American Indian Political Activism Essay

The AIM was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota by Dennis Banks and Clyde Bellecourt, mainly to stop the police brutality and other violence going on within the Indian communities. In the 1950’s the United States government had decided to establish a policy that included taking all the land they had given to Native Americans back. This would

The Native American’s were the first known settlers in North America, ten thousand years before Columbus came to the continent. Their origins completely unclear, anthropologists believe there were three to five million Native Americans in North America in the year 1492 (Hoxie and Iverson, 1997). As early as the Revolutionary War in 1775, European settlers started taking note of the Native Americans. Unfortunately, the Native American population plunged significantly in the first decades after their first contact with Europeans. Native Americans were now unprotected and exposed to deadly diseases like smallpox, influenza, and measles which did not previously exist in their society (North American Natives, 2016).

In American Indian Stories, University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London edition, the author, Zitkala-Sa, tries to tell stories that depicted life growing up on a reservation. Her stories showed how Native Americans reacted to the white man’s ways of running the land and changing the life of Indians. “Zitkala-Sa was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition” (back cover) is a great way to show that the author’s stories were based upon actual events in her life as a Dakota Sioux Indian. This essay will describe and analyze Native American life as described by Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian Stories, it will relate to Native Americans and their interactions with American societies, it will

The Native Americans have come across long journey of difficult times since the occupation of their land by European settlers. There are still two sides of a coin- a world of civilization and a world of underdeveloped society in this one country- USA. The paradox is that the constitution which seems to be a model of democracy to many nations of the world lacks a lot for not acting accordingly. Those organized and unorganized struggles of Native Americans were challenged by the heavily armed white majority settlers. This history is among the worst American experience because of the massacre and the violation against human right. In order to be heard, they protest, occupy land, and write books. The Native Americans have raised several

For many tribes of Plains Indians whose bison-hunting culture flourished during the 18th and 19th centuries, the sun dance was the major communal religious ceremony . . . the rite celebrates renewal - the spiritual rebirth of participants and their relatives as well as the regeneration of the living earth with all its components . . . The ritual, involving sacrifice and supplication to insure harmony between all living beings, continues to be practiced by many contemporary native Americans. -Elizabeth Atwood LawrenceAs the most important ritual of the nomadic Plains Indians, the Sun Dance in itself presents many ideas, beliefs, and values of these cultures. Through its rich symbolism and complicated rituals we are able to catch a glimpse

Current American society is constantly affected by events from the past, but sometimes what society thinks is in the past is not so far behind. The way Native Americans were treated historically continually plays a part in current American society. Due to the racism and stereotypes carried throughout society the Native American cultural circle is constantly under fire.

Popular culture has shaped our understanding and perception of Native American culture. From Disney to literature has given the picture of the “blood thirsty savage” of the beginning colonialism in the new world to the “Noble Savage,” a trait painted by non-native the West (Landsman and Lewis 184) and this has influenced many non native perceptions. What many outsiders do not see is the struggle Native American have on day to day bases. Each generation of Native American is on a struggle to keep their traditions alive, but to function in school and ultimately graduate.

In her book American Indian Stories, Zitkala-Sa's central role as both an activist and writer surfaces, which uniquely combines autobiography and fiction and represents an attempt to merge cultural critique with aesthetic form, especially surrounding such fundamental matters as religion. In the tradition of sentimental, autobiographical fiction, this work addresses keen issues for American Indians' dilemmas with assimilation. In Parts IV and V of "School Days," for example, she vividly describes a little girl's nightmares of paleface devils and delineates her bitterness when her classmate died with an open Bible on her bed. In this groundbreaking scene, she inverts the allegation of Indian religion as superstition by labeling

From as early as the time of the early European settlers, Native Americans have suffered tremendously. Native Americans during the time of the early settlers where treated very badly. Europeans did what they wanted with the Native Americans, and when a group of Native Americans would stand up for themselves, the European would quickly put them down. The Native Americans bow and arrows where no match for the Europeans guns and cannon balls. When the Europeans guns didn’t work for the Europeans, the disease they bought killed the Native Americans even more effectively.

What if everyday in America there was not an action someone could take because someone of an opposite race sexually assaulted or domestically abused that person? Often news outlets only focus on major even in cities or towns, but never the reservations. With the lack of awareness of the number of rapes and domestic abuse victims on reservations, at large society is saying America doesn’t care due to reservations having sovereignty. Even with new laws signed into place by President Obama to deal with the rape and abuse problems to Native American women, that come from non Native Americans, the problem with this is it’s a pilot only on three tribes (Culp-Ressler,1).It is said it will expand soon, but how soon? America is not known for being

The 1960’s and 70’s were a turbulent time in the United States, as many minority groups took to the streets to voice their displeasure with policies that affected them. During this time period a large movement for civil rights, including Native American’s, would seek to find their voices, as largely urbanized groups sought ways in which they could reconnect with their tribe and their cultural history. In their book, Like A Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee, Paul Chaat Smith, and Robert Allen Warrior take an extensive look at the events leading up to the three of the largest civil rights movements carried out by Native Americans. Beginning with the takeover of Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay by Indians of All Tribes in 1969; the authors tell in a vivid fashion of the Bay Area activism and Clyde Warrior 's National Indian Youth Council, Vine Deloria Jr.’s leadership of the National Congress of Indians, the Trail of Broken Treaties and the Bureau of Indian Affairs takeover, the Wounded Knee Occupation and the rise of the American Indian Movement.

The pacifism displayed in the opening half of the period contrasts heavily with forceful campaign and protest movement in the latter. Pressure groups such as ‘The National Congress of American Indians’ and the ‘Native American Rights Fund’ despite slow progress, secured some landmark decisions, partially during the 1960’s and 1970’s. For instance, the successful land claim secured in the 1972 case Passamaquoddy vs. Morton, in which opened the floodgates for similar land claims, resulting in either monetary compensation or less commonly the return of their native lands. The method of campaigning through the courts was considerably successful, yet this alone given its sluggish progress can hardly be solely responsible for the eventual gains made. However this was not the only method adopted by the Native Americans, with a more militant form of protest employed from the 1960’s onwards. The ‘Native Indian Youth Council’ continued these legalistic approaches with more vigor to protect the Native Americans Youths. Whilst AIM took this further, responsible for large-scale

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Native Americans have felt distress from societal and governmental interactions for hundreds of years. American Indian protests against these pressures date back to the colonial period. Broken treaties, removal policies, acculturation, and assimilation have scarred the indigenous societies of the United States. These policies and the continued oppression of the native communities produced an atmosphere of heightened tension. Governmental pressure for assimilation and their apparent aim to destroy cultures, communities, and identities through policies gave the native people a reason to fight. The unanticipated consequence was the subsequent creation of a pan-American Indian identity

Through the years minority groups have long endured repression, poverty, and discrimination. A prime example of such a group is the Native Americans. They had their own land and fundamental way of life stripped from them almost unceasingly for decades. Although they were the real “natives” of the land, they were driven off by the government and coerced to assimilate to the white man’s way. Unfortunately, the persecution of the Natives was primarily based on the prevalent greed for money and power. This past impeded the Native American’s preservation of their culture as many were obviated of the right to speak the native language and dress in traditional clothing. Because of this cultural expulsion, among other