, Research Paper
The Effects of the United States Government on the Indians
“The responsibility of any nation, and the particular
responsibility of elected officials of any nation, is not to justify
what has passed for legality but to anticipate the conditions
and problems of tomorrow and attempt to deal with them. The
current confusion and violence in Indian Country are a result
of the failure to do so by generations of elected officials in this
country. To continue to perpetuate myths about American
Indians which have no basis in fact or in law is merely
avoiding the larger issues confronting the nations of the
world,” said author Vine Deloria, Jr. (Deloria, Prologue) The
United States government failed miserably in its attempt to
deal with the Indians. By pushing them further and further
West, they pushed the Indians to hate and distrust the white
man to the point of war. These wars resulted in hundreds of
white deaths. However, the wars resulted in the destruction of
several entire Indian tribes and the near extinction of Indian
spirit throughout America. The tale is a sad one, one that
Americans should not be proud of. After every broken treaty,
the Americans blamed the Indians for existing, despite the
want of the Indians to simply live on their lands peacefully.
The “Trail of Tears” was a great tragedy and many thought it
would be the last now that all of the Indians were out of the
eastern United States. But the U.S. government became land
hungry and due to their idealism of “Manifest Destiny,” the
“Trail of Tears” was only a starting point on the path to the
destruction of the Indians of the West. By 1850 gold had been
discovered in California, and white settlers were heading
West to strike it rich and lay claim to the entire continent.
(Utley and Washburn, page 163) New violence erupted as the
white man moved into Indian hunting grounds. Ten percent of
the Diggers in California met death violently. In 1846,
California was home to 100,000 Indians. By 1851, the
population had dropped to 30,000. (Utley and Washburn,
164)”That a war of extermination will continue to be waged
until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected,” said
California governor in 1851. (Utley and Washburn, 179)
Under the ideals of Tom Fitzpatrick, United States Indian
Agent, the U.S. government decided it didn’t only want to
separate the whites and the Indians, but also intended to
restrict them to specified areas known as reservations.
Nineteenth century removal and reservation policies reduced
Indian lands to mere islands in the stream of American
settlement. Reservations themselves were largely unwanted
or remote environments of little value. (Lewis, 1) The policy
makers did not only want to control the Indians, but civilize
them as well. The chiefs are thought to have agreed to these
treaties not because they understood the provisions, but
because a U.S. treaty tactic was to bribe them with a stock of
presents waiting to be distributed after the signing. (Deloria,
177) War was also threatened if the Indians did not sign. Most
of the time, the Indians ignored the treaties, not truly
understanding the motives of the whites to tell them what they
could and could not do. Moreover, just as the Indian chiefs
could not make their people obey these treaties, the U.S.
government could not make their own countrymen respect the
treaties. “It must certainly appear evident that something must
be done to keep those Indians quiet and nothing short of an
efficient military force stationed in their country will do this,”
warned Fitzpatrick. (Utley and Washburn, 195) The U.S.
government began forcing the Indians onto reservations.
Sometimes they would simply kill them with no warning such
as the killing of 224 Shoshones in the Battle of Bear River in
Montana, 1862. (Utley and Washburn, 201) The Apaches and
the Navajos experienced a similar fate. With nothing left, and
all their warriors dead, the reluctantly gave into the U.S.
government. One by one, the tribes were tricked into trusting
the white man. This trust almost always resulted in death for
the Indians. However, under the direction of President Grant,
Ely Parker or Donehogwa, a Seneca Indian, was appointed
the as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. (Brown, 177) Despite
his efforts, the crooked U.S. government could not be
overcome. He could not make peace between the whites and
the Sioux, Cheyenne and other remaining tribes. The Indians
believed it was wrong to sell their land. They believed it was
theirs and a price could not be put on the fields where they
lived, cultivated crops and hunted buffalo. Donehogwa best
summed up Indian dissatisfaction by saying, ” Although this
country was once wholly inhabited by Indians, the tribes, and
many of them once powerful, who occupied the countries now
constituting the states east of the Mississippi, have, one by
one, been exterminated in their abortive attempts to stem the
western march of civilization??If any tribe remonstrated
against the violation of their natural and treaty rights,
members of the tribe were inhumanly shot down and the
whole treated as mere dogs?It is presumed that humanity
dictated the original policy of the removal and concentration of
the Indians in the West to save them from threatened
extinction.. But today, by reason of the immense
augmentation of the American population, and the extension
of their settlements throughout the entire West, covering both
slopes of the Rocky Mountains, the Indian races are more
seriously threatened with a speedy extermination than ever
before in the history of the country.” (Brown, page 176) The
hate Donehogwa received from men such as William Welsh
and others forced him to resign. Shortly after Donehogwa
resigned, all treaty making powers of the Indians were
revoked. The government believed the U.S. officials
representing the Indians could better adhere to the best
interests of the Indians. The Cheyenne were eventually
overcome and many were slaughtered. The battle can be best
summed up by this account from Little Wolf of the Northern
Cheyenne: “We have been south and suffered a great deal
down there. Many have died of diseases which we have no
name for. Our hearts looked and longed for this country
where we were born. There are only a few of us left, and we
only wanted a little ground, where we could live. We left our
lodges standing and ran away in the night. The troops
followed us. I rode out and told the troops we did not want to
fight, we only wanted to go North and if they would let us
alone we would kill no one. The only reply we got was a
volley. After that we had to fight our way, but we killed none
who did not fire at us first. My brother Dull-Knife took one-half
of the band and surrendered near Fort Robinson?They gave
up their guns, and then the whites killed them all.” (Brown,
331) Before the battles, the Cheyenne numbered in the
10,000s. The Great Cheyenne in their effort to evade
reservation, numbered in the 100s in total in January, 1879.
