Summary Of The Westward Expansion Of Native American Culture

Imagine living in a community where you know everyone, you all speak the same unique language, you practice your culture and traditions together, and you have gone through many great experiences with them. Then Imagine first losing your land, your home, where you grew up in. Then your culture all of the traditions your people have been practicing for centuries gone. Then losing maybe even your family, leaving you in constant fear for your life, family, friends, land, and culture. Imagine being a Native American during the 19th century. You later find out that this outcome was due to westward expansion. Throughout history westward expansion of the U.S. has had many negative consequences on many Native Americans. Although some were temporary,

acquired the west, there have been several attempts to destroy Native American culture. Shortly after the Natives lost their land, their culture was condemned as “uncivilized”. The Dawes Act of 1887 sold Native land to white settlers and offered to give Natives their land and make them American citizens back if they agreed to give up their culture. “The policy proved to be a disaster, leading to the loss of much tribal land and the erosion of Indian cultural traditions”(Foner). Ever since the Dawes Act their culture has been continuously attacked to the point where it can no longer be restored. In the poem The Powwow at the End of the World, Sherman Alexie addresses what obstacles Native American people and their culture were forced to endure, “I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after we Indians have gathered around the fire with that salmon who has three stories it must tell before sunrise: one story will teach us how to pray; another story will make us laugh for hours; the third will give us reason to dance.”. The salmon represents an ancestor teaching them their culture and telling stories. Sherman Alexie is trying to make the point that they will never be able to forgive because their culture can never be repaired. There has been permanent damage to Native American culture rooting from westward expansion of the

A good example of this is from a speech given by James K Polk during the early stages of westward expansion, “The title of numerous Indian tribes to vast tracts of country has been extinguished; new states have been emitted into the union”. He is talking about taking away Native American land like it is nothing and then spends a lot of time focusing on what “great” benefits white Americans will receive, “As our boundaries have been enlarged and our agricultural population has been spread over a large surface, our federative system has acquired additional strength and security”. President James K Polk believed that by taking away land from the natives which was a simple task, they could substantially benefit as a country. Three years later the Sioux people signed a treaty with the government to prevent the Sioux Nation’s land from being taken. In 1877 the government occupied the Black Hills without approval from the Natives apprehending all the gold and other resources located there (Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Member). The Natives yet again had their land seized from them without their