Essay On Native Americans Forced Assimilation

During the “Gilded Age” period of American history, development of the Trans-Mississippi west was crucial to fulfilling the American dream of manifest destiny and creating an identity which was distinctly American. Since the west is often associated with rugged pioneers and frontiersmen, there is an overarching idea of hardy American individualism. However, although these settlers were brave and helped to make America into what it is today, they heavily relied on federal support. It would not have been possible for white Americans to settle the Trans-Mississippi west without the US government removing Native Americans from their lands and placing them on reservations, offering land grants and incentives for people to move out west, and the

During the 19th century, Native Americans lived unsatisfactory lives due to forced assimilation and the dissolution of their identities and sovereignty. At the beginning of the 19th century, Native Americans and Americans had gotten into a series of conflicts as a result of American migration to the west, the lands that the Native Americans

Native Americans had once dominated the land now called America, but eventually, their lives would be destroyed by European Colonization. In arrival/ settlement of Europeans, a drastic change for Native Americans occurred forcing them to submit to White settlers, choosing between assimilation into a White culture or preserving their heritage and ancestry. A number of negative results would occur including disease, loss of land, and loss right of self-governing, with no remorse to Native American culture.

The development of agriculture and the rise of industrialization generated new cultures and innovations in the new world. Native people in early America developed cultural distinct , men were in charge of the fishing, hunting, jobs that were more exposed to violence, and the women stayed closed to the village, farming, and child bearing. The way of life possessed by natives Americans did not compel them to conquer and transform new land. As opposed to European colonizers, Native Americans subscribed to a more “animistic” understanding of nature. In which they believed that plants and animals are not commodities, they are something to be respected rather than used. This ideal way of life clashed with the worldview of Europeans. Early European colonizers believed that because Native Americans were not using the vast amount of land which included forest to maximize their profits, then they were justified for colonizing North American land. This settlement led to the enslavement of people, worldwide distribution of diseases, and transfer of goods that shaped America to what it is today.

Native Americans’ social structure was very different from the way Anglo-American’s believed was the correct way for men and women to live. This created a major conflict as the Anglo’s begin to press on the Natives’ land. Anglo-American’s believed that the best thing for the Natives’ was to be assimilated and transformed into their way of life. The Anglo’s intervened into the Natives’ life with a Civilization Program, removal and reservations, and boarding schools. The ramifications had lasting negative effects on the Natives’ gender roles.

During the 1800s, many people migrated to urban areas because they wanted jobs and land. Many people thought that migrating to urban areas would be like a perfect dream, however they were disappointed when they realized that the benefits of migration did not outweigh the drawbacks.

In the 1900s there was a lot of conflict between the Native Americans and America, the Native Americans have been around longer than the other explorers who came after some time and decided to take their land and, there was conflict between the Japanese after the Japanese had bombed an American base in Hawaii (Pearl Harbor). But who was treated the worst? The Native Americans were. This was because they had their children taken from them, were forced onto reservations, and they only had the clothes that were on their back.

Europeans settlers attempted to impose, religion, language, culture to the Native Americans that owned and live in the region for generation as a result, the settlers found a strong opposition to the involuntary assimilation. This method was not new; every “Conquistador” used the same system in many other nations in The Americas where they went as far as killing many tribes and having natives as slaves, to accomplish their purposes. I don’t believe that it was about having natives to assimilate their culture, language or way of living; the real reason was to subdue the Natives to be able to accomplish their many economic plans like mines, railroad and agriculture, a clear example are the tragedy at Wounded Knee.

Stephen Hawking who is an English theoretical physicist once said ' 'If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America which did not turn out well for the Native Americans ' '. Native Americans were the first people ever to discover, and live in North America. However, exactly when they came and how they arrived is still a mystery. Because they were spread out, and they lived their lives differently, different cultured were born. Back in the days people were not educated, so diseases such as tuberculosis whippet out entire tribes. White settlers became to take Indian land for themselves. Many tribes resisted and fought back for what they had while others tempted to corporate. Over the next century native

During the late nineteenth century, people were continuously expanding westward. White pioneers were continuously expanding and since the Native Americans were in the way, they had to be moved. Not only was there an economic aspect for moving the Native Americans, there was also a racial aspect. Native Americans were forced to give up their culture for the one of whites. This was all justified because whites wanted to expand westward to create more railroads, create farms, and mine for precious minerals.

The native americans had two options. Leave their homes to the west or die (primary source). Some might argue that the whites gave the native Americans two years to leave but the problem was that whites couldn 't except native Americans. The native Americans gave up their culture for the white’s way of living so they wouldn 't be forced to leave (Cherokee nation in the 1820’s).

The state purpose of the Dawes Act is to civilize the tribes and force them to start assimilate into white way of life. Actually, the use of tribe is too general, it should be to civilize the individual “Indian” and pull them away from the tribal mindset. It is a divide and conquer technique. If the individual has something that he, and immediate family, need to survive, they will fight for themselves and not for the group. Where the tribal community of the, if I eat, you eat mentality, has them looking out for the collective and not the individual. This individual mindset allows the lack of organized resistance to the government’s plans and wishes. While this plan could work, the way the government went about it doomed it in a way.

The beginning of the 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s were not much different time periods in terms of Native Americans. During both time periods Native Americans are still struggling with the idea of assimilation. At the beginning of the 1800s, which is main focus of The Cherokee Removal, Native Americans are struggling with was assimilation the right path for them to take or not. At the end of the 1800s, which is the main focus of Talking Back to Civilization, Native Americans are struggling with how to gain rights after assimilation; trying to progress in American society. Both books show how those who chose to assimilate still were never truly considered to be part of American society; no rights were transferred

The Apache were a strong, fierce, war-like nation, native to the arid deserts of the Southwest (specifically Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma). And since 1492, the discovery of the Americas, the Apache fiercely opposed Spanish, Mexican, and American invasions. Arguably, they are most known and most remembered for their association with the Spanish, Mexicans, and Americans; the relationship between the Apache and the settlers that led into the Mexican and American conflicts and the aftermath of that, by how westward expansion in the United States affected the population of the Apaches and then how the laws during the 1800s influenced the forced removal of the Apache. These reasons show the relationship the settlers had with the Apache.

Tensions with the Native American tribes continued well into the nineteenth century despite efforts on their part of capitulation, assimilation, appeasement and resistance. As the federal government realized that their theory that the Native Americans had been conquered was incorrect they began to establish policy that would assimilate the Indians into white society and culture, but also facilitated the tribes losing their lands to white settlers. (Nash, et al., 2007., p. 255) Assimilation tactics varied and one such way was done through regulation of the fur trade. This regulation helped white traders gain expensive furs in exchange for their relatively inexpensive goods and to reduce fraud and conflict, Congress created trading posts, or