(Brown, 350) Rumors came to the Sioux that people were
being starved on reservations. Those that did not starve
inherited diseases due to close and unsanitary quarters;
many of the Indians were mocked. The soldiers were thought
of as overseers, not dignified and helpful aides to the Indians.
They would be forced to work. The provisions, clothing and
other goods, promised by the U.S. Government were nowhere
to be found. They were being treated as hostels. The Sioux
would not give into reservation life without a fight. And fight
they did. They killed 224 of General Custer’s men in The
Battle of Little Bighorn, June 25, 1876. But, their victory was
short lived. The betrayal that resulted was sickening. Crazy
Horse, and Ogala Sioux, was assassinated. The Nez Perces
were wiped out and Chief Joseph was said to have died of a
broken heart shortly after.(Brown, 330) The Sioux began
performing a sacred Indian ritual called the Ghost Dance. This
dance gave the Indians hope that the white man would go
away, the near-extinct buffalo would return and Indian life
would be peaceful as it once was. This dance was the idea of
Wovoka, a Paiute Messiah. (Brown, 416) After many battles
between the Sioux and the white men, many Sioux tribes had
been forced onto an anvil-shaped block, 35,000 square miles,
of Dakota land, which was declared worthless by U.S.
surveyors. (Brown, 416) This dance was their only hope. In
July 1881, Sitting bull was forced to bring his people to the
remaining Sioux on this reservation. He could run no more;
his supplies were gone and his people were dying. Sitting Bull
was held prisoner at Fort Randall. (Utley and Washburn, 338)
There were six different Sioux tribes on this land. Under
Newton Edmunds and Samuel Hinman, another treaty was
made with the Indians in which the Indians unknowingly ceded
14,000 square miles of their land back to the U.S.
Government in return for cows and bulls. (Brown, 429)After
this betrayal, the danci
all other activities came to a halt. (Brown, 435) This scared
the white people living in the territories. The soldiers tried to
force the Indians to stop this dance. The soldiers resolved to
arrest Sitting Bull since the dancing was not stopped. In this
attempt, Sitting Bull was shot through the head by an Indian
policeman and killed on his reservation where the soldiers
would “protect him and his people.” (Brown, 438) The Ghost
Dance continued. In fact, it was the only way to let out their
grief over Sitting Bull’s assassination. On December 17, 1890,
troops arrived on the reservation to disarm the men and stop
the frightening activities taking place there. The Indians,
under the direction of Big Foot, were moved to Wounded
Knee Creek. There were 120 men and 230 women and
children. (Brown, 441) The teepees and clothing of the
Indians were searched extensively for weapons. In the
madness, Black Coyote mistakenly shot off his gun. (Brown,
442) Indiscriminate killing from the soldiers followed. One
estimate placed the death toll at 300. There were only 350
Indians in total at Wounded Knee Creek. (Brown, 444) The
remaining 4 men and 47 women and children were sent to an
Episcopal mission church before there were shipped off to a
military prison. Later, some were of the few survivors were
released back onto the reservation. The effects of these
heartless killing were many on the Indians. Many of the tribes
were left without their chiefs and holy men. These were the
men they looked to for guidance and hope. A culture of
Indians that numbered 1,850,000 at the time of Columbus had
dwindled to less that 250,000 at the time of Wounded Knee.
(Zinn, 22) The Indians now had an ultimatum-live out your life
on the reservation or die. Reservation life only deteriorated
and the land the Indians were to live on got smaller and
smaller. In total, tribal leaders were convinced or tricked into
signing 371 treaties up through the 1870s, ceding almost all
of their land to the government. By Supreme Court ruling, the
remaining small tracts constituted “dependent nations.”
(Thurman, 1) While some Indian resistance was crushed by
dramatic massacres, for the most part Indians were subdued
by a combination of disease, alcohol, food rationing, the
cooperation of Indian collaborators, and the theft of Indian
children for boarding schools. (Thurman, 1) The Bureau of
Indian Affairs, until its transfer to the Interior Department, was
part of the War Department. (Thurman, 1) White
homesteaders were used to police the Indian people, while
others came to see them as good trading partners. In 1936,
federal authorities established tribal councils on the
reservations with some traditional forms of government. Many
of the events of the past are still protested and reoccurring
today. By the beginning of the 20th century, Indians controlled
remnants of their former estates. Drought, the Dust Bowl, the
Great Depression and the American market economy led to
an abandonment of Indian agriculture after World War II.
