The Treatment of Native Americans on Reservations

The Treatment of Native Americans on Reservations
Ever since white men came to the New World, they were never at peace with the native peoples. One of the first white men to come to North America was Sir Walter Raleigh, who took the Indians he met as slaves as early as 1584. In the years that followed, settlers forced the Native Americans further and further west. By the year 1850, there had been many attempts at peaceful negotiations and uprisings on both sides, but the government eventually decided that reservations were the only way to contain the Indians and have peace. These reservations took away their pride, freedom, and way of life. Native Americans in reservations today are still plagued by lack of food and shelter, health and economic issues, forced education systems, alcoholism, and unemployment. They are stuck between the past and present, and trying to hold on to their heritage, which was taken from them by settlers.
The Native Americans’ way of life was toppled by European settlers and explorers, beginning in 1524 when Giovanni da Verrazano met native peoples on the East Coast (DiNome, “American Indians Part III: Indian tribes from European contact to the era of removal”). Sir Walter Raleigh, who led an expedition in 1584 along with Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, continued the peaceful relationship with the natives that Giovanni had started. However, as more and more expeditions were led to the Americas, the Europeans found out more and more about the native peoples, especially that they were “inferior and in need of being brought ‘to civilities’ ” (DiNome). In fact, the Spanish were the ones who are known to have massacred the Indians in America and the Aztec in Mexico due to their naïvetés. Having never see...

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