Native American Cultural Assimilation Essay

government, thought Westward Expansion would positively impact Native Americans. President Andrew Jackson felt that Indian Removal would protect the Native Americans and give them more freedom. He also thought that, eventually, the influence of European Americans would guide them to become a more “interesting, civilized, and Christian community” (Doc 9). Additionally, government believed that boarding schools would be very beneficial for children, teaching them valuable skills, and helping them become more civilized “ladies and gentlemen” (Doc 8). However, these people were blinded to the impact it had on the lives of Native American by their own desire for land and power. The mass slaughter of buffalo robbed the Native Americans of their most valuable resource and the source of all their daily necessities. Forced assimilation killed Native American culture and identity, and uprooted their lifestyles. By taking away and selling Native Americans’ land, the U.S. government was constantly driving Native Americans of their homes, onto undeveloped, cramped land, making it nearly impossible for them to sustain themselves and their way of life. How is someone positively affected by having their means of survival, identity, and home taken

government has unspecified and unorganized policies, which were unprotected for Native Americans who lived in the west because of all the new coming Americans. During westward expansion, a majority of who moved were whites, who didn’t know the Native Americans who already lived in the west. The Natives felt their land was being conquered, because of the U.S government policies(Louisana Purchase & Homestead Act) and the whites not wanting them to be there, which lead to fighting between the Natives and the whites. These acts and policies such as the Indian Removal Act often resulted in violated treaties and violence. The Indian Removal Act was the removal of Native American homes and tribes. “This also confines the Indians to still narrower limits, destroys that game which in their normal state, and constitutes their principal means of subsistence.” Resulting in westward expansion, Native Americans began rapidly decreasing in the area by wars and new diseases caught by new coming

During westward expansion, the Native Americans got kicked to the side. The settlers coming west often saw the Indians as a threat to them and their families. However, this was not the main reason the Indians were pushed aside. The settlers saw the Indians had fertile land and wanted it for themselves. The Indians were the opposite of what the settlers thought they were. The Indians often helped the people moving west across the plains; giving them food, supplies, and acting as guides. However, the U.S. Government did not see this side of the Indians, instead they forced the Indians onto reservations. During the time of the expansion of the United States to the present, the Native Americans went through many things so that the United States could expand; they were pushed onto reservations, and forced to give up their culture through the Ideas of Manifest Destiny and Social Darwinism.

Before reading Joel Spring’s text, Deculturalization and the Struggle for Equality, I assumed by the late 1800s that Native Americans would be allowed to be citizens in the United States. So I was shocked to discover that the first Native Americans were not granted citizenship until 1901. Unfortunately, the only Native Americans to receive citizenship at the time were ones were considered civilized because they adopted European culture (Spring, 2016). It is astonishing to me that our government forced Native Americans to give up their culture and adopt ours if they

During Westward Expansion, white settlers saw the Indians as a hindrance to civilization. Therefore the mindset of settlers were to convert Native Americans into white culture. To begin assimilating, the government should, “cease to recognize the Indians as political bodies,” adult male Indians should become a citizen to the government, Indian children shall be taken away and “be trained in industrial schools,” and Indians should be, “placed in the same position before the law.” Assimilating Indians wasn’t a simple teaching of a new culture instead, it was brutal. The boarding schools were merciless towards the Indians, mainly because they wanted to force Indians to drop their culture. Native Americans were obligated to change and lost their

The arrival of Europeans marked a major change on Native society and it's spirituality. Native Americans have been fighting to

There were a variety of key factors that have led to the removal of the Cherokee Indians. One of the key factors that had promoted the removal of the Indians was the belief system of Manifest Destiney. The young colonists believed it was their mission from God to use the land given to them to the fullest. The colonists also believe they are to spread Democracy. This belief system caused the Cherokee Indians to lose most their land. The settlers annexed Florida from the Spanish not only because of their neglect, but they wanted to defeat the Native Americans. They wanted the large farmland they had in Florida. The Black Hawk War in the North caused the removal of many Sauk Indians to Kansas from Wisconsin and Minnesota. Regardless if the land was purchased Indians, the Americans believed they were entitled to all the land on the continent. They lost land through battle, treaties, and were forced to hand over land if they wanted the colonists support. A key factor of the Indian removal was the adoption of European culture. As many assimilated to the European culture, they were faced with prejudice

Looking throughout the overwhelming events the American Revolution had on everyone involved, allows us to examine how the governments’ policies toward the Indians changed over time. It shows how the policy changes effected the Indians as well as the Americans’, their attitudes toward each other as the American’s pushed westward and the Indians resisted. Then the actions on both sides which lead up to the final removal of all Indians to west of the Mississippi in 1830’s.

