Native American Injustice ~ All My Research Compiled

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Indians once said the following at Lincoln Hall in Washington D.C. in 1879 when he spoke about Indian Affairs: “We only ask to live as other men live. We ask to be recognized as men.” Throughout history, the Native American people have been persecuted, thrown from their land, hunted down as criminals, forced to live in reservations, and then told what they can and cannot do. The United States government has continually changed their position on how to treat these people. Do we assimilate them into our society regardless of what they want because they were born on U.S. soil, or do we recognize them as free nations within our borders? Forcing them to assimilate would be denying them their constitutional right to live how and where they want or do what they want. On the contrary, recognizing them as a free nation would, theoretically, deny the government the privilege of dictating what a free nation may do. We as Americans have customarily believed in promoting democracy yet we have withheld democracy from these people. We have designated ourselves the dictators of a minority and turned a blind eye. Therefore the questions we must ask, as United States citizens, to make an informed decision about how to treat these individuals and these nations are the following: How were the Native Americans oppressed in history? In what ways are they oppressed today? How have these oppressions throughout history affected their economic and social wellbeing?

Since the introduction of explorers to the Americas, the Native Americans have been oppressed. In Mexico and the western regions the persecution was by Spanish monks seeking to convert the natives from their ‘savage’ ways. When the European settlers arrived, there were those who cooperated with the natives, but the vast majority still viewed them as ‘heathen savages’ to be feared and destroyed or oppressed. During the French and Indian Wars the English settlers committed monstrous atrocities against the French and Indian soldiers. After the war for independence, the newly established American government was faced with the ever present thorn in their sides, what to do with the natives. In 1830, pressed by settlers to solve the unsettled “Indian problem,” President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which authorized the President to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi River in exchange for Native American lands within existing borders. This act, aside from the fact that it allows for a great deal of legal loopholes, authorizes the American government to forcibly remove Native Americans from their homes without their consent. Andrew Jackson in his Second Annual Message to Congress on December 6, 1830, stated the following: “It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation,” (Library of Congress, Primary Documents in American History: Indian Removal Act). Basically, Jackson was saying the policy of this government to allow the Native Americans to peacefully coincide with the people of the United States of America is at an end allowing the government to dictate to the sovereign nations of the American Indian where they are to live. This policy of Indian removal is probably the most discriminatory act in American history with regards to Indian affairs.

The impacts of this act are perhaps more widely known than the act itself. Russell Thornton, a professor at the University of Minnesota, researched the drastic decreases in the Cherokee population during the infamous “Trail of Tears.” He describes the forced relocation of the Native American tribes with a gleam of sorrow stating that, “few events in the history of any people were as tragic as these journeys were for the Indian tribes involved. In fact, the removal of the Cherokee during the late 1830s was so arduous that they subsequently named it Nunna daul Tsuny.” The Cherokee Indians, after resisting the U.S. government’s pressures to move west, were finally defeated when three of their people, without consent of the majority and without the authority to do so, signed the Treaty of New Echota which exchanged eastern lands for lands west of the Mississippi River in Indian territory and for the payment of $15,000,000 to the Cherokees. In 1838 the Cherokees were disarmed and General Winfield Scott was sent to oversee their removal. In October of 1838, the Cherokees began their own removal at the end of a bayonet. Traveling in thirteen recorded groups, averaging about 1,000 people each, they travelled primarily overland north and west across Tennessee and Kentucky. As a result of the round up, the time in the stockades, the actual removal, and the first year in Indian Territory, thousands of Cherokee are said to have died throughout the entire Trail of Tears ordeal. This monstrous journey was pure and blatant proof of how the government of “democracy, liberty and justice for all” discriminated against the Native Americans during the nineteenth century resulting in the loss of thousands of lives of innocent people, in hindsight seeming rather reminiscent of German concentration camps.

