaybe
• Watch Documentaries

The Colorado Coalfield War

The Colorado Coalfield War of 1913-1914 was the deadliest strike in American history. Union miners challenged the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company for better conditions and pay in a dispute that ended in a massacre.

Wealthy industrialists controlled the coal mines and railroads of 19th century America. They ruled entire communities who depended on them for employment, appointing their own marshals, teachers, doctors and priests. Private armies maintained order and quashed dissent.

In 1903, industrialist JD Rockefeller acquired the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I), the largest coal firm in the American West. In 1907, Rockefeller gave his CF&I shares to his son, JD Rockefeller Junior, as a birthday gift. The Rockefellers ran the entire company from New York. CF&I was Colorado’s largest employer.

The mining workforce were mainly immigrants from Greece, Mexico Poland and Japan. CF&I deliberately mixed them by ethnicity, so the language barrier mitigated the chance of unionising. 

Conditions in the mines were poor. To save costs, CF&I only paid miners for the coal they mined. ‘Dead work’, like track laying and mine maintenance, went unpaid. Miners therefore neglected safety which led to cave-ins and explosions, in addition to diseases like black-lung. CF&I workers died at twice the national average. Explosions killed 167 men in 1910 alone. As the sheriffs assigned the juries and the company assigned the sheriffs, miners could find no recourse in the legal system. Before 1914, only one case in 95 found the company at fault.

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) mobilised in southern Colorado in 1913. Organised strikes earned miners an eight-hour workday, but the company still refused to recognise the union as the miners’ bargaining representative.

9,000 miners went on strike in September 1903, demanding payment for dead work. CF&I refused to negotiate and expelled the strikers and their families from their homes. The union organised a tent colony, half a mile north of Ludlow, Colorado. News spread across the state, and over the next two days, almost every coal miner in Colorado left their jobs to join the union encampments. The UMWA subsidised strikers with three dollars a day, one for women and fifty cents for children.

CF&I built an armoured, machine gun mounted car dubbed the ‘death special’ to intimidate the tent colonies. The strikers armed themselves in response. As tensions grew, skirmishes and gunfights became more and more common. Mother Jones, an Irish-born union activist, rallied public support and collected donations from across Colorado. Leading the Ludlow colony was 27-year-old Greek immigrant Louis Tikas.

The National Guard deployed in the strike’s sixth month to ease tensions, but the strikers refused to surrender their weapons. A force of 177 national guardsmen and company militia surrounded the Ludlow colony. After an accidental gunshot, the two sides opened fire. Though fewer in number, the national guard were better armed, with Springfield rifles and two machine guns. Five miners, including Tikas, and one guard, were shot dead while 13 women and children suffocated to death as they hid from the gunfire. The tent colony was now a smoking ruin. 

Fighting continued for the next ten days, as strikers across southern Colorado sought revenge. The press aroused public outrage against CF&I for the deaths of women and children.

By mid-1914, the coal companies had enough strikebreakers to resume mining. By 1915, the UMWA finally went bankrupt and ended subsidies to its members.

Although the strike failed, the coal company’s response raised public awareness of the working conditions in American coal mines. In response, Congress approved the 1915 Mining Act that laid the foundations for the USA’s eight-hour workday, child labour laws and the New Deal. In 1918, the UMWA erected a monument outside Ludlow to commemorate the strike. By the 1950s ,most of the old mining communities were ghost towns.

Sources: Colorado Encyclopedia, Global Security, Denver Library, Legends of America

Inuit

Inuit are the indigenous people of the North American Arctic. They live in Greenland and the polar regions of Alaska and Canada. Their ancestors migrated from Asia around 1000, making them the last indigenous people to settle the Americas. 

Inuit means ‘the people’ in Inuktitut. A singular Inuit is an Inuk. 

The word ‘Eskimo’ refers to the related peoples of the Arctic Circle who speak Eskimo-Aleut languages, including Inuit, the Aleuts of Alaska and the Yupik of Kamchatka. Eskimo means ‘snow shoes’ in Algonquin but scholars once thought it came from the Cree ‘askipiw’, meaning ‘eater of raw flesh’. That etymology is now disproven, though Eskimo is still considered derogatory in Canada. Inuit is preferred. 