The purchase of Louisiana doubled the United States in size and was the key to the beginning of westward expansion. This expansion of the U.S. served as one of the defining topics of American history but contrarily, it nearly demolished the entire democracy. Because of Louisiana’s high birth rate and rapid immigration, the United States’ population increased from about five million to more than twenty-three million people. Such expeditious growth as well as economic depressions drove millions of Americans to the west in search of fresh territory and opportunities also known as manifest destiny. At the start of the 1830’s almost one hundred twenty-five thousand Native Americans lived on southeast acres that their ancestors had inhabited for generations. But then President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian removal act which gave the government the authority to trade native held land for land to the west that the United States had obtained with the purchase of Louisiana. By the closing of the decade, only a few Natives were left because the Federal government mandated that they abandon their homeland and go to designated Indian territory. This expedition was better known as the Trail of Tears. The purpose of these reservations was to bring the Native Americans under United States government control, eliminate conflict between the Indians and settlers, and finally to further encourage Native Americans to take on the habits of settlers. In exchange tribes usually received money but it was never a lot and the majority were spent on purchasing food and supplies from traders. But the daily living conditions of the reservations primarily had the most catastrophic results with devastating and long lasting effects. Overall, the rapid territorial expansionism resulted in relocation and brutal mistreatment of Native American occupants of territories now occupied by the United

The early 1800s was a time of great expansion in the United States, stemming largely from the purchase of the Louisiana territory from France in 1803. These lands, however, were inhabited by what is known as the “Five Civilized Tribes” of Native Americans, the Creek, Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Seminole nations. They were called “Civilized,” in particular, because they had implemented writing systems, many were fully literate, had schools, and learned English. These tribes were more assimilated than any others had been, and were considered still savages by Anglo Americans. The occupation of these lands led to a policy of removal, beginning in 1830, that aimed to “separate the [Native Americans] from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the States; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions” (Jackson 1829). In other

Beginning in 1789 with George Washington, the Indians living next to the American people forced federal Indian policies to be created, which ranged from coexistence to removal. These policies under the seven different presidents coincided in ways regarding expansion and removal, but also changed in ways regarding American interaction, civilization, and removal tactics of the Indians. Despite the consistent similarities in federal Indian policies during the years between the Washington and Jackson Administrations, the time frame ultimately led to major evolvement and transformations in viewpoints, treatments, and actions.

Historically, the Native American Indians were taken advantage of, not because they lacked innate human intelligence, but because their culture was initially one of a trusting people who believed negotiating a fair peace would benefit their tribe. As they negotiated from a position of a disestablished legal structure, a position of forced poverty, a position of disenfranchised rights, a position of assigned inferiority, a position of dependent “children”, the Federal Government brought about grave disregard for the tribes’ rights to even exist if they stood in the path of the Manifest Destiny of White Americans. If the Native Americans stood in the way of exploitation of land, timber, or mineral resources, their existence was deemed dispensable.

Indians from this point began to be dehumanized even further. Due to the color of their skin they were associated with the Devil. The settlers believed that Indians must be removed in order to progress in the settling of our land. ?God was making room for the colonists and hath hereby cleared our title to this place? (Takaki, 40). The early Puritans believed that they were meant to spread their religion and beliefs across the entire land.

From 1848 to 1891, the government of the United States and its army were tasked to secure the nation’s expansion into newly acquired territories west of the Mississippi River. Even during the Civil War years, the western frontier and those citizens intending to settle those areas compelled attention and protection from the government and the army. Yet, the United States government never clearly formulated a doctrine for handling the population already living in the new territories, the American Indian tribes. A cohesive doctrine issued by the Government to manage Western expansion and Indian affairs, along with a professional, well-trained, unified army would have avoided the worst violence of the Indian wars.

Consequently, the indigenous nations were able to retain political autonomy during the period of competition between various European colonial powers. However, the new American government implemented a series of laws and regulations that established hegemony over Native Americans. Without alliances with foreign powers, the major Indian nations had no choice but to “recognize American political supremacy in the region” after the War of 1812 (Champagne 1992:88). Despite reluctance by Native Americans towards political differentiation and social change, the U.S. government planned to regulate trade between the Indian tribes and European countries and institute a program that was designed to assimilate and civilize the Native peoples. However, these attempts did not prevail until 1828, as evidenced by the absence of large-scale migration of southeastern Indians.