Native Americans have been subjugated, mutilated, and murdered in an
effort to force them from their home-lands for centuries by land greedy
Europeans. The vast disparity between the military prowess of the Europeans,
represented by rifles, handguns, muskets, steel, gunpowder, and horses, and
what the Native Americans had at their disposal, bows and arrows and wooden
clubs, made it apparent to the Europeans who could easily be exploited and
murdered. Treaties between the tribal groups and the U.S. government served as
a method to take away their homelands. The land granted to them by treaties
became the homestead for white settlers and railroad companies. Angry warriors
fought to hang onto their land and their right to be self-sufficient. The vast
number of Euro-Americans along with their advanced level of weaponry won out in
the end. In the name of “Manifest Destiny,” they were forced to exist in a
colonial relationship with white settlers and ended up displaced to fragmented
reservations, economically decimated (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014).
The Europeans also
found expansion westward necessary due to population growth. The constant
inflow of European immigrants astonished the Europeans and Americans. From 1790
to 1830 the population over tripled to almost 13 million people. Families were
quite large and owning land in which to farm was the goal of many Europeans and
Americans. Settlers needed to move west because the land in the East became
densely populated. They were also on the look out for better land and increased
financial opportunity. The land the Native Americans hunted on was up for grabs
because it was not being farmed. Taking the land in North America from the
Native Americans was considered their divine right (Greenberg, 2018).
In 1845, John L. O’Sullivan formally proposed
the phrase “Manifest Destiny” to describe the expansion of the United States
territory and considered prearranged by the divine. European immigrants were to
be the beneficiaries. These beliefs further justified the takeovers of Indian
resources, such as water, land, timber, silver, gold and other valuable
reserves. The ideals promoted by this concept held true before O’Sullivan
brought it to the public eye. From when Europeans first stepped foot on the
land currently referred to as North America to the present, it has been the
belief that white men owned the land from sea to shining sea. For example,
during the termination era around the 1950s, many tribal groups lost their
tribal status so the government could take over the resources that belonged to
the tribes such as the timber the Menominee used for their thriving business.
Manifest Destiny: A Legacy of Genocide presents a revolutionary view of the genocidal actions based on greed and Christian beliefs for more than four centuries. Anglo-invaders inflicted a tragic firestorm of violence on the Native Americans. The North American land, considered too good for them, was taken over by land hungry Europeans through various extermination tactics, many murdered in cold blood. Land not being farmed considered free for the taking. Native American men struggled in freezing waters to seek beaver, while at the same time they were introduced to alcohol’s menacing grip. Their food sources eliminated and placed on useless plots of land to perish. The frightening institutions fed upon the children’s souls, they learned how to adapt to an acceptable form of whiteness. Native American women missing and murdered and others poisoned by corrupt corporations. Disease, intentionally and unintentionally inflicted, decimated millions. The building of the United States in its entirety came at a high cost for the Native Americans under the guise of Manifest Destiny.
“Colonialism began with a huge migration, when millions of Europeans moved overseas to invade, settle, and rule other countries. When Columbus arrived in the Americas in 1492, there were up to 100 million people living on the continent. Within 150 years, there were only 3.5 million. They died of imported diseases or starvation, or were massacred by the colonizers” (Mehta, 2019, p). “In the case of US settler colonization, land was the primary commodity” (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014, pg. 7).
Unknown to the Native Americans, white leaders wanted to lure settlers into the various areas which reduced the Indian domain and changed their life styles forever. Land ownership served as the tax basis by which the new government was financed. The increased white population reduced hunting grounds. Plans for the development of the new country demanded voters, willing workers, and an infrastructure that was foreign to the Native Americans (Watson, 2011).
While writing this much needed book of reference, there was a struggle to come up with what an honorable race of people should be called. It was decided to use the terms Indian, indigenous, American Indians and Native Ameri-cans. They lived on what is considered the United States thousands of years before the Europeans set foot on the continent. Columbus referred to the people he discovered as Una gente in dios (later referred to as Indians) because he thought of them as children of God that was why the name Indian was considered honorable. The tribal people, who were forced to endure years of abuse, demonstrated vast resilience. Non-tribal people were referred to as Euro-Americans, Anglo-invaders, Americans, and white settlers.
“The term ‘genocide’ was coined by Raphael Lemkin in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, published in 1944. Frank Chalk and Kurt Johassohn summarize Lemkin’s pioneering thinking:
“Under Limkin’s definition, genocide was the coordinated and planned annihilation of a national, religious, or racial group by a variety of actions aimed at undermining the foundations essential to the survival of the group as a group. Lemkin conceived of genocide as ‘a composite of different acts of persecution or destruction.’ His definition included attacks on political and social institutions, culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of the group. Even nonlethal acts that undermined the liberty, dignity, and personal security of members of a group constituted genocide if then contributed to weakening the viability of the group. Under Lemkin’s definition, acts of ethnocide – a term coined by the French after the war to cover the destruction of a culture without the killing of its bearers – also qualified as genocide” (Stannard, 1992, pg. 279).
Three types of genocide occurred at the hands
of the Euro-Americans and Americans against the Native American people. Physical
genocide, which included direct and immediate extermination, consisted of mass
killings such as the Wounded Knee Massacre or slow death measures such as
starvation, lack of medical care and hard physical labor. Biological genocide
involved involuntary sterilization, compulsory abortion, segregation of the
sexes and obstacles to marriage and exposure to deadly diseases. Cultural
genocide encompassed forcing individuals to take on another persona unlike
their own, forced exiles of individuals representing the culture of a group,
prohibition of one’s own language, destruction of spiritual and religious
practices and sacred items and locations, and destruction of books associated
with individuals’ culture and language. The Indian boarding schools, General
Allotment Act, and the banning of tribal spiritual practices were some of the
ways the Americans achieved cultural genocide for the Native Americans.
“Manifest Destiny” afforded Anglo-invaders their perceived entitlement to apply
multiple forms of genocidal acts to gain access to land, a precious commodity
(Churchill, 2004).