Inuit in 1920

The ancestors of the Inuit crossed the Bering Strait from Siberia a thousand years ago. Known as the ‘Thule Culture’, their ancestors displaced the Dorset people who came before them and spread across the American Arctic. The Thule had greater numbers and husky-driven sledges which the Dorset lacked. The last Dorset group perished in 1903. Owing to their later migration, Inuit are more closely related to the indigenous Siberians than other Amerindian and First Nations groups. 

Inuit have adapted to the most extreme conditions of any human society. In the Arctic, temperatures can reach -50° and there are periods of 24-hour darkness in winter. There is no wood or domesticable animals. Agriculture is impossible. The traditional Inuit diet was 75% fat and in winter, 100% meat and fish.

Inuit drove sledges, wore fur coats and built skin tents in summer and igloos in winter. They fished, and hunted seals, walrus, caribou and whales, and made harpoons from narwhal horns and walrus ivory. Their adaption to polar environments meant Inuit settlers thrived in Greenland while Norse colonies perished. Kayaks are an Inuit invention. 

European whalers made contact with Inuit in the 1700s. By the 19th century, the measles, smallpox, tuberculosis and alcohol they introduced had killed 90% of the Inuit population.

By the early 20th century, Inuit were hunting with guns and using metal tools. Many made a living selling fox pelts to white traders. Some attended missionary schools but were largely independent of mainstream Canadian society.

The Canadian government asserted control over the Inuit from 1939. Government assimilation policies forced Inuit children into residential boarding schools and assigned them state-sanctioned names. Abuse was rampant. They resettled nomadic Inuit into permanent settlements to lay claim to parts of the Arctic, ended their traditional way of life and forced them into the modern economy. The decimation of whale populations, melting ice caps and oil drilling has since made the traditional Inuit lifestyle untenable.

In the 1970s, university-educated Inuit lobbied for land claims and self-representation. The territory of Nunavut, which is majority Inuit, became self-governing in 1993. 

Today, Canadian Inuit live in four autonomous regions, each located north of the treeline.

• Inuvialuit (Northwest Territories)
• Nunavut (own territory)
• Nunavik (Quebec)
• Nunatsiavut (Newfoundland and Labrador)

Greenland, though under Danish sovereignty, is 80% Inuit. As in Canada, the Danish government resettled Inuit into towns and forced changes in diet and occupation. Resettlement, overfishing and climate change destroyed their traditional way of life in a mere generation. Greenland gained home rule in 1979.

Blanket Toss in Utqiagvik, Alaska

Modern Inuit are impoverished minorities in their respective countries. Many live in isolated communities with little access to roads and hospitals. Canadian Inuit live 15 -20 years less than the average citizen. In both Greenland and Canada, suicide is six times the national average. 

It is not all, however, so bleak. Inuit culture is seeing a revival across Alaska, Greenland and Canada. Traditional visual art and throat singing is taught across the Inuit homeland, and in Nunavut, most children now learn Inuktitut as a first language.

Sources: Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada, Inuit Tapariit Kanatami, Minority Rights Group

See Also:

• Inuit Mythology
• The Polar Bear Invasion of 2019
• Greenland Norse

2020 So Far

Disclaimer: This post is based on information from the media by someone living outside of North America as I currently understand it. It focuses on events in the world hegemon, the USA.

In January, tensions between the USA and Iran reached an all-time high following the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. World War 3 memes flooded the internet while, in Iran and elsewhere, the protests of 2019 continued. The year’s greatest challenge to the USA and its hegemony proved not an external enemy however, but a global disease and problems within the nation itself.

In February, Covid-19, a deadly virus, spread from a market in Wuhan across China. By March it went global, killing hundreds of thousands. Governments forced their populations into lockdown, closing businesses and urging their people to stay at home. Transmission stalled at the economy’s expense.

By May, the USA had suffered the most, with over a million cases and over 100,000 dead. Black Americans were hit disproportionately.

On May 21st, white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin arrested George Floyd, an unarmed black man, for using a counterfeit bill. The officer then kneeled on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes as he cried ‘I can’t breathe’ until he died. Floyd’s death, the latest in a long list of documented murders-by-police, was the spark which set the forest ablaze. 

