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Native american story essays
Native american story essays
Native american story essays
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Prior to encountering the works Indian Pride: Myths and Truths, Indian Pride: Treaties and Sovereignty, and The Sundance Ceremony, I had speculated that Fools Crow exaggerated Native American customs and traditions in order to create a more compelling novel. Yet, after analyzing these works, I found that I was completely wrong. As Linda Smith states in Decolonizing Methodologies: “It galls us that Western researchers and intellectuals can assume to know all there is to know of us, on the basis of their brief encounters with some of us,” I had unjustly assumed I knew it all (1). Despite various attempts at altering the Native American identity, these three works help to “dispel Indian myths with the real truth” (Indian Pride: Myths and Truths). …show more content…
The second interesting element is the indigenous definition of Sovereignty and how it coincides with Native American treaties. The last interesting element was the revival of the Sun Dance ceremony after several decades. After watching Indian Pride: Myths and Truths, I believe it helps to “dispel Indian myths with the real truth.” I believe this concept directly relates to the issue of stereotyping raised in Decolonizing Methodologies. Smith claims that it “seeks to deny them further opportunities to be creators of their own cultures and nations” (1). I also believe that this statement is evident in Fools Crow, specifically when only white society is described as civilized: “He thought again of that red curly hair that always reminded him of Saint Louis, of civilization” (242). I believe this video also portrays Native American’s “interdependence with all living things,” in a favorable light (Indian Pride: Myths and Truths). In the video, the notion of reserving rights for activities involving nature is supported by the indigenous belief that “all things connect, all things are bound together” (Indian Pride: Myths and Truths). This concept is …show more content…
Native American identities, through sovereignty, have been beneficial to the people while also inflicting enduring adverse effects through treaties. This segment shows how Native American sovereignty has undergone change, destruction by the hands of white outsiders, and eventually recreation. In Indian Pride: Treaties and Sovereignty, John Echohawlk defines Native American sovereignty as: “making their own decisions, claiming their own land, and conducting government to government relationships with other governments.” Today, Native American tribes are granted sovereignty and their treaties with the United States are fairly upheld. This was not the case during the civil war. This sentiment is portrayed in Fools Crow, when Fools Crow states: “He has promised us that we would be treated fairly and we would be rewarded for the lands we have given up. He has promised us rations. But so far the Pikunis see nothing” (158). I believe this example also relates to Smith’s claim that “a range of social interventions that have been remarkably ineffective in dealing with communities” (231). While social interventions have been ineffective in the past, I was thrilled to discover that currently, there are three levels of government “federal, state, and tribal” (Indian Pride:
Throughout history the attacks on Native American sovereignty proved to be too much and eventually tribes had to submit. The problems Native American tribes faced when fighting for and dealing with sovereignty in the 18th century are identical to the problems they are facing today. These
With hope that they could even out an agreement with the Government during the progressive era Indian continued to practice their religious beliefs and peacefully protest while waiting for their propositions to be respected. During Roosevelt’s presidency, a tribe leader who went by as No Shirt traveled to the capital to confront them about the mistreatment government had been doing to his people. Roosevelt refused to see him but instead wrote a letter implying his philosophical theory on the approach the natives should take “if the red people would prosper, they must follow the mode of life which has made the white people so strong, and that is only right that the white people should show the red people what to do and how to live right”.1 Roosevelt continued to dismiss his policies with the Indians and encouraged them to just conform into the white’s life style. The destruction of their acres of land kept being taken over by the whites, which also meant the destruction of their cultural backgrounds. Natives attempted to strain from the white’s ideology of living, they continued to attempt with the idea of making acts with the government to protect their land however they never seemed successfully. As their land later became white’s new territory, Indians were “forced to accept an ‘agreement’” by complying to change their approach on life style.2 Oklahoma was one of last places Natives had still identity of their own, it wasn’t shortly after that they were taken over and “broken by whites”, the union at the time didn’t see the destruction of Indian tribes as a “product of broken promises but as a triumph for American civilization”.3 The anger and disrespect that Native tribes felt has yet been forgotten, white supremacy was growing during the time of their invasion and the governments corruption only aid their ego doing absolutely nothing for the Indians.