Settler colonialism, as an institution or
system, usually required violence or the threat of violence to reach its goals
of taking over land. People don’t hand over their land, resources, children or
futures without a fight, and that fight was met with harsh aggression. While
employing the force necessary to accomplish the white settler’s expansionist
goals, the colonizing command instilled blatant force. The belief that both
sides, the white settlers and Native Americans, were equally matched, has
confused the nature of the historical ramifications. The Euro-American soldiers
were often heavily armed and their weaponry was more advanced. Euro-American
colonialism, a part of a capitalist economic globalization effort, had from the
very beginning a genocidal tendency (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014).
The expansion and colonization of the United
States upon tribal land holdings continued throughout the beginning of the
European invasion. “By 1840, with the exception of a handful of tiny Iroquois
reservations in upstate New York and the remaining Seminoles in the Florida
Everglades, the eastern third of what would become the continental United
States had been cleared of its indigenous population. The idea that America
west of the Mississippi was ever seriously intended to be the exclusive domain
of the continent’s native people was belied – even before their removal was
achieved – by the creation of the territories of Missouri (1816), Arkansas
(1819) and Iowa (1838). In 1837, Anglo invaders in Texas fought a war of
secession from Mexico, creating a temporary republic which became a state in
December 1845. Six months later, on June 15, 1846, the United States acquired
the Oregon Territory (present-day Oregon, Washington, and Idaho) from Great
Britain. Two years after, in 1848, the northern half of Mexico – California,
Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and southern Colorado – was taken by force”
(Churchill, 1997, pg. 218). Groups of Odawa, Potawatomi and Ojibwe resided
in Michigan and other northern states
and remained in these areas after the relocation of other tribal groups.
Most settlers and political leaders feared
and misunderstood the Indian people. Many tactics, utilized to solve the
“Indian problem,” such as biological warfare along with other destructive
methods in a long line of historical abuses were used against the Indian
people. An example of biological warfare was the exposure to smallpox
perpetuated against a segment of the population unprepared to fight off its
lethal properties. The unfortunate
people who contracted this virus could expect to have two outcomes: death, or
blindness along with grotesque scars. Once
smallpox found a host in a community, it rampantly took off on its own. The virus was easily transmitted through
exposure to contaminated scabs or dried-out body secretions. Hernando Cortez
introduced the first attack of smallpox genocide in 1519. Unsuspecting Aztecs were the victims. They were given blankets infected with the
virus, and thousands died.
In 1763, many of the Odawa Indians died of
the deadly disease after they returned British soldiers to their post in
Montreal. The British provided the Odawa Indians in Michigan gifts of little
insulated metal boxes. The British instructed them to not open the metal boxes
until the Odawa returned from Montreal to their village near present day
Petoskey, Michigan. Once the metal boxes
were opened, which were filled with small pox spores, the smallpox virus ran
rampant amongst the tribal people in the Odawa villages and thousands lost
their lives. In the dry-pus-form stored in insulated metal boxes, the virus can
maintain its virulence for up to two years. Smallpox can be transferred to
hosts through clothing and bedding, being exposed to cadavers who died from it,
and inhaling the virus. Cremation served as the only definitive way to destroy
the virus.
The recognition of the
arrival and impact of epidemic diseases on the indigenous population has been
studied by many historians. A key concept, linked to the phenomenon of early
outbreaks of pandemics within specific populations, was referred to as “virgin
soil epidemic” (VSE). VSE has occurred when a disease infects a population for
the first time or when enough time has passed in which even the oldest members
of a population have not experienced the disease. No one in the population has
developed an immunity to the disease. It’s what the world has been experiencing
with the Coronovirus (covid19). Death from the initial infections of smallpox
for the Native Americans occurred at as high as 70 percent or more. Survivors
of the original outbreaks remained sick and debilitated for long periods of
times.
Documentation of the
dreadfulness of the aforementioned epidemics did not occur until Europeans took
the time and effort to do so. The death toll was terribly high and damaging for
many Native Americans. Archaeologist Karl Schlesier reported that the mortality
was as high as 90 to 95 percent. Epidemics such as the smallpox epidemic among
the Native Americans took the lives of warriors, child bearers, the young and
the strong, hunters, collectors, the elderly, and the keepers of tribal
knowledge (maintained through oral traditions) perished within a historic
instant such as weeks and/or months. Many memories and a chance for
future generations was erased forever.
Livestock brought into this country by the European settlers have been linked to many lethal diseases existing today such as, but are not limited to, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, small pox and cholera. The history books that defined the outcomes of any war portray the winners by the maneuvers of the generals and their weapons. However, many wars have been won by those who had the most horrible and destructive germs to spread to their foes. The Euro-American germs were so lethal that they decimated up to 95 percent of the Indian population (Diamond, 1999). Unintentional and intentional acts of genocide against the Indian people continued to accomplish the goals of expansionism associated with “Manifest Destiny.”
A multitude of lives were lost on all sides as a result of the unrelenting legacy of various battles and wars. From 1775 to 1791, the Native Americans won 22 battles such as the French Creek expedition. Native American men were fearless fighters, and well-disciplined strategists. The European and Euro-American armies made the mistake of thinking they were undisciplined, unknowledgeable “savages.” Indian warriors became valued, but not completely trusted, and recruited to become allies for Euro-American armies as a part of expansion endeavors (Holms, 1996).
The Declaration of Independence, ratified on July 4th, 1776, included in the Declaration of Independence provisions which involved the “merciless Indian Savages.” While some Indian warriors exhibited extreme and harsh behaviors, Euro-American soldiers were far more brutal. Euro-American soldiers maimed women and children of all ages. Indian babies were even thrown to dogs as food, while they were still alive in front of their mothers. At the same time these atrocities were occurring, the American government continued to take steps to address the “Indian problem” under the pretenses that Indians were solely at fault for all the problems the Euro-Americans were facing.
