The Native Americans are the most prominent Aboriginal people of the world that still suffers the scars of colonial subjection. They faced historical and currently face oppression as a result of the arrival of the European settlers into America. Through the oppression of the 18th and 19th century, the Native Americans were resilient, and the Indian Citizen Act of 1924 offered official citizenship to Native American tribes. This only happened then partially because they helped in the world wars. The historical manifestations of the ways in which the European settlers oppressed the Native Americans explains the long-standing oppression still present in the United States today.
Indian Wars
The European settlers initially used technological advancements to attract the positive welcome from the native people in Northern America. However, conflicts started to emerge after the Native Americans realized that the colonists wanted to conquer their territory and rule over them. The Indian wars, therefore, constituted the first forms of oppression of the Native Americans through the armed institutionalization of the European settler’s new governance (Simons, 2013). The Indian Wars were fuelled by competition for the minimal resources on the land of interest through the expansion of colonial territory. Additionally, the population pressure of the incoming settlers tried to force the Native Americans out of their land and into the westward and northward inhabitation. These events fuelled the resistance from the indigenous people who raided and attacked the European convoys.
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Some Native American allies that championed the rights of the indigenous people fought alongside the Indians to get rid of the reprisal statuses and the land use debates (Simons, 2013). The European powers that had an interest in the North American territory also fought in the Indian Wars against the settlements. Some ideologies that fuelled the warfare were the Manifest Dynasty, which presented ideologies such as the destiny of the United States in expanding from coast to coast of the continent of North America.
Indian Removal Act 1830
In an oppressive solution to end the Indian Wars, the United States formulated a policy that facilitated the Indian removal to pave the way for the settling of the European populations. (Rose, 2015). The Indian Removal Act passed in 1830 by the Congress under the presidency of Andrew Jackson enabled negotiations between the American government and the Southern Indian tribes to convince them their removal to the federal territory in exchange for their ancestral homelands. The resettlement was to the west of Mississippi River. Christian missionaries alongside some Indian tribes protested against the passage of the new law.
The opposition was also due to the past acceptance by Thomas Jefferson on the respect for Indian rights to their homelands as they were assimilated into the European culture of property ownership and the individual ownership of African slaves (Rose, 2015). Andrew Jackson's policy, therefore, was a military and political action that forced the Indian tribes out of their ancestral homeland and presented a constitutional violation of the sovereignty of the indigenous populations.
Another debate that raised eyebrows was the acceptance of the occupancy for lands within the federal government's territory while at the same time no rights for titles on the same land. The president attempted to accommodate the self-rule by the tribes therefore through the creation of federal territories which consisted of the resettlement on federal lands to the west of the Mississippi River (Rose, 2015). The law also favored the residents of Georgia who had consistent disputes with the Cherokee tribe and the Indian removal brought a solution to this problem.
The Indian removal, therefore, influenced the demise of the Indian tribes through the replacement of tribal laws with oppressive state laws; the replacement of tribal hunting grounds with family farms for settlers and the violation of the Native American rich heritage. The tribal leaders had to sign such treaties because their denial would only facilitate the forceful removal and deaths of more members of the tribes. They named the event the ‘Trail of Tears’ as it was unfair for most of the observers due to its inevitability. Tribes such as the Seminoles resisted removal and as a result, about three thousand were killed by American soldiers who fought in the Second Seminole War of 1835 to 1842.
Wounded Knee, South Dakota 1890
The Wounded Knee Massacre that occurred in 1890 near the Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota ensued during the U.S government's siege of Lakota lands that once belonged to the indigenous people (Roscigno et al., 2015). It is considered the last of the Indian Wars. The treaty agreements between the American government and the tribes did not apply as promised when the European settlers encroached the land and the gold miners acquired more lands. Such acts thereby created unrest among the indigenous tribes in the reservations created by the government.
The Native Americans would perform a spiritual ritual known as the ‘Ghost Dance” that aimed at propagating the tribe’s beliefs that the white man would disappear from the native land and that buffaloes would return in abundance for hunting season. The American settlers precluded the dance to present an armed attack and attempted to arrest a tribal leader, Sitting Bull. The tribesmen protested, and after the Bull had tried to pull away from his captors, it resulted in the death of almost three hundred people through a mismanaged shoot-out by the American troops (Roscigno et al., 2015).
