Race relations between whites and Native Americans have been a shameful part of America’s history. Ever since the first settlers arrived in the new world there has been strife and tensions in the country concerning Native Americans. Evidence of Genocide, both culturally and literally can be seen in the provided documents. In the first document De La Casas gives evidence to his title “Devastation of the Indies”; by giving the example of the island Hispaniola and its population, before and after its discovery. Because of the cruel actions of the Spaniards towards the natives the population decreases and the survivors of the wars are forced to become slaves under control of the Spanish according to rank. This shows how the Spanish rationalize their cruelty towards the natives, by being different according to culture and customs the natives are seen as subhuman and savage, which leads the Spanish to believe they are justified in an annihilation of a people. In President Jackson’s speech to congress on Indian removal he views the policy as beneficial to the natives citing that it “is not only liberal, but generous”. He even states that the acquisition of native lands was a fair …show more content…
As a result of the need to move west white Americans will move into land promised to Indians. Jackson writes that this inevitably leads to tensions that erupt into violence that is mostly caused by the white man. Jackson also mentions the dislike of Indians to be deep rooted from years of sentiment that Indians are a “barrier of civilization”, this can lead to a lack of compassion and has grave consequences. On the subject of agreements broken by the government Jackson writes that it is ignored and forgotten, most likely because the government will have no interest in changing things when its people don’t care, especially when it concerns a people that is viewed as
Throughout Jackson's two terms as President, Jackson used his power unjustly. As a man from the Frontier State of Tennessee and a leader in the Indian wars, Jackson loathed the Native Americans. Keeping with consistency, Jackson found a way to use his power incorrectly to eliminate the Native Americans. In May 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed into law the Indian Removal Act. This act required all tribes east of the Mississippi River to leave their lands and travel to reservations in the Oklahoma Territory on the Great Plains. This was done because of the pressure of white settlers who wanted to take over the lands on which the Indians had lived. The white settlers were already emigrating to the Union, or America. The East Coast was burdened with new settlers and becoming vastly populated. President Andrew Jackson and the government had to find a way to move people to the West to make room. In 1830, a new state law said that the Cherokees would be under the jurisdiction of state rather than federal law. This meant that the Indians now had little, if any, protection against the white settlers that desired their land. However, when the Cherokees brought their case to the Supreme Court, they were told that they could not sue on the basis that they were not a foreign nation. In 1832, though, on appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokees were a "domestic dependent nation," and therefore, eligible to receive federal protection against the state. However, Jackson essentially overruled the decision. By this, Jackson implied that he had more power than anyone else did and he could enforce the bill himself. This is yet another way in which Jackson abused his presidential power in order to produce a favorable result that complied with his own beliefs. The Indian Removal Act forced all Indians tribes be moved west of the Mississippi River. The Choctaw was the first tribe to leave from the southeast.
Andrew Jackson believed that the only way to save the Natives from extinction was to remove them from their current homes and push them across the Mississippi River. “And when removal was accomplished he felt he had done the American people a great service. He felt he had followed the ‘dictates of humanity’ and saved the Indi...
The generalization that, “The decision of the Jackson administration to remove the Cherokee Indians to lands west of the Mississippi River in the 1830s was more a reformulation of the national policy that had been in effect since the 1790s than a change in that policy,” is valid. Ever since the American people arrived at the New World they have continually driven the Native Americans out of their native lands. Many people wanted to contribute to this removal of the Cherokees and their society. Knox proposed a “civilization” of the Indians. President Monroe continued Knox’s plan by developing ways to rid of the Indians, claiming it would be beneficial to all. Andrew Jackson ultimately fulfilled the plan. First of all, the map [Document A] indicates the relationship between time, land, and policies, which affected the Indians. The Indian Tribes have been forced to give up their land as early as the 1720s. Between the years of 1721 and 1785, the Colonial and Confederation treaties forced the Indians to give up huge portions of their land. During Washington's, Monroe's, and Jefferson's administration, more and more Indian land was being commandeered by the colonists. The Washington administration signed the Treaty of Holston and other supplements between the time periods of 1791 until 1798 that made the Native Americans give up more of their homeland land. The administrations during the 1790's to the 1830's had gradually acquired more and more land from the Cherokee Indians. Jackson followed that precedent by the acquisition of more Cherokee lands. In later years, those speaking on behalf of the United States government believed that teaching the Indians how to live a more civilized life would only benefit them. Rather than only thinking of benefiting the Indians, we were also trying to benefit ourselves. We were looking to acquire the Indians’ land. In a letter to George Washington, Knox says we should first is to destroy the Indians with an army, and the second is to make peace with them. The Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1793 began to put Knox’s plan into effect. The federal government’s promise of supplying the Indians with animals, agricultural tool...