Treaties served as a
formalized way of securing land holdings for Euro-Americans where Indian people
used to reside. The first treaty was established in 1778 and the last was
enacted in 1871. Congress sent commissioners to assure that treaty documents were
secured with the tribes and the tribes were carrying out their end of the
bargain. These meetings were not based
on equality, they exemplified expansionism and held in a foreign language the
Native American people did not understand. The idea of owning land, a foreign
concept, baffled them. When the settlers wanted to take over the Native
American homelands, Indian people did not know how to place a value on it. They
did not know what a stream or a tract of forest was worth in terms of
gunpowder, iron pots or cloth. They went along with the government treaty
negotiators who wrote on paper what specific land holdings were valued. They
did not understand how that could be determined, considering the change of
seasons and the yield of the hunt. The traders often short changed the
unsuspecting Indian people and to back up their claims they would show them a
statement of accounts. These statements also resembled a foreign language to
them. For example, the Treaty of Paris in 1783 took possession of Indian Territory
from the Atlantic to the Mississippi (Hall, Schaessens, et. Al, 2007). Not all of the 550 federally recognized
tribes established treaties with the federal government (Utter, 1993).
Henry Knox,
Secretary of War, contacted George Washington during the summer of 1789. Knox proposed to Washington that Indian
policy needed further clarification and additional revisions. Indian policy was
customarily under the Articles of Confederation. Knox proposed that Indian tribes
be considered foreign nations. Under the Constitution, authorization was given
to Congress to control all commerce with foreign nations, which caused even
further alienation between the Euro-Americans and the Indian people (Ellis,
2007). Native Americans were considered foreign inhabitants in their own
country of origin.
During the 1790s, the
United States government faced four alternatives concerning Indian policy. These options included extermination;
re-location of Indian tribes to small plots of land, while towns sprouted up
around them; assimilation by transforming them into Christian farmers; or
relocation to unsettled territories west of the Mississippi. President Thomas Jefferson supported
assimilation as the only viable and humane process.
In 1793, Congress gave
authorization to George Washington to provide tribes with domestic animals and
farm tools. Congress sent agents to
demonstrate how to use these tools.
Policymakers were pessimistic about the possible outcomes of these acts
of assimilation. They believed the
Indian people would not accept the Euro-American culture and its value system
and plans were being put into place to quarantine them.
President Jefferson’s
plan encompassed the transfer of the tribal people from the southern states to
northern states. Plantations were set up in the southern states and slaves were
utilized to enhance prosperity for the Euro-Americans by expanding the goods
produced by the wealthy landowners. The land in the south was divided into
territories with a plan to establish states in the future. The lands vacated in the south by the Indians
would be sold to help pay for part of the cost of Louisiana, the Louisiana
purchase.
On July 5, 1803
Meriwether Lewis set off on the well-known Lewis and Clark expedition. William
Clark joined Lewis in October of 1803 in the Indiana territory, across the Ohio
River from Louisville, Kentucky. Jefferson’s plan was to have Lewis inform the
tribes about the election of the new “father” of the United States. Jefferson’s hopes included tribal people
embracing a commercial system, a system which had the potential to benefit
anyone involved in an American economic process which involved capitalism.
Jefferson wanted to establish peace and a trading domain in which the Indian
people would stop their resistance and put down their weapons (Utter, 1993).
In 1803, The Louisiana Purchase included all land west of the Mississippi River and east of the continental divide, which consisted of today’s Louisiana, Arkansas, parts of northeastern Texas, Oklahoma, eastern Colorado and Minnesota. Jefferson received fame and notoriety for his ingenuity and foresight leading to the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Jefferson was relentless with ensuring that these portions of land did not become additions to the British colonies. The Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition served a prominent role in the forming of what was known as the United States (Ambrose, 1996).
William Henry Harrison
put into place an Indian Removal policy in 1809, because Indian people were
thought to lack the capacity to live up to Euro-American standards. He negotiated the treaty of Fort Wayne in
1809, which ceded the majority of land in Indiana and Illinois to the
Euro-American settlers. Harrison was not
going to let a few “wretched savages” get in his way of populating an area that
had the potential to support a large civilized population. He backed up his convictions with a large
military garrison. Harrison became the governor of the Northwest Territories
and then was elevated to one of the highest honors when he was elected as the 9th
president of the United States (Sugden, 1997).
Contrary to how
Harrison despised the Indian people, he did recognize the power and respect
held by the Shawnee leader, Tecumseh. He
gave careful consideration to this fearless leader. Harrison paid this tribute to Tecumseh:
“The implicit
obedience and respect which the followers of Tecumseh pay to him is really
astonishing, and more than any other circumstance bespeaks him on those uncommon
geniuses, which spring up occasionally to produce revolutions and overturn the
established order of things. If it were not for the vicinity of the United
States, he would, perhaps, be the founder of an empire that would rival in
glory that of Mexico or Peru. No difficulties deter him. His activity and
industry supply the want of letters. For
four years he has been in constant motion. You see him today on the Wabash and
in a short time you hear of him on the shores of Lake Erie or Michigan, or on
the banks of the Mississippi, and wherever he goes he makes an impression
favorable to his purposes” (Sugden, 1997, page 215).
The U.S. government continued to find ways to address the “Indian Problem.” Congress passed a bill in 1819 to establish a “civilization fund,” which allotted ten thousand dollars for agricultural and literacy instruction of the Indian people. Those, who were in agreement with participating with this instruction, were provided assistance by missionaries. These missionaries served dual roles. First and foremost, they wanted to Christianize the Indian people. Secondly, they provided instruction to them about the proper customs required to obtain citizenship. Missionary sponsored farms and households were popping up in various locations in the country. These served as models of acceptable values and customs for Indian people to copy (Nies, 1996).
During the 1820s, Henry Schoolcraft
visited the Ojibwe tribes and traveled with some of Indian men.
He was impressed with the wisdom of the tribal people and the detailed
pictographs left behind by them at each area visited. The Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun
recommended Schoolcraft to the Michigan Territorial Governor, Lewis Cass, to
assist with an expedition. The mission
was to explore the land surrounding Lake Superior. Schoolcraft served as a
geologist on the expedition.
