Decline of Indian Southwest

The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1976. Mason, John, and Paul Royster, editor. A Brief History of the Pequot War (1736). Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2007. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/etas/42/.

Productions of capitalism and militarism are deteriorating the lands of American Indians and this ultimately is environmental racism. Starting from the beginning, natural resource consumption has been a process in environmental injustice. The Indian Removal Act passed in 1830 forced Americans Indians from the east to western reservations in a form of ethnic cleansing (Schaefer 146). Donald A. Grinde and Bruce E. Johansen, the authors of Ecocide of Native Americans: Environmental Destruction of Indian Lands and Peoples, make note of a specific quote that non-American Indian settlers phrased during the process, which is “kill the Indian, but save the man” (10). In the book they also point out an interesting fact about how the settlers spoke of the “final solution” well before the Nazis used the phrase.

Last modified 1995. Accessed February 17, 2014 Satz, Ronald N. American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002. The Office of the Historian. “Indian Treaties and the Removal Act of 1830.” Accessed on April 20, 2014 https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/indian-treaties Wallace, Anthony F. C. The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians.

Standing Bear, Luther. My People the Sioux. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1928. U.S. House of Represetatives. Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 Utlety, Robert.

&nb... ... middle of paper ... ...e and a white. 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?

The Chiricahua Indian Tribe of the American southwest and northern Mexico suffered almost complete annihilation at the hands of the American policy makers of the late nineteenth century, policy makers that chose to justify their means by ignoring their own tyrannical ways. It has been discovered that Apaches in the late 1800s were reported to exist in four separate bands, or clusters of rancherias, although how far back in time the division occurs is unknown (Griffen 5). The native name for the easternmost band was the Chihene, or "red painted people"; they were also known as Victorio, Mangas Coloradas, and Loco Apaches after the Spanish names of important leaders. To the south and west were the Chokonen or "Rising Sun People". These people were often called Central Chiricahua, True Chiricahua, and Cochise Apaches.

This resulted in the Georgia Gold Rush. Nardo emphasizes that “By the 1840s, more than sixty thousand Native Americans had been removed from the Eastern United States” (Nardo 17). The Europeans did not just want the Native American land, but they did not want to live close by them. The article “An American Betrayal Cherokee Patriots and the Trail of Tears” mentions, “Numerous little-known Europeans also emerged as brave defenders.” (17). As a result, the settlers wanted the government to force Native Americans to leave.

These groups included the Cherokee Indians, Mexicans, and European settlers. Before times of conflict, these three ethnic groups coexisted on the land in peace. However, the Mexican-American War of 1836 changed the region of Texas. After the war, the American settlers pushed for the removal of the Mexicans and Cherokee Indians off the land through the use of force and deceit. One of the groups of people to endure the price of discrimination, violence, and hatred, just to become American citizens, were the Mexican-Americans.

Members of the Potomac Corral of the Westerners. Great Western Indian Fights. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1960. Mooney, James. The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890.

The US government already took the land even though they lost St. Clair’s battle. Most westerners had already settled in Indian lands and looked for assistance from the federal government to defeat or remove the Native tribes. Many sought to the new land as a new economic beginning for agriculture. Although the Indian victory was a diplomatic achievement by holding together an alliance between various Indian tribes for the critical time, Natives couldn’t do anything about the expansion of the colonials. “American victory in Indian wars in the Ohio country seems inevitable” The annihilation of St. Claire’s army confirmed settlers fears and so they escalated the burden on congress to institute its power in the West.