Have Native Americans been treated fairly by the United States government?
In the 1860s, hundreds of Americans moved to the west due to the finding of gold, silver, and many other precious minerals. The cattle frontier, the farming frontier, the mining frontier, and the western frontier led to the west being filled with new people. These people were ready to grow and advance in the world. With this happening the 250,000 Native Americans that were already settled there got forced out of their own homes and onto reservations. This makes you wonder if the United States government treated the Native Americans unfairly. This paper examines whether or not the United States government was overstepping and treating the Native Americans unfairly. The United States government was not treating the Native Americans fairly because they took away their culture, religion, and their homes.
The Native American’s culture was very unique and their religion was very involved in their culture. The Native American’s thought of animals as spirits and after hunting them they would use every piece of that animal to make something that they would use. For example, the buffalo was a big part of the Native Americans culture. The buffalo were very sacred to the Native Americans and when they would kill them they would use every piece of the buffalo to make food, shelter, tools, instruments, and anything else they needed. They thought of the buffalo as something that was giving their people sustenance and they only killed the buffalo when they needed to. Native Americans believed that every person was assigned the spirit of a particular animal and when that person would pass they would put their spirit animals on the totem pole to represent them. Something that is in our world today that originally came from the Native American culture is dream catchers. Dream catchers originally came from a legend told by the Lakota tribe. The legend says that the dream catcher symbolizes holding onto the good things and the holes are used to flush out the bad things. Native Americans also used smoke signals to communicate over long distances and this is a strong symbol of their proud heritage (1). Native Americans were very spiritual and believed that they had to use all the resources the Earth gave to them and if possible try to give back. Men were trained to be good hunters and warriors to protect their tribe. There was a lot of responsibilities placed on the men of the tribe and there was even ceremonies to mark a boy becoming a man. Native Americans maintain their culture today by continuing to paint, sculpt, and sew traditional clothes (2).
The United States government took away the Native Americans culture in many ways. One of the main ways they hurt their culture was by making the buffalo almost extinct. The buffalo were a big food source for the Native Americans and they were also sacred to them. Buffalo were killed by professional hunters, 100 per hour, to feed railroad workers. They were also killed for sport. The government openly said that the buffalo were a tool for controlling the Plains Indians (3). Another thing that the United States government did to take away the Native Americans culture was when Richard H. Pratt made a school for Native American children. His goal with this school was to uplift and assimilate them into American culture. His motto was, “Kill the Indian, save the man.” (4)
The Native Americans religion is very different compared to other religions. The Native Americans passed on their beliefs orally throughout the years. They didn’t have anything written down to reference their religion. Native American religion is mostly focused on nature, things like landscape, animals, and plants. In this religion there are a lot of ceremonies, practices, and traditions. The ceremonies are used to honor many different things. Some of the ceremonies might have included taking hallucinogens to gain greater insight with the gods. They might have also included feasts, music, and dances. Another main aspect of Native American religion is animals. They used animals to symbolize many different things within their religion and many times animals were used to tell stories. Native American religion is definitely something that it would be hard to understand unless you were raised into it (5). Another thing that is interesting about Native American religion is that different tribes had different beliefs. Since this religion was passed on orally the stories were skewed. The story of creation is something that is very different between tribes. For example the Inuits think that giants gave birth to the goddess of the sea and the Seneca creation story is something completely different and longer (6).
The United States government took away the Native Americans religion in many ways. When people were put on reservations and in schools the men were forced to cut their hair. Long hair for Native American men is a symbol of tribal religious traditions. The traditions say that a man is not to cut his hair unless he is mourning the loss of a close relative. By making the men cut their hair they were definitely going against their religious beliefs (7). The United States government also forced the Native Americans to learn about other religions in the schools they made them go to. Something else was that they passed laws that outlawed religious practices (8).
In the 1860s when the Americans were forcing their way onto Native American land there were 250,000 Native Americans living in this part of the west. The Native Americans had been living on this land for many years and had already formed where there tribes lived. They were comfortable on this land and then the United States government came in and pushed them out of their homes. The United States government started all of this conflict with moving the Native Americans when they had the Indian Removal which moved 80,000 Native Americans to the west. Then, 1828-1838 they moved all the Native Americans onto reservations (9). One major way that the United States government took people away from their homes was by passing the Dawes Act. The Dawes Act’s purpose was to assimilate Native Americans into American society. They figured that by getting rid of the reservations and assimilating them into the main society they would get rid of the Native American culture altogether, eventually (10).
