Indian War Dbq

Native Americans experienced extreme lifestyle changes between 1860 and 1900 due to the Indian Wars, the US government’s not knowing what to do with the uprooted population, and the ‘white man’s burden’. Due to manifest destiny, the removal and containment of Native Americans was an easy decision for the US Government to make, but a nearly detrimental one for all of the tribes involved.
The Indian Wars were the most logical outcome due to the mindset of the US in the early 19th century. The US believed Indians had a ‘carelessness’ towards the land, ignoring small pieces while roaming around large pieces of land. Indians believed in the natural right to roam a region rather than the westernized idea of owning parcels of land. The US also justified

Part of the reason this passed was because without the Indians controlling the land and roaming freely, the US was free to spread out and do as they pleased (expansion wise). Another reason was because of the white man’s constant need to ‘save’ the Indian. They believed that moving them away from settlers and onto reservations would avoid conflict, despite the fact that the settlers were moving onto the Indians’ land.
In 1887, the Dawes General Allotment Act was passed by Henry L. Dawes who, at the time, was chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. He believed that in order for the Indian to be properly assimilated, they had to ‘forget’ everything about their past culture. Dawes felt that if the Indian didn’t assimilate, didn’t completely separate themselves from who they used to be, they were doomed to a life of savagery and death.
His feelings were later mirrored by Carl Schurz, a German immigrant who practiced law. He originally was not a major backer of pushing the Indians off their land, but later changed his views due to 19th-century reformers. He became a strong proponent for assimilation and made strong pushes while serving as secretary of the interior, such as not allowing Native religions to sway who became reservation agents (Gorman, 2013, p.

Nine years later, an army officer by the name of Richard Pratt opened up the first boarding school for Native American youth in Carlisle, PA. His motto was ‘kill the Indian, save the man.’ (Stout, 2012, p. xvi). It was the first of its kind, even having before and after pictures taken of the students to showcase their transformations into proper westerners.
There was to be no representation of Native culture at any point in order to be properly assimilated into US culture, according to the Carlisle School. The government thought it was ‘saving’ the youth, providing them with a proper, western, protestant-catholic education. Many more schools started to appear on the horizon, following the teaching methods of Richard Pratt. By the early 1900’s, there were twenty-five federally funded schools devoted to Indian education.
They didn’t take into account was the fact that after all of the previous tragedy, ripping away children from their families only to attempt to strip away their identities wouldn’t be an easy task. Many of the experiences would be described as harsh, especially for the younger children. Initially, a lot of the students were children of Indian leaders, or prominent figures. The US felt that educating these children and keeping them from their parents would keep those communities pacified. Many women were forcibly removed as well in order to train them to be proper housewives