Some might say, “Well that was in the past during the time when slavery was still a prevalent custom. We, today, should not be held accountable for the mistakes of our past.” This is a very true statement except for the fact that the discrimination of the Native Americans did not end with the Emancipation Proclamation or with the signing of the 14th amendment. In all actuality, the persecution has not stopped at all. Today, the federal government declares it the policy of the government to treat the Native Americans as a sovereign nation, yet if that is the case, why did the state of California attempt to implement a 33 percent business tax on Indian casinos on Indian land? Proposition 68 on the November 2004 California General Election called for a revision to the Indian charters, which allowed casino gaming on tribal lands, adding as a provision that 30 percent of their net wins from their slot machines be paid to the Gaming Revenue Trust Fund (GRFT, a state fund established by this measure), 2 percent of their net win be paid as a city tax, and 1 percent to be paid to the county within which the casino resides (California Secretary of State, Analysis by the Legislative Analyst: Proposition 68). This analysis specifically states that as a sovereign nation, the Native American tribes are largely exempt from federal, state and local taxes. This is exactly as it should be. California has no business going to Mexico and saying, “Hey, your country butts up against my state. I demand 30 percent business tax,” nor does Michigan have the right to demand the final say on activities done within Canadian borders, yet Indian tribes are required to get U.S. federal and state permits to build on their own land and are then charged taxes on any proceeds they receive.

In another example of continued Native American persecution, there is an unrelenting debate about the legality of archeological excavations of Native American burial grounds. James Riding In, a Pawnee Indian, is actively opposed to the “scientific grave looting” done by archaeologists. A number of Native American religions believe that in order for your soul to make it to the afterlife, you must maintain a lasting burial. Riding In viewed “archaeology as an oppressive and sacrilegious profession that claimed ownership over many of our deceased relatives, suppressed our religious freedom, and denied our ancestors a lasting burial.” This is not his singular opinion but a belief shared by many Native Americans combined together to form a repatriation movement to have the bodies of their ancestors returned for proper reburial. When a crematorium was found to be selling the bodies of American people to institutions for scientific purposes, the federal government launched a full scale investigation and convicted multiple offenders. However, an archaeologist can do the exact same thing, desecrating Native American burial grounds and cemeteries claiming advancement for science, and he is considered a preserver of the ancient cultures regardless of the fact that the culture still lives on today in the descendents infuriated by the blatant desecration of their ancestor’s tombs. What is the difference between digging up, selling to a museum, and displaying the remains of the Native Americans without the direct permission of next of kin and the selling of American’s bodies for scientific study without the permission of their next of kin? If it was not acceptable to be done to Americans, it certainly should not be being done to the Native Americans, a sovereign nation.

After identifying the continuance of prejudice, the question then becomes how are the Native Americans today economically and how have these prejudices impacted their ability to make money? As William H. Kelly describes in “The Economic Basis of Indian Life,” there are those Native Americans who are seeking to solve their economic problems by leaving the reservation for wage work in industry and business, but “the economic basis of Indian life is income from wage work, largely periodic and seasonal, which is used to support an uneconomic system of land ownership and land utilization. This is true even for the Navaho, presently enjoying the largest tribal income in the country, because oil income is not being paid per capita to the 80,000 tribesmen, but is being used for educational and resources development purposes…Interest and concern for the Indians stem from the fact that they are not moving into the American economic system in the same way or on equal terms with other citizens, despite the fact that they represent the one minority group in this country whose economic and social well-being has been the special responsibility of, and partly subsidized by, the federal government,” (William H. Kelly, The Economic Basis of Indian Life pg. 71-72). Numerous Native American tribes live in near poverty. Dr. David L. Vinje describes in his article entitled “Native American Economic Development on Selected Reservations: A Comparative Analysis,” the economic distress of some tribes when he states that “By 1990, the Reagan/Bush era, combined with the collapse of the natural resource markets, left many of the reservations under discussion here worse off than they were at the end of the 1970s. Overall the twenty-three reservations covered, the median number of families below the poverty level had increased to 48.8 percent by 1990 compared to a figure of 44.1 percent as of 1980.” He continues by describing the economic necessities of gambling for the Native Americans stating that “it is clear that Indian gambling is the fastest growing source of economic activity on the reservations. It is providing a much needed source of reservation jobs, and it is generating tribal revenues that have gone to support reservation projects encompassing improved housing, educational scholarship, medical clinics, repurchase of reservation land held by non-Indians and the establishment of industrial parks for new business opportunities,” (Dr. David L. Vinje, Native American Economic Development on Selected Reservations: A Comparative Analysis, pg. 427-442). 48.8 percent of the Native American families in 1990 lived under the poverty line. By this simple fact, it is evident that the federal government has implemented a system to severely weaken the power of the Native Americans to care for themselves. Avoiding outside contact for fear of racial discrimination, the Native American people seem confined to their reservation and hence to their poverty. This culmination of events leads these people to turn to any avenue available for economic relief and gambling satisfies that requirement.

