Indian Genocide
The United States government used military force to follow a policy of genocide toward the Native Americans. Politically, the policies of removal, concentration, and assimilation caused the death of thousands of Native Americans. Economically, the United States government used military force whenever any valuable resource was discovered on Indian Land. Socially, the near extermination of the Buffalo caused starvation and death among the tribes. The evidence clearly indicates that the United States government used military force and economic pressures to conduct a policy of genocide towards the Native Americans.
For decades, the United States practiced policies of removal to gain valuable land for itself. The policies of removal, assimilation, and concentration caused the deaths of thousands of Natives. The song Indian Reservation by Paul Revere and the Midnight Raiders is a reminder of the Trail of Tears, which killed a ¼ of the Indians that marched. The government removed the Indians from Georgia to benefit the plantation owners in the south, at the expense of the Native people in the area. Even the Supreme Court of the United States agreed that removal of the Indians from that land would be illegal, but President Jackson went ahead and did it anyways. The Indians marched over a thousand miles until they were west of the Mississippi River. It also gives a general overview of how the whites put the Indians on reservations and tried to assimilate them. “The beads we made by hand are nowadays made in Japan,” shows how the whites took over the Indian’s culture and commercialized it. Another situation in which the government practiced assimilation and concentration was with Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce. Joseph’s tribes were cooperative and sold their land to the whites as long as they got to live in their valley, but eventually the whites wanted all their land. The Indians fled and tried to make it to Canada, but 30 miles from the border they were caught and rounded up. They were sent to live on reservations, and most died of white diseases or starvation. By the year 1890, all Indians were on reservations. The Blackhawk war, which happened over land disputes in Wisconsin and Illinois, also led to the death and relocation of numerous Indians. This disrespect towards the Indians was typical of the time period.
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The whites used a policy of removal to get around the Indian “problem,” there is no question about that. Whenever it seemed that an Indian would get in the way they were moved to somewhere that was more convenient for the whites. The whites gave the Indians no respect and although atrocities were committed on both sides, it was the fault of the American government that things escalated to the point of all Indians being forced to reservations. Both sides lost people that should not have been killed, and for what? For a piece of land that the Indians were more than willing to share? For some yellow metal that was of no value to the Indians? There was no need for the killing that happened. Some may say that the Indians were terrorists, but that is not so. They were cooperative and willing to talk, whereas we lied and stole our way to “victory.” Our government should have tried to work together with the Indians to benefit both sides, instead of causing turmoil for everyone. Though today we may regret what we did, it could have been avoided if we just stopped and realized that what we were doing was pointless in the grand scheme of things.
Under the Jackson Administration, the changes made shaped national Indian policy. Morally, Andrew Jackson dismissed prior ideas that natives would gradually assimilate into white culture, and believed that removing Indians from their homes was the best answer for both the natives and Americans. Politically, before Jackson treaties were in place that protected natives until he changed those policies, and broke those treaties, violating the United States Constitution. Under Jackson’s changes, the United States effectively gained an enormous amount of land. The removal of the Indians west of the Mississippi River in the 1830’s changed the national policy in place when Jackson became President as evidenced by the moral, political, constitutional, and practical concerns of the National Indian Policy.
People know about the conflict between the Indian's cultures and the settler's cultures during the westward expansion. Many people know the fierce battles and melees between the Indians and the settlers that were born from this cultural conflict. In spite of this, many people may not know about the systematic and deliberate means employed by the U.S. government to permanently rid their new land of the Indians who had lived their own lives peacefully for many years. There are many strong and chilling reasons and causes as to why the settlers started all of this perplexity in the first place. There was also a very strong and threatening impact on the Native Americans through the schooling that stained the past and futures of Native Americans not only with blood but also with emotion. It was all a slow and painful plan of the "white man" to hopefully get rid of the Indian culture, forever. The Native American schools were created in an attempt to destroy the Native American way of life, their culture, beliefs and tradi...