Minneapolis, and over 75 other cities, erupted in protests against systemic racism and police brutality. With law enforcement stretched thin, looters took to the streets at night. Businesses big and small suffered. Authorities deployed State Troopers and on, June 1st the National Guard. Currently ongoing, it is the USA’s worst civil unrest since the 1960s. 

There has been major unrest in the USA every generation. Unlike the 1965 Watts Riots, or 1992 Rodney King Riots, however, the George Floyd protests have coincided with a pandemic, economic collapse and the century’s most unpopular presidency. Through such concurrences, empires fall.

The USA was already in a fragile state. Millions, particularly those on minimum hour contracts, lost their livelihoods in the lockdown. With a weak social safety net and a terrible healthcare system, America has not weathered the storm well. People are angry and have little to lose. 

What happens next?

Donald Trump will run on a law and order platform as Nixon did in 1968. Against the uninspiring Joe Biden, he will likely win.

As for the bigger picture, there are three possibilities:

1. Cities invoke meaningful steps to reform and demilitarise the American police and the prison-industrial complex. They hold murderous cops accountable. 
2. Protests continue but struggle against heavy law enforcement. Riots abate. Systemic racism enters the public discourse and small steps are taken to meet protestor demands. The status quo prevails.
3. Riots worsen. Armed groups intervene. Someone fires at police lines and they respond with live bullets. Trump calls the military. The USA implodes as Rome did and the rest of the world fights over its ashes. 

Whatever the case, Covid-19 will spike in the USA. It will take months to fully recover.

The LAPD reformed somewhat following the Rodney King Riots of 1992. Now the Minneapolis city government pledges to defund the police and mandate officers intervene against colleagues using excessive force. Proclaiming support for Black Lives Matter has become trendy amongst corporations. Most significantly, the protests have brought attention to the structural inequality that persists in the United States but also highlighted the political and social division which defines our era. Whatever happens in the next six months, historians will study 2020 for years to come.

Sources: Data.pnj, CNN, The Economist, The Guardian, Vox

See Also:

• Protests of 2019
• The Death of Qassem Soleimani
• John Prine – That’s How Every Empire Falls

The 2010s

The 2010s were the second decade of the 21st century. It was a time of increased globalization, political upheaval and rapid technological advancement.

The world economy recovered slowly from the Great Recession of 2008, but new wealth fell into fewer pockets. Neoliberalism prevailed as the dominant economic structure.

An earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, killing over 230,000, injuring 600,000 and displacing 1.5 million. It was the worst natural disaster of the decade.

The Arab Spring: In 2011, protests erupted across the Arab world. Demanding democracy and a fairer economy, they overthrew the dictators of Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain. With US air support, Libyan rebels toppled Muammar Gaddafi but plunged the country into civil war. The new government failed to assert control and by 2020 Libya was a failed state.

In Syria, President Bashar Al-Asad fought tooth and nail to hold onto power. When rebels came close to winning in 2015, Russia saved the regime through a relentless bombing campaign. By 2020 only a few regions still hold out. Over 500,000 people have died.

The Islamic State, an Al-Qaeda splinter group, took over half Iraq and Syria in 2014. In Iraq, they slaughtered over 8,000 Christians, Shiites, Yazidis and other religious minorities. By 2019 Kurdish and Arab militias had destroyed their short-lived ‘caliphate’ with Russian and American air support.

Russia, under Vladimir Putin, annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Ukraine fought Russian-backed separatists on its eastern border.

The War on Terror continued. As of February 2020, NATO forces are still fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Groups like Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab threatened the safety of the Sahel and East Africa. In the US, more died from mass shootings than any previous decade. White nationalism became the leading cause of domestic terror.

China became the world’s second-biggest economy (overtaking Japan). In 2017 Xi Jinping (pictured)  made himself dictator for life and the strongest leader since Mao. China expanded its economic hold over the developing world through its Belt and Road initiative. Uighur Muslims became second class citizens.

Nationalism resurged across the globe. Hungary, Turkey, The Philippines, India, Brazil, and the USA elected authoritarian strongmen on populist conservative platforms. In 2016, Donald Trump’s election and Britain’s Brexit referendum upset the old balance of western democracy. Politics became more volatile and divisive.

