The Native American Movement in the United States originated from a sense of inferiority and inequality. They were only given citizenship in 1924 but even into the mid 1940s, they were still not treated as full class Americans. In the 1950s, a sense of Indian Nationalism spread among the natives and they began forming groups to promote change for their community. With groups such as AIM, the NCAI and the NIYC heading the movement, they were able to receive a bit of the independence they craved. In 1961, Red Power was coined by the National Indian Youth Council and demonstrations were rampant. The movement notably flourished right after the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, spawning due to a renewed sense of a struggle to let the U.S. follow up on their promises to the native people (Faville). In the summer of 1968, a frustrated group of Native Americans came together for a meeting on discrimination, discussing critical issues surrounding their circumstances. This group, AIM, helped begin the Native American Movement. Through their efforts, Native Americans helped bring an end to Eisenhower’s termination policy in 1958. They also managed to get President Johnson and President Nixon to grant them liberties to receive some of the independence they’s been striving for for decades. The progress made during this era changed the outlook of Native Americans on . Soon after the spike in Indian Nationalist spirit, the Tuscarora tribe in upstate New York was able to band together and thwart state efforts at turning reservation land into a reservoir in 1959. In 1960, activists watched the progress that other civil rights organizations, such as the NAACP, made in changing the way the government treated minorities. Native Americans sought to change... ... middle of paper ... ..., housing, education, welfare, poverty benefits, and employment. During Nixon’s term, Congress passed his Indian Self-Determination Act that restored the special legal status of Native American tribes. It gave them powers exercised by state governments, some control over federal programs on their land, and increased control over education (Hodder). Spurred on by a new sense of Native American identity and the progress the civil rights movement was making, Native Americans went on to try and gain their independence. With groups such as AIM, the NCAI and the NIYC heading the movement, they were able to receive control over their land and people that the federal government had been in control of for decades before. With the achievements Native Americans have made so far, it is clear that they will not abandon their culture so long as they are aware of their identity.
Tribal lands were not all purely native Americans. Interracial marriages encouraged the potential for bully and abuse within their own tribal lands. This encouraged formal acts of government within the tribes such as, court trials that resulted in the extension of Native American sovereignty. But it also allowed for the tribes to govern themselves “legal grey areas” which were clearly evident to the Native Americans and many conflicts arose because of the procrastination of fixing the problem at hand. Native Americans have fought against the suppression of rights and discrimination but persevered adopting new rights to vote, along with the ability to self-govern their own communities and deal with their own domestic laws under the United States of
Initiated by the colonist’s want to further expand their colonies, their land, and their prosperity, many colonists voiced their want for Indian removal. After many proposals by various American leaders, and crucially Thomas Jefferson’s push (Garrison 13), Andrew Jackson’s presidency would be what finalized and enforced the Indian Removal Act. Jackson claimed he had listened to the people, and that his rationale for the removal was in favor of the Indian and
The American Indians were promised change with the American Indian policy, but as time went on no change was seen. “Indian reform” was easy to promise, but it was not an easy promise to keep as many white people were threatened by Indians being given these rights. The Indian people wanted freedom and it was not being given to them. Arthur C. Parker even went as far as to indict the government for its actions. He brought the charges of: robbing a race of men of their intellectual life, of social organization, of native freedom, of economic independence, of moral standards and racial ideals, of his good name, and of definite civic status (Hoxie 97). These are essentially what the American peoples did to the natives, their whole lives and way of life was taken away,
Back in 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act. This act required the government to negotiate treaties that would require the Native Americans to move to the west from their homelands. Native Americans would be moved to an area called the Indian Territory which is Oklahoma and parts of Kansas and Nebraska. Some tribes that were to be moved are Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw. All of the other tribes had relocated in the fall of 1831 to the Indian Territory besides the Cherokee who did not relocate until the fall of 1838. They did not move from their homeland without a fight. Their homeland was parts of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina. They started this march in the fall of 1838 and finished in early
Today there are more than a million Indians in America in all phases of development, some still attempting to adjust to American civilization, others completely Americanized and some still holding on to their Native heritage. There are 300 federal Indian reservations and about 21 state reservations present in the United States today. These reservations are considered sovereign nations, however these people still poses American citizenship. In my opinion, the process of assimilation in the United States was an extremely cruel and unnecessary one. Although it did work out for the best in the long run and today the Indian Americans have the freedom to live the way they chose on their reservations, I firmly believe that the process of getting to where we are today could have been much better had it taken a different route.
