CGTN时评丨北美印第安战争：资本的咆哮与人性的挽歌
In the film Good Will Hunting, there was a scene when the protagonist Will Hunting was asked about reasons why he refused to work for the National Security Agency.
He replied, "Say I'm working at NSA. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it… But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and 1,500 people I never had a problem with get killed. Now the politicians are saying, 'Send in the marines to secure the area'… It won't be their kid over there, getting shot… It'll be some kid from Southie taking shrapnel in the a*s… And the guy who put the shrapnel in his a*s got his old job, cause he'll work for 15 cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile, he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck… So what did I think? I'm holding out for something better."
这段话不仅鞭辟入里地道出了美国政治权力与资本权力利用战争布设的庞大利益网，同时更揭示了那些保有人性良知的美国人对本国发动战争的万般无奈。
What he said was an accurate reflection of the giant web of interests woven by American political and capital powers through wars. It also expressed the frustration keenly felt by decent Americans of conscience over their own country's waging of wars.
然而历史总是惊人的相似，在美国对北美印第安原住民发动的种族灭绝战争中，威尔这段有关美国战争逻辑的精彩剖析也能恰到好处的为一些不忍对印第安人屠刀相向的美国军官的命运提供注脚。1864年11月29日，约翰•奇温顿（John Chivington）上校指挥700名科罗拉多州第三骑兵团士兵，毫无预警地袭击了一个印第安保留地，制造了骇人听闻的沙溪大屠杀（Sand Creek Massacre）。
History always repeats itself. Will's telling analysis of America's war logic also tells the fate of army officers who did not have the heart to draw their sword against innocent people in the genocide of American Indians. On November 29, 1864, a 700-man force of the Third Colorado Cavalry under the command of Colonel John Chivington raided an Indian encampment, committing the blood-curdling Sand Creek Massacre.
奇温顿曾是卫理公会牧师，如今却化身刽子手高呼：“任何同情印第安人的人都该死！我是来杀印第安人的，我相信在上帝的保佑下，使用任何手段杀死印第安人都是正确和光荣的。”在其授意下，百余名印第安人殒命，其中三分之二为手无寸铁的妇女和儿童，他们死后不单惨遭尸解，甚至连头皮和部分身体器官都被美军士兵当成战利品。
Chivington, once a Methodist pastor but now a butcher, shouted, "Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians! I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God's heaven to kill Indians." Under his instruction, more than 100 American Indians were killed, two thirds being defenseless women and children. Some victims were even dismembered, with their scalps and body organs treated as trophies by American soldiers.
即便暴虐至此，军队中仍有少数心怀怜悯、不忍滥杀无辜的军官，塞拉斯•索尔上尉（Captain Silas Soule）便是极具代表性的一位。如今在丹佛图书馆，收藏着他彼时的来往书信，用忧心忡忡的文字记录了这场惨剧。
In spite of the ruthlessness, there were still a small number of compassionate officers in the army who refused to kill innocent people. Captain Silas Soule was one of them. His frustration-laden letters back then, now kept in the Denver Library, detailed the tragedy.
其中一封向爱德华•温克普（Edward Wynkoop）少校汇报战况：
“大屠杀持续了6-8小时，所幸还有些印第安人成功脱逃，我跟你讲，眼睁睁地看印第安小孩子跪地讨饶还被一些自称是有教养的‘文明人’打的脑浆迸裂真是太心痛了。一位女子已经受伤，有个家伙用斧头结束了她的生命，居然砍掉了她的一只胳膊，并一只手抓住另一只胳膊用斧头砸烂她的头部。”
One letter written to Major Edward Wynkoop reads:
"The massacre lasted six or eight hours, and a good many Indians escaped. I tell you Ned it was hard to see little children on their knees have their brains beat out by men professing to be civilized. One squaw was wounded, and a fellow took a hatchet to finish her, and he cut one arm off, and held the other with one hand and dashed the hatchet through her brain."
另一封给母亲：
“亲爱的妈妈，你写这封信那天我在屠杀现场，目睹了三百余名印第安人被杀。但我绝不让我的部下开火，只有卑鄙懦弱之人才能对好心的印第安人下手，屠杀开始的时候我们部队里还有些人正在他们部落友好地做生意。有些印第安人自知求生无望开始绝地反击，大概打死了12个我们的人，整个过程中我只射杀了一匹马…..由于违抗军令，（奇温顿）上司威胁说他会扣掉我全部薪水，开除军职甚至处以绞刑，不过就攻打印第安部落这件事，我坚信我比他有远见。我想华盛顿政府方面务必派人介入调查这次暴行。”
In another letter to his mother, he wrote:
"The day you wrote, I was present at a Massacre of three hundred Indians mostly women and children. It was a horrible scene, and I would not let my Company fire. They were friendly and some of our soldiers were in their Camp at the time trading… Some of the Indians fought when they saw no chance of escape and killed twelve… of our men. I had one Horse shot… I hope the authorities at Washington will investigate the killing of those Indians. I think they will be apt to hoist some of our high officials. I would not fire on the Indians with my Co. and the Col. said he would have me cashiered, but he is out of the service before me and I think I stand better than he does in regard to his great Indian fight."
