The Importance Of Indian Americans Special Status In The United States

American Indians have been discriminated against since the Europeans came to North America. They were driven from their homes and forced to surrender their land. They tried to build an alliance with France during the Revolutionary war, but ultimately they were defeated by the English. From then on, they were referred to as “savages”. The Proclamation of 1763 tried to separate the Native American land from the American colonial land. In the end, the American Indians lost their land and were forced to occupy smaller land areas, referred to as reservations, which were given to them through treaties. In 1979, a report from America’s Compliance with Human Rights Accords stated that

Minority groups are defined as alien residents of nations who no longer have rights to their land. Ordinarily due to colonization. Minority status is the result of adverse discrimination some of the defining elements of these groups are commonly long-term occupation of land, common ancestry, traditional culture, language or formal membership. In the United States, Native Americans, also known as American Indians or just simply Indians are considered to be people whose pre-Columbian ancestors were indigenous to the lands within the nation’s modern boundaries. These people were composed of numerous distinct tribes, bands and ethnic groups. Custer Died for Your Sins is a 1969, non-fiction book by the lawyer, professor and writer Vine Deloria. This was noted primarily for its relevance to activist organizations like the American Indian Movement. The book consists of eleven essays and is critical of aid organizations, for their efforts to so called “help” Native Americans. The author shows readers that instead of helping they were stopping the progress. Deloria 's book discussed and offered many types of solutions in helping Native Americans.

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.

The Iroquois Nation was a nation of five tribes, which was comprised of Mohawks, Senecas, Oneidas, Cayugas, and Onondagas. These tribes were originally separated, but later brought together by two Indians named Hiawatha and Deganawidah. Hiawatha seemed to be the spokesman while Deganawidah took on the role as a philosopher. These two men formed a nation where some of the ideas are still intact today.

Despite all the double standard they have faced all their lives, Indians survived and fought strong for their rights. Even though prejudice

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.

Over the course of time in our country, many groups in our society have experienced being set apart from sustainable communities. Among them are the immigrants, the homeless, the African Americans, those with physical or mental disabilities and the Native Americans. According to McIntosh (1988), “Whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which will allow ‘them’ to be more like ‘us’ “ (p. 1). Unquestionably, this was the case back in the nineteenth century when the “White” people thought it

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

and their effects are still occurring today and need to be made known to spare the

The American Indian Movement is an organization in the United States that attempts to bring attention to the injustice and unfair treatment of American Indians. Aside from that, the AIM works for better protection and care for the American Indians and their families. They have been changing the American perception of Indians since the late 1960’s, as well as aiding our awareness of their existence.

Nearly every Native American Indian tribe has experienced some kind of neglect or discrimination. The white man has forcefully moved tribes from their homes, broken

The United States Supreme Court ruled all Native American tribes had full legal rights to internally govern themselves, manage their affairs, as well as to engage in political and legal relationships with the federal government in the 1830s. Currently the United States Constitution Article I, Section 8, guarantees sovereign rights to the 566 federally recognized Indian nations and federal government laws require that the individual states that have Native Tribes living

Some may argue that Native Americans live a decent life with the aid that the United States has given them. Americans feel that the reservations that Native Americans are given is the proper way to respect their lands and culture, by allowing them to have a small portion of what was once all of their territory. According to USA.gov, there is the National Tribal Preservation Program to help tribes protect resources and traditions important to them. This provides Native American tribes with the assistance that they need to maintain their way of life and cultural ideals. Yet Blackfoot Indians have been forcibly migrated and partially integrated into society without any aid. The United States government has neglected the Blackfoot Indians by degrading their culture and subjecting them into bitter

Many years before Christopher Columbus stumbled upon America, there were Indians who declared America their home. Indians had originated tribal areas, similar to states and they resided under their own laws and government. Native Americans fought a long and bloody battle to protect their land and defend their families. Some Indians were also captured as slaves by Europeans and some Indians also fought in American wars to defend America, but it took decades for them to receive any type of recognition or equality. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson was the first president to acknowledge tribal governments. Native American Casus stated, “The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized tribal sovereignty in court decisions for more than 150 years. In 1831,

What were the significant treaties, policies, and events that defined US Government and Native American Relations? How did the Native American respond to these treaties, polices, and events historically? How did these treaties, policies, and events affect the subsistence, religion, political, and social structures of the Native American people? I will answer these questions through the examination of two centuries of US history in six time periods that define clear changes in the relationship between the Native American and the US Government.