Strong people oppressing weaker people is the human condition since the Fall of Adam. The Bad Guys in this flick pointed out (probably correctly) that the Sioux also oppressed the other Indian tribes they encountered. I personally experience it by reason of distance (rather than race or religion). The Chinese oppress the Christians (and other religions) in China. The Hindus oppress the Christians in India. The Muslims oppress the Christians in almost every country where they have control. The worst -- see World Watch List (no link, it's encrypted) -- is Pakistan and North Korea, where it is not racial at all, they do it to their own people. It's not a racial thing, but race is easier to identify than religion or national origin, so it gets most of the action in countries where it is visible.
The human brain has pretty much the same number of brain cells, regardless of gender or race, but what you use them for strongly affects what you can use them for. You can use them to invent things that make the world a better place (in keeping with Jesus' teaching) and then everybody benefits from the wealth. If instead you focus on selfish ambition, or think in categories like race or gender, or even if you are in an oppressed condition and all you can do is try to find your next meal, then you don't have enough brain cells left over for invention. All you can do is look at and lust after the other people, the ones whose great-grandparents did The Right Thing. There is not a lot of personal benefit to Doing The Right Thing, but like the rising tide that lifts all boats, other people (some of them your own descendants) benefit.
What the American Government did to the Indians was Wrong, and there is enough of the Christian value system left in this country so that people noticed and said so. But it's the Christian value system that made that possible.
At the beginning of the flick, the lead character was told to "take
a Christian name," but he did not: Charles is a Germanic name, not found
in the Bible. It is common today among people of European descent because
a certain popular medieval king was given the name at birth. Observant
Christians often give Biblical names to their children, but his parents
instead preserved a family name that predated their becoming Christians.
The movie is probably historically accurate, as that is no doubt what the
abusive teacher in that schoolroom said, but abusive people have never
felt constrained by the facts.
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