Smartphones dominated the 2010s. Since Apple released the first iPhone in 2010, Chinese, American and South Korean companies have turned new models at a rapid pace. By 2019, over 3 billion people owned one. Smartphones of today include cameras, music players and constant access to the internet. We can now fit the sum of recorded human knowledge in our pockets.

Digital technology became the world’s strongest industry. Facebook went from 482 million users in 2010 to 2.5 billion in 2019 in addition to acquiring Instagram and Whatsapp. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos became the richest man in the world.

Leaps were made in progressive politics. 18 countries recognised same-sex marriage. Saudi women attained the right to drive and four countries (and 10 US states) legalised recreational marijuana.

Streaming services change the way we consume media. Instead of purchasing an album or DVD, we can now enjoy unlimited access to music, film or television through subscriptions to streaming services like Spotify or Netflix. The business model evolved in response to online piracy and dominated by the latter half of the 2010s, being much more popular with viewers.

Hip-hop, EDM and R&B became the most popular music genres.

Visual media developed significantly. Superhero films became the most popular cinema genre with Avengers: Endgame (2019) grossing over $858.4 million, the highest of all time. Following the likes of the Sopranos, HBO’s series Game of Thrones (2011-2019) showed what television could achieve with a big enough budget. Minecraft became the bestselling video game of all time. The Walt Disney Corporation acquired the rights to Marvel films, Star Wars and 21st Century Fox.

Major Natural Disasters

(Over 5,000 deaths)

• 2011 Haiti Earthquake, 200,000 + dead.
• 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami (Japan). 16,000 + dead.
• 2015 Nepal Earthquake. 9,000 + dead

Revolutions:

• Kyrgyzstan (2010)
• Tunisia (2011)
• Egypt (2011)
• Bahrain (2011)
• Libya (2012)
• Ukraine (2014)
• Sudan (2019)

Major Wars

(Over 10,000 casualties.)

• Mexican Drug War (2009 -)
• Somali Civil War (2009 -)
• Boko Haram Insurgency (Nigeria, 2009 -)
• Syrian Civil War (2011 -)
• Northern Mali Conflict (2012 -)
• 2014 Israel-Palestine Conflict (2014)
• War in the Donbas (Ukraine, 2014 -)
• Iraqi Civil War (2014 – 2017)
• Yemeni Civil War (2015 -)

Genocides: 

• Rohingya Genocide (Burma, 2017), 24,000+ killed
• ISIS killing of Christians, Shiites and Yazidis (2014), 8,000+ killed

New countries:

• · South Sudan (2011)

New Technology

• Smartphones
• Cryptocurrency
• AIDS treatment
• Self-driving cars
• 3D Printers
• 5G network

Extinctions:

• Eastern cougar (2011)
• Japanese river otter (2012)
• Pinta Island tortoise (2012)
• Cape Verde giant skink (2013)
• Formosan clouded leopard (2013)
• Bermuda saw-whet owl (2014)
• Christmas Island forest skink (2017)
• Western black rhinoceros (2018)
• Bramble Cay memomys (2019)

Sources: Al Jazeera, The Balance, Counter Extremism Project, Cnet, I Am Syria, Mint Hill Times, Statista, Vox, Wikipedia

See Also:

• 2016:
  • Cambridge Analytica
  • Rojava
• 2017:
  • Charlottesville Riot
  • 2017 Warsaw March
  • Robert Mugabe
• 2018:
  • 2018: Western Powers Bomb Syria
  • Stormclouds over Idlib
  • The World’s Strongest Militant Groups
• 2019:
  • The Christchurch Mosque Shooting
  • The Sri Lanka Easter Bombings
  • The Polar Bear Invasion of 2019
  • Amazon Burning
  • The Sudan Crisis
  • Protests of 2019
  • The Death of Qassem Soleimani
• Books:
  • Yuval Noah Harari – Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2014)
• Films:
  • Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri (2017)
  • The Irishman (2019)
  • Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
  • Parasite (2019)
• Television:
  • Game of Thrones (2011-2019)
  • The Marvelous Mrs Maisel (2017 – )
  • John Oliver’s China Episode (2018)
  • Succession (2018)
• Music:
  • Leon Bridges – Good Thing  (2018)
  • The HU