Essay On Ghost Dance

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Government policy attempted to destroy tribal culture and assimilate Indian people into mainstream culture with many negative results. The Ghost Dance represented a last attempt to resist American policies and practices. Throughout the nation, Indian tribes adjusted to their circumstances with mixed results. In 1871, the U.S government formally ended the treaty system, but not completely abolishing the sovereignty of Indian nations. Majority of Indian people lived in poverty and misery, deprived of their traditional means of survival and more often than not, subjected to fraud by corrupt government officials and private suppliers. The most tenacious tribes were those occupying land rejected by white settlers or those distant from their new…show more content…
Among the Sioux and Arapaho, the Ghost Dance was one of the central rituals of a new religious movement that focused on the restoration of the past, as opposed to a salvation in a new future. The movement was active within limited tribes and mirrored other attempts by previous Indians to escape the civilization of the white man. The traditional ritual used in the Ghost Dance, the circle dance, has been used by many Native Americans since prehistoric times but was first performed in accordance with Jack Wilson's teachings among the Nevada Paiute in 1889. The practice swept throughout much of the American West, quickly reaching areas of California and Oklahoma. As the Ghost Dance spread from its original source, Native American tribes synthesized selective aspects of the ritual with their own beliefs, often creating change in both the society that integrated it and the ritual itself. At the core of the movement was the prophet of peace Jack Wilson, known as Wovoka among the Paiute, who prophesied a peaceful end to white American expansion while preaching messages of clean living, an honest life, and cross-cultural cooperation. Perhaps the best-known facet of the Ghost Dance movement is the role it reportedly played in instigating the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890, which resulted in the
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