索尔及其他几位德行高尚、拒绝同流合污的军官的记录和描述促使官方不得不出面调查，面对奇温顿的威逼利诱，索尔上尉毅然决然选择在科罗拉多军事委员会出厅佐证，最终也因诚实揭发战争罪行而遭人暗算，死于非命。虽然很少有美国人知道索尔的名字，但恰如历史学家戴维•哈拉斯（David F. Halaas）所言：“如果没有他们违抗军令，可能那些部落都不会有后代活到今天，也就没人能讲述这段尘封已久的血案了。”
The records and narratives of Soule and other righteous officers who refused to participate in the massacre sparked such outrage that the authorities had to initiate an investigation. Despite Chivington's coercion and cajolery, Soule resolutely chose to testify about the war crime before the Colorado military commission. Because of this, he was eventually assassinated. The name Silas Soule is not known to many Americans, but as historian David Fridtjof Halaas put it, without people like him who had the courage to disobey orders,"the descendants probably wouldn't be around today, and there would be no one to tell the stories."
沙溪大屠杀不过是美国对印第安人长达百年种族灭绝的缩影。包括人口清洗、文化侵蚀和生存环境捣毁在内的强盗式行径，表面动因来自于美国政府加速西部“开发”的土地政策，为美国的国力扩张和强盛打下了重要基础。究其本源，则是美国资本主义完成原始积累，并从自由竞争进入垄断的必由之路。
The Sand Creek Massacre is but one episode of the 100-year U.S. genocide against native Americans. Rapacious acts including ethnic cleansing, cultural erosion and environment destruction reinforced America's national strength and paved the way for its rise. The misdeed was seemingly driven by Washington's land policy to promote the westward expansion, but, in its essence, this was the one and only path for the U.S. to complete its primitive accumulation of capital and the transition from free competition to monopoly.
美国建国后很长时间内，国会议员中土地投机商、土地经纪人、大资本家以及与之过从甚密者占比极高。加之当时美国百废待兴，为缓解财政困难，美国一方面利用印第安人对主权、领土、物权、人权等现代概念不甚清晰的状态，对其采取“屠杀+签订欺骗性条约+贷款+强制同化”的清缴策略，野蛮获得对印第安人故土的控制权。另一方面用战争的“胜利果实”——土地换取稀缺的资本，由大资本家和土地投机商把土地以高利贷方式高价卖给普通移民，导致后者破产，变向推动了资本主义农场和租佃制的发展。与此同时，他们把投机土地的收益大量投资利润高昂的皮毛贸易和交通运输业。
For a long time after the founding of the U.S., an extremely large portion of Congress seats were occupied by land opportunists, land brokers, big capitalists and those who had a close connection with them. In an era where the country had just emerged out of the rubble of war and had to start from scratch, the U.S. government did two things to ease financial difficulties.
For one, taking advantage of native Americans' ignorance of modern concepts such as sovereignty, territory, real right and human rights, it implemented an exploitative policy combining massacre, deceptive treaties, loans and forced assimilation to arbitrarily snatch away control over their ancestral homelands.
For another, it traded the "fruits" of war, namely lands, for scarce capital. Big capitalists and land opportunists sold lands to ordinary immigrants at a high price in the form of usurious loans to bankrupt the latter. This indirectly promoted the development of capitalist farms and the land tenancy system. In the meantime, they invested the profits from land opportunism in high-returning sectors such as the fur trade and the transportation industry.
如果说北美印第安战争中，印第安人是最大的牺牲品、普通老百姓次之，那么商人、银行家、金融家和工厂主构成的投资者以及社会名流和政界要员便是此轮资本洗牌中的终极赢家。
If, in American Indian Wars, native Americans were the biggest victims, followed by the ordinary public, then investors including businessmen, bankers, financiers and factory owners, together with social elites and senior politicians, were the ultimate winners in the capital reshuffle.
时至今日，人们歌颂华盛顿、杰斐逊等开国元勋和建国英雄的丰功伟绩时，却很少提及被他们视如草芥、如灭蝼蚁的印第安生命。人们歌颂西进运动塑造的开拓、进取、革新等美利坚精神时，却本能地忽略了资本的贪婪欲望背后流淌着印第安人无辜的鲜血。而索尔上尉的书信和命运恰恰透过印第安战争折射出了那个资本咆哮的年代，并从一个惨剧亲历者、一个良知尚存者、一位为政府供职的军人的视角谱写了一曲本该属于印第安人的人性挽歌。
Until this day, while the feats of American founding fathers such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are much celebrated, there has rarely been any mention of the Indian lives that they trod underfoot and slaughtered like lambs.
When people eulogize the pioneering, aspiring and reformative American spirit fostered by the westward movement, they intuitively turn a blind eye to the blood of innocent American Indians flowing underneath capitalist lust and greed.
Captain Silas Soule's letters and fate unveiled, through the American Indian Wars, an age of roaring capital growth. As a witness of the tragedy of native Americans, a man of conscience and an army officer serving the government, he wrote a dirge of humanity that is supposed to be dedicated to American Indians.
作者系中国社会科学院美国研究所助理研究员王聪悦
The author, Wang Congyue, is an assistant research fellow at the Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.