Beginning in 1822, Schoolcraft conducted ethnological
research while he was appointed the Indian agent at Sault Ste. Marie,
Michigan. He learned the Ojibwe language
from his wife, Jane Johnston, who happened to be of Ojibwe and Scottish/Irish
descent. Schoolcraft’s admiration for the native people quickly dissipated once
he discovered that it would be more profitable to support the actions of Andrew
Jackson. He took steps to obliterate the very same people who were connected to
his wife’s family, the Ojibwe people. One of the ways he did so was he took a
portion of their written works and rewrote them to erase some of the Indian
history. Schoolcraft also had a strong desire to obtain notoriety for his own
written works. He went on to implement the Treaty of Washington which took a
large portion of land away from the Ojibwe and Odawa people (Bremer, 1987).
The United States government has had long
established mechanisms in place empowering those in authority to have control
over the actions and resources of the general population. Public laws become enforced legislation
through the actions of contradictory parties of a two-party system, divergent
priorities, and confrontational approaches. Laws governing the masses resulted
in enforced legislation. The federal government strived to avoid the pitfalls
of what happened in Europe with regards to land ownership and utilitarian form
of leadership. Land in Europe was controlled by landlords. The giving of
parcels of land to settlers created a country comprised of independent
citizens.
“All
for the public good” were the politicians’ claims in their effort to hide their
and their supporters’ self-serving agendas.
When Andrew Jackson was elected president of the United States, he was
supported by the wealthiest men in the south.
The land in which the Cherokee, Choctaw, and other tribes resided was
targeted by wealthy entrepreneurs who wanted to expand their cotton plantations
(Nies, 1996). Jackson despised the Indian people and did not defend Indian
rights. He openly rejected federal treaty obligations. Jackson pushed for the
Indian Removal Act, which was passed by Congress in 1830. This act gave the
President the privilege of selecting the tribes to be removed and he was
provided the financing for such removals.
Seeds of greed and hatred fueled these acts of genocide and
discrimination and the joint collaboration falsely justified the takeover of
the Indian people’s land enforced by Jackson and the rich land owners.
Jackson’s
agents bribed, used deception and threatened individual Indian people and
groups to accomplish the President’s goals. Records were falsified. Tribal
leaders for the Cherokee nation resisted their removal from their tribal lands
at the state and federal level. In 1831, the tribe won their case due to their
independent sovereign nation rights. Their victory was the result of Chief
Justice John Marshall’s legal expertise.
However, Jackson was not going to let this setback deter him from his
goal of Indian removal from the southeastern portion of the country.
The Choctaw nation was
the first to be removed from their ancestral land in Mississippi during the
winter of 1831. Several groups were
pressed to travel through blizzards and subzero temperatures. Many of these
individuals were without foot coverings and were malnourished from lack of
food. One blanket was allotted to each family. The Creek nation was driven off
their land in Alabama in 1836 in the same fashion, except many were in chains.
1837 marked the first year of the Cherokee ejection and the historic “Trail of
Tears.” In the same cruel way, the Cherokee nation lost approximately
one-quarter to one-half of their tribal people during the deadly march to
Oklahoma (Nobokov, 1992).
In 1836, in support of President Jackson’s efforts, Henry
Schoolcraft resolved disputes over land with the Ojibwe and Odawa tribes. He
employed tribal leadership to bring about the 1836 Treaty of Washington. The
aforementioned tribes surrendered to the United States government a
considerable amount of land, more than 13 million acres, which was worth
millions of dollars. Schoolcraft believed these native people would be better
off learning how to farm. Government officials established a subsidy system
through which they were given supplies during the transition period from
hunting to farming (Nobokov, 1992).
By the 1840s, the
American boundary reached the Pacific Ocean.
Indian people were considered to be of heathen nature since they did not
farm the land they lived on. Reservations served as a dumping ground for the Indian
people. The population of these unfortunate people was numbered at only a few
hundred thousand, reduced from millions when the Europeans first set foot on
the Western Hemisphere (Ellis, 2007).
The mid 1840s was a turning point concerning
the ideals of expansionism in the United States. Seeds were planted to adopt the principles of
expansionism by John Adams and John C. Calhoun during the development of the
original Constitution, after the war of 1812 and further propagated by John L.
O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan formally proposed
the phrase “Manifest Destiny.” “Manifest Destiny” involved the expansion of
United States territory, which was considered prearranged by the divine, and
European immigrants were to be the beneficiaries. These beliefs further
justified the takeovers of Indian resources, such as water, land, timber,
silver, gold and other valuable reserves. The expansion included a massive move
westward to form a larger civilized land base for those who participated in the
acts of freedom described by the federal government.
“Manifest Destiny” made its public debut in the Democratic Review in the July and August 1845 issues. O’Sullivan founded the Democratic Review and was a co-founder of the New York Morning News. During this time period, he was considered a scholar, visionary, as well as a politician, adventurer, and literary artist. With popularity on his side, the concept he advocated took hold of the American public like a storm.
Without government sanction, the practice of
slave ownership of Native Americans continued for many years after California
became an American possession. Free labor was becoming more and more scarce.
Abducting and making slaves out of the Indian people seemed like a good idea.
It became even more prominent after the “Emancipation Proclamation” and after
Lincoln won the Civil War. Many African American people felt they were trapped
by their captors out of fear of not being able to feed themselves. Many of the
African American people ended up serving as indentured servants alongside the
Native American people. California’s Indians, who suffered a lot of losses due
to the gold rush and the Spanish invasion, ended up serving as complacent
slaves. It was discovered that they
“…make as obedient and humble slaves as the negroes in the south” (Stannard,
1992, pg. 142). This comment came from a New Orleans cotton broker. A ranch
owner claimed they were even better than the blacks. They accepted their
situation with more humility (Stannard, 1992).