In May 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act which forced Native American tribes to move west. Some Indians left swiftly, while others were forced to to leave by the United States Army. Some were even taken away in chains. Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, strongly reinforced this act. In the Second State of the Union Address, Jackson advocated his Indian Policy. There was controversy as to whether the removal of the Native Americans was justified under the administration of President Andrew Jackson. In my personal opinion, as a Native American, the removal of the tribes was not in any way justified.
The Indian Removal Act drove thousands of natives off their tribal lands and forced them west to new reservations. Then again, there are those who defend Jackson's decision stating that Indian removal was necessary for the advancement of the United States. However, the cost and way of removing the natives was brutal and cruel. The opposition fails to recognize the fact that Jackson’s removal act had promised the natives payment, food, and protection for their cooperation, but Jackson fails to deliver any of these promises. Furthermore, in “Indian removal,” an article from the Public Broadcasting Service, a description of the removal of the Cherokee nation is given.
The United States government's relationship with the Native American population has been a rocky one for over 250 years. One instance of this relationship would be what is infamously known as, the Trail of Tears, a phrase describing a journey in which the Native Americans took after giving up their land from forced removal. As a part of then-President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act, this policy has been put into place to control the natives that were attempting to reside peacefully in their stolen homeland. In the viewpoint of the Choctaw and Cherokee natives, removal had almost ultimately altered the culture and the traditional lifestyle of these people.
The American Indians were promised change with the American Indian policy, but as time went on no change was seen. “Indian reform” was easy to promise, but it was not an easy promise to keep as many white people were threatened by Indians being given these rights. The Indian people wanted freedom and it was not being given to them. Arthur C. Parker even went as far as to indict the government for its actions. He brought the charges of: robbing a race of men of their intellectual life, of social organization, of native freedom, of economic independence, of moral standards and racial ideals, of his good name, and of definite civic status (Hoxie 97). These are essentially what the American peoples did to the natives, their whole lives and way of life was taken away,
There were several motives for the removal of the Indians from their lands, to include racism and land lust. Since they first arrived, the white Americans hadn’t been too fond of the Native Americans. They were thought to be highly uncivilized and they had to go. In his letter to Congress addressing the removal of the Indian tribes, President Jackson states the following:
The quality of air we intake on a daily basis is essential to our health, therefore, the EPA’s Clean Air Act provides the groundwork to support the quality of the air which we breathe. One of the goals of the Act was to set and achieve NAAQS in every state by 1975 to address the public health and welfare risks posed by certain air pollutants. The setting of these pollutant standards was coupled with directing the states to develop state implementation plans (SIPs), applicable to appropriate industrial sources in the stat...
The Removal Act of 1830 paved the way for the hesitant and generally—journey of ten of thousands of Native Americans to move more westward. The very first removal treaty was signed after the Removal Act of 1830. This treaty made Choctaws in Mississippi ceded land east of the river. The U.S. government would give money in exchange for land in the east of the river for land in the west. The Choctaw chief quoted to Arkansas Gazette that in 1831 Choctaw Removal was a Trail of Tears and downfalls. The treaty signed in 1835 was known as the Treaty of Echota, which resulted in the removal of the Cherokees on “The Trail of Tears.” The Seminoles decided not to leave also as the other tribes left peacefully. The Seminoles resisted leaving their homeland. In winter of 1838-39, fourteen thousand were marched one thousand two hundred miles through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. Roughly estimated four thousand died from lack of food, exposure and disease. The government soldiers would appear without notice at a Cherokee front door and order the people inside the home, men women and children, to immediately evacuate and take only what each could carry. They were forced marched to thoughtlessly assembled barriers like cattle and le...
The movement westward during the late 1800’s created new tensions among already strained relations with current Native American inhabitants. Their lands, which were guaranteed to them via treaty with the United States, were now beginning to be intruded upon by the massive influx of people migrating from the east. This intrusion was not taken too kindly, as Native American lands had already been significantly reduced due to previous westward conquest. Growing resentment for the federal government’s Reservation movement could be felt among the native population. One Kiowa chief’s thoughts on this matter summarize the general feeling of the native populace. “All the land south of the Arkansas belongs to the Kiowas and Comanches, and I don’t want to give away any of it” (Edwards, 203). His words, “I don’t want to give away any of it”, seemed to a mantra among the Native Americans, and this thought would resound among them as the mounting tensions reached breaking point.
