Native Americans have been thrown under the buss many a times by the United States. A lot of that comes from the way we our knowledge of them was framed to fit our needs rather than theirs. Cynthia-Lou Coleman’s piece “A War of Words” talks about how news stories frame their information to help or hurt one side or the other. The “Conflict Frames” section, is the best put together, and has strong evidence and examples to support the reasoning. The “Progress Frames” section was very one sided, and didn’t offer much information about the Native American side to the story. Another really strong part of her article would be her conclusion. The way she set it up, and the information she used made her argument very strong. In the “Conflict Frames” …show more content…
That is where the “Progress Frames” section comes into play. Since this section is very one sided, it doesn’t show a lot of evidence towards the Native Americans’ side of the story. "As long as Indians live in villages they will retain many of their old and injurious habits (but once removed to) individual lands or farms . .. (they) will begin their real and permanent progress" (Coleman, 1998, p.186). This statement really has nothing to do with Americans. The person that said this is trying to say that we need to get them out of their old ways to help them move forward. Like we learned in lecture, Indian societies have already made a lot of progress towards the technologies of today. Technologies like guns for hunting, snowmobiles for transportation, bows and arrows, and many more. For an American to say that the Removal Act was necessary for progress is plain ignorant. “Progress, for example, has been used to justify the forced removal of indigenous peoples from their homelands” (Coleman, 1998, p.186). This statement just shows that our government only wanted to increase the size of their land, even if that meant removing the indians from theirs. That is section needs to put information about how indians have already progressed in society, and how we as Americans are pushing them away from wanting to …show more content…
“Such battle images reflect longstanding stereotypes of United States-Native American interaction) in which battles over land and cultural values historically favored the more powerful invader” (Coleman, 1998, p.190). This statement directly relates to the last paper we had to write. The last paper we talked about the stereotypes and generalization of Native Americans. As of today, we still use stereotypes for the native populations. Nobody will ever truly be able to understand the indian people completely, and by generalizing and stereotyping them, it will just make it harder. Colonialism is what helped and hurt the Native Americans at the same time. It helped them because the colonists were able to teach them how to do new things like farm wheat, and many other things. What hurt them though, was the selfishness the colonists had, and how they cared more about expanding, then they did for entire societies. “I argue that dominant views that embrace progress, democracy, and technological solutions are accepted as normative and rational. Views that are considered cultural, such as cyclical relationships, are framed in the news as less legitimate than technorational views” (Coleman, 1998, p.190). Americans care more about progression than they do about relationships with other cultures and societies. This is happening all over the world with many countries, and it happened in the past with
Those who favored colonial expansion and the foundation of foreign colonies had different justifications for believing so. There were those who believed their race to be the superior race, and that because God had given them the gifts of knowledge and land, it was their mission to educate and govern the inferior races. Albert Beveridge, a former Uniter States Senator in the late 18th century, was a strong supporter and defender of imperialism. Using religion and divine right to justify the taking over of other nations, Beveridge claimed that God had given them the means and power to reach out to inferior nations and spread the ideals of Christianity. He even went so far as to state that it would be immoral and selfish of the American people to rise to this call of expansion.
In the book written by James W. Loewen, Loewen studies the biases of an ordinary history class, beginning each chapter with quotes from various historical figures. Loewen indicates that the root of the problems Loewen discusses comes from the history textbook itself. This being said the textbook gives a dull, culturally biased description of the past, often alienating readers such as Latinos, Native Americans, and African Americans. Throughout Loewen’s chapter four, there are many ways in which Loewen discusses the Native Americans to be talked about more highly than the Natives should be. The Native Americans were talked about in many negative ways, and the Natives are said to have been “lied about” more often than any other portion of the
Intrusive Acts on Early North America The Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes were typically considered as enemies throughout most of the 17th and 18th centuries. Thrown into continuous, brutal warfare by their varying European allies, the two tribes shared something in common: the lives of their own tribes were continuously jeopardized by the settlement of the “new coming” Europeans. With all of the commotion caused by conflicting European powers, the Native Americans became endangered by warfare, were forced to adapt to European ways, and left to be dependent on their allies for supplies that kept their tribes alive. The intrusive and unfair ways of the settling colonists led to the downfall of the Natives that had lived on North American soil
In the nonfiction book Saga of the Sioux, there are several conflicts discussed. The Native Americans had many struggles during this time; Some conflicts are Man vs. Man, Man vs. Society and Man vs. Nature. There is also a recurring theme, equality was not given to the U.S. at this time. One conflict in the book Saga of the Sioux is Man vs. Man. One example of Man vs. Man was when a Native American arrested a fellow Native American.