The discovery of the docility of Native American children led to a thriving business of hunting and capturing Indian children. Newspapers reported sightings of white men leading Native American children on back-country roads to the slave markets located in Sacramento and San Francisco. The slave economy depended on the quality of the slaves, sometimes the prices climbed as high as $200. per slave. Indian boys and girls aged three and four years sold for fifty dollars each. The shortage of women in California at the time jacked up the price for girls, sometimes twice as much as an Indian boy. The parents of the Indian children proved to be a nuisance. The prospect of losing their children created a fear of going to the reservations. Being on the reservations did lead to many of the parents losing their children. The slave traders murdered the parents when they tried to save them from being abducted. The killing of the Indian parents permitted the slave traders to call their charges “orphans” which gave them freedom from contradiction, from being denied the right of sale. When Indian adults made the attempt to seek justice for the murders, they discovered the law of the land prohibited them from testifying against white people. Slavery ended up being the demise of a multitude of Native Americans of all ages
The Euro-American infringement of tribal lands continued during the gold strikes of 1858 in Colorado, which offset the equilibrium of the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes who resided in that area. The government, in their effort to appease the white settlers, moved the two tribes to small reservations. These encroachments triggered the eruption of a bloody war that ensued until 1865. The white man’s greed for gold led to even more threats to other tribal nations such as the Santee Sioux nation to the north. In 1867, Congress organized a Peace Commission to cease the Sioux War which ensued due to the invasion of their land (Nies, 1996).
Geronimo, Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and thousands of their Indian comrades evaded and fought U.S. troops in the effort to hold onto their land and its resources. The U.S. Army continued to unwisely think the Indian people lacked the sophistication to be a threat. In 1866, an incident took place that came to be known as the Fetterman Massacre. Crazy Horse, Hump and Little Wolf were the leaders of a decoy group. They managed to trick the soldiers quite easily into following them. Several warriors ambushed and killed 81 troops (Nies, 1996).
The 1860s was a busy
time in the United States which included the building the transcontinental
railroad and the Bosque Redondo experiment. During the time of the Sand Creek
Massacre, the Union Soldiers and Confederate Soldiers were heavily engaged in
the American Civil War which had served as a defining event in the history of
the U.S. 10,000 battles were fought between 1861 and 1865 across the continent,
from Vermont to the New Mexico Territory, and beyond. The war started when
the Confederates attacked Union soldiers at Fort
Sumter, South Carolina on
April 12, 1861. The war ended in Spring of1865 when Robert
E. Lee surrendered the
last major Confederate army to Ulysses
S. Grant at Appomattox
Courthouse on April 9,
1865.
The Civil War was fought
in thousands of different places, from southern Pennsylvania to Texas; from New
Mexico to the Florida coast, the majority of the fighting took place in the
states of Virginia and Tennessee. While many still debate the
ultimate causes of the Civil War, Pulitzer Prize-winning author
James McPherson writes "The Civil War started because of uncompromising
differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national
government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become
states. When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican
president on a platform, he pledged to keep slavery out of the territories.
Seven slave states in the deep South seceded and formed a new nation, the
Confederate States of America. The incoming Lincoln administration and most of
the northern people refused to recognize the legitimacy of the secession. They
feared that it would discredit democracy and create a fatal precedent that
would eventually fragment the no-longer United States into several small,
squabbling countries"(American Battlefield Trust, N.D., paras. 1 – 10).
The U.S. government was very busy putting out major fires, primarily in the eastern
part of the country.
In 1868, three years after the civil war ended, federal officials implemented a second Fort Laramie Treaty that established geographic boundaries for the Lakota reservation. This treaty ensured that encroachments would not occur within these boundaries. Ranchers, settlers, miners and others would be prevented from stepping foot on this land. However, the treaty was dismissed soon after its inception when miners wanted to tap into the “Black Hills gold.” Cattle ranchers, railroad companies, and farmers followed suit and claimed additional parcels of land defined in the treaty as trust land.
The nation became interconnected by the
construction of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. Before Lincoln’s death he was the driving force
behind this project. The building of the railroad was considered a pivotal
accomplishment. Government officials set up a system of military forts to
provide security to the railroads and their associated municipalities. Before
the completion of the railroads, railroad companies lobbied for free land with
Congress. Congress endowed them with considerable expanses of tribal lands.
Every acre of land that was given to these companies interfered with access to
land, water, and game for the Indian people.
The transcontinental railroad stretched from Omaha, Nebraska, to Sacramento, California. Chinese men predominantly worked on the Central Pacific Railroad, and Irish men worked primarily on the Union Pacific. These immigrants numbered up to 15,000 at any given time during the construction of these railroads. Captive and free Indian men were also enlisted to work on the railroads (Ambrose, 2000).
In 1871, Congress began the process of
dismissing all federal treaties. Many of
the tribal people were forced to live on useless arid plots of land, suffering
slow agonizing deaths due to starvation. Related to the construction of the
railroad and the development of reservations was the disappearance of bison
herds. Bison served as the main source of sustenance for the Plains Indians and
also furnished meat for the railroad builders. An industrialized market was
established for bison hides. Eastern hunters and sportsmen from Europe visited
the plains to hunt the bison before the herds became depleted.
Before 1874, three main herds of bison were
known to trek from Texas to Canada annually. By 1876 bison hunters contracted
by the federal government had annihilated all three herds. The needless
slaughter of bison destroyed the balance with nature the Indian people had maintained
by taking only what was needed for food, clothing, and shelter. Starvation
became unavoidable. This extreme suffering led to the surrender of the Lakota
people, one of the most powerful tribes of the northern Great Plains, to the
American military forces during the winter of 1877.
In 1885, the Major Crimes Act was enacted by
Congress.
“…Sec.9.
Then immediately upon and after the date of the passage of this act all
Indians, committing against the person or property of another Indian or other person
any of the following crimes, namely, murder, manslaughter, rape, assault with
intent to kill, arson, burglary, larceny within any territory of the United
States, in either within or without an Indian reservation, shall be subject
therefore to the laws of such territory relating to set crimes, and shall be
tried therefore in the same courts in the same manner and shall be subject to
the same penalties as are all other persons charged with the commission of set
crimes, respectively; and the said courts are hereby given jurisdiction in all
such cases; and all such Indians committing any of the above crimes against the
person or property of another Indian or other person within the boundaries of
any state of the United States, with the limits of any Indian reservation,
shall be subject to the same laws, tried in the same courts and in the same
manner, and subject to the same penalties as are all other persons committing
any of the above crimes within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United
States.”