In conclusion the United States government took advantage of the Native Americans in many ways. They took them away from their culture by killing off the buffalo and placing the children in schools. They took away their religion by outlawing it. They also took away their homes by putting them on reservations and then taking those reservations away. These reasons are how the United States government got away with treating the Native Americans unfairly.
1. “Native American Culture,” Indians.org, published 1995, accessed September 29, 2015, http://indians.org/articles/native-american-culture.html
2. “Native American Culture,” Tribaldirectory.com, published 2014, accessed September 29, 2015, http://tribaldirectory.com/information/native- american-culture.html
3. “A Thirty Years War,” digitalhistory.uh.edu, published 2014, accessed September 29, 2015, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3499
4. “Kill the Indian Save the Man,” digitalhistory.uh.edu, published 2014, accessed September 29, 2015, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3505
5. “Native American Religion,” Indians.org, published 1995, accessed September 29, 2015, http://www.indians.org/articles/native-american- religion.html
6. “Native American Religion,” Tribaldirectory.com, published 2014, accessed September 29, 2015, http://tribaldirectory.com/information/native- american-religion.html
7. Ojibwa, “Long Hair,” nativeamericannetroots.net, published July 26, 2010, accessed September 29, 2015, http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/601
8. Christine Haug, “Native American Tribes & U.S. Government,” Victoriana.com, published 1996, accessed September 29, 2015, http://www.victoriana.com/history/nativeamericans.html
9. “Indian Reservations,” ic.galegroup.com, published 2003, accessed September 29, 2015, http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/uhic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindowzid=2a87fa28f20f1e66b5f663e76873fd8c&action=2&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CCX3401802046&source=Bookmark&u=lnoca_hawken&jsid=594a59e0e9a018cae5edc184052747ca
10. Stephen Paver, “The Dawes Act: How Congress tried to destroy Indian reservations,” blog.oup.com, published February 8, 2012, accessed September 29, 2015, http://blog.oup.com/2012/02/dawes-act-congress-indian-reservations/
Bibliography
1. “Native American Culture.” Indians.org. Published 1995. Accessed September 29, 2015. http://indians.org/articles/native-american-culture.html.
2. “Native American Culture.” Tribaldirectory.com. Published 2014. Accessed September 29, 2015. http://tribaldirectory.com/information/native- american-culture.html.
3. “A Thirty Years War.” digitalhistory.uh.edu. Published 2014. Accessed September 29, 2015. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm? smtID=2&psid=3499.
4. “Kill the Indian Save the Man.” digitalhistory.uh.edu. Published 2014. Accessed September 29, 2015. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3505.
5. “Native American Religion.” Indians.org. Published 1995. Accessed September 29, 2015. http://www.indians.org/articles/native-american- religion.html.
6. “Native American Religion.” Tribaldirectory.com. Published 2014. Accessed September 29, 2015. http://tribaldirectory.com/information/native- american-religion.html.
7. Ojibwa. “Long Hair.” nativeamericannetroots.net. Published July 26, 2010. Accessed September 29, 2015. http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/601.
8. Haug, Christine. “Native American Tribes & U.S. Government.” Victoriana.com. Published 1996. Accessed September 29, 2015. http://www.victoriana.com/history/nativeamericans.html.
9. “Indian Reservations.” ic.galegroup.com. Published 2003. Accessed September 29, 2015. http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/uhic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindowzid=2a87fa28f20f1e66b5f663e76873fd8c&action=2&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CCX3401802046&source=Bookmark&u=lnoca_hawken&jsid=594a59e0e9a018cae5edc184052747ca.
10. Paver, Stephen. “The Dawes Act: How Congress tried to destroy Indian reservations.” blog.oup.com. Published February 8, 2012. Accessed September 29, 2015. http://blog.oup.com/2012/02/dawes-act-congress-indian-reservations/.