Lakota Woman Essay

Mary was born with the name Mary Brave Bird. She was a Sioux from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. She belonged to the "Burned Thigh," the Brule Tribe, the Sicangu. The Brules are part of the Seven Sacred Campfires, the seven tribes of the Western Sioux known collectively as the Lakota. The Brule rode horses and were great warriors. Between 1870 and 1880 all Sioux were driven into reservations, fenced in and forced to give up everything. Her family settled in on the reservation in a small place called He-Dog. Her grandpa was a He-Dog and told about the Wounded Knee massacre. Almost three hundred Sioux men, women, and children were killed by white soldiers. Mary was called a iyeska, a breed which the white kids

Lori Ann Piestewa was born on December 14th, 1979 in Tuba City, Arizona. Her father, Terry Piestewa, was part of the Hopi tribe and also served in the military back in Vietnam. Her mother was of a Mexican background. Lori also had to children named Brandon and Carla. She was also a single mother after a rough divorce with her ex-husband. In high school, she was the commanding officer in Junior ROTC. This is another story of a brave solidier and her sacrifaces to serve and protect her country.

Cheryl Crazy Bull, who’s Lakota name Wacinyanpi Win means “they depend on her” is an enrolled member of the Sicangu Band of the Lakota Nation and comes from a Lakota, French and German heritage. Crazy Bull was born in 1954 and raised on the Rosebud Reservation. She has spent most of her life in the Dakotas. She is a family oriented educator and describes herself as, “a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and a lifelong educator.” Cheryl knew early on the need for self determination in Indian education from her father’s painful boarding school experiences. Her father had been forced away from his family, into a school where he could not speak his own Lakota language, and was forced to learn history from a White perspective in which Native Americans

Ever since first contact, the lives and lands of native people, European’s disease killed tens of thousands of Indians. Natives relied on Europeans goods and the mountain intruders of white settlers left most tribes with a painful choice to leave their land and head west. Cherokees were unique in trying to adapt to white culture hoping they could keep their homeland. It was in a time of hope and triumph that the Cherokee’s faith grew darker. The American Revolution. Americans were rejoicing their independence but in Indian country it was little to celebrate. When the American Revolution came to Cherokee towns, the Cherokee joined forces with the British, their trading partners (Boulware). American revenge was swift and brutal. Malicious from

Anderson uses Little Crow: Spokesman for the Sioux to tell the story of the Mdewakanton Sioux during the Sioux Uprising of 1862. He especially focuses on Little Crow’s role as a spokesperson for his tribe. Little Crow builds relationships with his tribe, other Sioux tribes, and the United States government and is able to negotiate with them in an exceptionally

I was also dismayed at the ruthless massacre in 1864 of over one hundred Indian men, women, and children, particularly when these people “talked of peace with the white men” (LaDuke 1999, 78). Looking back, it is indeed very easy to understand the sense of hopelessness and powerlessness the native Indians feel when they wake up every day with the knowledge that the fight is not yet

At the age of fourteen, the nameless protagonist meets Old Chief Mshlanga on a walk with her dogs, a native tribal leader who used to own the whole area. The chief's pride and respect make the girl gingerly change her opinion of natives and reconsider her prejudiced vision and idea. As a result, she begins to be more pleasant towards the natives she encounters.

Erasure. Imagine having almost every detail of your life – your beliefs, your family, your culture, and success – erased by those only focused on their own personal gain. That is what happened to Native Americans over the course of American history. Due to the settler colonialism that laid the foundation of our nation, many Native Americans became the victims of horrific abuse and discrimination. As “whiteness” became the ideal in society, Native Americans lost their voices and the ability to stand up for themselves. Through her memoir, Bad Indians, Deborah Miranda reveals the truth of the horrific pasts of California Native Americans, and gives her ancestors’ stories a chance to finally be heard. In the section “Old News”, Deborah Miranda writes poems from the “white man’s” perspective to show the violent racism committed against Native Americans, as well as the indifference of whites to this violence.

