Daniel, Roger is a highly respected author and professor who has majored in the study of immigration in history and more specifically the progressive ear. He’s written remarkable works over the history of immigration in America, in his book Not like Us he opens a lenses about the hostile and violent conditions immigrants faced in the 1890’s through the 1924’s. Emphasizing that during the progressive area many immigrants felt as they were living in a regressing period of their life. While diversity of ethnicity and race gradually grew during this time it also sparked as a trigger for whites creating the flare up of nativism. Daniel’s underlines the different types of racial and ethnical discrimination that was given to individual immigrant …show more content…
With hope that they could even out an agreement with the Government during the progressive era Indian continued to practice their religious beliefs and peacefully protest while waiting for their propositions to be respected. During Roosevelt’s presidency, a tribe leader who went by as No Shirt traveled to the capital to confront them about the mistreatment government had been doing to his people. Roosevelt refused to see him but instead wrote a letter implying his philosophical theory on the approach the natives should take “if the red people would prosper, they must follow the mode of life which has made the white people so strong, and that is only right that the white people should show the red people what to do and how to live right”.1 Roosevelt continued to dismiss his policies with the Indians and encouraged them to just conform into the white’s life style. The destruction of their acres of land kept being taken over by the whites, which also meant the destruction of their cultural backgrounds. Natives attempted to strain from the white’s ideology of living, they continued to attempt with the idea of making acts with the government to protect their land however they never seemed successfully. As their land later became white’s new territory, Indians were “forced to accept an ‘agreement’” by complying to change their approach on life style.2 Oklahoma was one of last places Natives had still identity of their own, it wasn’t shortly after that they were taken over and “broken by whites”, the union at the time didn’t see the destruction of Indian tribes as a “product of broken promises but as a triumph for American civilization”.3 The anger and disrespect that Native tribes felt has yet been forgotten, white supremacy was growing during the time of their invasion and the governments corruption only aid their ego doing absolutely nothing for the Indians.
The article “Andrew Jackson's Indian Policy: A Reassessment” for this assignment, written by F. P. Prucha, shows that even though most people believe that our seventh president, Andrew Jackson, was an Indian hater whose presidency was defined by an anti-Indian doctrine which allowed the “trail of tears”, a mass deportation of the Florida Indians to the West of the Mississippi River, Jackson did not bear personal hatred against Native Americans. The author claims that Jackson as a military man, he had a dominant goal in the decades before he became President to preserve the security and wellbeing of the United States and its Indian and white inhabitants. Jackson was genuinely concerned for the well-being of the Indians and for their civilization
Unfortunately, this great relationship that was built between the natives and the colonists of mutual respect and gain was coming to a screeching halt. In the start of the 1830s, the United States government began to realize it’s newfound strength and stability. It was decided that the nation had new and growing needs and aspirations, one of these being the idea of “Manifest Destiny”. Its continuous growth in population began to require much more resources and ultimately, land. The government started off as simply bargaining and persuading the Indian tribes to push west from their homeland. The Indians began to disagree and peacefully object and fight back. The United States government then felt they had no other option but to use force. In Indian Removal Act was signed by Andrew Jackson on May 18, 1830. This ultimately resulted in the relocation of the Eastern tribes out west, even as far as to the edge of the Great Plains. A copy of this act is laid out for you in the book, Th...
These advocates expected the Native Americans to leave their lands voluntarily. With the promise for land west of the Mississippi there would be no limits to the tribe’s choice of government, assistance, relocation and protection. Jefferson believed that the Indians’ failures were theirs to own and they needed to depend on themselves alone to become numerous and great people. He encouraged them to take the new land and cultivate it, build a home, and leave it to his children. He was failing to tell them that they really didn’t have much of a choice. Boudinot determined that many of the Cherokee people would leave their land if the true state of their condition was made known to them. They were left with only two real alternatives, one to live under the white man’s law or to be forcibly removed to another country. However some American’s worried about the future of the Native Americans. John Ross’s letter to president Jackson believed it was the white man’s duty to relieve the Indians from their suffering. This could only be accomplished by allowing the Native Americans to obtain their land in Georgia under the rights and privileges as free men. Nevertheless no great lands good for farming would be given to the Native Americans and Jackson would sign the Indian removal act. This act would allow the government to exchange fertile land for land in the west, where they would forcibly relocate the Indian
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 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,
One of the critical tasks that faced the new nation of the United States was establishing a healthy relationship with the Native Americans (Indians). “The most serious obstacle to peaceful relations between the United States and the Indians was the steady encroachment of white settlers on the Indian lands. The Continental Congress, following [George] Washington’s suggestion, issued a proclamation prohibiting unauthorized settlement or purchase of Indian land.” (Prucha, 3) Many of the Indian tribes had entered into treaties with the French and British and still posed a military threat to the new nation.
Native Americans have felt distress from societal and governmental interactions for hundreds of years. American Indian protests against these pressures date back to the colonial period. Broken treaties, removal policies, acculturation, and assimilation have scarred the indigenous societies of the United States. These policies and the continued oppression of the native communities produced an atmosphere of heightened tension. Governmental pressure for assimilation and their apparent aim to destroy cultures, communities, and identities through policies gave the native people a reason to fight. The unanticipated consequence was the subsequent creation of a pan-American Indian identity of the 1960s. These factors combined with poverty, racism, and prolonged discrimination fueled a resentment that had been present in Indian communities for many years. In 1968, the formation of the American Indian Movement took place to tackle the situation and position of Native Americans in society. This movement gave way to a series of radical protests, which were designed to draw awareness to the concerns of American Indians and to compel the federal government to act on their behalf. The movement’s major events were the occupation of Alcatraz, Mount Rushmore, The Trail of Broken Treaties, and Wounded Knee II. These AIM efforts in the 1960s and 1970s era of protest contained many sociological theories that helped and hindered the Native Americans success. The Governments continued repression of the Native Americans assisted in the more radicalized approach of the American Indian Movement. Radical tactics combined with media attention stained the AIM and their effectiveness. Native militancy became a repertoire of action along with adopted strategies from the Civil Rights Movement. In this essay, I will explain the formation of AIM and their major events, while revealing that this identity based social movement’s radical approach led to a harsher governmentally repressive counter movement that ultimately influenced the movements decline.