In regard to law, Deloria defines the relationship between the US Government and the Indians as paternalistic. The US Government treated and governed the Indians as a father would by providing basic needs but without given them rights. There has been some improvement with the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934. This act allowed the return to local self-government on a tribal level and restored the self management of their assets. By allowing the Indians to self govern it encouraged an economic foundation for the inhabitants of Indian reservations. Unfortunately only a few tribes have fully taken advantage of this act, while others continue to struggle for survival.
In Lakota Woman, Mary Crow Dog argues that in the 1970’s, the American Indian Movement used protests and militancy to improve their visibility in mainstream Anglo American society in an effort to secure sovereignty for all "full blood" American Indians in spite of generational gender, power, and financial conflicts on the reservations. When reading this book, one can see that this is indeed the case. The struggles these people underwent in their daily lives on the reservation eventually became too much, and the American Indian Movement was born. AIM, as we will see through several examples, made their case known to the people of the United States, and militancy ultimately became necessary in order to do so. "Some people loved AIM, some hated it, but nobody ignored it" (Crow Dog, 74).
Deloria defines the relationship between the US Government and the Indians as paternalistic. The US Government treated and governed the Indians as a father would by providing basic needs but without given them rights. There has been some improvement with the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934. This act allowed the return to local self-government on a tribal level and restored the self management of their assets. By allowing the Indians to self govern it encouraged an economic foundation for the inhabitants of Indian reservations. Unfortunately only a few tribes have fully taken advantage of this Act, while others struggle for survival.
In the 30 years after the Civil War, although government policy towards Native Americans intended to shift from forced separation to integration into American society, attempts to "Americanize" Indians only hastened the death of their culture and presence in the America. The intent in the policy, after the end of aggression, was to integrate Native Americans into American society. Many attempts at this were made, ranging from offering citizenship to granting lands to Indians. All of these attempts were in vain, however, because the result of this policies is much the same as would be the result of continued agression.
...er from the U.S. government and society. Even though their rights hadn’t been protected, their land taken forcibly away, and their culture disrespected, the American Indian Movement still managed to protest and fight for their deserved rights in very reasonable and non-extreme ways. Their land and property were wrongfully taken away, but they did not steal other property in vengeance. Violence was used against them, but they did not retaliate violently. They were pressured to give up their culture and religious beliefs and conform to those of another ethno-cultural community, but they did not force their own views and ideas onto others. The American Indian Movement was an organization whose actions can be justified as perfectly legitimate reactions to the United States’ democratic society that had promised to respect and protect their people and had failed to do so.
The American Indian Movement had both positive and negative effects on the community and liberty of the Indian tribes and people. Protests, and arguments became a way of unitement among tribes while also enforcing hope and strength to the oppressed Indians. Their will to fight became a new found hope and without that hope, the movement would not have succeed. The AIM's perseverance led to national knowledge of the issue which therefore led to governmental help thus creating a less oppressed and cruel nature for American Indians. Although the American Indian movement was not perfect it provided hope and helped to minimize the daily injustices American Indians were facing.
The Native Americans have come across long journey of difficult times since the occupation of their land by European settlers. There are still two sides of a coin- a world of civilization and a world of underdeveloped society in this one country- USA. The paradox is that the constitution which seems to be a model of democracy to many nations of the world lacks a lot for not acting accordingly. Those organized and unorganized struggles of Native Americans were challenged by the heavily armed white majority settlers. This history is among the worst American experience because of the massacre and the violation against human right. In order to be heard, they protest, occupy land, and write books. The Native Americans have raised several human and civil right issues in several ways for hundreds of years including the seizing of Alcatraz Island in 1969, the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973, and the consequences had left a meaningful impact in their lives.
Throughout history the attacks on Native American sovereignty proved to be too much and eventually tribes had to submit. The problems Native American tribes faced when fighting for and dealing with sovereignty in the 18th century are identical to the problems they are facing today. These
In 1924, the United States Congress granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States making them the last individuals to gain suffrage. In its early days before becoming its independent nation, during its first colonial enterprises, only white males who owned a property had suffrage. This nation’s granting of voting to Native Americans is one of many events that demonstrates that the United States has always been a nation that is receptive of change. Ultimately, American History is a history of unequivocal advancement proved by the expansion of inventions during Market Revolution, the progress of liberty and civilization in the west through the Manifest Destiny era, and even through violent terms as evidenced
Through all stages, a conflict existed between the Indigenous peoples and the United States. Under the illusion of forging a new democracy, free of hierarchies and European monarchies, the United States used the plantation labor of enslaved Africans and dispossessed massive numbers of Native peoples from their lands and cultures to conquer this land.15 Many Americans continue to experience the social, political, cultural and economic inequalities that remain in our Nation