The Owen Valley California territory was once inhabited by the Paiutes people (an indigenous Native American group). When the Unites States acquired the California territory, expeditions were led across the state, and it was discovered by the white man that Owen Valley was a land of value. Government action (e.g. the Preemption and Homestead acts; government subsidies) encouraged western migration and expansion leading to the claim of most of the Owens Valley land. Similar to the guise of gentrification, the white man wanted to take primary control of the area for the sake of “a need for development”. The powerful Americans undermined the use values of the Paiute people, and threatened their quality of life and well-being. The Paiutes resisted unsuccessfully (they were no match for the powerful United States army assisting the white settlers), and through the familiar tactics of deception, coercion, force, and violence, the Paiute people were forced from their land, and the ones who remained were stratified, and forced to endure subpar living conditions and work standards. The tides shifted years later when a new, more powerful group found interest in the natural resources of the Owen Valley territory. At the time, Los Angeles, California was a growing metropolis, and of major capitalistic interest to California (with significant ties to the political leaders of the United States as high up as the president). With the population of Los Angeles out growing its water supply,
California Indian historians currently engage in proving that Genocide occurred on the California Frontier. When historians attempt to prove the existence of a larger, seemingly indefinable concept they often lose track of regional history in California, citing primary sources from different time periods, all around the State. In order to better understand white-native relations on the California Frontier, it is important to first understand these relationships in specific areas of California that can be properly researched. Rather than engaging in a semantic argument regarding Genocide’s many definitions or its existence in the State as a whole, this manuscript offers a focused study in white-native relations in Northern California’s Round Valley from 1848-1860. By studying a
When first considering the Navajo-Hopi land dispute as a topic of research, I anticipated a relatively light research paper discussing the local skirmishes between the two tribes. However, my research has yielded innumerable volumes of facts, figures and varying viewpoints on a struggle that has dominated the two tribes for over 100 years. The story is an ever-changing one, evolving from local conflict to forcible relocation to big business interests. The incredible breadth of the dispute's history makes it impossible to objectively cover the entire progression from all viewpoints. I will therefore focus on current issues - and their historical causes - facing the two tribes as they mutually approach
Ever since the very first colonies were formed, the Native Americans have been forced out of their beloved inveterate lands in order for the Americans to be able to expand their new found territory. Yet, nothing ever changed and the same economic policies continued, bringing nothing but destruction to the Native people. Meanwhile, the political and social policies were dramatically distorted, deceiving the tribes into losing land and cultural values. Jackson’s efforts to remove any and all Cherokee Indians to territory west of the Mississippi in the 1830’s maintained the same economical attitudes as before but changed the social and political policies set by the previous colonies and the United States government towards the Native Americans.
Deborah Miranda’s Bad Indians utilizes a unique blend of writing styles to piece together a clearer and more distinct view on the Mission system, Gold Rush, and settlement of California. Through this revolutionary collection of writing, we receive a detailed account of the treatment that California Indians had to endure during the Missionization era and are able to draw our own conclusions in regard to whether the missions were a positive or negative aspect of California history. Although Miranda’s ancestors suffered and survived horrible conditions, she, in my opinion, does not villainize the Mission system, but rather displays the facts as they are, therein allowing us to reach our own conclusions in relations to this history. Because there
Oklahoma was once referred to as the “Unassigned Lands” (Fugate,138). This land was land inside Indian Territory that had not been claimed by one of the tribes (Hoig). Whites believed they were entitled to this land and wanted to get the statement across that America is a “white man’s country” (Dorman, 38). Immediately after Benjamin Harrison, the United States of America’s president at the time, announced the land would be opened for settlement, people began gathering their belongings, loading their wagons, or preparing their horses for travel. Thousands of people crowded the borders of the Unassigned Lands in hopes of establishing a settlement in the area (Fugate,140). At noon on April 22, 1889, people dashed across the land with their belongings seeking a plot of land. The Oklahoma Land Run was an exciting, puzzling, and in some cases, a violent day in Oklahoma’s history.