The economic impacts of continued racial discrimination also contribute to the psychological and physical health of the Native American tribes living on federally assigned reservations. David D. Barney acknowledges that there is a trend of depression and poor health among Native Americans and Alaskan Natives as a result of poverty and racial discrimination. He states in his article “Risk and Protective Factors for Depression and Health Outcomes in American Indian and Alaska Native Adolescents” that “the health status of American Indian and Alaska Native adolescents has also been identified as poorer than that of adolescents of other racial or ethnic groups (Office of Technology Assessment 1990, 1986; Indian Health Services 1998). For American Indian and Alaska Native adolescents, social and health indicators illustrate increased risk of poor outcomes on almost all well-being measures. Overall, in American Indian and Alaska Native adolescents (ages 15 to 24), the mortality ratio is approximately three times greater (2.7:1) than for U.S. all races (Office of Technology Assessment 1986). American Indian and Alaska Native adolescents are exposed to poverty and racial discrimination, which severely limit individual, family, and community prosperity.” This study suggests a strong correlation between poverty and racial discrimination and Native American adolescents suffering from severe depression leading to an increased trend towards suicide. The discrimination of the Native Americans by the United States throughout history is impacting the Native American children in significant ways. Being socially confined to their reservations by threats of racial discrimination, stereotypically decreased educational opportunities, and continued suppression by the strongest government in the world, the Native American teenagers have been the hardest hit desperately trying to determine which fate would ultimately be less painful and in the process suffering from depression far greater than that of their white counterparts.

The Native Americans have been persecuted since the introduction of settlers to the Americans. The United States government made it the policy of racial discrimination against the Native Americans by the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The consummation of peace with the Cherokee led to the Trail of Tears in which thousands of Native Americans perished because of the actions of three. The continued suppression of their nations by the U.S. government determining what these sovereign nations may do on their own land and the religious persecution by archaeologists demonstrates the unrelenting inhibition of a weakened minority by the role-model for worldwide democracy. The economic, psychological and physical affects of these inhibitions throughout history have perpetuated the beliefs in the hearts and minds of today’s Native American teens that they are physically incapable of taking care of themselves or of being a success in their future. The American government has suppressed a minority into complete subordination forcing them to scratch a living off non-profitable lands and forcing them to get a state and federal permit to make a living. What a discouraging and disempowering system we have succeeded in setting up; President Andrew Jackson would be proud. The land of democracy and the American dream of prosperity and hope appears to be a dictatorship in disguise.

Census Information on American Indian Poverty Level

The following information is from the Federal Census Bureau and describes the economic status of the American Indian, the Eskimo, and the Aleut populations.

"Between 1979 and 1989, the poverty rate increased for both American Indian families and persons. Twenty-seven percent of American Indian families were poor in 1989, compared with 24 percent in 1979. This compared with a poverty rate of 10 percent for all families in both 1989 and 1979. In 1989, 50 percent of American Indian families maintained by females with no husband present were poor, compared with 31 percent of all families maintained by women with no husband present. The 1980 and 1990 censuses show that the poverty rate for American Indians has remained considerably higher than that of the total population. In 1989, 31 percent of American Indian persons lived below the poverty level, up from 27 percent in 1979. Th national poverty rate was about 13 percent in 1989 and 12 percent in 1979."

This article was provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division and Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division. This information was from the 1990 CP-2-1, 1990 Census of Population published in Social and Economic Characteristics, United States Summary and in 1990 CP-2-1A, 1990 Census of Population, Social and Economic Characteristics, American Indian and Alaska Native Areas.

http://www.census.gov/population/www/pop-profile/amerind.html

Economic Development on Selected Reservations

This article is a comparative analysis of selected Native American reservations of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s identifying gambling as an economic development strategy of the 1990s. The article "Native American Economic Development on Selected Reservations: A Comparative Analysis" by David L. Vinje describes the extreme importance of gambling as an economic activity on reservations "providing a much needed source of reservation projects encompassing improved housing, educational scholarships, medical clinics, repurchase of reservation land held by non-Indians and the establishment of industrial parks for new business opportunities."

This continues to provide numbers about the number of Native American family's incomes were considered below the poverty level in the three decades discussed.

