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Native American influences on modern U.S. cultures
Native American influences on
Native American influence on modern US culture
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• The article “The Founding Indian Fathers” by Jack Weatherford is about how the Indians contributed to the American Government and how we went off the Indians system. We see how they had a council of each of the separate nations just how we do now. We also followed how one person wasn’t allowed to hold one position and hold another so they wouldn’t be so powerful. Another thing was that in their meetings there were no interruptions when someone was speaking. The caucus was another thing that was copied. One thing that I learned was that the Chiefs of the Indians had nothing to do with the government he was to perform rituals and other ceremonies. I think the authors main point was to show how the American government derived from that of the
In order to understand the lack of morality on the part of the United States, the actions taken by the group in favor of removing the Indians and their opponents needs examining. The seeds of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 are rooted in colonial times and continued to grow during the early years of the American republic. To comprehend this momentous tragedy we must first examine the historical background of the Indian '"'problem'"' and seek rationale for the American government"'"s actions. This includes looking at the men who politically justified the expulsion of the Cherokee nation and those who argued against it.
Talking Back to Civilization , edited by Frederick E. Hoxie, is a compilation of excerpts from speeches, articles, and texts written by various American Indian authors and scholars from the 1890s to the 1920s. As a whole, the pieces provide a rough testimony of the American Indian during a period when conflict over land and resources, cultural stereotypes, and national policies caused tensions between Native American Indians and Euro-American reformers. This paper will attempt to sum up the plight of the American Indian during this period in American history.
The governmental leaders of the United States of America began implementing Indian policies from its inception. As Euro-Americans they expected all non-whites in the U.S. to assimilate into a Euro-American (Christian) lifestyle, without reciprocation or sympathy to the traditions and history of our native people. Our founding fathers and subsequent leaders of the United States at varying times have used suppression, segregation, aggression, and assimilation to manage what they perceived as an Indian problem, and civilize them. The native peoples of North America have responded to these actions by, at times, complying with the U.S. government and allowing themselves to be relocated to other areas of the country leaving behind their ancestral
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.
Considering historical evidence, the notion: Native –Americans was not the first inhabitant of America is a complete false. For centuries, history kept accurate and vivid accounts of the first set of people who domiciled the western hemisphere. Judging by those records, below are the first set of Native-American people who inhabited America before the arrival of another human race; the Iroquois: The Iroquois of Native Americans was one of the tribes that lived in America before other people came. Based on historical evidence, it is believed that the Native Americans came from Asia way back during the Ice Age through a land bridge of the Bering Strait. When the Europeans first set foot in America, there were about 10 million Native Americans
The Native Americans of the southeast live in a variety of environments. The environments range from the southern Appalachian Mountains, to the Mississippi River valley, to the Louisiana and Alabama swamps, and the Florida wetlands. These environments were bountiful with various species of plant and animal life, enabling the Native American peoples to flourish. “Most of the Native Americans adopted large-scale agriculture after 900 A.D, and some also developed large towns and highly centralized social and political structures.” In the first half of the 1600s Europeans encountered these native peoples. Both cultures encountered new plants, animals, and diseases. However, the Indians received more diseases compared to the few new diseases to the Europeans. The new diseases resulted in a massive loss of Native Americans, including the Southeast Indians which had never encountered the new diseases. Three of the main tribes in the southeast were the Cherokee and the Creek. They were part of a group of southeast tribes that were removed from their lands. These tribes later became known as “The Five Civilized Tribes because of their progress and achievements.”
Daniel Richter's Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America, turns many heads as Richter changes the traditional outlook of the Westward expansion all the way to the American Revolution by viewing certain events through the eyes of the Native Americans who were settled in this land years before the new colonizations started. It was not easy to try and make a complete work about the different perspectives that the Natives had, due to the fact that many sources are works from Europeans or they were filtered by them. Richter explains that Native people sketch out elaborative paintings in their house or on barks of living trees, many of these sources obviously have not lasted long enough for us to examine. This book, however gives great detail and fully analyzes the "aggressively expansionist Euro-American United States" (p. 8-7) that rose from what belonged to Indian Country. Richter challenges you to compose a new framework of the Indian and European encounters reforming the "master narrative" of early American colonization from the Native point of view.
In George E. Tinker’s book, American Indian Liberation: A Theology of Sovereignty, the atrocities endured by many of the first peoples, Native American tribes, come into full view. Tinker argues that the colonization of these groups had and continues to have lasting effects on their culture and thus their theology. There is a delicate balance to their culture and their spiritual selves within their tightly knit communities prior to contact from the first European explorers. In fact, their culture and spiritual aspects are so intertwined that it is conceptually impossible to separate the two, as so many Euro-American analysts attempted. Tinker points to the differences between the European and the Native American cultures and mind sets as ultimately
“It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the States; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community.” (Jackson).
The colonialism structure hit hardest on the indigenous peoples of America. Existing power, social and cultural structures were severely disrupted and in most areas there has been a rapid demographic collapse. The population was by colonization also enriched with new ingredients and by European colonists and slaves imported from Africa. The majority population - Indians and blacks, however remained poor and without rights. Civil rights belonged only descendants of Spanish colonists - Creoles. One of the main reasons for the initial Creole resistances were unsatisfied ambitions, which was still subordinated to the people installed directly from Madrid.
Stark, H. K., & Wilkins, D. E. (2011). American Indian Politics and the American Political System. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
The two items which are defined in the document are “(1) The tribal organization. (2) The Indian reservation.” For one, the United States government set up the Indian reservations, creating poor living conditions that would hinder the ability to progress at the rate that the Untied States formulated for them. The soil, for instance, in Oklahoma, where most of the reservations were at during this time, were awful for farming. Therefore, the Indians would starve and be in ill health. Again, the United States contradicted itself in regards to Indian policy, by choosing to ignore the most crucial parts of history that led to the poor conditions of the
Benjamin Franklin describes the culture of Native American in such a way so that it looks like ideal for everyone. Despite with the use of word “savages”, Franklin had an undeniable respect for the people of Native Americans. Franklin tried to explain that Indian men are the backbone of the culture of Native Americans. Franklin has huge admiration towards the Indian men because they were hard worker and disciplined. “The Indian men, when young, are hunters and warriors; when old, counselors; for all their government is by counsel of the sages, there is no force, there are no prisons, no officers to compel obedience, or inflict punishment.” (Franklin 468) Franklin had huge admiration towards the culture due to fact that there are no prisoners, no force and no police officers to impose obedience. Just imagine this country without law enforcement, prisoners and prisons? What would this country be similar, to those of the Native Americans? Would our behaviors be comparable, to those of the Native
of Native American Culture as a Means of Reform,” American Indian Quarterly 26, no. 1
Deloria defines the relationship between the US Government and the Indians as paternalistic. The US Government treated and governed the Indians as a father would by providing basic needs but without given them rights. There has been some improvement with the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934. This act allowed the return to local self-government on a tribal level and restored the self management of their assets. By allowing the Indians to self govern it encouraged an economic foundation for the inhabitants of Indian reservations. Unfortunately only a few tribes have fully taken advantage of this Act, while others struggle for survival.