Many white Americans said that the Native Americans (plains Indians) were uncivilised savages because of the way they thought about their land, religion, morality, law, order and the Native Americans’ society was completely different to the white Americans. The plains Indians were very religious. They believed in the Great Spirit. They thought that the Great Spirit had created everything. The plains Indians didn’t really have a special religious day or building, their religious belief was basically nature.
The Indians did not have a belief in heaven or hell but the ones who followed Christianity worried whether their souls would only go to heaven where the Europeans were and not to their people. The only similarity the Europeans and Indians shared was interdependence. The Europeans would trade their ammunition and guns and machinery to the Native Americans who would in turn give them food and supplies they needed. The Indians did not have experience with the European warfare, however considering the Native american weapons were all hand made from nature. They also shared some
In 1865, the white men wanted to open a road in the Powder River country, and none of the Indians were pleased with this because of how much land was already taken from them (Pg. 124 Brown). “..Our women and children will starve, but for my part I prefer to die fighting than by starvation,” (Pg. 130, Brown), Red Cloud said this at a peace conference, although Red Cloud wanted peace he cared for his people more and didn’t want them to starve so he took a stand against the white men. All through the summer of 1866 Red Cloud’s ally White Chief was involved in a relentless guerrilla war fare.
Europeans considered them as being “uncivilized”, but I believe they were always civilized. Some tribes waged war more than others, but some Europeans were very warlike as well; some tribes were very vicious in war but that also applies for the Europeans also. Most tribes fought for their land when they were invaded by the Europeans, but so would the English, Spanish and French fight for their land if they would be invaded by a different nation. Besides the war they started with the natives in order to conquer their land, they also brought a new,unheard or unseen major problem with them: smallpox. Many European trade sellers were known for purposely selling infected blankets By the simple fact that they fought to defend their territory, Europeans look at natives like they were savages, uncivilized and cruel, but they forget that they are the ones who are causing all of this.
Alexie, on the other hand, feels that the blame falls more on the actual people of the new Native American generations becoming more like the white men on their own accord. Throughout the entirety of “War Dances” it is not mentioned in any section other than “Blankets” that the main character is Indian. In fact, if “Blankets” was to be taken out of the short story, it is doubtful that the main character's heritage would be defined at all. Even in the section “Drugstore Indian” the closest Alexie comes to describing any of the people in the drugstore is calling one a “nosy hag,” despite the title of the section suggesting there would be mentions of race (Alexie 72). The main character, despite
He also learns that his grandfather was a dominating, immoral and scheming. David and his parents went face to face with dealing with the consequences of Frank’s crime. Racial prejudice means any action practice or belief that reflects the racial world view the ideology that humans are divided into separate groups because of their skin colour. The American Indians are racially prejudiced by most of the people in Montana, they are going through a hard life and living in a desolate reservation; also their lands are probably the least valuable compare to other regions. David eventually learns of the racial discriminations such as not allowing “an athlete like Ronnie” to attend college.
Well of course it is. These indigenous people stood in the way of the accomplishments of the white people who came here to make progress. They were not like the whites, they did not feel the need to own the land nor did they posses the same culture, and so they had to go. As Robert Jensen puts it, the leaders of our country justified this decision “by asserting that the non-white people being murdered were not fully human, or at least had no rights which the white man was bound to respect” (Jensen p. 33). Mary Crow Dog also writes about the intentional killing of her people this in her book, Lakota Woman.
The failure to convert the Native Americans to Christianity perhaps is another reason that changed the puritans’ attitude toward the Indians. The puritans saw Indians less as people that needed to be converted but irredeemable heathens that needed to be exterminated in order to fulfillment God’s divine plan, like Canaanites or Amalekites in the Bible. “Now He hath many ways to destroy them”, said Mary at the end of her
There are many differences between the plain Indians and white people up to 1860 including religion, land, nature, war and crime, wealth and politics. But there is one difference that I feel is the most important. I feel that the most important reason I feel is religion as I feel it is the difference that cause most fights between the plain Indians as they believed in more than one god whereas they ones only believed in one as they followed the religions of Christianity and Judaism. This would as the whites would have tried to convert them to Christianity and Judaism which obviously the plain wouldn’t of liked this. Another difference would have been the matter of land as the plain Indians didn’t believe in owning land they believed that the land should be shared not owned which was different for the white people as they would buy land and own it.
According to Dawes Act, the churches were to intervene in policy making and missionary work related to the Native Americans and near the tribes. In addition to this, the agents had the power and authority to convict red Indians if they practiced their religion. Congress hoped that surrounding the Indians with white culture would encourage them to adopt white beliefs and practices, but this policy failed abysmally because most Indians did not want to give up their