Lynching and Native Americans
The first Spanish explorers in North America found the continent already inhabited. Native Americans had migrated throughout the western world for thousands of years. This migration came to an abrupt halt when Europeans took over and claimed this part of the world as their own. Though the Native Americans helped many Spanish and French colonists, whom they taught how to hunt, fish, and take care of themselves, these new “discoverers” still took the land, violated their hosts and began a frantic hunt for natural resources.
By the seventeenth century in many of the early colonies, there were three times as many whites as Indians. This ratio increased steadily with the arrival of more and more Europeans. In his essay “Native Americans, New Voices: American Indian History, 1895 to 1995” R. David Edmunds writes:
[I]n 1893, both the frontier and Indian people seemed to be part of the past…In 1890, the United States Bureau of the Census had reported that the frontier had vanished and that the Indian population had fallen to 248,253. Native Americans had played a major role in the history of the frontier, but the frontier was gone. For Turner and other historians, Indian people and their role in American history were also on the road to oblivion. (Edmunds 717)
President Andrew Jackson created the Indian Removal Act of 1830. This act gave territory, in what is now Oklahoma and Kansas, to Native Americans who would give up their “ancestral holdings”. This act guaranteed that the Indians could live on the new land as long as they wanted. Many refused to leave their homelands and these Native Americans stayed to fight a losing battle that usually ended in death and destruction.
The Europeans eventually stripped the Native Americans of much of their lands. In their efforts to retrieve their land, Native Americans who fought back over time were subjected to numerous forms of violence, such as raping, scalping and lynching, among other acts. Nevertheless, groups such as the Lokota, Sioux and Cheyenne have historically and continue to fight European and white invasion and to organized movements and groups to this end. One such movement was the American Indian Movement (AIM) which reached it heights in the 1960s and 1970s. This movement had powerful men and women leaders. For example, a region activist in this movement was Anna Mae Pictou Aquash.
In May 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act which forced Native American tribes to move west. Some Indians left swiftly, while others were forced to to leave by the United States Army. Some were even taken away in chains. Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, strongly reinforced this act. In the Second State of the Union Address, Jackson advocated his Indian Policy. There was controversy as to whether the removal of the Native Americans was justified under the administration of President Andrew Jackson. In my personal opinion, as a Native American, the removal of the tribes was not in any way justified.
The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830. The act authorized him to negotiate with the Native Americans in the Southern Non- Native Americans supported the act heavily. Christian missionaries opposed this act was future President Abraham Lincoln, future New Jersey Theodore Frelinghuysen and Congressman Davy Crockett spoke against the legislation. It later was passed by Congress. Due to the Indian Removal Act the current Native American population is very low. --The Removal Act of 1830, section I, in The American Indian and the United States, A Documentary History, ed. Wilcomb E. Washburn, vol. 3 (New York: Random House, 1973) 2169"That in the making of any such exchange or exchanges, it shall and may be lawful for the President solemnly to assure the tribe or nation with which the exchange is made, that the United States will forever secure and guaranty to them, and their heirs or successors, the country so exchanged with them and if they prefer it, that the United States will cause a patent or grant to be made and executed to them for the same: Provided always, Those lands shall revert to the United States, if the Indians become extinct, or abandon the same." (http://www.columbia.edu/~lmg21/BC3180/removal.html).
In the struggle between Creon and Antigone, Sophocles' audience would have recognized a genuine conflict of duties and values. From the Greek point of view, both Creon's and Antigone's positions are flawed, because both oversimplify ethical life by recognizing only one kind of good or duty. By oversimplifying, each ignores the fact that a conflict exists at all, or that deliberation is necessary. Moreover, both Creon and Antigone display the dangerous flaw of pride in the way they justify and carry out their decisions. Antigone admits right from the beginning that she wants to carry out the burial because the action is glorious. Antigone has a savage spirit; she has spent most of her life burying her family members.