"The poverty standard for the 1970 Census was $3,743 for a non-farm family of four. Using this standard, the median number of these families below the poverty line, following the decade of the 1960s, was 52.2 percent for the twenty-three reservations under discussion. The same measurement for all Native Americans, rural and urban, for 1970 was 33.3 percent, reflecting the relatively economically isolated location of the larger reservations...The poverty rate dropped from 52.2 percent in 1970 to a rate of 44.1 percent by 1980. Responding to the increased prospects for jobs and income, the rate of labor participation, as a percent of total population 16 years and older, increased from 41.3 percent to 66.8 percent by 1980...By 1990, the Reagan/Bush era, combined with the collapse of the natural resource markets, left many of the reservations under discussion here worse off than they were at the end of the 1970s. Overall, for the twenty-three reservations covered, the median number of families below the poverty level had increased to 48.8 percent by 1990 compared to a figure of 44.1 percent as of 1980."

These numbers show an astonishingly high level of poverty among reservations indicating that the segregation of Native Americans onto reservations has negativing impacted their economic condition and by limiting the Native Americans ability to make money of of gambling, would likely send the Native American people into an economic depression.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9246%28199610%2955%3A4%3C427%3ANAEDOS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z

Economic Conditions of Native Americans

"The Economic Basis of Indian Life" by William H. Kelly discusses the economic standing of the Native Americans and some of the reasons why, despite their economic condition, they refuse to leave the reservation. In his article, Kelly states the following:

"Many Indians are solving their economic problems by turning to off-reservation wage work in industry and business. However, most Indians continue to live on reservations where, for a number of reasons, agricultural income must be supplemented with wages from seasonal and periodic off-reservation wage work. The result is an income for Indian families generally lower than among neighboring non-Indians, with some localities suffering severe economic depression. The Indian attachment to reservation life is strong and hinders the normal absorption of Indians into the general population. Federal assistance programs include both an effort to develop reservation resources and to encourage Indians to relocate in industrial centers."

While Native Americans are suffering economically, the majority proves unwilling to relocate off the reservation. Instead they decide to supplement their income by working both the lands the federal government provided for them as well as extra off-reservation style jobs. Even the Navajo Indians, the richest tribe after leasing oil fields on the reservation in 1957, are still having trouble economically.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-7162%28195705%29311%3C71%3ATEBOIL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-7

Psychological and Physical Health Related Problems to Discrimination

The following is an excerpt of an article entitled, "Risk and Protective Factors for Depression and Health Outcomes in American Indian and Alaska Native Adolescents" by David D. Barney discussing the psychological and physical health of American Indians and Alaskan Natives.

"The health status of American Indian and Alaska Native adolescents has also been identified as poorer than that of adolescents of other racial or ethnic groups (Office of Technology Assessment 1990, 1986; Indian Health Service 1998). For American Indian and Alaska Native adolescents, social and health indicators illustrate increased risk for poor outcomes on almost all well-being measures. Overall, in American Indian and Alaska Native adolescents (ages 15 to 24), the mortality ratio is approximately three times greater (2.7:1) than for U.S. all races (Office of Technology Assessment 1986). American Indian and Alaska Native adolescents are exposed to poverty and racial discrimination, which severely limit individual, family, and community prosperity. In these environments, personal values and integrity may be discouraged or corrupted and human potential limited."

Throughout history, Native Americans have been oppressed, discriminated against, denied their rights as a sovereign nation, forced to live on a plot of land chosen by the U.S. government and then told what they could and could not do on that land as a sovereign nation, and have been therefore forced to submit to tremendous stresses which have corrupted their psychological and physical health.

"Risk and Protective Factors for Depression and Health Outcomes in American Indian and Alaska Native Adolescents"
David D. Barney
Wicazo Sa Review, Vol. 16, No. 1, Native American Health in the 21st Century. (Spring, 2001), pp. 135-150.
Stable URL: <http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0749-6427%28200121%2916%3A1%3C135%3ARAPFFD%3E2.0.CO%3B2-M>

Modern Native American Religious Oppression

The Native Americans believe that in order for their ancestors spirits to ascend to the afterlife, they must have a lasting burial. This seems harmless enough a request to grant, but actually, the request is extremely controversial. Modern American archaeologists desire to discover the ancient natives burial grounds to conduct scientific and archaeological research regardless of modern natives beliefs of such an intrusion. As James Riding In, an assistant professor of Justice Studies at Arizona State University in Tempe, states "my opposition to scientific grave looting developed partially through the birth of the American Indian repatriation movement during the late 1960s. Like other American Indians of the time (and now), I viewed archaeology as an oppressive and sacrilegious profession that claimed ownership over many of our deceased relatives, suppressed our religious freedom, and denied our ancestors a lasting burial. Some of the Native American governments, being a sovereign nation, demand the remains of their ancestors held at the Smithsonian Institution.