...convince us Indians that our removal was necessary and beneficial. In my eyes, the agreement only benefited Andrew Jackson. It is apparent that Jackson neglected to realize how the Indian Removal act would affect us Indians. When is the government justified in forcibly removing people from the land they occupy? If you were a Native American, how would you have respond to Jackson? These questions need to be taken into consideration when determining whether or not Jackson was justified. After carefully examining these questions and considering both the pros and cons of this act, I’m sure you would agree that the removal of Native Americans was not justified under the administration of Andrew Jackson. Jackson was not able to see the damaging consequences of the Indian removal act because of his restricted perspective.
The discovery and conquest of American Indians inspired efforts to develop an ideology that could justify why they needed to enslave the Indians. The Spanish monarch wanted an ideal empire. "A universal empire, of which all their subjects were but servants. Charles V remained for them the dominus mundi, the legitimate and God-ordained lord of the world." (Weckmann, The Transit of Civilization, 23) Gold and religious conversion was the two most important inspirations for conquistadors in conquering America. Father Bartolome De Las Casas was a Dominican priest who came to the New World to convert the Indians to become Christians. He spent forty years on Hispanolia and nearby islands, and saw how the Spaniards brutally treated the Indians and sympathized with them. The Devastation of the Indies was an actual eyewitness account of the genocide by Las Casas, and his group of Dominican friars in which he demonizes the Spanish colonists and praises the Indians. Father Las Casas returned to Seville, where he published his book that caused an on going debate on whether the suppression of the Indians corrupted the Spaniards' values. What Las Casas was trying to achieve was the notion of human rights, that human beings are free and cogent by nature without the interference of others.
In A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Bartolomé de Las Casas vividly describes the brutality wrought on the natives in the Americas by the Europeans primarily for the purpose of proclaiming and spreading the Christian faith. Las Casas originally intended this account to reach the royal administration of Spain; however, it soon found its way into the hands of many international readers, especially after translation. Bartolomé de Las Casas illustrates an extremely graphic and grim reality to his readers using literary methods such as characterization, imagery, amplification, authorial intrusion and the invocation of providence while trying to appeal to the sympathies of his audience about such atrocities.
... shaped the United States than what many were originally told. The documents show that Native Americans were treated unfairly and horribly and this pertained to the timing of the situation, many of the things that caused some of the situations, and the introduction of key historical people.
“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).
Another week passes by and this time around we go deeper into ideas of Oral traditions, we read Las Casas' Devastation of the Indies, Couvade" by Wilson Harris, and "The Amerindian Legacy" by Wilson Harris. In these pieces, we went over the “nature of the development of the arts in Caribbean Society” and how their program is designed to inform students about their heritage and spark discussions. Then we talk about Bartolomé de las Casas story about the slaughterer of the Indie. The story is told from a priest point of view who talks down about the Indians and call the Spaniard's savages for killing without a second thought and holding gold above God. “Are still acting like the ravening beast, killing, terrorizing, afflicting, torturing, and
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...
"Andrew Jackson" Andrew Jackson's Case for the Removal of Indians. Online. America Online. 20 March 2001.
... one of the stipulations and had to be settled. The removal of the Natives in an effort to protect the American people on the frontier proceeded, and was all the region of present-day Oklahoma, as shown in document L. These actions are viewed as cruel and unjust, but it was the way that would’ve dealt the least damage. Further delaying the issue would’ve soon set into altercations between the various Native tribes and the United States of America. In retrospect, Jackson served to protect the people.
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
The Natives had once had a decent relationship with the Europeans. They helped them thrive in this new world unknown to them. Throughout the years however, they became involved in many of their wars and soon suffered the consequences of their greed. The whites started to claim their lands and forced them to move away, specifically to the West. It was hard for the whites to do this until Jackson became President. His efforts, along with others such as Lewis Cass made it possible to exploit and trick the Natives into moving to the territory he wanted them to be in. The methods and rationale these individuals used to remove them from their lands were not legally or morally validity.
“The developed-developing relationship in many ways replaces the colonizer-colonized relationship. The idea of development is a way for rich countries to control and exploit the poor” (Silver, 2015). This describes what colonialism meant for Latin American countries when Spaniards came to “trade” with indigenous communities in the so called, ‘New World’. In the 1500’s when Iberians’ realized they were in an “undiscovered” land, they started to take control of lands, destroy native civilizations and introduce slavery. In this paper, I will point out the most significant effects of colonialism in Latin America,