When most people hear of Native Americans, they cannot help but think of elaborate headdresses, red skinned warriors, and lively dancing. Although these aspects of Native American culture are fascinating, more important is where they fare in our society 's past and present. Restrictive laws and acts such as the Indian Removal Act, the Indian Reorganization Act, Fort Laramie treaties, and the Trail of Tears forced Native Americans from their lands. When settlers and the American government saw the resistance of Native Americans to forced assimilation, they resorted to racial discrimination and relocation to reservations. This history of discrimination has fueled calls for the United States government to pay reparations and the return of Native Americans to their indigenous lands.

Native Americans have been oppressed, discriminated against, and mistreated since the Europeans first came to America. Countless Native Americans have died at the hands of white settlers. One of the worst accounts of their mistreatment, however, was the Trail of Tears. The “Nunna dual Tsuny,” as the Cherokee call it, refers to the forced mass movement of Cherokee people to Indian Territory in Arkansas and Oklahoma. (Hook, 6-8) It was a tragic event in the history of the United States.

It is clear that throughout many years there has been an exemption of treatment when talking about the Native Americans in the United States. Supposedly every individual is endowed with the right of freedom, equality, and of seeking for happiness, but Native Americans were treated irrationally. From the discovery of America, to the founding fathers and settlers, the treatment and attitude towards Native Americans has been unsettling at best. The colonial policies toward the Native Americans affected the Indians in ways that changed their relationship between their tribes and the new nation. Cabeza de Vaca, Roger Williams, Cotton Mather, and Benjamin

In conclusion the oppression of Native Americans is an often overlooked subject. It's important to learn about this and be aware of it because many Native Americans still live on reservations. Their oppression has not yet dissipated completely and not until recently, as recently as 1962, were they allowed to vote in every state. So we must be well informed in order to continue to dissipate Native American oppression and try to correct the mistakes of the

Before invasion of the Americans onto Cherokee territory, the Cherokee lived in peace and harmony. Keetoowah is the name of the ancient Cherokee town in the eastern homelands, said to be the “Mother Town” of the people (Conley 18). Many of the Cherokee Indians originated here according to the traditions. They referred themselves as Ani-Kituwagi, meaning Keetoowah People, or Ani-yunwi-ya, the Real People (Conley 27). The fertile lands of the Keetoowah were filled of many resources, but as the population grew too large for the town, many people had moved out and built new towns. Overtime, many towns were built one after another. Soon, there were approximately 200 scattered tribes over vast areas that consisted of a number of

The history and the establishment of various Indian tribes in America took the path of revolution by human civil rights institutions. The Indian American citizen had to form a movement whose main aim was demand for their rights from the Native Americans and the government by sorting for cultural independent protection, advocating of their human rights and restoration of economic rights. Independence of the human race do not always come as an easy task but is involves a sequence of efforts against the violation of rights by their native colonies.

Imagine being in an open field where the grass is a beautiful bright green; the sky is a clear sky blue; buffalos running around the open meadow, and feeding on the open green grass. Well, this was how life was for the Native Americans. The Native Americans saw this way of life as the right way. They had the freedom to do anything they liked, such as cross into different territories controlled by different tribes and invade them. They could pray to whoever they wanted to because the Natives believed in many divine beings. They had the abilities to do all this, until the “White Men” came into their area, and started to threaten their way of life. For a while, life was good between the two. They were trading and learning various things from each other. The Natives knew the white’s way of living was not the same as theirs. The difference between the two was that; white women would not do any gutting of an animal, instead they would just do house chores, and things that did not get their hands dirty. The Native women did all the gutting, cooking, cleaning, and sewing; while the men did all the heavy lifting kind of jobs, such as hunting and killing. This was how the Native life is portrayed in the novel, Fools Crow by James Welch. The novel took place shortly after the civil war; a young man named White Man’s Dog later known as Fools Crow goes through his life, and learns various things from the events that happened to him and his tribe. The period after the civil war, was a