Indian History

1492+
“Discovered” by Columbus

The role of Christianity - evangelism?

Early 1600s

Europeans and Indians were primarily engaged in trade.
            Holland, Spain, France, England

St. Augustine 1565
Jamestown 1607 (British)
Quebec 1608 (French)
Santa Fe 1610 (Spanish)
New Amersterdam (York) 1626 (Dutch)

"The First Thanksgiving between the Pilgrims and Indians at Plymouth" 1621

Each treated Indians differently.
In general, Indians were adversely affected
            Disease was huge

The French – fur trade
            Didn’t require taking land
            Didn’t need permanent settlements
            The best of the relationships with Natives
            Usually beneficial to both

The Spanish – wanted precious metals
            Forced Indians into mining
            Some Indians forced off land
            Missionaries (Jesuits)
                        Much in South and Central America
The Mission

The Dutch – wanted trading posts and villages
            At first, negotiated for land, gradually used force to acquire more
            Wanted Indians off the land

The English – wanted land
            Agriculture and colonies
            Wanted Indians off the land (or converted to the British way of life)

Russia in the 1740s
            Claimed lands along the Northwest coast
            Forced labor and concubines
            Remained until 1867 when Russia ceded Alaska to the US

First arrivals
            In most cases, first arrivals were greeted with hospitality
            Offered food and shelter and taught whites how to survive
            As relationships developed, esp. the British began to demand that
Indians adapt a civilized European lifestyle and Christianity
            As Europeans continued to arrive and white power grew, East Coast
  wars started
            Pequot War (1637)
            King Philips War (1675-6)
            The first of a series of wars on many fronts
                        Indians defeated
            By the end of the 1600s most East Coast tribes had been decimated by
disease, war and subjegation.

The fur trade
            One of the major economic enterprises
            Trading on the East Coast
            As supplies dwindled, whites began moving inland
                        (Great Lakes)
            Indians received guns, metal goods (cooking), tools etc.
            At first beneficial
            Indians came to depend on these goods as they discarded their
technologically inferior implements.
            Traders also introduced alcohol
            Indians had no experience – a devastating introduction
            As a result, Native economies were ruined, wildlife depleted and land
taken.

Mid-1700s
            The grab for land intensifies
            Whites build settlements along trade routes to the interior
            Whites flex increasing military power
            Forced unequal trades and land cessions
            These dealings put tribes into debt.
            This led to tribes competing with other tribes for increasingly scarce
resources to pay their debts
            In many cases, tribal members were forced to serve in conflicts
between European nations.

1754-1763
            The French and Indian War
                        Misnamed!
                        Against the French by the British
                        Britain bought off tribes to fight on their side
                        French lost Canada to the British
                        British stopped payments to the tribes
                        Indians suffered losses during the war
                                    Led to revolt
                                    Pontiac’s uprising
                                                Capturing nine forts and killing ~1000
                                                Indian fighting force involving 7 tribes
                                                couldn’t sustain – peace settlement
                     British agree not to settle west of the Appalachian Mountains
            Settlement ignored by settlers and traders
Many settlers wanted to move West
British raised a force to stop settlers, taxed colonists to do so
            Resented by colonists
This was one of the factors behind the American Revolution

Indians began to align themselves with the British against “American” encroachment
Were the British really interested in protecting Indian lands?
Americans tried to secure Indian neutrality and mostly failed.

The Declaration of Independence

27th article (the He is King George III)

He has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.

After the Revolutionary War, British ceded the Northwest Territory to the Americans (ignoring that it was Indian land)
Held on to trading posts around the Great Lakes

After the Revolution, settlers poured onto Indian lands
Led to conflict as Indians defended their land
Gradually, American forces began pushing Indians further west

During the War of 1812, Indians fought against American troops
Sometimes in conjunction with the British sometimes alone.
It would be the last time Indian tribes aligned with a foreign power

After America won the War of 1812, Indian tribes in the Northeast and Southeast were forced into large concessions of land

Federal policy
Under the Constitution, the federal govt had the authority to deal with the
various tribes
            Article 1, Section 8 (The Congress shall have Power...To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;)
The federal government appointed commissioners to oversee different parts
of the country
Evolved into the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
            Agents reported to superintendents (commissioners) who reported to
the Secretary of War who reported to the President

Note: In 2021 Deb Haaland (Pueblo) was appointed Interior Secretary

The Northwest Ordinance (1787) said:
            The utmost faith shall always be observed toward Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and in their property, rights, and liberty they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity shall from time to time be made, for preventing wrongs done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them.

The treaty making period (1789-1871)
            Land acquisition became an American priority
            US military wasn’t strong enough to engage in wholesale taking
            Tried to negotiate land cessions through peaceful means
                        (Accomodation)

Territorial governments also had some authority

By 1803, hostilities had grown over broken treaties and government policy shifted from accomodation to extermination or assimilation

Here, religious organizations pushed hard for assimilation
The compromise was removal
Once removed, the assimilation process could proceed
            Religion, education and agriculture were seen as key

Eventually (1830), Andrew Jackson would initiate the Indian Removal Act and forcibly remove tribes to west of the Mississippi

(***Trail of Tears presentation***)

Forcible removal and the “Trail of Tears” (18,000 left, 14,000 survived)

The govt tried persuasion (Lies!) to make removal more orderly

            1866 – an Indian agent trying to convince a chief to move peacably

                        My red brothers, the winds of 55 winters have blown over my head and have silvered it with gray.  In all that time I have not done wrong to a single human being.  As the representative of the Great Father and as your friend, I advise you to sign this treaty at once.

The chief’s reply:
                        My father, look at me!  The winds of 55 winters have blown over my head, and have silvered it with gray.  But – they haven’t blown my brains away.

