Historical Report on Race
In the last two-hundred yeas the Native American people been through a lot of suffering and pain, but things are changing for the better. Having Native American heritage in my family I thought it was important to talk about their struggles. Over the years the Native American people have been victim to racism, as well as discriminatory legislation. In recent years the Federal Government has been conscientious of the problems in the Native American community and has made efforts to help them.
Before there was a United States the Native Americans lived here in relative peace with each other. Having small disagreements among tribes, but nothing like the wars they would see in the future. As more and more settlers started come here the Native Americans were pushed off their lands and into the un-inhabited parts of the area away from the places they called home. It was just a matter of time before the Native Americans were outnumbered and the fighting started. Laws were being passed to limit their civil rights and beliefs. The general feeling by the settlers was the Native Americans were a backwards group of people and they were going to get in the way of progress and expansion of the United States.
Indian Affairs Bill was written into law about 1930, this bill was intended to protect the Native Americans from the ever expanding whites moving west. This law allocated funds to move Native Americans to some designated lands known as reservations that was protected and enclosed. Many Native Americans died during the relocation, the ones who did not struggled to survive in the horrible conditions on the reservations dying from illness or starvation. Living on reservations and putting up with the isolation helped push the classification of the Native Americans to a minority. Native Americans quickly became subjected to prejudice and discrimination of the settlers and others migrating to the west. Congress started becoming concerned
References: Schaefer, R. T. (2012). Racial and Ethnic Groups (13 ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall. Singletary, L., & Emm, S. (2011). Working Effectively with American Indian Populations: A Brief Overview of Federal Indian Policy. University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. Retrieved August 3, 2013, from http://www.unce.unr.edu/publications/files/ag/2011/fs1134.pdf The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. (2013). Civil Rights 101. Retrieved from civilrights.org: http://www.civilrights.org/resources/civilrights101/native.html