The Story <- of the Native American (1) is unique, tragic and inspiring: 1.) Unique- because they were the original inhabitants of the continent
and experienced every change of America. 2.) Tragic- because the conflict with whites paralleled with the
traditions of people around the world. 3.) Inspiring- because they have survived, have asserted their political
and economic rights, and have succeeded in retaining their identity, culture
and heritage.
Indian
children <- use computers to learn their language of
Ojibway.
Full
Citizenship <- granted in 1924, are proud of America, their
own culture and heritage.
Indian Heritage <- some states have Indian names- (2) Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan, Kansas, Idaho and more.
Indians taught Europeans how to
cultivate crops such as corn, tomatoes, potatoes and tobacco. Indians invited
canoes, snowshoes an moccasins. Are master craftsmen in pottery, silver jewelry,
paintings and woven rugs and baskets.
Population <- there were one million Indians when the settlers came, then
down about (3) 350,000 by 1920.
Today there are 2 million, 62% percent live in large cities and the remaining
live on the reservation. In 1816, there were 12.9 million whites, 2.5 million
blacks. In 1990 there were 251.4 million people living in the United states.
Transfer of Land <- from Indian to European, then later American came by
treaties, war and coercion (to compel or persuade by force or threats). The
history of the United States is the story of the Native American struggle.
Columbus <- set out to sail west from
Spain to
find Asia, he came to the Bahamas Islands close to Florida. He named the people
he (4) met “los Indies”, Indians.
He discovered the New World. Indians has since then been the name for North
American people.
The
Indians <- north of Mexico to Canada spoke over (5)
300 languages, lived in small bands or
groups called “tribes”. Scientists <-
speculate that the Native Americans came from Asia (Siberia), crossed over
the Bering Straight into
Alaska after the Ice Age, and
migrated south through North, Central and South Americas.
The Pueblos <- Indians in southwest part of America, built and
lived in busy towns with many-storied building that several families lived in.
The
Apache <- Indians, also in the
Southwest
hunted wildlife and gathered plants, nuts and roots. They acquired horses
from the Spanish and started
to raid the Pueblos and settlers for food and goods.
(6/23)The Iroquois <-
Indians live in the Easter Woodlands of America, they hunted, fished and grew crops like
the Pueblos. They built long houses that 20 families could live together in
them. They were fierce warriors.
The Haida <- Indians live in the North
West part of
America, they were rich in fishing and game. They built their homes with tree
logs and also built “totem poles” carved from trees, that told of their family
history.
Many Indians <- were and still are great master craftsmen in pottery,
baskets, carvings and woven cotton and plant-fiber cloth. The Winnebagoes of
the Midwest developed a sophisticated calendar that took the motions of both
the sun and the moon into account.
Europeans <- The Spanish arrived in America in the
1500s and settled in Florida, California and in the southwest.
The French and the Dutch came also came in search of profit. Many came to trade with the Indians, exchanged guns, iron tools and furs. They also came to establish new homes and start a new life.
Thanksgiving <- is the American holiday in the month of November
that celebrates the Indian generosity with the Pilgrims in 1620. The Pilgrims survived their first
winter in Massachusetts and the Indians showed them how to survive and live.
Thus, the Pilgrims were very thankful to God and the Indians.
Vacant Land <- Europeans thought they had the right to farm
the land and improve it by putting up fences, digging wells and building small
towns.
Manhattan Island <- In 1626, (6/24) the Dutch came and bought the island from the Shinnecock Indians,
that was plentiful for hunting and fishing. The Dutch felt that is was their
right to keep the Indians off. The Indians believed that the land was to be
“shared’ by all men and can only take what was needed for food, clothing and
shelter. To Europeans, the game or animals were to be killed and the land to be
owned and farmed.
Lost Land <- to make room for the new
settlers
were forced to give up their land, hunting lands and fields because of war,
threats and treaties.
Several Tribes <- came together as one and went to war with the
Pilgrims in 1675. For a year they fought, but not even 20,000 allies could
overcome the numerous colonists and their guns.
The Iroquois <- who inhabited land below Lakes
Ontario and
Erie in northern New York and Pennsylvania were successful in resisting the
whites. The “League of Iroquois”, a council of 50 representatives from each of
he five tribes was very democratic in governing their people. They sided with
the British who fought against the French from 1754 to 1763, without the
Iroquois’s help, the British would have been defeated and would of lost their
dominance over the land. The League was strong until the American Revolution in
the 1770s.
Go West! <- the United States western
boundary was the Appalachians at the time of the American Revolution. The
colonies became expensive, so settlers moved west into the wilderness of
Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio. The Indians attacked the traveling settlers because
their “hunting grounds” were being overtaken. (7/25) The French and British trying to retain their settlements, encouraged Indians to attack
frontier settlements. The whites struck back, there was a lot of
bloodshed and lives lost on both sides.
Indian Problem <- In 1817, President James Monroe wrote; “if the Indian tribes
do not abandon that state, an become civilized and if that they will decline an
become extinct.” Monroe felt that the only chance for Indians to survive was to
remove them from their land and put them at another place where they could not
be disturbed by settlers. In, 1830, the Indian Removal Act became law, and the
Indians in the east were moved to the west side of the Mississippi.
The Cherokee <- was one of the tribes to be removed, even after they adopted to
live the white man’s way.(8/26) In 1821,
Sequoyah, a Cherokee chief, developed a written language for his people and used
his 85 character alphabet, they printed Bibles and a newspaper. They
also adopted a constitution modeled on of the United States. Unfortunately, a
small group of Cherokees, that did not represent the Cherokee Nation, signed a
treaty with the American Government agreeing to the removal of the Cherokees.
