The Colonization Of Native Americans In The 19th Century

Danielle Heinemann
September 10, 2014
His 106 Section 8
Bailey

When the English people started to arrive in America around the 19th century, they saw the land as their land. The government felt that the colonizing of people was much more the entitlement of the Native American and made several federal policies that insured specific tribes would be moved to pre-determined reservations to continue their traditional way of life. This was done despite how negatively it affected the Native Americans. After being forced to leave their native lands, many Indians discovered that life would be pretty difficult. By moving these tribes, the government forced them to try and find new resources such as shelter, ways to hunt/harvest food, and water
supply. The government’s policy towards the Native Americans and the Native American’s reaction was displayed throughout the novel, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown. The Native American’s were less than ecstatic when they came to discover that they were no longer the only people to inhabit the land they call their own.
Little did the Native American’s know that soon they would have to fight to attempt to save the place they knew as their home. For example, Cochise of the Chiricahua Apaches stated, “When I was young I walked all over this country, east and west, and saw no other people than the Apache. After many summers I walked again and found another race of people had come to take it” (192). The Apaches was one of many tribes that were affected by the government and other white settlers. When the settlers came across the Apaches, they explained to the tribe that they were to leave their land and move to a spot that they had predetermined for them. This did not go over well with the Indians and most refused to leave the reservation. Not only did the government try to force the Indians out of their land, but also accused the Chiricahuas of stealing the land, which ended in altercation and death on both sides that from the war that broke out between the two sides. Ultimately, the Apaches ended up on the reservation or ejected to
Mexico. Another treaty that disrupted the Indians was given to the Nez Percés tribe.
According to the text, this policy stated that the Wollaway Valley and three- fourths of the land would be given to the settlers, which left them with only a small reservation in what is now Idaho (317). A chief, known as Old Joseph, was not accepting of this treaty and showed his disapproval by not attending the signing of the treaty. Old Joseph passed away soon after this incident, passing on the power to Young Joseph. Eventually, the white settlers arrived on the land and outraged the Nez Percés tribe. Not only did the settlers steal the horses of the Indians, white politicians then traveled back to Washington telling lies about the Native Americans. Young Joseph wanted to advocate peace desperately but he was forced to retaliate because some of his people killed several white settlers. Young Joseph had said, “…if I could have undone the killing of white men by my people. I blame my young men and white men…I would have taken my people to buffalo country…(322). Although Young Joseph was a peaceful person, he stuck by his people and they successfully fled to
Canada. Wanigi Ska (White Ghost) once said, “You have driven away our game and our means of livelihood out of the country, until now we have nothing left that is valuable except the hills that you ask us to give up…”(275). The U.S. has stripped the Indians from not only their land but of their culture. Wanigi Ska was making a point that the settlers were not just taking away physical things but their beliefs and things that made them who there are. By enforcing schools and trying to turn them into Christians by installing churches are some of the ways they tried to turn them and abandon their culture. For instance, when the commissioner asked Young Joseph, “Why do you not want schools?” Joseph replied, “They will teach us to have churches”, the commissioner then responded, “Do you want churches?” and Young Joseph continued to tell the commissioner that he did not want any of these things (318). Clearly, no one was happy with the government and they were not silent about it. But, the U.S. government thought by adding churches and schools, it was the most effective way to make the Indians more like them, hence making them easier to deal with. The desire to expand westward influenced the majority of government policies toward the Native Americans. These policies that the U.S. government enforced on the Native Americans were unfair and caused the Native Americans to react accordingly. Not only did the government force the Indians to uproot themselves, they also tried to force them assimilate them into American culture. Through the novel, the reactions of the Native Americans and the government’s policies towards the Indians were shown to treat them unfairly in order to better the