“To prevent a recurrence of cases like the
murder of Spotted Tail by Crow Dog, in which the murderer was set free because
the federal courts had no jurisdiction over crimes committed by one Indian
against another within Indian country, Congress declared that seven major
crimes committed by Indians on reservations would fall under the jurisdiction
of the United States courts. This was a major encroachment upon traditional
tribal autonomy” (Prucha, 2000).
In the past, Indian people doled out corrective actions for behaviors that were considered of a criminal nature against other tribal members and their property. The corrective actions were embraced as a deeply entrenched cultural practice that maintained order and peace within the tribal villages. For example, when someone was killed either intentionally or unintentionally, the family of the lost one made the determination of what was to happen to the one who committed the crime. The family would adopt the guilty party into their family to replace the person who was killed or the family would put the person to death to avenge their family member’s death. It was the family’s decision. When the federal government took over this responsibility, it threw off balance of an organized system of governance.
Along
with the beginning of the boarding and residential school era, the year 1887
was another turning point for Native American people. Congress passed the
General Allotment Act, also known as the Dawes Act, because Henry Dawes was its
chief supporter. President Grover Cleveland signed this act.
“An
act to provide for the allotment of land in severalty to Indians on the various
reservations, and to extend the protection of the laws of the United States in
the territories over the Indians, and for other purposes.
“Be
it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled. That in all cases where any tribe or band of
Indians has been, or shall hereinafter be, located upon any reservation created
for their use, either by treaty stipulations are by virtue of an act of
Congress or executive order setting apart the same for other for their use, the
president of the United States be, and he thereby is, authorized, where
whenever and his opinion any reservation or any part thereof of such Indians is
at advantageous for agriculture and grazing purposes, to cause said
reservation, or any part thereof, to be surveyed, or re-surveyed if necessary,
and to allow the lands in said reservation in severalty to any Indian located thereon…”
(Prucha, 2000).
The
General Allotment Act afforded the President the ability to distribute quarter
sections (160 acres) of Indian reservation lands to each Indian person who was
the head of a household. Bachelors over eighteen years of age received an
eighth section. Those who accepted these allotments were required to live on
their homesteads away from their fellow tribesmen. Another advantage to this
initiative was to extend citizenship to the Native Americans as legal
landowners. Therefore, Indian land could be and was taxed (Nies, 1996).
The
Dawes Act was strongly enforced in Michigan. Any reservation land that was not
appropriated to Indian people went to the Euro-Americans. The Dawes Act was a
part of the assimilation process which involved detribalization that caused
Indian people to lose their tribal identities and thus, become American
citizens. The “Indian problem” would fade away because Indian people would
disappear into the fabric of American society and be a part of the large tapestry.
The allotment process, which lasted two decades, caused long-lasting dependency
and resentment by the Indian people and served as a catalyst for the
accomplishment of the goals set forth by “Manifest Destiny.”
Another
historical event that has caused long lasting traumatic effects for the Lakota
people occurred during the month of December in 1890, a few days after
Christmas. A band of approximately 300 Lakota men, women and children were
ordered to travel almost 150 miles through inclement weather without adequate
food and clothing to the Pine Ridge Agency. After these unfortunate people were
held captive by the American military upon reaching their destination, they
were murdered in cold blood. The United States government awarded 18 of the
soldiers, who participated in this mass slaughter, the Congressional Medal of
Honor for shooting mostly children and women, some of the women were pregnant.
This incident was known as the Wounded Knee Massacre (Holms, 1996). Indian
people continued to be plagued with additional hardships during the Twentieth
Century.
For
centuries federal laws have been affecting various sectors of the population in
a variety of ways and have exerted control over the actions and resources of the
entire population either directly or indirectly. Many governmental agencies put into place to
serve the Indian population had a hand in various acts of discrimination,
assimilation and genocide including the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).
During the early 1900s, the BIA worked at coercing tribal people to become peaceful farmers and adopting their white neighbor’s morality and need for materialism. A BIA directive denounced the Sun Dance and other spiritual ceremonies. Strong spiritual connections were associated with these ceremonies and provided a healthy balance within tribal communities. The ability to practice these sacred ceremonies was not legally reinstated until 1978 (Churchhill, 1997).
In 1924, Congress implemented the “Citizen
Act.” Indian people were made citizens
of their own country. This act came with high costs such as the taxes that were
imposed which led to the loss of a vast amount of tribal land. During the next
three decades, the BIA continued to break up parcels of communally held land
which was allotted to Euro-Americans.
Euro-American businessmen repeated the behavior of “Manifest Destiny”
fanatics, took advantage of unsuspecting tribal people and leased or bought
approximately two million acres per year of land that originally belonged to
the Native Americans (Churchhill, 1997).
By 1928, most Indian
people were living in poverty. That same year, Lewis Meriam conducted his
historical study. His report indicated the vast majority of Indian people
suffered from a lack of health care and educational opportunities. The
Euro-American economic and social standards were of no benefit to them. The
“Great Depression” was another hardship. Policy makers continued to ignore the
needs of tribal people even after the Meriam report was publicized.
During the late 1940s,
the government decided to continue to coerce the tribal people from their lands
and communities for various reasons. One reason was the costs allotted to
provide financial support for Indian people. Another reason involved the
clearing of reservations for purposes of mining. The overarching reason was to
continue the process of assimilation.
In spite of these acts
of discrimination, Indian men continued to “fight the white man’s wars.” “According to John Collier, then Commissioner
of Indian Affairs, there were 7,500 American Indians in the armed forces as of
June 1942, less than six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. By October of that year, another observer
reported that the number of Native Americans in the military had risen to well
over 10,000. By 1944 almost 22,000, not
counting those who had become officers.
