Prohibition and Native Americans
As early as the nineteenth century, the United States government tried to impose prohibition for Natives. They also attempted temperance on their own as an anti-colonial movement through Iroquois Handsome Lake and the Shawnee Tenskwatawa (1775-1836). In late 1790s, Handsome Lake once an alcoholic became very ill. He was addicted to rum and is family felt he would die soon. In a delirium, he claimed to have met three men sent by the Creator, where they told him of the evil practices of his people, which included alcohol. Handsome Lake had many other visions, including one where he met Jesus who told him, “Your people with become lost when the follow the ways of the white man”.5
In his second vision,
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Handsome Lake’s code called for the men to become farmers and to build a home for his wife and children, removing the tradition where women owned and worked the lands. He prescribed four sacred rituals to be followed: (1) the Great Feather Dance to honor children and life, (2) the Drum Dance to honor the spirit beings who watch over the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), (3) the Men’s Chant to honor the Creator, and (4) the Peach Pit Bowl Game and the Sustenance Dance.7 With the help of Handsome Lake’s nephew, Blacksnake, the Code of Handsome Lake was written down and published in 1850. Though there was resistance to changes in their religion, the Code of Handsome Lake is still practiced among the Seneca and is considered to be a traditional Indian …show more content…
After losing the Indian Wars of the 1870s, the United States created several smaller reservations for the Native populations and the government confiscated 7.7 million acres of the Sioux’s sacred Black Hills. The government assigned the Oglala to live on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. In the 1900s, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the federal government to pay the Sioux tribes millions of dollars in compensation for illegally taking the Black Hill, but the Oglala’s desire to have the Black Hills returned to them remains strong and they refuse to accept settlement money.11
The Pine Ridge Reservation is designated as one of the poorest areas in the United States. The Reservation has very few natural resources and no industry and many of the residents must travel more than 120 miles to Rapid City for seasonal employment. Only one Oglala in five has a job. A severe housing shortage forces hundreds into homelessness while thousands of others live in overcrowded, substandard accommodations. Sixty-nine percent of Pine Ridge residents live below the poverty line, and residents must make do on $2,600 per year, less than one-fifth of the national average
The case Worcester v. Georgia (1832) was a basis for the discussion of the issue of states' rights versus the federal government as played out in the administration of President Andrew Jackson and its battle with the Supreme Court. In addition to the constitutional issues involved, the momentum of the westward movement and popular support for Indian resettlement pitted white man against Indian. All of these factors came together in the Worcester case, which alarmed the independence of the Cherokee Nation, but which was not enforced. This examines the legal issues and tragic consequences of Indian resettlement.
Enacting prohibition in a culture so immersed in alcohol as America was not easy. American had long been a nation of strong social drinkers with a strong feeling towards personal freedom. As Okrent remarks, “George Washington had a still on his farm. James Madison downed a pint of whiskey a day”. This was an era when drinking liquor on ships was far safer than the stale scummy water aboard, and it was common fo...
The United States and our government has been shaped entirely from its past. We have learned right from wrong, what has worked and what has failed. The 1920s was a time in our country where the government created a law that upset the people. This decade is often referred to as The Roaring 20’s, The Jazz Age, The Prohibition Era, The Cocktail Era, etc. All these names perfectly describe this time, but it was also a time to learn from the mistake of creating a law that prohibited alcohol. This law played such a huge role in the decade, and has been forever remembered. The Great Gatsby is a romance novel that also hints on the time of prohibition. F. Scott Fitzgerald talked greatly about alcohol and the part it took in The Roaring 20 's. Though
On the east coast people were also being taken advantage of by the government. As a result of the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, the government began giving out land grants ‒through the Homestead Act of 1862‒ for Americans to live on and farm; the only problem was that another culture was already living on the land: the Sioux Nation. After the S...
Lakota Woman Essay In Lakota Woman, Mary Crow Dog argues that in the 1970’s, the American Indian Movement used protests and militancy to improve their visibility in mainstream Anglo American society in an effort to secure sovereignty for all "full blood" American Indians in spite of generational gender, power, and financial conflicts on the reservations. When reading this book, one can see that this is indeed the case. The struggles these people underwent in their daily lives on the reservation eventually became too much, and the American Indian Movement was born. AIM, as we will see through several examples, made their case known to the people of the United States, and militancy ultimately became necessary in order to do so.
Although the temperance movement was concerned with the habitual drunk, its primary goal was total abstinence and the elimination of liquor. With the ratification of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, the well-organized and powerful political organizations, utilizing no holds barred political tactics, successfully accomplished their goal. Prohibition became the law of the land on January 16, 1920; the manufacturing, importation, and sale of alcohol was no longer legal in the United States. Through prohibition, America embarked on what became labeled “the Nobel Experiment.” However, instead of having social redeeming values as ordained, prohibition had the opposite effect of its intended purpose, becoming a catastrophic failure.
2. “Cherokee Culture and History.” Native Americans: Cherokee History and Culture. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2014. .
Andrew Jackson, who was the 7th President of the United States, signed the Indian Removal Act in May 28th, 1832 and this policy granted Andrew Jackson the right to forcibly move the Native Americans to land west of the Mississippi. Even though “it is presumed that any explanation of Jackson’s purposes is an attempt to justify the mass killing of innocent people…” (Remini, 45) some would say his childhood affected him; seeing and hearing Indians Attacking places near his home. Or how he was the second President to make it into the business without an education. Some people thought that with gold being found in Georgia, this led many new white settlers looking to buy land from the Cherokee Indians. Although a lot could be said about Andrew Jackson’s Removal Policy one thing is for certain, the way the Policy was carried out was a horror. If you could just imagine this with your heart and soul how the policy was carried out, then you could see how terribly the Indians were treated. All because they occupied the land they were given in a treaty. The policy affected many people, some in good ways; some in bad. Obviously the only people this policy affected in a good way were the white settlers looking to buy the Indians land. The Chickasaw Indians were the only Tribe to not have land in the New Territory even though they were promised it. They sold their land for $500,000 to the United States Government, and when they showed up and had no land they decided to lease land from Choctaws. The purchase of the land from the other tribe created a trust fund that gave the Chickasaw Indians up to $75,000 a year, and then enabled them to have a cash economy and not rely on the natural environment (Kidwell). The unfortunate situation in this enti...