Days of Theft, Days of Restoration Attempts to assimilate Native Americans and destroy their culture are a recurrence throughout the history of the United States. Chris Hedges' main argument in the first chapter of his book Days of Destruction Days of Revolt is that, for Native Americans, reconnecting with the culture that was forcibly stolen from them, in this case Lakota culture, could be immensely healing and restorative. He proves his argument with the specific examples of Verlyn Long Wolf, Michael Red Cloud, Leonard Crow Dog, and Duane Brewer. Hedges uses the stories of these people to show how restorative it is to reconnect with the culture that was stolen from them.
There has been several conflicts involving the United States such as the Mexican war, western Indian war, civil war, the cold war and several other wars. The Smithsonian goes through several of these wars. After looking through several of these conflicts I found the most interesting to be western Indian war. Indians were moved to reservations against their will, the Indians did try to fight back. However they were fighting in a battle that had already been lost.
While it may seem that Americans neglected Native Americans it might not be important now throughout the world, but society does not realize the conflicts that it has caused. Although, the Cherokee tribe did not get treated equal, and were forced out of there land, and perhaps most of their people got killed during the trail of tears. For Instance, Chief Tecumseh states, “When such great acts of injustice have been committed by them upon our race, of which they seem to have no manner of regard or even to reflect”. The Cherokee tribe was getting criticized, but it did not stop them from celebrating their culture and religion. It was not right that the Cherokee tribe was criticized most of the time because they had about 3,000 of their people
Furthermore, the documents in “The Cherokee Removal” help to realize that the Indians were not savages instead they were trying to assimilate into the American
Native Americans flourished in North America, but over time white settlers came and started invading their territory. Native Americans were constantly being thrown and pushed off their land. Sorrowfully this continued as the Americans looked for new opportunities and land in the West. When the whites came to the west, it changed the Native American’s lives forever. The Native Americans had to adapt to the whites, which was difficult for them.
The Indian Removal Act forced the Native Americans to move away from their ancestral homes. Gabrielle Tayac, Edwin Schupman, and Genevieve Simermeyer noted, “Native peoples have created thriving societies along the shores of numerous rivers that feed into the beautiful and environmentally rich Chesapeake Bay. They lived in connection to the seasons and the natural resources of the region” (“Chesapeake Natives: Three Major Chiefdoms”). Prior to the arrival of the colonists, the Native Americans built and maintained successful communities in their ancestral homes for generations.
Adam Sorenson Prof. Riggs COMP 01112 2/12/18 Misrepresentation of Native Americans Native American’s for many years now have been viewed as lone warriors or squaw, some people don’t even know that they still exist! People just think of the Native American people in storybook tales and nothing more then that. The Native Americans have been living in the United States for awhile now and were the first ones on the country’s soil. They were here way before Christopher Columbus and the other European Colonists even discovered America and they are still present in the U.S.
Losing one’s cultural knowledge, and therefore the reality of their culture, allows others to have control over their collective and individual consciousness as well as their destiny. In this case, it is clear that the United States government has had the dominant relationship over the Native
The subject matter of the film “Reel Injun” was an especially intriguing and surprising concept to me. The idea that an entire race of people could be so severely underrepresented in popular media is terrifying, and goes to show just how easy it is to cast an imprecise portrait of an unknown culture. What really fascinated me was the segment on Iron Eyes Cody. How could one of the most popular depictions of a Native American actually be a second generation Sicilian immigrant? What other lies have I been told about these people?
The final concern in which needs to be addressed is the fact that these negative stereotypes of Native Americans make it very dangerous for them because of the rise of crime rates against the Natives. The rates for crimes against the Natives has increased and puts many of them in danger. These crimes are classified as hate crimes because of the fact that these crimes are done in hatred of them as a people and not a personal cause. According to Department of Justice analysis, "American Indians are more likely than people of other races to experience violence at the hands of someone of a different race." These factors only show that we need to take serious actions soon in order to prevent this violence to continue before its too
In Life Among the Piutes, sarah winnemucca hopkins describes what happens when soldiers came to their reservation based off what white settlers tell the government. The most shocking instance of this happened when Winnemucca encountered a group of soldier who told her the white settlers accused the natives of stealing cattle, “the soldiers rode up to their [meaning the Piute’s] encampment and fired into it, and killed almost all the people that were there… after the soldiers had killed but all bur some little children and babies… the soldiers took them too… and set the camp on fire and threw them into the flames to see them burned alive”(78). This is an abhorrent act that is unthinkable in a functioning society. The natives had done nothing but want to hold some shred of land from the settlers who had taken everything from them and are exterminated like vermin. This was something that stayed hidden from many white settlers because of its barbarism and by exposing it Winnemucca truly educates the reader, past and present, on how natives are