“The Trail of Tears” <-
(9/27) the Cherokees were removed from their
homes by force and marched overland to Indian
Territory in Oklahoma. This journey took
3-5 months and some 4,000 Cherokees, ¼ of the Cherokee Nation, lost their lives
in this shameful process of removal.
The
Sioux (Lakota) <- roamed on
horseback hunting the Buffalo, that gave them everything they needed to live for
food,
clothing and shelter
(teepees). The Sioux allowed “wagon trains” going west to pass through their
lands, but
the whites began to settle on
their lands. Then came the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, that proclaimed that
white settlers could not
settle on their land. But 6 years later, (10/28) gold was discovered in the Black Hills
of South Dakota and the treaty was ignored.
The United States try to buy the land from the Sioux, but they refused.
Sitting
Bull <- the Government no longer
recognized the Indian Nation, so at “Custer’s Last Stand”,(11/29) Sitting Bull
Defeated the soldiers in 1876 and soon after that
because of the loss of Buffalo and starvation, the Sioux Tribe surrendered and
moved to live on the reservation. Unrest developed of broken treaties,
disappearing of game and failure of crops, disease and resentment.
Wounded Knee <- in 1890, at Wounded Knee, South
Dakota; a cavalry regiment of soldiers were transporting a group of Sioux
Indians, a bloody confrontation broke out, that resulted in over 300 deaths of
Indian men, women and children. Marked the end of all hope.
All the West <- from the Prairies to the Pacific, the land was settled by
ranchers, farmers and townspeople. There was no more Frontier, Indians were confined to reservations. The
Government made promises that it could not keep; because of poor management,
inadequate supplies and dishonest government workers, that led to unnecessary
suffering for the Indians living on the Reservation.
Helen Hunt Jackson <- heard Poncha chief Standing Bear speak
about the sufferings of Indians. Thereafter, wrote the book “A Century of
Dishonor” in 1885. It brought the sufferings of the Indians to the attention of
the nation.
The General Allotment Act <- in 1887, each Indian was allotted 160 acres of land to
farm, but many Indians didn’t desire to farm and the land was not fertile to
grow crops. The Government sold off the rest of the land after the allotments
to the settlers. By 1934, the Indians land reduced from 138 million acres (56
million hectares) to 48 million acres (19 million hectares).
The Indian Citizenship Act
(12/30)<- in 1924, declared that all Indians
born within the territorial limits of the United
States to be citizens. This came by the increase of
respect by white legislators that acknowledged the Indians contributions in
World War I. Soon after, the Bureau of Indian Affairs was established in
Washington D.C.
<- in 1928, Presidential
candidate Herbert Hoover selected Charles Curtis, a Kaw Indian from Kansas, as
Vice-Presidential candidate.
In 1946 <- The government set up the
Indian Claims Commission to deal with unfair treatment claims or fraud. In the 32 years of
operation, it awarded $818 million in damages.
Compensation <- The United States continues today to recognize
the “mistreatment” and “injustice” of the entire Indian
Nation of North America, and
makes the efforts to “pay back” to the Native American Indians for their
suffering, humiliation and
losses.
“Indian Power” <- a movement to parallel the “Black
Power” movement of Afro-Americans. ( 13/31) (AIM)
the American Indian Movement rights group staged a protest
march in Washington D.C. in 1972 called the “Trail of Broken Treaties”.
(14/32) Wounded Knee <- AIM occupied this small town for
71 days in order get land back that was taken in violation of
past
treaties.
Books <- “Bury My Heart At
Wounded Knee” by Dee Brown and “Custer Died for Your Sins” by Vine DeLoria,
have helped bring the Indian cause to public attention.
Rights groups <
- The National Tribal Chairman’s Associaation, the National Congress of American
Indians and the National
Indian
Youth Council oversee Indian rights in Washington D.C.
Rights in court <-
the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy of
Maine sued the government for the return of 12.5 million acres of
land
but instead settled for $81.5 million in 1980 and invested the money in
businesses own by Indians. The
Sioux
in South Dakota also sued the government for the return of land
called the Black Hills. They were
awarded
$122.5 million but a lot have not accepted it because they continue to fight
for sacred land.
Response < - to white society is better
than to be victimized; for example the Crow and Blackfoot reservations in
Montana established and managed a profitable complex of industrial and
service-oriented enterprises.
Lag far behind <-1988, the unemployment rate is 64%,
27% live below poverty line (earn less than government rating). Diabetes,
pneumonia, influenza and alcoholism claim twice as many Indian lives then
Americans yearly. The lack of education and job skills, Indians that move into
the city end up in poverty and live in
slums.
Life
on Reservation <- On (15/33)
the Navajo reservation (16 million acres) is the
nation’s largest but also the poorest; homes lack
electricity and plumbing and
the unemployment rate is 48%. But the Mescalero Apache reservation (460,384
acres) in New Mexico is one
of the nation’s wealthiest. The tribe owns and operates a logging company and a
cattle ranch, both are
multi-million dollar businesses. They also built a $22 million dollar luxury
resort for
vacationers.
(16/34) 370 Treaties < - were signed with the United States that in return the government would protect their remaining
lands and resources. Since 1824, The Bureau of Indian Affairs has been responsible for Indian lands, resources and programs.
Tribal
Councils < - govern in most
reservations today. They have their own police forces, schools and courts.
Reservation
Resources <- the Apache attract
businesses to their reservations and plan to use their land resources for extra
income. The Navajo possess
oil, coal and uranium reserves. Other reservations are rich in timber, gas and
water.
Best
of Both Worlds <- Today’s
generation have come along way and are improving their life styles and culture,
with better
and higher education and are
trying to regain what they have lost.
TEST ON NOV.30TH = 1ST Class Chapters 7 &
8; 2nd Class Chapter 9 &
10