Government Policy and Attempts at Reform
White Perspective “ Kill the Indian to save the man”
Inability to see other people as fully developed members of the human race
Native Americans are heathens that need to be Christianized!!
Close to Christianity = Good (Even if it is painful, unpleasant, and cruel)
Helen Hunt Jackson A Century of Dishonor (1881)
REVIEW: The Pen is Mightier than the Sword
"The history of the Government connections with the Indians is a shameful record of broken treaties and unfulfilled promises. The history of the border white man's connection with the Indians is a sickening record of murder, outrage, robbery, and wrongs committed by the former, as the rule, and occasional savage outbreaks and unspeakably barbarous deeds of retaliation by the latter, as the exception."
Helen Hunt Jackson
Jackson researched led to opposition to government treatment of Native Americans. The solution was to make the Indians white. This policy destroyed Indians as a distinct nation.
Dawes Severalty Act (1887)
Cultural absorption of American Indians in white America by forcing Native American to abandon their traditional appearance and dress like “Americans”
Extreme Makeover: American Indian Edition: Before and After
Three Kinds of Indian Conflict
Expansion
Retaliation
Independence
NATIVE CONFLICT TIMELINE
1868-1869
Grant established commission to investigate Indian relations
1874 – General Custer finds gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Immediately attacked by the Sioux whose land wasprotected by a treaty with the whites
1876 Custer’s Last Stand 12,000 Sioux wipe out 600 of Custer’s men in 20 minutes
Government pursues Crazy Horse (wins the battle, looses the war)
1890 Ghost Dane Movement
Indian Resistance and Hostility. This freaks out white people. Remember early slave revolts?
Wounded Knee - 146 Sioux women and children are massacred