Natives were forcefully removed from their land in the 1800’s by America. In the 1820’s and 30’s Georgia issued a campaign to remove the Cherokees from their land. The Cherokee Indians were one of the largest tribes in America at the time. Originally the Cherokee’s were settled near the great lakes, but overtime they moved to the eastern portion of North America. After being threatened by American expansion, Cherokee leaders re-organized their government and adopted a constitution written by a convention, led by Chief John Ross (Cherokee Removal). In 1828 gold was discovered in their land. This made the Cherokee’s land even more desirable. During the spring and winter of 1838- 1839, 20,000 Cherokees were removed and began their journey to Oklahoma. Even if natives wished to assimilate into America, by law they were neither citizens nor could they hold property in the state they were in. Principal Chief, John Ross and Major Ridge were leaders of the Cherokee Nation. The Eastern band of Cherokee Indians lost many due to smallpox. It was a year later that a Treaty was signed for cession of Cherokee land in Texas. A small number of Cherokee Indians assimilated into Florida, in o...
The Clean Air Act (CAA) of 1970, which established nationwide standards for air quality, is one such “unfounded mandate.” Although it is a federal law, states must pay the cost of implementation and enforcement.
Okonkwo is “a man of action, a man of war” (7) and a member of high status in the Igbo village. He holds the prominent position of village clansman due to the fact that he had “shown incredible prowess in two intertribal wars” (5). Okonkwo’s hard work had made him a “wealthy farmer” (5) and a recognized individual amongst the nine villages of Umuofia and beyond. Okonkwo’s tragic flaw isn’t that he was afraid of work, but rather his fear of weakness and failure which stems from his father’s, Unoka, unproductive life and disgraceful death. “Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and weakness….It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.” Okonkwo’s father was a lazy, carefree man whom had a reputation of being “poor and his wife and children had just barely enough to eat... they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back.” (5) Unoka had never taught Okonkwo what was right and wrong, and as a result Okonkwo had to interpret how to be a “good man”. Okonkwo’s self-interpretation leads him to conclude that a “good man” was someone who was the exact opposite of his father and therefore anything that his father did was weak and unnecessary.
When Othello first gives Desdemona the handkerchief as a gift it symbolizes his love for her. Emilia explains that the handkerchief was Desdemona’s, “first remembrance from the Moor” and that she always keeps it with her. The symbol changed drastically when Iago takes the handkerchief from his wife Emilia, who was Desdemona’s close friend and maid. When Iago gets the handkerchief he leaves it with Cassio so that Othello will find it. Iago knows that once Othello see Bianca, Cassio’s love interest, with the handkerchief he will believe that Desdemona gave it to Cassio and that they committed adultery. The handkerchief then becomes a symbol of Desdemona’s unfaithfulness to her husband. Othello becomes furious and says, “let her rot, and perish, and be damned tonight; for she shall not live,” which shows the change in the symbol of the handkerchief as well as Othello’s feelings for Desdemona (pg 1516, line 166). The handkerchief is significant because without it, Iago would not have been able to provide proof of Desdemona and Cassio’s
The Clean Air Act has been positive legislation as it has guarded the health of families as well as made breathing much easier by reducing the amount of harmful pollutants from the air. With this Act Americans have had more time to enjoy the outdoors and not become bogged down because of illness. With this Act, no longer do you see cars blowing out dark smoke from their exhaust pipes or a city skyline with a black haze around it. With the implementation of the Clean Air Act and its amendments, there have been a reduction in the amounts of premature death; people are living longer healthier lives, children are not missing school reducing the need to make a visit to the doctor’s office incurring a medical expense. In 2010, a study was completed by the EPA and found the amounts