History homework help. Read the article and choose one question and answer it. At least 3 complete sentences in length.
“Reforming” the West
Prevailing Views of Native Americans
Christopher Columbus was the first European to have any contact with Native Americans. His records from 1492 are very telling. He writes of the Taino he encountered in the Caribbean as being docile and friendly. He says they have no religion and will make good slaves. In all of his accounts, he never appears fearful of them. After leaving in 1492, he returned on a second voyage and found that the men he had left behind had been killed by the Taino. His writing then changes. Given that he was the first European to encounter Native Americans and write about them, he gave Europe its first impression of them. In this second account what he tells Europeans is that they are dangerous and to be feared. This fear carries over and one can easily detect it in each and every account of Native Americans after that. This, I believe, is why Columbus is truly historically significant.
As Europeans began to populate this continent, they pushed onto Native American lands. Inevitably clashes between the settlers and Native American tribes erupted. However, smallpox had dwindled the number of Native Americans since Columbus first encountered them, by 90% in fact. Europeans then viewed them as sparsely populated across the continent and felt justified in taking their land. The two groups held very different views on land and landownership, religion, and a host of other issues down to what one slept on at night, a bed or the ground. These differences also led to the assumption that white settlers could take their land at will and used the growing federal government to justify and legalize their actions. Those actions included forcibly moving Native Americans to areas deemed less hospitable and therefore less desirable in the middle of the continent. All of this was legalized through official treaties where Native American tribes were treated as sovereign nations.
Native Americans After the Civil War
After the Civil War, pressure on Native Americans in the West increased. The gold rush of 1848 prompted many to head west in search of a quick fortune. However, most settlers bypassed much of the west. They got through the vast stretches of prairie, desert, and mountains as quickly as possible. However once in California, some began to seek land in the great plains. American settlers began migrating into areas now covered by official treaty and the property of Native Americans. Some of those groups included the Sioux who used that land to hunt buffalo which migrate themselves. This began to pose a problem to American settlers who wanted a railroad for easier access to the far west and land in some of these areas. The discovery of gold in silver in the hills would also prove challenging if that land was protected as a reservation (land “reserved” for Native American use only according to treaty).
In some cases, the settlers decided to take matters into their own hands. Between 1872-1874, American settlers used the buffalo for target practice. They would try to shoot as many from a moving train as they could. Obviously since the train did not stop when they would shoot them, those animals were killed and their bodies left, with nothing harvested or used. The buffalo is a large animal and many settlers saw them as an obstacle to progress in that they were a very real obstacle to a train. They also knew Native Americans depended on them, so in a sense, they felt they were killing two birds with one stone. If they killed off the buffalo, Native Americans would have to leave. In that two year span, more than 4 million buffalo were killed, sending the species to near extinction. In fact the buffalo nickel was designed by viewing the buffalo at a zoo in New York, since the designer went west and couldn’t find a single one. The government then decided to send out a party to try to conduct a census and found on 32 live animals. This was just after 1900.
After the Civil War, talk increased as to what to do about the Native Americans living within the borders of the US. There had been conflicts, such as the one at Sand Creek reservation in eastern Colorado. John Chivington led a group of men into the sleeping camp before dawn and slaughtered all of the women, children, and old men that they found there. All of the men of fighting age had left on a hunt. However, silver had been found nearby and Chivington and the others wanted that silver. The government did eventually come out and condemn the action, but the men were never prosecuted when this happened in 1869. By the early 1870s, some Native Americans began to prepare to fight back. When General Custer decided to attack in 1874 at Little Big Horn, he was in for quite the surprise. This battle Americans lost. However news of the loss did not make it back to Washington until July 4, 1876, as the country was celebrating its 100th birthday. For some who had been ambivalent toward the issues regarding Native Americans, the fact that American soldiers died caused them to choose to side against them. This culminated at Wounded Knee.
The Wounded Knee massacre occurred in December of 1890. Native Americans from the surrounding areas were meeting there because a sort of religious revival had spread through the villages. They were there to participate in the Ghost Dance. The general ideas was that if the groups followed the faith, and the ghost dance, that the gods would reset things back to the way they had been. Almost like rebooting a computer to its factory settings. The white man would go away, the buffalo would come back, and even loved ones killed by the white man would come back. However, American settlers who had begun to move onto the reservation because gold had been discovered nearby and were already fearful (see my first paragraph) began to panic. The government sent in troops to calm them, but they needed more. Then the government sent the military in to confiscate the weapons Native Americans had, again to calm the settlers. It was during this act that someone fired. Then the troops fell back and fired into the camp until everyone was dead. Then, according to their own records, the military called out to children to come out of hiding, and killed them all as well.
Reformers
While some Americans feared Native Americans, not all felt they should be killed. Groups formed to reform Native Americans and make them into “Americans”. They wanted Native American groups to assimilate into an American culture. In other words, they wanted them to give up their heritage, language, way of life, religion, and past to embrace the ideals that the American settlers carried with them. To achieve this, reformers proposed two plans, one for adults and one for the children. The adults would learn the “American” ways of farming through the Dawes Act. This Act would break up the reservation system and require individual Native American families to own land. They were given plots of land and deeds. One significant problem however, was the fact that the land did not have access to water sources and would be difficult to farm.
For children, the plan was to educate them in how to be Americans. Reformers such as Captain Robert Platt opened the Carlisle School for Boys. In his primary speech on the school he said the goal was to “kill the Indian, save the man.” The general idea being, to eliminate all aspects of Native American culture. These schools were run by the military and boys were first given new names and then new clothes. Those clothes were military type uniforms and very different from the clothing they were used to. Teachers forbade them from using their own language, their Native American names, and from eating foods they were used to. They were taught how to farm, the English language, and all the ways American culture was superior to their own. The handful of schools for girls taught Native American girls how to cook and clean. Some even received “internships” to wealthy households who had them cook and clean for them at no charge. These were all boarding schools so the children were kept from their family and friends and essentially isolated. Also, because the food was very different from what they were used to, many died. In fact, most schools had graveyards for those who did.
The schools completely failed. The children who adopted the new “American” ways and took these ideas back home where reformers thought they would influences others, were often ostracized and banned from the community. Those that abandoned the new “American” ways went back and just went back to the way of the reservation, rejecting the school entirely.
Here is a link to a quick youtube clip from the HBO series Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. It is only the trailer, but it brings together in under 5 minutes, many of the issues discussed in the notes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irjRMmQ1n-A
Reformers and Native Americans: Discussion Question
In the late 1800s, Americans felt that Native Americans needed to assimilate into an “American” culture. Do we still try to force assimilation today? To what degree do we restrict diversity in our society and who are the key targets? Have we really changed our policies or treatment of Native Americans? How do you think the Dakota Pipeline controversy will be viewed by historians 100 years from now?
