Talk:Wilderness Road/Archive 1

Wow !
What an amazing article! full of drama and evocative period detail. I don't know what constitutes a "featured article" but this one certainly deserves to be highlighted in some way.

"In 1750, Dr. Thomas Walker, a Virginian, explored and documented the existence and features of Cumberland Gap, which had been worn down by buffalos (American bison) and Indian hunting parties. (Kincaid, 47)"
 * Is that actually saying that the Cumberland Gap was created by bison and people? Perhaps it is supposed to mean that the path that Daniel Boone widened was created by Indians and bison? Pfly 18:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Chickamauga attacks - "murder" vs "kill"
The article consistently uses "killed" to refer to settler deaths from Native American attacks, except for the Chickamauga raids of 1784 which are called "murders". There is some logic to this - "killed" is a more neutral word which does not necessarily imply a right or wrong side, but the article makes clear the Chickamauga avoided well-defended parties and attacked those whose power to resist was limited. It could be argued that the power inequality in these cases meant they were murders instead of simply killings.

On the other hand, murder also implies a guilty party (the murderer) and a degree of innocence for the victim. While the settlers the Chickamauga atatcked may not have been able to defend themselves, it is beyond the scope of the article to determine whether their use of the Wilderness Road to occupy what was previously Native American land makes them blameless in the subsequent killings.

In the interests of a neutral point of view, I have changed this single use of "murder" to "kill". The facts of the matter are retained and readers can draw their own conclusions about whether the killings were murders. In making this change please note I am not arguing the rights or wrongs of the occupation of Native American land, which is a matter for people much more expert than me.

Other points of view or disagreements welcome. Thanks also to MichaelCYoung for raising this at WP:KY. Euryalus 01:09, 14 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I support the use of "killed" instead of "murdered" in the interest of NPOV, unless I hear an opinion counter to that. I do believe "murdered" is a word that does in fact fill a use on some topics, but I think the article benefits by not using the word murder as a synonym of kill. -- Steven Williamson (HiB2Bornot2B) - talk  ▓▒░ Go Big Blue! ░▒▓  16:20, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

POV concerns
I've tagged this article for POV because of statements like the following (this is just a selection, there are plenty more such): "No one knew exactly when the next attack would happen. The Shawnee came from the north, while the Chickamauaga (Cherokees who rejected the land sale treaty) came from the south. These tribes were committed to a war of Genocide against the American settlers who they viewed as the main competitor to their hunting lands." ... "Ultimately, under first Spain and later particularly France, European colonial powers opposed to the British used diplomatic intrigue, espionage and covert warfare to unite, arm, and train the Indians. These programs reached their fruition during the great French and Indian War which almost succeeded in utterly destroying most of the settlements along the road. The wars continued into the American War of Independence, when the British took up the role previously played by Spain and France. Not until the early 1800's was the Wilderness Road finally secured, leaving tens of thousands of graves of Americans, bitter memories, and an endelible mark on the national consciousness." ... "The murderous Chickamauga and their leader Dragging Canoe were finally destroyed. The Shawnee were driven from the state and moved East along with most others doing the Indian removals. The last conflict with the Indians occurred doing the 1830's, with the removal of the final so called Five Civilized tribes, which had proved such a hated enemy of the Americans. Henceforth, the population turned to building up their hard-won lands which had been merely a vision foreseen when the first colonists from Great Britain and Ireland left their ancient homes in the islands and boarded ships to the colonies and the Wilderness Road." This type of language spans several sections, and gives the article a pronounced pro-settler (US-American) and anti-native (and to a lesser extent, anti-European) POV. I think this may derive from the use of Robert Kincaid's The Wilderness Road. Although the 1992 edition of this book is cited, it was originally published in 1947 and may contain the same pro-US-American-settler POV we now see here. cmadler (talk) 15:43, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Unless someone objects, I am going to go through the article and remove the sections, such as those above, that appear to me to demonstrate a pronounced POV. cmadler (talk) 18:17, 20 January 2012 (UTC)