The Film Smoke Signals

As the wild west opened, so did new opportunities for American to strike it rich. But with the wild west opening up for the Americans, Indian lands were being encroached for railroads and homesteads. Indians were being pushed into reservations, their children sent to assimilation schools such a the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. In the horrors of American assimilation targeted at young Native American children, many children would face the struggle of losing their identity or face punishment of resisting assimilation. In the assimilation stories of Zitkala Sa’s Impressions of an Indian Childhood and Sherman Alexie’s Indian Education, tells the tale of their childhood experience being integrated into “American culture”.

While some of the cultural norms and expectations varied slightly amongst the members of the Sioux, Navajo, and Cherokee tribes, it seems as though the cultural communicative behaviors and/or many of the norms and expectations were overall exceedingly similar across these three tribes. Thus, we feel that while culture may vary slightly across tribes through their rituals and ceremonies, cultural values and identities were more related and applied throughout the general Native American heritage, rather than being tribe

With the arrival of Anglo-Americans, Native Americans lost much more than just their land. Tribes were forced onto reservations, stripped of their culture, wealth and place in society, with no hope of regaining what they owned unless by complete assimilation. For the latter half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, many Anglo-Americans continually pushed for Native Americans to abandon their cultures and “savage” ways. However, despite the many attempts to force Natives into Anglo-American culture, many Native Americans found ways to negotiate with the demands of the Anglo-Americans through mainly social, economic and legal means.

The Cherokee Removal The Americans of European ancestry often have described Native Americans as primitive, savage, and even and uncivilized. In this this paper I will provide primary evidence that supports what the Americans believed about the Natives, along with their few false accusations. I will also discuss how the Cherokee removal affected the natives during their journey along with afterwards. Before the removal was enforced, an upper class Cherokee, son of a warrior, John Ridge gave details on the Cherokee nation and how they are changing their lifestyles because of Americans.

The political aspect was becoming more defined as the reservations began to divide between the natives, Indians, and non-Indians. The Americans continued to persuade the Indians to conform to the white ways of the 19th century, for examples converting to christianity. Yet, the Indians obtained what they could of their culture on the reservations and resisted the ways of the whites. Moreover, The social status of the Pacific Northwest 's hinterland was subjected to the cultural mindset of the whites and their

In Source 3, it is said that they purposely wanted to get rid of all Native American ways of life and draw them towards the East; the way they accomplished this was by publishing a journal and in detail, describing the economic progress and new and improved way of life to get Native Americans to come to the West. The fact that Native Americans have clung to a distinctive philosophy and cultural identity despite continuous attacks from a federal policy that sought for example to turn the Natives from their culture with its extended family structures into nuclear-family based small farmers suggests that this distinctive identity is not some set of colourful aboriginal survivals but instead, something that runs so deep it can’t be

Before the 1860’s the native americans were living in peace until the Colonists attacked. The Western Expansion of 1860-90 greatly affected the lives of Native Americans, due to the powerful role

Introduction The Cherokee people have a rich history in North America. A strong people pre- and post-contact, they have experienced time of prosper, decline, and regrowth. This essay will provide an overview of the Cherokee people using their history transitioning into contemporary times. A focus will be on their political, social, cultural and economic impacts in both a historical and contemporary context. To conclude, I will discuss the impacts European’s had on the Cherokee people’s progression into the 21st century using Goehring’s (1993) model of colonial impacts.

Many tribes had cultural ties to the environment itself. When the Americans established the Indian Removal Act, the Native Americans were forced to leave these cultural grounds. Those who refused to leave their original homeland had to conform to the ways of colonial life instead

Mr. P 's second statement further emphasizes the understanding that because of the consequences that arose due to the attempt to control the Indian community made by the US mainstream population, Indians are now left with miserable, hopeless lives and their only way of finding hope is by leaving everything they know behind and seeking a new life outside their reservations. Moreover, a quote by a Native American teacher from the Rosebud Reservation states, “...there is a feeling that you have to leave the reservation to strive…” (Siegler). Not only do teachers think Indians need to leave the reservation to strive, even Indians

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 boarding schools, the children were stripped of their indigenous culture. Their hair was cut short, and they were forced to dress “proper.” The students were forbidden to speak their native tongue (Carlisle Indian School). Students could only speak English. It did not matter if the children were from the same tribe or opposing tribe.

Due to the Northwest Ordinance there wasn’t “slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory” (Doc. H) showing how people were starting to realize how slavery was wrong and inhumane. The relationship between the Indians and the Americans had also shifted due to the revolution. The Native Americans were concerned about their relationship with the Americans due to the fighting with the British, but “it [made] [their] hearts rejoice to find out that [their] great father, and his children the Americans have at length made peace”(Doc. C). The Chickasaw Indians were happy to see that their relationship with the Americans was improving due to the American Revolution.

No other transformation was more measurable in the west was the Assault on Indian way of life caught by miners and settlers who grasped their homes and federal Government extortion, (Doc C) by the 1890s Native Americans reservations had been the aftereffect on Most Indians, natives effortlessly combated to preserve their assets. Bison and buffalo had been their Linked article commonly utilizing it for food, clothing and trade. Promptly of the millions of

By doing this, colonial Canadians assumed that aboriginal cultural and spiritual beliefs were invalid in relation to European beliefs (244). The problem with ridding the First Nations Peoples of their languages, as Williston points out is to “deprive them of the sense of place that has defined them for thousands of years” (245). The private schooling system was an attack on First Nations identities, and their identity is rooted in “a respect for nature and its processes” (245).