At the war’s end, there were over 25,000 Native Americans scattered throughout
the military services, with the bulk of them in the U.S. Army” (Holms, 1996,
page 104).
Native Americans primarily fought in the American wars because they linked being a warrior with honor, and because they felt they were upholding what the Indian people promised in treaties; however, the Americans did not honor treaty obligations.
During the 1950s and early 1960s, a massive termination effort was conducted, which was reflected by governmental policies. During this time, 13 tribes lost their federal recognition status. Loss of status involved the disappearance of federal protections and services along with their trust status. The Menominee tribe in Wisconsin and Klamath in Oregon were the largest tribes to fall prey to this calamity. When tribes lost their trust status, it meant these tribal entities had to pay taxes. In order to pay these taxes, they had to start selling off their land. Their reserved land bases shrunk immensely, which continued to support the goals set forth by “Manifest Destiny” (Dewing, 2000).
Beginning in 1952, federal policymakers passed legislation that allowed the storing of highly radioactive waste by-products from the mining of uranium primarily in reservation areas. Mining was also conducted in reservation areas in spite of massive amounts of ore deposits located in other locations. Maximization of profits for energy corporations served as the motive for these mining practices. The Navajo, Lugunas and other tribal communities were exposed to highly carcinogenic and mutagenic agents as a result of these mining maneuvers. The storage of nuclear waste has continued to occur on reservations such as the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico, in the Yucca Mountain area, and the Navajo treaty land base (Churchhill, 1997).
The American Indian Movement (AIM),
created in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1968, served as a means of protecting the
rights of Indian people. This movement replaced an anti-poverty program based
in Minneapolis.
Many Vietnam veterans returned to
the United States and found an unbearable situation and became members of AIM.
The majority of Indian people were still living in poverty. Vietnam veterans
who experienced “cognitive dissonance” as a result of fighting in that war
turned their psychological distress into political activism. The term
“cognitive dissonance” refers to when people’s values and beliefs turn out to
be drastically different from the realities he or she was experiencing (Holms,
1996).
Many
Indian men fought in wars because they felt they were upholding requirements
set forth by treaties between their tribes and the U.S. government. “Why was I
fighting to uphold a U.S. treaty commitment halfway around the world when the
United States was violating its treaty commitments to my own people and about
300 other Indian nations?. I was fighting the wrong people, pure and simple…”
(Holms, 1996, page 175).
According
to Indian activists, the government was continuing to instill policies
associated with sadistic national colonialism. Native Americans were openly
questioning termination, and relocation which resulted in extreme levels of
poverty and other serious issues that has existed and continued to exist on
reservations. AIM became a part of a crusade process that strived to restore
treaty rights, and change the educational system. Under the educational system,
Indian people were taught self-hatred, and the goal of AIM was to reestablish
and safeguard tribal identity (Holms, 1996).
In 1969, more than 300 Native Americans took over
Alcatraz Island at San Francisco Bay.
“…Indians occupied and claimed the abandoned federal property on the
presumed stipulation put in an Indian treaty that said abandoned federal lands
would revert to Indian ownership… A Sioux treaty of 1868 did indeed contain a
provision stating that abandoned American forts would revert to Indian
ownership, but only a few of the activists were Sioux and none were duly
elected tribal officials who could take administrative control of the property
in the name of the tribe. Still, the
takeovers continued, if for no other reason than to publicize the revival of
Indian activism and notify whites that Indians were going to assert their tribal
rights wherever and whenever possible” (Holms, 1996, page 173).
In
September 1971 approximately 60 Indian people, led by Russell Means, descended
upon the BIA’s Washington office to confront Wilma Victor, a past headmistress
of the Intermountain Boarding School near Brigham City, Utah. She served as Deputy BIA Commissioner, and
this new role was considered a conflict of interest. AIM representatives felt she may not support
the needs of the Native Americans (Dewing, 2000).
In
1972, Indian activists organized a massive march on Washington, D.C., known as
the Trail of Broken Treaties. The caravan was to form on the West Coast and
wind its way across the nation picking up followers as it went. The caravan
arrived in Washington during the final week of the presidential campaign.
Native Americans poured into the city. The bulk of them assembled at the Bureau
of Indian Affairs building to await word regarding where they were to be housed
during their stay at the capital.
Eventually they were told they were to be housed in the Department
auditorium.
As
they were leaving the BIA, guards began to push a number of people out the
door. The young protesters turned on the guards and seized the building. The
occupation of the BIA building lasted for nearly a week before the Indian
people agreed to leave. In return, the
federal government agreed not to prosecute the protesters” (Holms, 1996). For
many years federal agents conducted secret missions to discredit and eventually
put behind bars the entire leadership of the American Indian Movement. Today, AIM
is still an active advocate for Native American rights.
During the 1970s an organization called the Indian Health
Service (IHS), established to provide services to Indian people, implemented
sterilization services for Indian women.
This program resulted in involuntary and oftentimes uninformed
sterilization of 42 percent of all Indian women of childbearing age, in an
attempt to decrease the Indian population and as part of the genocide efforts.
The sterilization program was ceased in 1976. During the same time period,
approximately 13,000 Navajos residing in the Big Mountain region in Arizona
were removed from this land base to make way for the Peabody Coal Company
(Churchhill, 1997).
The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was passed by Congress on November 8, 1978 and was signed by President Carter after numerous hearings were held in the Senate to cover all issues regarding the status of Indian people in the United States. The most significant discovery from these hearings was the high percentage of Indian families that were disrupted by the removal of their children by private and public agencies. The purpose of this act was to protect the best interests of Indian children and support the permanence of tribal communities and families. However, child abuse and neglect continued to occur at higher rates for tribal children than for the rest of the population (Renick, 2018).
During the 1980s, Inuit children residing on the oil rich
North Slope in Alaska served as guinea pigs for field testing hepatitis
vaccines, which happened to be banned by the World Health Organization (WHO)
from international distribution due to a possible link to the transmission of
Human-immunodeficiency (HIV) microbes. When Alaskan parents refused to allow
further inoculation, the field tests were transferred to the lower 48 states,
and the unfortunate targets were reservation children. The profits of two major
pharmaceutical corporations were connected to this study (Churchhill, 1997).