Native American literature from the Southeastern United States is deeply rooted in the oral traditions of the various tribes that have historically called that region home. While the tribes most integrally associated with the Southeastern U.S. in the American popular mind--the FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole)--were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) from their ancestral territories in the American South, descendents of those tribes have created compelling literary works that have kept alive their tribal identities and histories by incorporating traditional themes and narrative elements. While reflecting profound awareness of the value of the Native American past, these literary works have also revealed knowing perspectives on the meaning of the modern world in the lives of contemporary Native Americans.
Considering historical evidence, the notion: Native –Americans was not the first inhabitant of America is a complete false. For centuries, history kept accurate and vivid accounts of the first set of people who domiciled the western hemisphere. Judging by those records, below are the first set of Native-American people who inhabited America before the arrival of another human race; the Iroquois: The Iroquois of Native Americans was one of the tribes that lived in America before other people came. Based on historical evidence, it is believed that the Native Americans came from Asia way back during the Ice Age through a land bridge of the Bering Strait. When the Europeans first set foot in America, there were about 10 million Native Americans
Since the beginning of European colonization whites have taken Native American’s lands in order to expand their own settlements. Throughout the years there have been many disputes and up rises because Indians have refused to give up or sell their lands. With an escalating white population, Native American communities have been disintegrated, killed in conflicts, or forced to move into Indian Territories. The year of 1828 would again demonstrate how white settlers would obtain Native American’s lands with the Cherokee Indian Removal. Known as the Trail of Tears, the Cherokees would start their tragic journey to Indian Territory in which thousands of Indians would die along the way and soon after their arrival due to illnesses or violent encounters. The Cherokee Indian Removal was not only cruel but injustice, the Cherokees shouldn’t have ceded their lands because before the removal they attempted to be “civilized” by the Americans giving up their cultural and religious beliefs and the federal government by treaty had to protect Indians from any state oppressions.
Many people do not realize that Indian people are around us everyday. They could be our neighbors, our bus driver, or anyone that we see on a daily bases. In Thomas King’s essay “You’re not the Indian I Had in Mind,” and his video “I’m not the Indian You Had in Mind,” he exemplifies the stereotype that many people make about Indians. King mentions in his essay that people always would say to him, “you’re not the Indian I had in mind,” because he did not look like the stereotypical Indian. Through King’s essay and video, I have been educated about this stereotype that I was unaware of. Since I now have an understanding of how unrealistic this stereotype is, I now can educate friends and family members on this issue.
I have decided to discuss the topic of Spirituality in Native Americans. To address this topic, I will first discuss what knowledge I have gained about Native Americans. Then I will discuss how this knowledge will inform my practice with Native Americans. To conclude, I will talk about ethical issues, and dilemmas that a Social Worker might face working with Native American people.
The history of the relationship between Indigenous Peoples of the North America and European settlers represents a doubtlessly tragic succession of events, which resulted in a drastic decline in Indigenous population leading to the complete annihilation of some Native groups, and bringing others to the brink of extinction. This disastrous development left the Indigenous community devastated, shaking their society to its very pillars. From the 1492 Incident and up to the 19th century the European invasion to the North America heavily impacted the social development of the Indigenous civilization: apart from contributing to their physical extermination by waging incessant war on the Indian tribes, Anglo-Americans irreversibly changed the Native lifestyle discrediting their entire set of moral guidelines. Using the most disreputable inventions of the European diplomacy, the colonizers and later the United States’ government not only turned separate Indigenous tribes against each other but have also sown discord among the members of the same tribe. One of the most vivid examples of the Anglo-American detrimental influence on the Native groups is the history of the Cherokee Nation and the U.S. Indian Removal Policy. The Cherokee removal from Georgia (along with many other Indian nations) was definitely an on-going conflict that did not start at any moment in time, but developed in layers of history between the Native Americans, settlers of various cultures, and the early U.S. government. This rich and intricate history does not allow for easy and quick judgments as to who was responsible for the near demise of the Cherokee Nation. In 1838, eight thousand Cherokees perished on a forced march out of Georgia, which came to be called the T...
