Apess begins his story talking about the conditions of the reservation that Indians are living in and having to deal with, and blames the white men for these conditions. This is due to them “supposedly” being the masters or overseers’ of the reservations. He talks about how the white men could care less if the Indians lived or died. That the white men would take a lot of the Indians vegetation and taking their timber which is of most value to the Indians or any other items for free and then selling it to get a profit for themselves off of it. He feels that with no education the Indians are feel they cannot take care of themselves or their land.
Many of the Native Americans suffered from disease, starvation and death because of the forced relocation to the west. A change in climate and environment did not assist with the relocation of this society that had first existed on the American soil. This tragic incident is most remembered as the “The Trail of Tears”. Furthermore, the lack of compensation, by the government, to the Native Americans destroyed, the already diminishing, numbers of their eastern tribes. Many Americans opposed the removal of the Native Americans and argued that they too had been civilized and should be allowed to remain on the homelands, specifically Davey Crocket.
The word civilized, as defined by Websters, means to have an advanced or humane culture, society, etc.. White men did not see the Indian culture as advanced or humane and therefore began forcing white man's way of life upon the Native American Tribes. "Civilize them with a stick" is a horrific rendition of the life of a Native American child plucked from her village at a young age and forced into an old
Utley tells us a story about one Sioux man named Dewey who managed to fight his way through the holocaust of the Wounded Knee battle in which he lost his mother, his brother, his wife, and infant son shortly after. The author writes, “Though twice wounded, Dewey had lived through a slaughter that had swept away at least 153 men, women, and children of Big Foot's band of 350 and maimed another 50 or more” (Utley, 19). With no more Buffalo to hunt for game, and the annihilation of over half of Big Foot's population, the Sioux were left with no other choice but to surrender to the white mans way. The government set up a system of reservations, which was a way to segregate Indians and force them into the new world order. Utley writes, “Dewey lived at a time when the Sioux were thrust upon the bridge the whites tried to build between the old Indian world and the alien new world of their conquerors.
This led to conflicts and therefore partially led to the destruction of the Native American way of life. The white Americans quickly claimed land and would move the Plains Indians around as they saw fit, usually affected by where gold had recently been discovered. This culminated in putting the Native Americans on reservations. In many of the agreements and treaties signed over land the settlers would claim never to go back on their promises “as long as grass grew” and “the mountains stood”. Breaking the promises would have shown the Native Americans that the settlers thought little of their intelligence, and also would instil a lack of trust in the settlers, as now every apparently solemn vow to not attack certain areas or to treat the Plains Indians better etc.
It should then be assumed that warfare is endemic to all humans. Personally, it is hard for me to imagine a time where humans coexisted peacefully. I have always assumed that human history was filled with fear and war, and that everyone thought as I did. Prehistoric cultures like the Anasazi had no record keeping and so their culture is more susceptible to various interpretations. Many of the historians who help shape our understanding of past native cultures are themselves descendants of these people, and thus are often bias in their conclusions.
The written record suggests that the three alleged criminals were judged in the same legal manner, at least initially. The history of Native Americans is a history of tears, killed by white men without mercy and pushed onto reservations where they were forced to make treaties which the US government violated again and again. The experiences of the Native Americans were a terrible ordeal. As long as the Constitution and its amendments are in control, the US government must ensure that this type of thing will never happen
It was a widely held belief that Indigenous people were an inferior race and would eventually die out. Many policies enacted on them had a greatly detrimental effect upon their cultural heritage. Policies such as the forced Indigenous people off the land and into government reserves, the assimilation policy tried to force Indigenous people to adopt a Western lifestyle by giving up their traditional lifestyle and beliefs. They were expected to live and act like ‘white Australians’ but were denied equal wages, work conditions and welfare benefits received by other Australians. Other policies attempted to ‘breed-out’ Indigenous Australians by pairing an Indiginous individual with a white partner.
All the tribes seem to describe in their own story how the whites started to obliterate their religion, their culture and their way of life. As Brown portrays the changing Indian lives, he also brings to life their battles, battles that may have been forgotten by the American whites but never erased from the Indian hearts. Such battles include Little Crow’s War, sparked by the failing promises to the Indians to give them rations. This war was one of many where the Indians would lose, by being persecuted, hanged and executed merely for defending their lands and speaking up for their mistreatment. The book also illustrates the few battles won by the tribes, which would not only give them a
The Europeans looked down on the Native Americans and referred to them as “savages” because their society did not match their own. The many different Native American tribes had their disagreements; however they all could agree that the arrival of the Europeans lead to the destruction of their people and cultures. In this essay, I will discuss the arrival of the three major European powers (England, France, and Spain), their different ways in colonizing, and how the conquering of the Americas destroyed Native American societies. I will use evidence from the textbooks, Indians in American History edited by Frederick Hoxie and The World Turned Upside Down edited by Colin Calloway to support my argument. The Natives in America possessed all of the aspects that human beings all over the world incorporated into their societies.