Anglais : Expression écrite Document : « Buffalo Bill’s Duel with Yellow Hand »

« Anglais : Expression écrite Document : « Buffalo Bill’s Duel with Yellow Hand » The document is a drawing made in the end of the XIX century.

We don’t know the drawer.

The action took place in the Great Plains, in the West of the United States, and refers to the Battle of The Little Bighorn between federal troops (led by Lieut.

Col. George A.

Custer) and Northern Plains Indians. First of all, I will describe all the elements of this illustration.

On the f oreground, we can see a man holding a bleeding knife in his right hand and a helmet with feathers on his other, he seems to be proud.

The man is white -skined, he is wearing clothes from the town, got a hat, a pair of shoes, a jacket and a moustache.

In addition to his knife, a sh otgun is at his feet.

The scene took place in the Great Plains of West U.S., the grass is green, the sky is really blue, we are in the day, and there are hills behind.

Another man is in front of him on the ground, laying with blood and a hole on his head.

His eyes are opened but full white, he is dead, killed by the other man with his knife.

Next to him we can see his machete, and a little further behind, his horse, laying in the ground, probably injured.

In the background, few people are coming from the hi lls near the place of the fight with their horses running on, creating a cloud of dust behind them. The two men are an american and an indian, Buffalo Bill and Hay -o-wei.

The Cheyenne warrior, also named Yellow Hand, was here killed by Buffalo in a one v ersus one fight, during the Battle of Little Bighorn that took place on June 1876 .

The combatants were warriors of the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes, battling men of the 7th Regiment of the US Cavalry.

This deadly battle has come to symbolize the clash of two vastly dissimilar cultures : the buffalo/horse culture of the northern plains tribes, and the highly industrial/agricultural based culture of the United States.

This battle was not an isolated soldier versus warrior confrontation , but part of a much larger strategic campaign designed to force the capitulation of the nonreservation Lakota and Cheyenne.

This drawing illustrate an historical event.

As we can see, the Americans are more evolved technologically : they got better weapon s, but the gap is also cultural : the langage, the clothes… Why this war ? Why all this deads ? Only for gold and lands, the « American progress » ! As you can see the Indian’s lives were « the cost of progress » (Myth of the Frontier text).

Indian’s lives for gold, for the Americans of the « Great Nation of Futurity » (John L.

O’Sullivan) that was a fair trade.

They tried to « civilise» and « americanize » them but they resist so the guns and knifes spoke, but that is ok : they are Indians, so they are in ferior, of course (racism, but they claim the American as the best benefactor in the world) ! They may have just locked up them, but they killed all of them, in spite of the warm Indian’s welcome towards them.

The blue sky contrast with all this sad battle .

In the XIXth century, the United States always wanted more and more : more lands, more gold, more progress… This mindset is still here today, for exemple, in this crisis of coronavirus, the United States and Sanofi did a deal so the country will get th e vaccine first.

They don’t kill Indians for gold anymore but other foreign people to vaccine their inhabitants.

« America first » like Trump says.

I would like to conclude this essay with one question : with all this elements and facts, who do you think w as more « civilised », the Americans, that killed for gold and lands or the Indians, victims of this « progress » ? Just think about it.. »