It followed from the lack of organized political life in the backwoods society, that the individual was exalted and given free play. The West was another name for opportunity. Here were mines to be seized, fertile valleys to be claimed; all the natural resources open to the shrewdest and the boldest. The United States is unique in the extent to which the individual has been given an open field, unchecked by restraints of an old social order, or of restrictions of government.8 The self-made man was the Western man's ideal, was the kind of man that all men might become. Out of his wilderness experience, out of the freedom of his opportunities, he fashioned a formula for social regeneration, the freedom of the individual to seek his own. This also was the way of the Utah early settler which was effectively a country unto itself.9 Without hindrances settlers claimed the Salt Lake Valley and made it their own in the manner which they saw fit, relying only on their own better judgment and ability
This essay presents a brief history of Californian Indigenous people. It also showcases a history behind the evolution of Federal Recognition and the Termination policy. In addition, it presents the history and explains what is the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) is. It then examines the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria giving a brief history. It also discusses the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria’s termination due to the Termination policy and California Rancheria Act of the 1950s. It also discusses the importance of regaining federal recognition applied to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
Throughout history, Native Americans faced atrocity after atrocity at the hands of white settlers and losing their land and most of their people was only one of them. During the nineteenth century, the United States’ population boomed, causing people to start to move west in search of riches and vast lands in the “wild west.” However, as white settlers moved west, they started to encounter more and more Native American lands. The white settlers wanted to be able to settle on their lands, claiming that they were “misusing” the land and claiming that the Native Americans were “uncivilized.” The white settlers pled their case to the United States government to forcibly remove the Native Americans and get the rights to their lands. Andrew Jackson,
From its birth, America was a place of inequality and privilege. Since Columbus 's arrival and up until present day, Native American tribes have been victim of white men 's persecution and tyranny. This was first expressed in the 1800’s, when Native Americans were driven off their land and forced to embark on the Trail of Tears, and again during the Western American- Indian War where white Americans massacred millions of Native Americans in hatred. Today, much of the Indian Territory that was once a refuge for Native Americans has since been taken over by white men, and the major tribes that once called these reservations home are all but gone. These events show the discrimination and oppression the Native Americans faced. They were, and continue to be, pushed onto reservations,
One way that Californios were dispossessed of their land after 1846 was through arrests and intimidation. For example, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo was arrested by a group known as ‘The bear flag revolt’ who wanted to declare California as an independent republic. The large amount of Americans moving to California only made it worse. Many Squatters challenged the land grants due to their vagueness and racial violence was used to criminalize Mexicans. Americans would steal horses, slaughter cattle, and use public displays of lynching to send messages of intimidation. Vallejo also faced hardship when he tried to remove squatters from his land. It became very difficult for him when the California state legislature passed a law protecting squatters.
While we have been focusing on the whole Pacific Northwest region as a whole this class, we have finally delved into a subregion that is close to all of us: the Inland Empire. This area in the Pacific Northwest came into being during the late 19th Century and encompassed much of Eastern Washington, the Idaho Panhandle and parts of Eastern Oregon. The people of this region were very proud of their land and some even held more pride for the Inland Empire than their own state. This fierce loyalty to one’s home was just as much a product of economic growth as many of the other changes being see all around the Pacific Northwest in general. The Inland Empire was, and is, an important subregion that was born of economic development and competition with the cities on the coast.
From the conflict in non-physical it leads to the conflict in physical aspect. To the Native Americans, land is something that they have to respect. On the contrast, the European considered land as a tool to enrich them. As a result, tribes lost massive amounts of land to the U. S. Government, for which they were often neither paid nor compensated. “By 1820, they had lost claim to over half of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Most Native Americans and some whites thought that the government's relations with Native Americans were marked by dishonesty, corruption, and deception. By 1838, almost all native villages in Michigan had been abandoned.”
The indigenous people of California had existed on the lands as hunters-gathers before the arrival of the Spanish who were the first Europeans to reach this part of the Americas. These settlers who began surveying the area since 1530, helped introduce the mission system around 1697 as part of an effort to set up permanent bases for new arrivals and as a bulwark against other European powers. This establishment caused the natives to transition from their original lifestyle into agrarian farmers to help bring in revenue for the Spanish crown which led to them being exploited economically in the process. To establish order in this new land, the Spaniards used harsh punishments for rooting out defiance within the Indian population. However, eventually the natives would begin to die off in such large quantities that it echoed what else was happening what was happening in the rest of the continent. Overall, the effect on the indigenous population was predominantly negative due to contributing towards loss of culture, experiencing callous treatment at the hands of the Spanish, and forced population decline.
In early 1848, cries of gold findings flooded the West. White settlers flooded the area like a hurricane in search of riches never seen before to the common man. It was the single greatest migration of people in a shortest amount of time. The gold rush was a very dark period in American history and it shouldn’t be celebrated; the Native American’s were slaughtered in American thirst for gold Explosions of violence from both natives and settlers were common in this environment of prejudice and greed. Between 1850 and 1890 eighty percent of the total number of Native Americans in California died due to murder and massacre, disease, starvation, and forced migration from their native lands. The destruction of the culture and lives of the people native to California and the Black Hills of South Dakota. Greed changed the morals and values of the miners and Americans alike in the Gold Rush. The gold rush brought riches and highlighted racism of white Americans, while systematically destroying Native Americans in that region.
The Indian race was not supposed to own land in America but in regard they were concentrated in slums adjacent to the cities. Here they were exposed to poor housing, lack of clean water and poor man related work that ranged from fishing and hunting thus they were regarded as second class American citizens. In response to these social status inequalities, the Indians staged demonstrations against the vices and afterwards grated accessibility to land and its resources. The land given to them was of low quality the low quality that they were classified as marginal land s that could not support farming. This shows that the American government was in support of the discrimination against these Indians. In support of the racial discrimination strategy, the state even ensured that no white citizen became poor or bankruptcy by buying their land parcels. These lands were then subdivided to the Indians who were later to be killed by the Americans in their efforts to get the land for their mining activities. The sequence of events showed how discrimination was the main agenda of the