In
order for tribal people to access services, such as medical care and food
subsidies provided by the federal government, they need to present
identification cards to prove their tribal lineage. This created another
dilemma faced by many Indian people. A definition needed to be developed by the
various tribal and governmental entities in order to determine who would share
the benefits of tribal membership.
Blood quantum issues have created dissention amongst Native Americans. To define what it meant to be Indian, not only predicated biological factors, but a cultural sense and feeling of belonging to a distinct tribal nation. Historically, Indian people welcomed anyone into their tribal community who wished to participate in their cultural practices. This interference by governmental officials created further alienation within tribal communities, due to preserving and securing tribal benefits as a means of survival. The idea of blood quantum has been based on the quantitative approach to determining tribal membership that dates from the early nineteenth century. The determination of tribal identification, loss of tribal lands and other cruel and harsh treatment continued to cause many problems for Indian people.
The Native American population suffered a great loss concerning their population as a result of the genocidal tactics of the Euro-Americans and Americans, almost near complete annihilation. For example, between the time of initial contact of the European invaders to close to the 17th century most of the eastern Indian people in the areas of Virginia and New England lost approximately 95% of their population. The eradication did not stop. After the aforementioned time period, the native population drop an additional 93% from 1685 to 1790. In Eastern North and South Carolina, the decline in population from 1685 to 1790 dropped 91%. In Florida the native population dropped 88%. By the end of the 18th century in all of eastern Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Louisiana combined, only 5000 Native Americans remained. In 1520 in Florida, there were approximately 700,000 Indians, only 2,000 survived after the holocaust. In western Arizona and eastern New Mexico, within 50 years about half of the Zuni, two-thirds of the Acoma, and 80% of the Hopi people had been erased. 90% of the Upper Missouri River Mandan lost their lives in less than a year’s time. Approximately, 100,000 Native Americans lost their lives during the California Gold Rush. Entire tribal nations disappeared or were almost completely annihilated across the entire continental United States due to genocidal efforts (Stannard, 1992).
After over 500-year relationship
between Native Americans and the white settlers, it is a miracle that there are
5.2 million American Indians and Alaska Native people who live in America today
with 573 federally recognized tribal nations. Each tribal nation has
distinctive histories of colonization since the first European contact. One
common denominator to this day is that tribal members believe that the United
States must honor treaties. The U.S. government signed 370 treaties with a
multitude of tribal nations from 1778 to 1871. The language may differ
concerning treaties, however, common features exist with each one: a guarantee
of peace; definition of land boundaries; preserved hunting and fishing rights;
and protection against domestic and foreign foes. Native American requests must
be paramount for the U.S. government. The Land Pact Rights Act has revealed
that the entire state of Oklahoma may belong to the Cherokee and other tribal
nations. Treaties represented the “Supreme Law” of the United States that many
tribal nations were essentially forced to sign or felt they had no other
alternative actions (Taylor, 2019).
“Our people had agreed to these
treaties in the hopes of finding reprieve from the genocide that was being
perpetrated against us by the … government and citizens. Some of my own family
members signed these treaties, and later they would tell stories about how
hard-fought these negotiations were and how they struggled to reconcile what
they had to compromise in order to protect future generations and to protect
our lands… When tribes would come to the table to negotiate treaties, they
weren’t thinking only about many generations into the future. Their
negotiations were about relationship, responsibility, respect, and reciprocity”
(Taylor, 2019, para. 13).
Although the U.S. government started securing treaties with tribal nations in 1778, a Congressional Act dated September 16, 1776 guaranteed guidelines concerning the granting of lands of 100 to 500 acres. The land was termed “bounty land” for the military enlisted in the Continental Army to fight in the American Revolution (Powell, 2019).
The new country did not have a
solid mechanism in place to have a cohesive federal government until 1787. “So
after Congress adjourned in early 1787, delegates from twelve states converged
on Philadelphia. Their mission was to create a stronger federal government. The
participants included future presidents George Washington and James Madison;
Alexander Hamilton, who did more to shape the US government than most
presidents; and Benjamin Franklin, the most famous American in the world. As
May ended, they went into Independence Hall, closed the shutters, and locked
the doors. By the time they emerged in late summer they had created the US
Constitution, a plan for welding thirteen states into one federal nation. Once
it was approved by the states, its centralizing framework would finally give
Congress the authority it needed to carry out the functions of a national
government: collecting revenue, protecting borders, extinguishing states’
overlapping claims to western territory, creating stable trade policy, and
regulating the economy… (Baptist, 2014, pg. 9).
Importance was placed on the economy and many actions taken against the Native Americans were based on the federal funds of the United States. For example: President Lincoln pushed for the creation of the Transcontinental Railroad to aid the nation with transporting goods back and forth from sea to shining sea. Many Native Americans lost their lives as a result of the railroad because the American soldiers murdered many Native Americans to secure the building of the railroads, the decimation of the buffalo and many were forced onto reservations where they faced starvation. As early as the fur trading days, fur-traders took advantage of the Native Americans by the introduction of alcohol in which many native people used to mask the pain of the European invasion. The Europeans introduced a market economy to the western hemisphere which has caused many to suffer from its greedy grip.
The introduction of the term
“Manifest Destiny” supported the white settler belief that they had the divine
right and privilege to pursue the takeover of all land and resources between
the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans or what is known today as the United States.
Their beliefs were supported by the federal government, U.S. military, and by
Roman Catholic Popes. As a result, tribal people throughout the United States
have had to work diligently to rebuild their tribal governments and begin to
regain a sense of balance after they have been victimized over and over again
by acts of discrimination, assimilation, and genocide. In spite of the social
welfare programs put into place to address the problems Indian people have been
facing, many still experience the social ills of domestic violence, substance
abuse, child abuse and neglect more than any other segment of the population.
Land represented life, granted to the Native Americans by the Creator, to
provide food and a place to live for their families which was taken away by
greedy Anglo-invaders.
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