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Relations between native americans and americans
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After the Civil War was finally over, the Indian question was once again brought to the forefront. As the Indian’s way of life continued to drastically change, the United States Government began to concentrate on focusing the Indian population onto two large reservations: on south of Kansas and one north of Nebraska. The government also began the process of eradicating the Plains way of life. This would create something that the government regarded as “peace”. Native Americans on the Plains began to see adopting white culture and agreeing to the reservation lifestyle as the only ways to survive. These nomadic warriors were forced to start settling on reservations and began new lives as farmers with government assistance. As industrialized America began to expand westward, the Indians were forced to make way. Pivotal events that happened during the late nineteenth century drastically changed the way of life for the Plains Indians. In this essay, I will explain some of the ways that the United States government used to end the past life style of the Native Americans, and show how the Indians reacted …show more content…
The peace attempted with the Treaty of Fort Laramie was lost almost immediately after the government pressured the Sioux to sell their land and leave for the reservation. The loss of land and buffalo lead to outcries from many Native Plains tribes and one of the most famous conflicts in American history: The Battle of the Little Big Horn. Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his men surrounded by Indian warriors served as the symbol of Indian-white conflict. It took only an hour for Red Cloud stated after the battle, “I feel sorry that too many were killed on each side, but when Indians must fight, they must” (pg 134). The Plains Indians fought in this battle, and others like it, to defend their lands and their way of
The Battle of the Little Bighorn is a tragic military battle where a commander’s overconfidence, refusal to listen to advisors, and lack of foresight, led to the sacrifice of over 265 Soldiers. Many leaders within the regiment and Soldiers underneath LTC Custer were not convinced of his leadership and often time doubted his decision-making abilities. Yet despite a blatant outburst that saw him temporarily removed as regimental commander by President Grant, LTC Custer moved forward to command the regiment and ultimately met his demise at the Battle of Little Big Horn. LTC Custer routinely showed a careless disregard for the operations process and his recklessness led to his downfall.
It had previously been the policy of the American government to remove and relocate Indians further and further west as the American population grew, but there was only so much...
The journey of exploration to the western territories brought the white man many great things, but they did face some opposition. The US government made plans to explore the Black Hills, after hearing of the gold it contained. This was not an easy task. The Sioux, with strong force, were not giving up their sacred land easily. The only way to gain the territory of the Black Hills was to wage war against the Sioux. The Battle of the Little Big Horn was one battle that the US will never forget. General George Custer led an army of men to take out the Sioux, one of the battalions was completely wiped out including Custer. The Sioux were very strong, but US had a lot more power and technology. Why did we get massacred? This question has been a mystery to many people throughout the years. Sergeant Windolph, of Benteen’s cavalry, and John F. Finerty, from General Crooks cavalry, bring us some personal accounts and memories of this tragedy.
In the 1830's the Plains Indians were sent to the Great American Deserts in the west because the white men did not think they deserved the land. Afterwards, they were able to live peacefully, and to follow their traditions and customs, but when the white men found out the land they were on was still good for agricultural, or even for railroad land they took it back. Thus, the white man movement westward quickly began. This prospect to expand westward caused the government to become thoroughly involved in the lives of the Plains Indians. These intrusions by the white men had caused spoilage of the Plains Indians buffalo hunting styles, damaged their social and cultural lives, and hurt their overall lives.
This program is part of the PBS series American Experience. In this episode, a critical eye is cast on the early efforts by Congress to "civilize" Native Americans. This homogenization process required the removal of Native American children from their homes and placing them in special Indian schools. Forced to stay for years at a time without returning home, children were required to eschew their own language and culture and learn instead the ways of the white man. Archival photographs and clips, newspaper accounts, journals, personal recollections, and commentary by historians relate the particulars of this era in American History and its ultimate demise. ~ Rose of Sharon Winter, All Movie Guide
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 battle of Little Bighorn, also known as Custer’s last stand, was also a prime example of the cruelty towards the Native Americans. The battle of Little Bighorn took place in 1876 in Montana. The government was falling back on a treaty they signed with the Sioux and Cheyenne Tribes. They were already placed onto a reservation, but when gold was discovered on the reservation, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer was sent to trap them and then wait for backup to force the Native American’s from the land. Custer disobeyed orders and attacked instead.
The Battle of the Little Big Horn, 1876, “Eye Witness to History. Retrieved November 20, 2011 from www.eyewitnesstohistory.com.
As white settlers poured across the mountains, the Cherokee tried once again to compensate themselves with territory taken by war with a neighboring tribe. This time their intended victim was the Chickasaw, but this was a mistake. Anyone who tried to take something from the Chickasaw regretted it, if he survived. After eleven years of sporadic warfare ended with a major defeat at Chickasaw Oldfields (1769), the Cherokee gave up and began to explore the possibility of new alliances to resist the whites. Both the Cherokee and Creek attended the 1770 and 1771 meetings with the Ohio tribes at Sciota but did not participate in Lord Dunnmore's War (1773-74) because the disputed territory was not theirs.
You have most likely never heard of the Battle of Wabash or General Sinclair. This is one of the most significant battles in the history of the United States Army despite the engagement having happened almost 225 years ago. In fact, it was catastrophic to say the least, ridden with plagues of bad decisions, lack of motivation, training and leadership. Was the Battle of Wabash in 1971 the most catastrophic defeat of the United States Army battle in history? Indeed it was. There was a great lead-in to this battle foreshadowing the defeat to come. Although the United States Army was not very large at the time, the aftermath of this battle resulted in a loss of a quarter of the entire Army in a time of less than 4 hours!
To understand Jackson’s book and why it was written, however, one must first fully comprehend the context of the time period it was published in and understand what was being done to and about Native Americans in the 19th century. From the Native American point of view, the frontier, which settlers viewed as an economic opportunity, was nothin...
The United States Government was founded on the basis that it would protect the rights and liberties of every American citizen. The Equal Protection Clause, a part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, provides that “no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”. Yet for hundreds of years, the US government and society have distressed the Native American people through broken treaties, removal policies, and attempts of assimilation. From the Trail of Tears in the 1830s to the Termination Policy in 1953, the continued oppression of American Indian communities produced an atmosphere of heightened tension and gave the native peoples a reason to fight back. In 1968, Clyde Bellecourt, Dennis Banks, and Russell Means founded the American Indian Movement to address issues concerning the Native American community and tackle the situation and position of Native Americans in society. Over the next few decades, the movement led to a series of radical protests, which were designed to raise awareness to the American Indians’ issues and to pressure the federal government to act on their behalf. After all of the unfair and unjust policies enacted by the U.S. government and society, all of the American Indian Movement’s actions can be justified as legitimate reactions to the United States’ democratic society that had promised to respect and protect their people and had failed to do so.
The growing pan-Indian activism that was becoming increasingly strong in regions of the United States helped develop the American Indian Movement. Educated young urban Indians were becoming involved in rights issues and insisted on self-determination in the 1960s era of prote...
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 Native American Reservation system was a complete failure. This paper focuses on the topics of relocation, Native American boarding schools, current conditions on today’s reservations, and what effects these have had on the Native American way of life.