So basically, by conducting our archaeological research, we desecrate their ancestors graves in the name of science and try to claim impunity. When a crematorium was discovered to be selling the remains of American ancestors, the local and state governments had a conniption fit and started an immediate investigation that resulted in multiple arrests. However, if an archaeologist does it to a completely different nation without their permission, it is considered research. We are therefore setting up two sets of rules and two sets of standards telling the world that if US citizens have their bodies and graves disturbed it is a big deal, but desecrating the graves of a people whose religion forbids such desecration is alright by our government. How is this not discrimination?

Here is the site of the article "Repatriation: A Pawnee's Perspective" by James Riding In.
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0095-182X%28199621%2920%3A2%3C238%3ARAPP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-7

Primary Source ~ Modern Indian Persecution in Prop 68

Analysis of Proposition 68 on the November 2, 2004 General Elections is just one example of how the federal, state, and local governments decide what the Native American people can and cannot do on their own land.

The analysis by the official legislative analyst specifically states that "as SOVEREIGN nations, tribes are largely exempt from state and local taxes and laws, including California environmental laws." If these are truly sovereign nations then the US government only has a write to regulate environmental compliance on any people within our borders protecting our environment. However, instead of recognizing the Native American people as a truly sovereign nation, "federal law and the State Constitution govern gambling operations on Indian land." Any tribe that enters into a tribal-state gambling compact may operate slot machines and engage in card games where the operator has a stake in the outcome. Any new or amended compact must be approved by the Legislature, the Governor, and the federal government. These tribes are required to make payments totalling anywhere from $100 million annually to an expected hundreds of millions as well as prepare an environmental impact report. Any tribally own and operated racetrack or card room would be required to 30% of the net win from their slot machines to the GRTF as well as an additional 2% of their net win to the city and 1% to the county. This is a total of 33% of their net win, business taxes as it were, to the government yet every other business in the state of California pays 8% business tax. How is this not discrimination?

We claim that we are the defenders of liberty, justice, and freedom yet we segregate between on group of Americans and another. So much for "Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore." We invite people from around the world to taste the breath of freedom yet we deny freedom to a nation on our very shores. That's DEMOCRACY!!!

Below is the site for the analysis as well as the full text of the Proposition 68. Check it out and determine, as James Baldwin says, "if we really want to be free."

The analysis: http://vote2004.sos.ca.gov/voterguide/propositions/prop68-analysis.htm
The Proposition: http://vote2004.sos.ca.gov/voterguide/propositions/prop68text.pdf

California Prejudice Against Native Americans

The following quote and site is extremely valuable for demonstrating the historic prejudice against Native Americans. This site offers a lengthy description of the culture of the Native American tribes as well as a comprehensive history of the native peoples throughout history until the late 1900s.

"The formation of the state government proved to be an official instrument of the oppressive mentality of the miner's militia. In Governor McDougall's first address to the legislature he promised, 'a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race become extinct.......' Despite guarantees in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Indians were denied state citizenship, voting rights and more important still, the right to testify in court. These acts effectively removed all legal redress for native peoples and left them to the mercy of anyone who chose to sexual assault, kidnap, even murder them. Despite entering the union as a free state in 1850, the California legislature rapidly enacted a series of laws legalizing Indian slavery. One of the laws sanctioned an indenture system similar to Mexican peonage in widespread practice throughout California prior to 1850. All levels of state, county and local governments participated in this ugly practice that evolved into a heartless policy of killing Indian parents and kidnapping and indenturing the victims children. Indian youth could be enslaved by the cruel act to the age of 30 for males and 25 for females. This barbarous law was finally repealed four years after President Lincoln's emancipation proclamation in 1863."

This site is exactly what I was looking for. It completely describes the corruption, the prejudice, and the treatment of the Native Americans in the 1800s. Even when the federal government did get involved, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs used his position to purchase most of the land he "set aside for the native peoples."

http://www.ceres.ca.gov/nahc/califindian.html

Primary Source: Indian Removal Act of 1830

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was signed by Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830. The act enabled the federal government to remove, forcibly if necessary, Indian tribes from their homelands currently existing within state borders in exchange for unsettled land west of the Mississippi. Some tribes went peacefully, but many other tribes, including the Cherokee, resisted and were forcibly relocated. Approximately 4,000 Cherokee Indians died along the infamous march in the fall and winter of 1838 and 1839 along the "Trail of Tears."