The history of the relationship between Indigenous Peoples of the North America and European settlers represents a doubtlessly tragic succession of events, which resulted in a drastic decline in Indigenous population leading to the complete annihilation of some Native groups, and bringing others to the brink of extinction. This disastrous development left the Indigenous community devastated, shaking their society to its very pillars. From the 1492 Incident and up to the 19th century the European invasion to the North America heavily impacted the social development of the Indigenous civilization: apart from contributing to their physical extermination by waging incessant war on the Indian tribes, Anglo-Americans irreversibly changed the Native lifestyle discrediting their entire set of moral guidelines. Using the most disreputable inventions of the European diplomacy, the colonizers and later the United States’ government not only turned separate Indigenous tribes against each other but have also sown discord among the members of the same tribe. One of the most vivid examples of the Anglo-American detrimental influence on the Native groups is the history of the Cherokee Nation and the U.S. Indian Removal Policy. The Cherokee removal from Georgia (along with many other Indian nations) was definitely an on-going conflict that did not start at any moment in time, but developed in layers of history between the Native Americans, settlers of various cultures, and the early U.S. government. This rich and intricate history does not allow for easy and quick judgments as to who was responsible for the near demise of the Cherokee Nation. In 1838, eight thousand Cherokees perished on a forced march out of Georgia, which came to be called the T...
This book serves as the best source of answers to those interested in questions about the origin of ethnicity and race in America. Impossible subjects is divided into seven chapters, and the first two talk about the action and practices that led to restriction, exclusion and deportation. It majorly traces back experiences of four immigrant groups which included the Filipino, Japanese, Chinese and Mexican. Ngai talks of the exclusion practices which prevented Asian entry into America and full expression of their citizenship in America. Although the American sought means of educating the Asians, they still faced the exclusion policies (Mae Ngai 18). All Asians were viewed as aliens and even those who were citizens of the USA by birth were seen as foreign due to the dominant American culture (Mae Ngai 8). Unlike the Asians, Mexicans were racially eligible to citizenship in the USA because of their language and religion. However, she argues that Mexicans still faced discrimination in the fact that entry requirements such as visa fee, tax and hygiene inspection were made so difficult for them, which prompted many Mexicans to enter into the USA illegally. Tens and thousands of Mexicans later entered into America legally and illegally to seek for employment but were seen as seasonal labor and were never encouraged to pursue American
In 1887 the federal government launched boarding schools designed to remove young Indians from their homes and families in reservations and Richard Pratt –the leader of Carlisle Indian School –declared, “citizenize” them. Richard Pratt’s “Kill the Indian… and save the man” was a speech to a group of reformers in 1892 describing the vices of reservations and the virtues of schooling that would bring young Native Americans into the mainstream of American society.
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.
Native American’s place in United States history is not as simple as the story of innocent peace loving people forced off their lands by racist white Americans in a never-ending quest to quench their thirst for more land. Accordingly, attempts to simplify the indigenous experience to nothing more than victims of white aggression during the colonial period, and beyond, does an injustice to Native American history. As a result, historians hoping to shed light on the true history of native people during this period have brought new perceptive to the role Indians played in their own history. Consequently, the theme of power and whom controlled it over the course of Native American/European contact is being presented in new ways. Examining the evolving
Before 1882, the United States did not have any immigration rules which means anybody that came to America has the opportunity to stay here. The attitude of Americans toward immigrants has changed which transported the Chinese immigration act “into national prominence” (Daniel, 11). However, the Americans are now afraid of the immigrants due to their overpopulation. Half of the Americans rejected the immigrant’s presence, while the other half profits of their cheap labor. In this book “Guarding the Golden Door by Roger Daniels” heavily discovered over the one and only issue of how the immigrants are being treated in America.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was an abuse of power exerted on the Indian tribes residing in America by the people of the colonies as well as presidents at the time of their removal. Many Indians affected lost their lives, their loved one’s lives’, and the land they thrived on dates back years to their ancestors. This act would be later named “the trail of tears” because of the monumental loss the Indian tribes had endured during their displacement, and the physical and psychological damages of these people (TOTWSR). Initiated by the colonist’s want to further expand their colonies, their land, and their prosperity, many colonists voiced their want for Indian removal. After many proposals by various American leaders, and crucially Thomas Jefferson’s push (Garrison 13), Andrew Jackson’s presidency would be what finalized and enforced the Indian Removal Act.
However the Native Americans strongly regarded their way of live. In their culture the order of nature, was vastly important. It was understood that there was an order to which nature worked and because of this they were tied to the land. They could not comprehend how the whites could “wander far from the graves of [their] ancestors and seemingly without regret” (Chief Joseph 2). The white settlers came to America and immediately started to conquer the land, without feeling any shame. To the Native Americans that was shocking, for they believed that “even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead...[had] memories of stirring events connected with the lives of [their] people” (Chief Joseph 3). They did not understand how someone could forget their ancestors, and fight nature in such a way that there is room for nobody but themselves. All the same though the white settlers could not see that what they were doing as wrong. They had come to the West to begin a new chapter in life, and if the Native Americans could not accept this, then they had to be dealt with.