From the beginning of the 20th Century, there were nearly 250,000 Native Americans in the United States who accounted for approximately 0.3 percent of the population. This population was mostly residing in reservations where they executed a restricted extent of self-government. Native Americans have experienced numerous challenges related to land use and inconsistent public policies. Actually, during the 19th Century, Native Americans were dispossessed of a huge section of their land through forced removal westwards, through a series of treaties that were largely dishonored, and through military defeat by the United States in its expansion of control over the American West (Boxer par,1). Moreover, Native Americans have experienced
The Effects of Colonization on the Native Americans Native Americans had inherited the land now called America and eventually their lives were destroyed due to European colonization. When the Europeans arrived and settled, they changed the Native American way of life for the worse. These changes were caused by a number of factors including disease, loss of land, attempts to export religion, and laws, which violated Native American culture. Native Americans never came in contact with diseases that developed in the Old World because they were separated from Asia, Africa, and Europe when ocean levels rose following the end of the last Ice Age. Diseases like smallpox, measles, pneumonia, influenza, and malaria were unknown to the Native Americans until the Europeans brought these diseases over time to them.
Native Americans suffered hundreds of years of violence, discrimination and forced relocation from their land, during the European invasion of North America. After the Europeans arrive, Indian culture soon became endangered, a culture which developed distinctively shaped tools, sewing needles, clothing, jewelry and weapons. They held strong their own higher cultural beliefs, and legends, retold to them for many generations. During the era of colonization in the United States, Native Americans were subjected to years of despair, of which includes ravaging diseases, conversion to Christianity, European technology, and procurement of native land.
In the awe-inspiring play of Antigone, Sophocles introduces two remarkable characters, Antigone and Creon. A conflict between these two obstinate characters leads to fatal consequences for themselves and their kindred. The firm stances of Creon and Antigone stem from two great imperatives: his loyalty to the state and her dedication to her family, her religion but most of all her conscience. The identity of the tragic hero of this play is still heavily debated. This tragedy could have been prevented if it had not been for Creon's pitiful mistakes.
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...
Within a year of taking office, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act on May 28, 1830. A longtime supporter of removing Indians from the lands they occupied, Jackson’s Indian Removal Act gave him the authority to negotiate directly with Native American Indian tribes to exchange their land with land west of the Mississippi River. Within ten years of the signing of the Act more than 70,000 Indians were relocated, many with force, and thousands died during the process. Those that benefited most from the Indian Removal Act were the State of Georgia, the Country as a whole and Indians.
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...
In 1830, President Andrew Jackson passed the Indian Removal Act. This let him negotiate with the Native Americans for their lands. Although the si...
Upon the European’s discovery and colonization of the Americas an irreversible transformation was triggered. The extreme differences in the cultures of the Europeans and Native Americans would prove to be fatal to the way of life that existed before European colonization.
Vengeance and pride are fundamentally important to this short story. From the inception of the tale it is clear that the narrator is a proud, vindictive man; opening with, “the thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge,” the narrator immediately alerts the reader to the dark aspects of his own character. Because “insult” and not “the thousand injuries” caused the narrator to “vow” revenge, the reader can infer Montresor is prideful because, although he already had conflict with Fortunato, insult was what made the tense situation unbearable for Montresor––so much so that he vowed to take action. Use of the word “vow” is significant because it indicates that the grievance was meaningful in the mind of Montresor, allowing for the reader to more easily identify with the actions to be revealed throughout the course of the story; if the reader believes that Montresor was provoked in a profound way, ...
In the following paper, I plan to discuss the source of conflict between the title characters of Antigone and Creon in Sophocles’ “Antigone”. I also plan to discuss how each character justifies his or her actions and what arguments they give for their justifications. I will also write about the strengths and weaknesses of these arguments. The final points I try to make are about who Sophocles thinks is right and who I think is right.
...ows the reader to interpret the end of the story by himself, which brings imagination into the picture. Why does Montresor hesitate in putting up the last stone? This makes the reader wonder if Montresor was beginning to feel guilty. At the end of the story Montresor and Fortunato talk a little. Montresor called aloud, "Fortunato!" No answer came so Montresor states, "I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so"(153). This statement leads the reader to believe that Montresor may have had a moment when his conscience begins to creep up on him. He quickly states that it is the dampness of the catacombs that makes his heart sick.