The following address is the a copy, provided by the Library of Congress, of the actual Indian Removal Act of 1830. This link was specifically helpful in that it allowed me to view the actual document allowing the federal government to forcibly remove a private nation from their own land.

Basically, this act in its own words allows the President of the United States to state all Native American claims their lands forfeit with the acknowledgment that any lands acquired by the Native Americans from exchanges shall remain in the hands of their people forever unless the Native Americans with these exchanges become extinct or abandon the land of their own free will. The act enabled the President to acknowledge and offer just compensation for capital improvements made by the Native Americans as well as assistance in moving and sustaining themselves from their previous settlement to their new exchanged settlement including protection from other Native Americans or any persons thereof. The act finalizes itself by by offering 500,000 dollars to be paid out of any money in the treasury not already appropriated to the Native Americans for the exchange of their land.

Unfortunately, I, a mere student, can see a lot of loop holes in this piece of legislation. The act allows the President to declare all Native American lands east of the Mississippi forfeit forcing them to be removed west to unsettled territory. The President may elect to offer assistance (most likely military) to those moving so that they might reach their destination and, if the President decides, may receive add from the federal government for supporting themselves for the first year of the stay on the new property. The act also states that a sum of 500,000 dollars would be appropriated to the Native Americans to be paid out of any money in the treasury that is NOT OTHERWISE APPROPRIATED. So basically, if Congress appropriates all of the money in the treasury for some project or another, there will be no more money to be appropriated to the Native Americans.

This is perhaps the most discriminatory Congressional act in American history involving Native Americans, because this single document has allowed the federal government to continually discriminate against the Native American people without repercussion. Where the three-fifths provision in the United States Constitution allowed the federal government to count African American slaves as three-fifths of a white man, the Indian Removal Act of 1830 allowed the federal government to dictate where an entirely different nation could live. While both are equally discriminatory, the African American people gained their freedom in the 1970s. The Native American NATIONS still do not have that luxury.

The actual document:
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=004/llsl004.db&recNum=458

and a brief overview:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Indian.html

The picture is called "Trail of Tears" and it is from:

http://www.historicaldocuments.com/TrailofTears1.jpg

A Work in Progress: Research Paper Outline

Introduction:

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Indians once said the following at Lincoln Hall in Washington D.C. when he spoke about Indian Affairs in 1879: “We only ask to live as other men live. We ask to be recognized as men.” Throughout history, the Native American people have been persecuted, thrown from their land, hunted down as criminals, forced to live in reservations, and then told what they can and cannot do. The United States government has continually changed their position on how to treat these people. Do we assimilate them into our society regardless of what they want because they were born on U.S. soil, or do we recognize them as free nations within our borders? Forcing them to assimilate would be denying them their constitutional right to live how and where they want or do what they want. On the contrary, recognizing them as a free nation would, theoretically, deny the government the privilege of dictating what a free nation may do. We as Americans have customarily believed in promoting democracy yet we have withheld democracy from these people. We have designated ourselves the dictators of a minority and turned a blind eye. Therefore the question we must as, as United States citizens, are to make an informed decision about how to treat these individuals and these nations are the following: How were the Native Americans oppressed in history? In what ways are they oppressed today? How have these oppressions throughout history affected their economic and social wellbeing?

Support:

1) In 1830, pressed by settlers to solve the unsettled “Indian problem,” President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which authorized the President to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi River in exchange for Native American lands within existing borders.

• This act, aside from the fact that it allows for a great deal of legal loopholes, authorizes the American government to forcibly remove Native Americans from their homes without their consent.
• Andrew Jackson in his Second Annual Message to Congress on December 6, 1830, stated the following: “It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation,” (Library of Congress, Primary Documents in American History: Indian Removal Act).

2) The impacts of this act are perhaps more widely known than the act itself. Russell Thornton, a professor at the University of Minnesota, researched the drastic decreases in the Cherokee population during the infamous “Trail of Tears.”

