One of the first groups to face prejudice and discrimination in the United States and probably in the world is the American Indians. The first acts of violence towards them dates back as far as the 15th century( source) With the Spanish Colonization of the Americas. This was only the beginning of the plethora of discrimination that the Native Americans experienced, including the Trail of Tears, The Urban Relocation program, and not to mention the current issues Native American’s face such as poverty, alcoholism, and depression.
Historically Native Americans have been subjected to discrimination and prejudice starting with the colonization of the Americas in the 15th century when the Spanish colonized the Americas. Native American people were in fact the first people to live in the America’s and even in North America. Europeans brought with them a multitude of things that were detrimental to the Native American people. The first was unintentional but extremely deadly. Native American’s did not have the same immunities for certain diseases as the Europeans had. Many Native Americans died from smallpox, measles, flu, sexually transmitted diseases, and many more. Some of the more harmful diseases,( smallpox, measles, flu) killed approximately 90% of the Native American population.( source) Along with spreading diseases, the Spanish tried to spread the holy spirit. With the arrival of Spanish missionaries on the west coast in late 1700’s came the slavery and mass killing of the Native American people. The combination of abuse and disease took it toll on the population, from 300,000 before Spanish involvement , Indians in California reached a low of 16,000 by the 1900’s.
One of the most notable atrocities that the Native America...
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...ork in extreme conditions, being beaten, and exposure to diseases reduced the indian population significantly in a short amount of time. The Trail of Tears is also an example of the last ring on the latter of prejudice because it was ethnic cleansing.
History has taken its toll on the Native American people. Native Americans have been subjected to physical, psychological, and spiritual abuse. Today many Native American’s face issues with drug and alcohol dependence as well as poverty and violence. One explanation is offered through Historical or Intergenerational trauma (source) it could be understandable that a race of people that had been slaughtered, enslaved, forced to relocate from their homes, and forced to give up their religious beliefs, and only retaining 4% of their own land, would have lingering psychological damage on the Native American people.
From as early as the time of the early European settlers, Native Americans have suffered
suffering the Native Americans are plagued with as a result of the lack of acceptance towards
From the time when the Europeans first met the Native Americans, to the time after the American Revolution, the Native Americans had to endure inhumane pain and suffering. According to my resources, the original population of Native Americans was over 10 million during the 15th century. Surely over millions of people should be able to defend themselves from outside invaders. However, that wasn’t possible for them. By 1900, only 300,000 of the population remain. Around the time the Natives encountered the Europeans, they suffered from diseases and bloodshed. Later on they were forced by the Spaniards to convert a new religion, Christianity.
American Indians have had health disparities as result of unmet needs and historical traumatic experiences that have lasted over 500 hundred years.1(p99) Since first contact American Indians have been exposed to infectious disease and death2(p19), more importantly, a legacy of genocide, legislated forcible removal, reservation, termination, allotment, and assimilation3. This catastrophic history had led to generational historical traumas and contributes to the worst health in the United States.2 American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN) represent 0.9 percent of the United States population4(p3) or 1.9 million AI/AN of 566 federally recognized tribes/nations.5 American Indians/Alaska Natives have significantly higher mortality rates of intentional and unintentional injuries, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease and chronic lower respiratory disease than other American.6
Historical trauma has brought psychological effects on the Native American community. Many suffer from alcohol and drug abuse, depression, and poverty. I wondered why they do not get help from the government and after watching the documentary California’s “Lost” Tribes I began to understand that in any reservation the tribe is the government, so they do not have the same rights as a city outside the reservation. Many of the the reservations were placed in areas where they could not do any form of agriculture, so they did not have a source of income. Many of this reservations have to find ways to get themselves out of poverty and many of the reservations within California have found a way to get out of their poverty by creating casinos
Native Americans have undergone a horrific past of genocide, discrimination, forced acculturation, miscommunication, and misunderstanding. They were frequently dehumanized and stripped of basic human rights. Treated as “savages” they were herded into areas of confinement and robbed of their language, culture, and way of life. In many instances of genocide, experts have noted a type of historical trauma that may be passed down through families, known as generational trauma. While the potential effects of this concept are not proven, the stories, images, and memories of thousands of Native Americans continue to be shared with their children, thus perpetuating, and never forgetting the pain and embarrassment that their people have experienced.