Poverty and Unemployment of the Native Americans
The comparatively high unemployment rates and the lack of economic empowerment of the Native American population despite the steady improvement of the American economy is a clear indication of deep-seated discriminatory policies. Due to the relatively low rates of educational attainment, the Native youth lack the chances to contribute to the national overall labor force (Chan et al., 2013). The native population is often overlooked as asterisk nations in the breakdown of ethnicity and race in the census, and therefore this contributes to the widespread ignorance of their rights and societal issues. Additionally, the national policy debates and discussions on minority groups exclude the challenges facing the Aboriginal populations due to the assumption that they dissolve into other community categories.
The census data on the community dynamics, however, paints a sad picture where one in every four Native American lives in poverty (Chan et al., 2013). Other factors that contribute to this phenomenon are the low education levels and the racial discrimination in the labor market. Additionally, the integration of the indigenous people into the American society reduces the chances for outreach programs to create the basis for more economic opportunities than in the past.
Trying to conform to Christianity
Most of the Native Americans viewed baptism as a form of submission to the invader who was the European settler. Some, however, adopted some aspects of Christianity in a syncretistic system. The brutality of the European settlers further discouraged their adoption of the new faith despite their curiosity. For example, The use of force in the adoption of baptism caused resentment of Christianity. It was hard to believe in a faith that allowed the massive deaths of the natives, the unfair dislocation and the mass suicides due to European invasions. The natives went as far as killing unarmed missionaries in areas such as Florida, Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia. Most of them, therefore, rejected Christianity for the representation by the Europeans rather than the religion itself.
However, those that accepted Christianity were those that benefited from the charity, the high morals and the great courage that some missionaries presented. Additionally, the defeat of the natives forced some to believe in the ‘stronger god’ who conquered new territories. The missionaries, who supported the resistance of the Indian removal, also facilitated the adoption of Christianity.
Jim Thorpe, Sequoyah, and Sacajawea
In 1924, the Indian Citizen Act offered an official form of citizenship for the Native American tribes due to their heroic service in World War 1. The American government found a rewarding way to compensate people that gave a great representation of their people such as Jim Thorpe, Sequoyah, and Sacajawea. The only way that the American government could award citizenship was after military service to America.
Census on Indian Reservations around the United States
According to the Interior Department, in 2012 there were three hundred and twenty federally recognized reservations for the Native Americans and five hundred and sixty-six Indian tribes recognized by the state (Weaver, 2014). Furthermore, the 2010 Census found almost 3 million of people in the United States identify as Native Americans which constitutes less that a percentage of the total American population (Weaver, 2014).
The Census on Indian Reservations, therefore concludes the evident, consistent reduction of the Native American population due to the oppressive measures applied after the first contact with the European settlers to the current existence of discriminatory policies by the American government. Such manifestations are in the form of the massive deaths from direct exposure to the colonialists’ infectious diseases such as the smallpox epidemic, the conflicts with the Europeans, tribal wars, migration to Mexico and Canada, assimilation and the decline in birth rates (Weaver, 2014).
The Native American population is a minority group that faced oppression under the governance of the European settlers and still faces discrimination from the current American government. The discouraging fact is that the integration of the members of the indigenous population into the American society makes it had to individually identify the members and boost their economic and educational statuses. The marginalization as a result of the Indian Wars, the Indian Removal Act and the forced conformity to Christianity, presents a current debate on the existing policies that compensate for the oppression. It is, therefore evident, that the Native Americans faced historical oppression and currently face oppression as a result of the arrival of the European settlers into America.
References
Caravelis, C., & Robinson, M. B. (2015). Social Justice, Criminal Justice: The Role of American Law in Effecting and Preventing Social Change . Routledge.
Chan, J. Y., Wang, C. C., Ditchman, N., Kim, J. H., Pete, J., Chan, F., & Dreis, B. (2013). State unemployment rates and vocational rehabilitation outcomes: A multilevel analysis. Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin , 0034355213509855.
Roscigno, V., Cantzler, J., Restifo, S., & Guetzkow, J. (2015). Legitimation, state repression, and the Sioux Massacre at Wounded Knee. Mobilization: An International Quarterly , 20 (1), 17-40.
Rose, J. (2015). “We Shall be All Be Americans”:“Benevolent” US Indian Policy in the Early Republic from Coexistence to Removal. IUSB Undergraduate Research Journal , 15 , 106.
Simons, A. (2013). Crooked Lessons from the Indian Wars/Book Review.
Weaver, H. N. (2014). Sovereignty, dependency, and the spaces in between: An examination of the United States social policy and Native Americans. Social issues in contemporary Native America: Reflections from Turtle Island , 7-22.