Thomas King uses an oral story-telling style of writing mingled with western narrative in his article “You’re Not the Indian I Had in Mind” to explain that Indians are not on the brink of extinction. Through this article in the Racism, Colonialism, and Indigeneity in Canada textbook, King also brings some focus to the topic of what it means to be “Indian” through the eyes of an actual Aboriginal versus how Aboriginals are viewed by other races of people. With his unique style of writing, King is able to bring the reader into the situations he describes because he writes about it like a story he is telling.
This paper supports Thomas Flanagan's argument against Native sovereignty in Canada; through an evaluation of the meanings of sovereignty it is clear that Native sovereignty can not coexist with Canadian sovereignty. Flanagan outlines two main interpretations of sovereignty. Through an analysis of these ideas it is clear that Native Sovereignty in Canada can not coexist with Canadian sovereignty.
Indian Betrayal Looking back at the history of the United States, there are many instances and issues concerning race and ethnicity that shape the social classes that make up the United States today. There are many stories concerning the American Indian that are filled with betrayal, but there is probably none more cruel and shameful than the removal of the Cherokee Indians in 1838. Blood thirsty for money and property, the white settlers would soon use dirty methods to drive the Cherokee out of their home- lands. The United States government played a critical role in the removal of the Cherokee. “Soon the state governments insisted on the removal of the native peoples, who were already out numbered by the white settlers and considered to be uncivilized “heathens,” not worthy of the land they held” (Sherman 126).
In our current generation, the year 2016, one may think racism would be diminished but it has yet to be acknowledged. Most people would have thought discrimination ended with the time of slavery, but it continues to exist in indirect ways. When people think Native Americans, they think about how they were the true Americans and how they aided Columbus’s settlement into the Early Americas. Native Americans experience discrimination to this day, yet nothing has been said about the Indian’s existence and rights. In Kimberly Roppolo’s essay, “Symbolism, Racism, History, and Reality: The Real Problem with Indian Mascots,” constructs the reason and gives us an idea on why this type of racism still exists and why people continue to unknowingly discriminate
In American Indian Stories, University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London edition, the author, Zitkala-Sa, tries to tell stories that depicted life growing up on a reservation. Her stories showed how Native Americans reacted to the white man’s ways of running the land and changing the life of Indians. “Zitkala-Sa was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition” (back cover) is a great way to show that the author’s stories were based upon actual events in her life as a Dakota Sioux Indian. This essay will describe and analyze Native American life as described by Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian Stories, it will relate to Native Americans and their interactions with American societies, it will discuss the major themes of the book and why the author wrote it, it will describe Native American society, its values and its beliefs and how they changed and it will show how Native Americans views other non-Natives.
Nevertheless, in the author’s note, Dunbar-Ortiz promises to provide a unique perspective that she did not gain from secondary texts, sources, or even her own formal education but rather from outside the academy. Furthermore, in her introduction, she claims her work to “be a history of the United States from an Indigenous peoples’ perspective but there is no such thing as a collective Indigenous peoples’ perspective (13).” She states in the next paragraph that her focus is to discuss the colonist settler state, but the previous statement raises flags for how and why she attempts to write it through an Indigenous perspective. Dunbar-Ortiz appears to anchor herself in this Indian identity but at the same time raises question about Indigenous perspective. Dunbar-Ortiz must be careful not to assume that just because her mother was “most likely Cherokee,” her voice automatically resonates and serves as an Indigenous perspective. These confusing and contradictory statements do raise interesting questions about Indigenous identity that Dunbar-Ortiz should have further examined. Are
Indian Sovereignty begins defining the word sovereignty which is a strenuous word to define due to not being touched and has changed over the years. But you may see it through exercising the sovereign powers. The word sovereignty began in Europe with the superior power who was the King they exercised sovereignty with working with their ruler. John Locke and Jacques Rousseau both help develop, define what sovereignty means which John said it comes from the people and Jacques says it comes from the agreement among the people of a nation. Next Sovereignty is never completely independent due to the fact that a strong Nation relies on one another to attain the goal of independence. Sovereignty is the supreme power before nation, government, and