Towards the development of the United States of America there has always been a question of the placement of the Native Americans in society. Throughout time, the Natives have been treated differently like an individual nation granted free by the U.S. as equal U.S. citizens, yet not treated as equal. In 1783 when the U.S. gained their independence from Great Britain not only did they gain land from the Appalachian Mountains but conflict over the Indian policy and what their choice was to do with them and their land was in effect. All the way from the first presidents of the U.S. to later in the late 19th century the treatment of the Natives has always been changing. The Native Americans have always been treated like different beings, or savages, and have always been tricked to signing false treaties accompanying the loss of their homes and even death happened amongst tribes. In the period of the late 19th century, The U.S. government was becoming more and more unbeatable making the Natives move by force and sign false treaties. This did not account for the seizing of land the government imposed at any given time (Boxer 2009).
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...
Many people believe that Native Americans are a disadvantaged group of individuals in many ways. Culturally, in that many of the cultures of the various tribes across the Americas were taken from them by Europeans and their descendants. Socially, in that they are unlike other minorities in the United States because of their extra-constitutional status; and even medically, stemming from the general belief that Natives are at a higher risk for disease than other ethnicities due to tobacco and alcohol use, especially when used together (Falk, Hiller-Sturmhöfel, & Yi, 2006).
To many of the Europeans during 1700’s Native Americans were thought of as savages, but in reality they were not. The Natives were only viewed this way because they were different from the Europeans, and the Europeans weren’t fond of things or people that were different from them. Using historical evidence and accounts from long ago you can see how the Natives were discriminated against for only reason that they were different from everybody else.
Contrary to popular belief, discrimination of Native Americans in America still widely exist in the 21st century! So you may ask, why? Well, to answer that one question, I will give you 3 of the countless reasons why this unfortunate group of people are punished so harshly for little good reason. So now, let’s get into it, shall we!
They too faced discrimination and racism at the hands of the dominant culture. In 1830, due to the Indian removal act, thousands of Native Americans were moved to lands west of the Mississippi, and in 1938, they were forcibly removed once again, to walk the Trail of Tears” Thousands more died during the process. It’s safe to say that this was a case of “Comply or die”. In 1851, they were moved to reservations, which usually consisted of practically useless land, that wasn’t similar to what they were used to. This treatment continued well into the years, and because of the differences in values and power compared to the dominant group, they were at a disadvantage, so the obvious choice was to acculturate, but many times they were forced to do so. Their language, religion, and culture were attacked and undermined. The first act of forced acculturation, the Dawnes Allotment Act of 1887, tried to impose the white lifestyle upon the Native Americans by allotting farm land to each tribe, neglecting their culture and needs. With this, they hoped to encourage the very “American” way of individualism and the concept of profit, as opposed to their kinship and tribal structure. Another way to force them to acculturate was to send their children miles away from their families to attend boarding schools. There, they were forced to learn English, adopt Christianity, and learn the ways of the
Native-Americans make up one of the smallest portions of our population, but are still victims of mass incarceration and police brutality Many Native-American reservations have high unemployment rates. Poverty in these areas is also common. Reserved, sacred land for Native-Americans is also disappearing as more and more land is being taken away by United States government. The government also disobeys treaty rights by exploiting their land for natural resources to gain profit. Low graduation rates are common in Native school districts. Suicide is much more prevalent among Native-American youth when compared to the rest of the nation. They also generally receive poor healthcare. Violence and abuse of children and women is more common in Native-American communities as well.
Indigenous people are those that are native to an area. Throughout the world, there are many groups or tribes of people that have been taken over by the Europeans in their early conquests throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by immigrating groups of individuals, and by greedy corporate businesses trying to take their land. The people indigenous to Australia, Brazil and South America, and Hawaii are currently fighting for their rights as people: the rights to own land, to be free from prejudice, and to have their lands protected from society.
The American Indians Between 1609 To 1865. Native Americans or American Indians, once occupied the entire region of the United States. They were composed of many different groups, who spoke hundreds of languages and dialects. The Indians from the Southwest used to live in large, terraced communities and their way of sustain was from the agriculture where they planted squash, pumpkins, beans and corn crops. Trades between neighboring tribes were common, this brought in additional goods and also some raw materials such as gems, cooper.