(Lewis, 1) In the 1930s the government instituted livestock
reduction and reseeding procedures to bring value back to
reservation fields. Despite those efforts, most tribes still deal
with overgrazing, erosion and improper land use. In recent
years, modern Indians begin placing needs over older cultural
patterns. These new ideas have put many Indians at odds
with environmentalists. In Nevada, the Bureau of Land
Management chain-clears extensive forests to improve
grazing potential of the land for white permit holders. Of
course, the Shoshone Indians of whom this land “belongs” to
and whose resources are being destroyed have never given
consent to these activities. (Lewis, 2) Some of their
reservation lands contained unseen resources of immense
worth. Many heated environmental debates over the
exploitation and development of that land are still occurring
today. Extensive coal and uranium mining on the Navajo
reservation and mismanagement of these resources has
destroyed large areas of land. Despite the efforts of the
Council of Energy Resource Tribes to balance the use of
natural resources, mining, oil and gas exploration scars
thousands of acres of Indian lands. (Lewis, 2) Sportsmen and
state governments largely debate Indian hunting and fishing
rights. Off-reservation hunting and fishing is already limited.
These regulations hit Native fishermen in the Northwest
particularly hard .In the 1960s; Indian activists staged fish-ins
to publicize the situation. Eventually the case was taken to
court. In United States v. The State of Washington (1974),
Judge George Bolt reaffirmed the rights of Northwest tribes to
harvest fish under the provisions of the 1854 Treaty of
medicine Creek without interference by the State of
Washington. The Boldt Decision restored a measure of Indian
control over their environment and natural resource use.
(Lewis, 3) By 1900, whites actively competed with Indians for
the scarce Western resource, water. In 1908, the Supreme
Court ruled in Winters v. United States that the Indians
reserved the priority water right for present and future use.
Irrigation became widespread with the promise of Indian
self-sufficiency, but many of the projects failed and the land
often ended up in the hands of white settlers who bought the
best Indian lands. (Lewis, 4) Many organizations have been
developed to help get Indians back on their feet such as the
North Dakota Committee for Equality, the Cowboy and Indian
Alliance, and the like. These organizations support treaty
rights, and counters racism through media work and cultural
events. However, the Indian movement is still opposed by
organizations like the Interstate Congress for Equal Rights
and Responsibilities. This Anti-Indian Movement romanticizes
Indians as noble savages resisting big government.
(Thurman, 2) Many Indians sold and continue to sell their
stories to book-writers and moviemakers. Their main goal is to
make people aware that they exist and continue to survive,
despite the apathy and lack of concern they continue to face
from the United State’s government. Small victories have
been won as a result of the stamina of the Indians. In 1924,
the Citizenship Act of 1924 naturalizes Indians born within the
territorial limits of the U.S. (Internet Source 1) In 1934, the
Indian Reorganization Act recognized tribal governments as
sovereign nations. (Internet Source 1) South Dakota governor
George S. Mickelson and representatives of the state’s nine
tribal governments proclaimed 1990 as a Year of
Reconciliation. (Internet Source 1) The greatest effect that the
U.S. government had on the Indians is not one that is easy to
explain. They took something from these people no money,
land, or compensation could ever replace. They broke the
spirit of these people. The government forced them to attempt
to start over. Many live out their lives clinging to the stories of
the past. Life was so simplistic. In some ways, life was a
utopia. The people worked for the food they ate and used all
of the parts of the animals they hunted. All men were equal
and honorable. God was the prime ruler of the lives of all
Indians. Family bonds were strong. Weapons were used only
as mechanisms of defense and for hunting purposes. Of
course, there were wars, and there was crime but nothing like
the wars and crime of today. The people had a sense of worth
and spirit that can’t even be imagined in today’s technological
society. The mountains talked to them and the streams had a
voice and personality. Nature was respected and resources
were used carefully. Nevertheless, even against these
overwhelming odds, the traditional cultures and religions
survived. Technologies and practices adapted to Western
society, but the core values of native peoples remained.
Today, the will to survive and preserve culture and moral
order still lives on in the hearts of Indians. They strongly
believed that harmony between man and the universe couldn’t
be achieved in battle. They still live with a vision of a world
without American dominance. The spirits of those in the past
are believed to live on. They watch over the Indians and
guide them as time passes and the Indians are further
stereotyped as drunks and crooked casino owners. Alas, the
ways of the Indians were replaced. Sacred hunting territories
gave way to railroads and ranches. Buffalo are an animal of
the past and often thought of as an animal of mysticism. Both
the buffalo and the Indian culture are romanticized in movies
that are neither truthful nor accurate. Stereotypes and
prejudices replaced unity and togetherness. Pollution haunts
every city on the planet. Respect of one’s fellow man gave
way to crimes unthought of by the Indians. They lived their
lives honorably. They died honorably. Even despite hardships
and misconceptions, they will continue to live honorably. That
is one thing the government can never take away from them.
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