The land of the Native Indians had been encroached upon by American settlers. By the 1800’s, their was more white settlers than Native Indians. Nearly 400,000 white settlers were illegally settling upon the decreasing land of the Indians that the government noted as theirs. Due to the US government’s lack of involvement towards the encroachment of their citizens on Indian land, a conflict was bound to happen. Indians were infuriated. The Shawnee Chief Tecumseh stood up to take action and plead for all the Indians to unite and resist against the white settlers. Tecumseh was known as a warrior. He fought the battle of the Ohio River Valley territory between the Shawnee and Kentuckians. Throughout the mid 1790’s the Americans won a few prominent battles which pushed him westward. In …show more content…
The land holdings were recognized by the government through treaties which made these settlements illegal. Reluctantly, the US government chose not to punish their own citizens for disregarding the treaties and illegally settling on the land of the Indians. Outraged, he spoke out against the injustice and urged the Indians, “to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land,” as written in, The Book of the Indians. 1 Ultimately, his goal was to form a confederation of Indian tribes to unite against the white settlers. His aim was for all of the tribes to agree on selling any piece of land to the white settlers before it was sold off by an individual tribe. In 1809 he set out to meet with different tribes in effort to unite and resist. The land that was occupied first was theirs, he believed. The land, he elucidated, “for it never was divided, but belongs to all, for the use of each.”2 The white men were never content and were constantly on a mission to find more land. Indians believe the land is for all, but the land you may call your own is where you go home after a day of fishing, hunting, collecting. This land is the land that the white men cannot encroach and
...y robbing the Indians of their land, the English upset and hurt many of the Native American tribes, which lead to many disputes over ownership of the land.
It had previously been the policy of the American government to remove and relocate Indians further and further west as the American population grew, but there was only so much...
In March of 1768, in present-day Ohio, Tecumseh was born. Tecumseh's name means "Panther in the sky." Tecumseh was the fifth born in his family. His mom, Methotaske, was a Creek, and his dad, Puckeshinewa, was a Shawnee. He excelled at the game's Indian boys played. He also organized other boys to go on hunts. When Tecumseh was younger he admired and looked up to the warriors, like his older brother. He also tried to be like the warriors. Later in his life, Tecumseh became a powerful chief to the Native American Tribe, the Shawnee's. He did not want the Americans to take the Native American's land. He accomplished many things in his life.
Cronon raises the question of the belief or disbelief of the Indian’s rights to the land. The Europeans believed the way Indians used the land was unacceptable seeing as how the Indians wasted the natural resources the land had. However, Indians didn’t waste the natural resources and wealth of the land but instead used it differently, which the Europeans failed to see. The political and economical life of the Indians needed to be known to grasp the use of the land, “Personal good could be replaced, and their accumulation made little sense for ecological reasons of mobility,” (Cronon, 62).
escaped, by then all three tribes Chokonen, Nedni and Bedonkehe formed a band of brothers.
land away from indigenous people and he did not think is was fair for them to
In the 1830's the Plains Indians were sent to the Great American Deserts in the west because the white men did not think they deserved the land. Afterwards, they were able to live peacefully, and to follow their traditions and customs, but when the white men found out the land they were on was still good for agricultural, or even for railroad land they took it back. Thus, the white man movement westward quickly began. This prospect to expand westward caused the government to become thoroughly involved in the lives of the Plains Indians. These intrusions by the white men had caused spoilage of the Plains Indians buffalo hunting styles, damaged their social and cultural lives, and hurt their overall lives.
The Indians thought of land very differently to the white man. The land was sacred, there was no ownership, and it was created by the great spirit. They could not sell their land to others, whereas the white people could fence off the land which belonged to them, and sell it freely to whoever they wanted. The Europeans didn't think that the Indians were using the land properly, so in their eyes, they were doing a good favour to the earth. To the Indians, the land was more valuable than the money that the white man had brought with him, even though it didn't belong to them.
had created the Indian Removal act which sent them along the trail of tears to the
Talking Back to Civilization: Indian Voices from the Progressive Era edited by Frederick E. Hoxie is a book which begins with an introduction into the life of Charles Eastman and a brief overview of the history of Native Americans and their fight for justice and equal rights, it then continues by describing the different ways and avenues of speaking for Indian rights and what the activists did. This leads logically into the primary sources which “talk back” to the society which had overrun their own. The primary sources immerse the reader into another way of thinking and cause them to realize what our societal growth and even foundation has caused to those who were the true natives. The primary sources also expand on the main themes of the book which are outlines in the introduction. They are first and most importantly talking back to the “pale faces”, Indian education, religion, American Indian policy, the image of the Indians presented in America. The other chapters in the book further expanded on these ideas. These themes will be further discussed in the following chapters along with a review of this
America was expanding at such a rapid pace that those who were in America before us had no time to anticipate what was happening. This change in lifestyle affected not only Americans, but everyone who lived in the land. Changing traditions, the get rich quick idea and other things were the leading causes of westward expansion. But whatever happened to those who were caught in the middle, those who were here before us? One of those many who roamed the land before Americans decided that they owned it were the Native Americans.
There were several motives for the removal of the Indians from their lands, to include racism and land lust. Since they first arrived, the white Americans hadn’t been too fond of the Native Americans. They were thought to be highly uncivilized and they had to go. In his letter to Congress addressing the removal of the Indian tribes, President Jackson states the following:
Immigrants took land illegally and crimes against Indians went unpunished. The Indians signed more treaties giving up most of their lands to the United States. With foreign tribesmen coming and settlers being angered a conference was conducted at Fort Greenville with Tecumseh as “principal speaker”. Settlers now occupied these lands, but the Indians did not want to give up their lands feeling that it was given to them by the master of life. Tecumseh agreed that the Greenville treaty line and other established boundaries and it should stand so the border could be used as a defense against further American
Natives were forcefully removed from their land in the 1800’s by America. In the 1820’s and 30’s Georgia issued a campaign to remove the Cherokees from their land. The Cherokee Indians were one of the largest tribes in America at the time. Originally the Cherokee’s were settled near the great lakes, but overtime they moved to the eastern portion of North America. After being threatened by American expansion, Cherokee leaders re-organized their government and adopted a constitution written by a convention, led by Chief John Ross (Cherokee Removal). In 1828 gold was discovered in their land. This made the Cherokee’s land even more desirable. During the spring and winter of 1838- 1839, 20,000 Cherokees were removed and began their journey to Oklahoma. Even if natives wished to assimilate into America, by law they were neither citizens nor could they hold property in the state they were in. Principal Chief, John Ross and Major Ridge were leaders of the Cherokee Nation. The Eastern band of Cherokee Indians lost many due to smallpox. It was a year later that a Treaty was signed for cession of Cherokee land in Texas. A small number of Cherokee Indians assimilated into Florida, in o...
The first point he made was how the Westward expansion affected the Plains Indians. The Plains Indian tribes consisted mostly of the Kiowa, Kiowa Apaches, Comanche, Sioux, and Cheyenne. As the white settlers made their way across the country taking land, the Indians pushed back by raiding settlements and killing the occasional settler. More and more white settlers were pouring into the West in search of gold and silver. As the settlers came into the territories, large herds of buffalo were killed, much of the time just for the sport of it. This had an adverse affect on the Indians since they relied on buffalo not only for food, but also for hides and blankets as well as to make teepees. Another factor was the pony herds; the U.S. Army frequently seized herds and a herd of upwards of one thousand was killed just so the Indians would not be able to use them. The soldiers that were on patrol in the West kept pushing the Indians, driving them away from their hunting and fishing grounds.