Native American Rights, Rights And Rights Of Native Americans

“Banishment from the homeland, the diaspora of a nation, the exile of a people, and ongoing colonization- these are the legacies Minnesotans and Americans have left” (waziyatawin 17). As a society, our wrongdoings towards the Native American people are irreversible. Yet, it is important to do as much as we can as a society to justify our wrong doings. Gaining knowledge about the injustices society and colonialism has committed on the Native American way of life in Minnesota, brings a responsibility of awareness and action to achieve justice for the Native American community.

The Spanish came to the New World with the idea that they were going to practically enslave, convert, or kill the natives. Because of this the Spanish’s treatment for the natives was terrible and very early on. They would use natives to help them find gold and do other manual labor activities. The missionaries would attempt to convert them to Christianity and because a lot would not comply they would end up killing them. Early on the British settlers’ relationship with the native Americans is very different. At first, they were friendly. The first British settlers in a way to live on the Native Americans. North America them was very different from Great Britain, and the Native Americans had lived there for very long time. So, the British settlers took advantage of that and began to trade with the Native Americans and use them in order to help their new settlement survive. Although the Spanish and British relationship with the natives differed at first eventually they both ended up doing the same exact thing. They both killed the Native Americans and cause their societies to be displaced. Even though there and goals were different they both used the exploitation of Native Americans in order to achieve these goals.

As the Europeans came to the New World in the 1600s, relationships with Native Americans were unstable in some places and secure in others. In the Chesapeake region, every colony had a different relationship with the Native Americans but overtime both groups became distanced from each other as wars erupted. Furthermore, in the New England colonies there were a few places that had close relationships with them and others that opposed the Native Americans. During the colonization periods, although the Europeans may have been disruptive to a few Native American tribes, they continued to trade and have alliances with a few tribes, which contributed to their survival in the New World. Throughout the time of colonization, as more people

“Native Americans have faced centuries of atrocities to their people, their land, and their culture - all under various presidents who took an oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States” (Markwayne Mullin). Native Americans have been living a hard life ever since Columbus arrived in North America but, we need to change that. Native American have been living here before any of us, and we’re just living in their land. Native Americans have struggled since white people first arrived in North America. Some contemporary issues Native Americans face are their ability to prosecute crimes such as rapes against their community, as well as land rights, and the ability to be recognized by the government. It is important that we, as a country, address these issues.

The reason the Ojibwe Indians were entitled to the treaty rights because they never sold or bargained those privileges away. The Ojibwe Indians reserved rights such as fishing, hunting and gathering of plant resources when the land was sold to the United States.

In the seventeenth century, European people begin to settle in the North America. They started to invest in the natural resources in the eastern America using the best resource they found in the land, captured Native Indians. Many poor European people migrated to North America for opportunity to earn money and rise of their social status. They came to the America as indentured or contracted servants because the passage aboard was too expensive for them. By the time many Native Indians and indentured servants die from the hard labor and low morality rate, masters of the plantation purchased more slaves from Africa to profit themselves. The “Virginia Servant and Slave Laws” reveal the dominant efforts of masters to profit from their servants and slaves by passing laws to treat slaves as their properties and to control servants and slaves by suppressing the rebellion using brutal force. Masters and rich planters sought to earn more profit from mercantilism, or trade, economic system by violating the civil rights of Native Indian, African, and poor European people and this thought and practice still exist today as a form of racism and segregation in America.

Tribal sovereignty is a highly debated concept and an important aspect of Native American society. It refers to a tribe’s power to govern itself, manage its membership, and regulate tribal relations. As Joanna Barker stated, “Sovereignty carries the awful stench of colonization.” Tribal sovereignty must be traced to the beginning of colonization in North America. Colonizing nations asserted sovereignty over indigenous people and took away their independent status. The term “tribal sovereignty” carries with it multiples meanings and implications for tribal nations (Cobb, 2005).

When the Europeans arrived in the Americas they were looking for riches, spices, and new trade routes to India. When they found this new world and the Native Americans that lived there, they deliberately mistreated them. Looked at as obstructions, the Natives were driven from their land and homes and pushed west. Europeans that encountered the Native Americans had different ideas about them depending on their political and religious beliefs but none were positive. Those ideas ranged from pity for them as non-Christians to be converted (Doc. A2) and treated as children to a lower status of human to be taken advantage of for profits. The Natives were forced to mine precious metals, and farm sugar cane and tobacco. They were not viewed or treated as equal persons. They were considered part of the wild land to be conquered, enslaved, killed, and beaten into cooperation.

The lecture covered the basis on Indians’ treaties, the government, and how both (the treaties and government) clashed with the Native’s culture. The guest speaker was Gillian Allen, a lawyer, who worked on First Nations treaty-related affairs in Canada and an Aboriginal. She presented a lecture on Indian Treaty Rights in Canada and the U.S. During the lecture, I learned interesting information about the Natives and recognized some aspects of cognitive psychology. The aspects of cognitive psychology that were present were priming, categories of knowledge, and surface features/deep structure.

Ever since white men came to the New World, they were never at peace with the native peoples. One of the first white men to come to North America was Sir Walter Raleigh, who took the Indians he met as slaves as early as 1584. In the years that followed, settlers forced the Native Americans further and further west. By the year 1850, there had been many attempts at peaceful negotiations and uprisings on both sides, but the government eventually decided that reservations were the only way to contain the Indians and have peace. These reservations took away their pride, freedom, and way of life. Native Americans in reservations today are still plagued by lack of food and shelter, health and

Columbus and his men, who were funded by the Queen of Spain, took advantage of these peaceful people. They captured their people and used them as slaves to search for gold for them as well as to be sold in Spain. When Columbus made his second voyage to the Americas in 1495 he rounded up 1500 Arawak people, 500 of which were transported to Spain to be sold as slaves. Of those 500, 200 died before they reached their destination. Similarly to the Spanish the British had a unstable relationship with the Native Americans. Again their generosity was taken advantage of. They shared food with the people of Jamestown and still cruelties were practiced against them. In 1636 the Native Americans went to war with the Puritans. This was a war that suffered casualties on both sides. The British however burnt down Native American villages and the few Native Americans that escaped were killed brutally by sword. The French on the other hand had other ideas about how to interact with the Native Americans. They decided that they would trade with them and not subjugate them or take their land. This lead to a successful fur trade with the Native

July 11th 1990, marked the beginning date of the Oka Crisis in Quebec Canada. It lasted until September 26th 1990 resulting in one fatality of a local police officer. The violent clash was triggered by something as simple as a golf course extension and as complicated as native burial traditions. It had drawn world attention, catapulting native land rights into the mix. The Oka Crisis is just one of many conflicts between the Aboriginals and the Canadian government. A major issue that has been of much debate in the 20th century has been Native sovereignty. The demand sounds simple, allow Aboriginals of Canada to govern themselves; however, coexisting with the Canadian government makes this idea extremely complicated. Roger Townshend states

When something happens in the colonies, the Natives end up caught in it, such as in Document 11, when over three thousand Native Americans were killed because of what was happening in the colony. In Document 17, the Native Americans become caught in the middle of feuds between France, England, and Spain. They often were blamed when one of the countries was called out and didn't want to face it. The Europeans didn't show too much compassion for the Natives. When the Church thought it was necessary to

Certain rules are made to protect rights and to keep the peace among groups. Sometimes that’s not always how they turn out. The Native American and United States Policy was created to keep equal rights for the Natives, but didn’t exactly happen how they planned for it to.

course of 500 years, there has been little progress in ending the inequity that the Native