• He describes the forced relocation of the Native American tribes with a gleam of sorrow stating that, “few events in the history of any people were as tragic as these journeys were for the Indian tribes involved. In fact, the removal of the Cherokee during the late 1830s was so arduous that they subsequently named it Nunna daul Tsuny.”
• The Cherokee Indians, after resisting the U.S. government’s pressures to move west, were finally defeated when three of their people, without consent of the majority and without the authority to do so, signed the Treaty of New Echota which exchanged eastern lands for lands west of the Mississippi River in Indian territory and for the payment of $15,000,000 to the Cherokees.
• In 1838 the Cherokees were disarmed and General Winfield Scott was sent to oversee their removal. In October of 1838, the Cherokees began their own removal at the end of a bayonet. Traveling in thirteen recorded groups, averaging about 1,000 people each, they travelled primarily overland north and west across Tennessee and Kentucky.
• As a result of the rounding up, the actual removal, and the first year in Indian Territory, thousands of Cherokee are said to have died throughout the entire Trail of Tears ordeal.

3) Some might say, “Well that was in the past during the time when slavery was still a prevalent custom. We, today, should not be held accountable for the mistakes of our past.” This is a very true statement except for the fact that the discrimination of the Native Americans did not end with the Emancipation Proclamation or with the signing of the 14th amendment.

• Today, the federal government declares it the policy of the government to treat the Native Americans as a sovereign nation, yet if that is the case, why did the state of California attempt to implement a 33 percent business tax on Indian casinos on Indian land?
• Proposition 68 on the November 2004 California General Election called for a revision to the Indian charters, which allowed casino gaming on tribal lands, adding as a provision that 30 percent of their net wins from their slot machines be paid to the Gaming Revenue Trust Fund (GRFT, a state fund established by this measure), 2 percent of their net win be paid as a city tax, and 1 percent to be paid to the county within which the casino resides (California Secretary of State, Analysis by the Legislative Analyst: Proposition 68).
• This analysis specifically states that as a sovereign nation, the Native American tribes are largely exempt from federal, state and local taxes.
• California has no business going to Mexico and saying, “Hey, your country butts up against my state. I demand 30 percent business tax,” nor does Michigan have the right to demand the final say on activities done within Canadian borders, yet Indian tribes are required to get U.S. federal and state permits to build on their own land and are then charged taxes on any proceeds they receive.

4) In another example of continued Native American persecution, there is a continued debate about the legality of archeological excavations on Native American burial grounds. James Riding In, a Pawnee Indian is actively opposed to the “scientific grave looting” done by archaeologists.

• A number of Native American religions believe that in order for your soul to make it to the afterlife, you must maintain a lasting burial. Riding In views “archaeology as an oppressive and sacrilegious profession that claimed ownership over many of our deceased relatives, suppressed our religious freedom, and denied our ancestors a lasting burial.”
• When a crematorium was found to be selling the bodies of American people to institutions for scientific purposes, the federal government launched a full scale investigation and convicted multiple offenders. However, an archaeologist can do the exact same thing, desecrating Native American burial grounds and cemeteries claiming advancement for science, and he is considered a preserver of the ancient cultures regardless of the fact that the culture still lives on today in the descendents infuriated by the blatant desecration of their ancestor’s tombs.
• What is the difference between digging up, selling to a museum, and displaying the remains of the Native Americans without the direct permission of next of kin and the selling of American’s bodies for scientific study without the permission of the next of kin?

5) After identifying the continuance of prejudice, the question then becomes how are the Native Americans today economically and how has these prejudices impacted their ability to make money?

• As William H. Kelly describes in “The Economic Basis of Indian Life,” there are those Native Americans who are seeking to solve their economic problems by leaving the reservation for wage work in industry and business, but “the economic basis of Indian life is income from wage work, largely periodic and seasonal, which is used to support an uneconomic system of land ownership and land utilization. This is true even for the Navaho, presently enjoying the largest tribal income in the country, because oil income is not being paid per capita to the 80,000 tribesmen, but is being used for educational and resources development purposes…Interest and concern for the Indians stem from the fact that they are not moving into the American economic system in the same way or on equal terms with other citizens, despite the fact that they represent the one minority group in this country whose economic and social well-being has been the special responsibility of, and partly subsidized by, the federal government,” (William H. Kelly, The Economic Basis of Indian Life pg. 71-72).
• Dr. David L. Vinje describes in his article entitled “Native American Economic Development on Selected Reservations: A Comparative Analysis,” the economic distress of some tribes when he states that “By 1990, the Reagan/Bush era, combined with the collapse of the natural resource markets, left many of the reservations under discussion here worse off than they were at the end of the 1970s. Overall the twenty-three reservations covered, the median number of families below the poverty level had increased to 48.8 percent by 1990 compared to a figure of 44.1 percent as of 1980.”
• He continues by describing the economic necessities of gambling for the Native Americans stating that “it is clear that Indian gambling is the fastest growing source of economic activity on the reservations. It is providing a much needed source of reservation jobs, and it is generating tribal revenues that have gone to support reservation projects encompassing improved housing, educational scholarship, medical clinics, repurchase of reservation land held by non-Indians and the establishment of industrial parks for new business opportunities,” (Dr. David L. Vinje, Native American Economic Development on Selected Reservations: A Comparative Analysis, pg. 427-442).
• 48.8 percent of the Native American families in 1990 lived under the poverty line practically dictating that Native Americans required gambling to meet the economic needs. The fact that Native Americans are socially confined to their reservations by threats of racial discrimination, stereotypically decreased educational opportunities, and continued suppression by the strongest government in the world all lead to the economic depravation of the Native American people confined to reservations.