Prohibition was a period in which the sale, manufacture, or transport of alcoholic beverages became illegal. It started January 16, 1919 and continued to December 5, 193. Although it was formed to stop drinking completely, it did not even come close. It created a large number of bootleggers who were able to supply the public with illegal alcohol. Many of these bootleggers became very rich and influential through selling alcohol and using other methods. They started the practices of organized crime that are still used today. Thus, Prohibition led to the rapid growth of organized crime.
From the beginning of the 20th Century, there were nearly 250,000 Native Americans in the United States who accounted for approximately 0.3 percent of the population. This population was mostly residing in reservations where they executed a restricted extent of self-government. Native Americans have experienced numerous challenges related to land use and inconsistent public policies. Actually, during the 19th Century, Native Americans were dispossessed of a huge section of their land through forced removal westwards, through a series of treaties that were largely dishonored, and through military defeat by the United States in its expansion of control over the American West (Boxer par,1). Moreover, Native Americans have experienced
Prohibition, which was also known as The Noble Experiment, lasted in America from 1920 until 1933. There are quite a few results of this experiment: innocent people suffered; organized crime grew into an empire; the police, courts, and politicians became increasingly corrupt; disrespect for the law grew; and the per capita consumption of the prohibited substance—alcohol—increased dramatically, year by year. These results increased each of the thirteen years of this Noble Experiment, and they never returned to the levels that existed before 1920. Prohibition did not happen instantly, it settled on the country gradually, community by community, town by town, and eventually state by state for almost a century. The onset of National Prohibition in 1920 was merely the final blow. The first of the laws, such as the one in Virginia in 1619, through New Hampshire's law of 1719 were against drunkenness, not against drinking. The first law that limited liquor sales was implemented because of the religious beliefs of citizens. This particular law was passed in New York in 1697; it ordered that all public drinking establishments be closed on Sunday because, on the Lord's day, people should be worshiping the Bible not the bottle. In 1735, the religious had a prohibition law enacted for the entire state of Georgia. The law was a complete failure and was abandoned in 1742. For the most part, however, during the 1700s and early 1800s, those opposing liquor on religious grounds used sermons and persuasion rather than politics and laws to make their point. These persuasive efforts were known as the Temperance Movement, and its goal was to get everyone to voluntarily temper use of spirits. Maine went completely dry in 1851 and, by 1855, so had New Hampshire, Vermont, Delaware, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New York Alabama passed a Prohibition law in 1907 which became effective on January 1, 1909. Also in Alabama, the publishing of liquor advertisements and the circulation of other materials containing alcohol and liquor advertisements were prohibited in 1915. By 1920, thirty-three states encompassing 63% of the country had already voted themselves dry (Cherrington 344).
There were many leaders like Handsome Lake, for instance there was Tenskwatawa of the Shawnee tribe. He was also an alcoholic, and he was one-eyed and fat (Johnson 47). He had an experience very like Handsome Lake’s, he also fell into a coma and was assumed dead. When he awoke he claimed to have had a vision (Johnson 47). His message was for all Natives, not just his own tribe. He taught that all Natives must give up alcohol and fighting among themselves (Johnson 47). He claimed that they must return to their traditional ways and give up European tools (Johnson 47). Anyone who disagreed with the new old ways must be put down by force (Johnson 47). He borrowed a mean, punishing monotheistic god from the Christians (Johnson 47). He claimed that if everything was
Native Americans were using alcohol long before Europeans colonized America. Alcohol was consumed mainly for spiritual reasons, and their beverages contained only diluted alcohol, as much effort was required to produce it. Native Americans used alcohol to communicate with spiritual forces, and only highly ranked priests had access to it. Distillation, then a European process of making more potent alcoholic beverages, was unknown to them, but when the Europeans started trading with the Native Americans, the newcomers introduced them to methods of making more potent drinks. The sudden abundance of more potent beverages did not permit the natives to regulate their use of alcohol, in contrast to the Europeans, who had thousands of years of experience and had regulated its distribution centuries before. Due to the history of alcohol in the New World, factors such as socioeconomics, culture, and genetics have influenced modern Native Americans to abuse alcohol comparably more than other ethnic groups, and it has had a destructive effect on their society.
In the early 1820s to 1830s, Christian Values re-awaked the banning of drinking alcohol in the United States. The State of Massachusetts passed a law in 1838 banning the sale of alcohol in anything less than a 15-gallon container. Two years later that law was revoked. This set an example for the banning of alcohol and a structure for other states to try. Later throughout the years Maine passed the first state prohibition law in 1846 , and a couple other states had followed by the time the Civil War.
The prohibition era lasted from 1920 to 1933. Many people, especially politicians running for office during this time, wanted to see the sale and manufacturing of alcohol banned. Prohibition in the United States was a plan that politicians designed in order to put a stop to drinking. They wanted to reduce drinking by eliminating all businesses that either manufactured, distributed, or sold alcoholic beverages. The Eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution took away licenses to do business from the all brewers, distillers, vintners, and the sales of alcoholic beverages.