Georgia was particularly aggressive
1831 – Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and (1832) Worcester v. Georgia
the Supreme Court recognized that tribes were self-governing entities and as such, the Federal government and not the States have the right to deal with Indian tribes

ignored, the Seminoles were the most resistant and eventually the
 government gave up trying to remove them
one of the few tribes in the southeast to stay on their land east of the
Mississippi

in the Great Lakes region, the story was similar, many removed by force,
the strongest ones were able to stay
problems remained, reduced homelands, no economy

by 1840, the removal policy had done all it was capable of
“permanent Indian country” west of the Mississippi (Oklahoma)
            about 100,000 were removed

Assimilation could now begin.  It was always assumed by whites that native tribes would willingly give up their culture once the superiority of white culture was demonstrated and the tribes were converted
            The wounds were too deep for this to happen

Once in Indian territory, tribes that had never been in contact with each
 other were now thrown together
                        Intertribal conflicts erupted

1840s and 1850s
the pressure to expand westward began the removal of Indian tribes in the
Indian territory to lands further west

Manifest Destiny - first coined in 1845, but used as an idea going back to the roots of America - the idea that the United States is destined - by God - to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent

In the present day, America as a "city on a hill..." or the "New Jerusalem"

1854 Kansas-Nebraska bill authorized to remove Indians there

Pressures were also building on the West Coast
1848 United States acquires California and much of the Southwest from
Mexico

Railroads and telegraph lines begin to link the Midwest and the West
            Where could Indians be moved to now?
1851 Fort Laramie Treaty
            set boundaries between tribes
            authorized roads and military posts
            guaranteed safety to white travelers
                        annuities (not delivered)

(*** Dakota conflict presentation***)

Civil War
The Confederacy picked up support from the tribes
(angry at the Indian Removal Act)
The confederacy could afford to promise Indians things in the West
Some tribes stuck with the Union
When the War was over, Reconstruction was needed among the tribes as
well as the South

After the war
            Increasing encroachment on land west of the Mississippi
            Resources rapidly depleting and mismanaged
                                    Buffalo population
1800 40 million
1850 20 million
1865 15 million
1875 1 million

1880 395,000

1885 20,000

1895 less than 1,000

Indians retaliated by attacking trespassers
United States responded with all out military campaigns

(*** Little Big Horn presentation***)

1871 – the United States had all the territory it needed save the ever
decreasing size of Indian reservations
end of the treaty making period

the new view
            Indians are wards of the state and the federal government is their
guardian (Indians as children)
The federal govt. – through the Indian Office was to meet the Indians needs
            Was also a period of massive corruption and much of the promised goods and services never made it to the reservations
            On-going guerrilla warfare

Move begins to break up the reservation system
            Give each individual Indian a plot of land and dissolve Indian nations
1887 Dawes Act (The General Allotment Act)
            assimilation
a 25 year trust period until Indians were competent enough to manage
their own land
            many of the allotments weren’t farmable
            many Indian males saw farming as women’s work
when allotment was terminated in 1934 over 90 million acres of Indian land
was lost
also, various presidents used executive orders to take Indian land for
mining, logging, oil etc. (the Cobell litigation)

the Cultural Assault
1901 BIA edict
            forbidding of Indian customs
                        males can’t have long hair
                        no face painting
                        no Indian style clothes
                        dances and feasts forbidden
assimilation is forced

BIA takes over housing, education, health care, police etc.
            A welfare system

Boarding Schools
The premise – the Indian problem will be solved when there were no more
identifiable Indians
Thus, it was necessary to force Indians to give up their heritage

"Kill the Indian in him, and save the man"

Richard Henry Platt - army officer, founder of Carlisle Indian School (the first Indian boarding school)

This system came under criticism (over time)

1924 Indian Citizen Act - Indians are made US citizens and given the right to vote

1934 Indian Reorganization Act
            an Indian “New Deal”
                        help develop Indian economic resources
                        self-sufficiency the goal
                                    trade schools
                                    scholarships
                                    federal jobs
never very successful
Indians suspicious
Whites not very aware of Indian concerns

By the 1940s serious problems,
            Too many bureaucrats
            Too little input from Indians
                        Everyone else knew what was best

New policy (1953)
            Termination policy (name!)
            Lets end the “special status” of Indian tribes
            Federal govt. begins the process of terminating tribal status for as many tribes as possible (the idea - end the govt. to govt. sovereign nation status under the Constitution and instead focus on Natives as individual US citizens)
            Indians fiercely opposed

program launched to relocate reservation Indians to urban centers
            1940 5% of all Indians lived in urban centers
            1990 51%
                        Twin Cities are around #8
                        Many of these cities have tribal centers that are trying to
restore “traditional life”

By the mid 60s
            Civil rights and the growth of the Indian movement began the
process of reversing the 100s of terminations that had taken
place

The move toward Self-Determination
            Recognizing the rights of a tribal community to maintain itself
                        With govt. assistance

A part of LBJs “Great Society”
            New programs for reservations

Nixon continued this philosophy

1. no tribe would be terminated without consent
2. tribal governments would be encouraged to take over federal programs
3. tribes would be helped to become economically self-sufficent

this is the philosophy still used today

1969 Louis Bruce becomes the first Indian to head the BIA
1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act

1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act
1979 Archaeological Resources Protection Act

some progress but the federal govt. still had no qualms about taking Indian
land when needed for roads or other projects

American Indian Movement (AIM)
Activist
Occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973

(***Wounded Knee presentation***)

Indians begin to use the courts to seek reparations for broken treaties
            Hunting and fishing rights
            Water rights
            Compensation of land

            A mixed bag of results

            Gaming rights
                        1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act

today...

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