6) The economic impacts of continued racial discrimination also contribute to the psychological and physical health of the Native American tribes living on federally assigned reservations.David D. Barney acknowledges that there is a trend of depression and poor health among Native Americans and Alaskan Natives as a result of poverty and racial discrimination.

• He states in his article “Risk and Protective Factors for Depression and Health Outcomes in American Indian and Alaska Native Adolescents” that “the health status of American Indian and Alaska Native adolescents has also been identified as poorer than that of adolescents of other racial or ethnic groups (Office of Technology Assessment 1990, 1986; Indian Health Services 1998). For American Indian and Alaska Native adolescents, social and health indicators illustrate increased risk of poor outcomes on almost all well-being measures. Overall, in American Indian and Alaska Native adolescents (ages 15 to 24), the mortality ratio is approximately three times greater (2.7:1) than for U.S. all races (Office of Technology Assessment 1986). American Indian and Alaska Native adolescents are exposed to poverty and racial discrimination, which severely limit individual, family, and community prosperity.”
• This study suggests a strong correlation between poverty and racial discrimination and Native American adolescents suffering from severe depression leading to an increased trend towards suicide.

***Research is still being conducted and this outline will continue to be expanded as research is cumulated.

A Native American Archieve

This website is extremely useful in tracking specific tribes although it does not contain a massive amount of information it is still a useful place to gather background information about tribes. Some of the information could be expanded more, but this was not to be meant as the soul resource, only a supporting one.

http://www.indians.org/articles/native-american.html

Cherokee March on the Trail of Tears

The following article by Russell Thornton was very descriptive and helpful in identifying one example of extreme prejudice against the Cherokee Indians. The abstract of this article offers a decent explanation of the overall value of the article by identifying what the article seeks to demonstrate and record.

"The relocation of the Cherokee Indians from southeastern United States to Indian Territory during the 1830s is examined. A new perspective on what constitutes their population losses during relocation is offered, one covering the whole period and one considering what population size would have been had not the removal occurred. Total Cherokee population losses are then estimated using projections of 19th century Cherokee population trends. Results indicate these losses were very substantial; in fact, the number of deaths may have been twice the generally accepted figure of 4,000."

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0014-1801%28198423%2931%3A4%3C289%3ACPLDTT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3

A Very Comprehensive Native American Timeline

The following is a link to a very detailed timeline that could prove to be quiet useful. The timeline spreads from the landing of Columbus in 1492 to announcement of Pine Ridge Reservation, home to the Oglala Lakota, as the poorest place in the country in 1999.

Check it out. It is amazing.

This timeline is published by Legends of American (2003-2007).
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/NA-Timeline.html

Also note the picture is apparently called "Ogala Sioux at an Oasis in the Badlands" and can be found at http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-nativeamerican/OgalaSiouxRedHawkBadlands.jpg

Bias in Modern Schools

In an article entitled "Countering Prejudice against American Indians and Alaska Natives through Antibias Curriculum and Instruction," Deirdre A. Almeida argues for the teaching of an antibias curriculum towards Native American and Alaskan Natives. In this article is extremely informative. First, the article identifies the problem (bias curriculum with regards to the Native Americans). Second, it offers suggestions as to how to correct this problem by offering a list of steps that would be helpful. Then, it describes ways of detecting prejudice in the curriculum.

This article would be rather helpful in demonstrating continued prejudice in today's society.

This article was published by ERIC Digest in ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools Charleston WV in 1996. The URL is as follows:
http://www.ericdigests.org/1997-2/antibias.htm