The history of the present United States of America is shaped by the Native Americans. They had to deal with obstacles, resiliency, and bloodshed in the West, though. For instance, before the seventeenth century, Native Americans faced serious problems from various angles in relation to the federal government.These fronts involved backcountry domestic unrest while dealing with the issues in France and England on a world scale. With a focus on the question of "To what extent could Native Americans control their future once settlement began," this paper thus examines the rich history of the West and Native Americans, and development of the West after the Civil War began in earnest?"
When the civil war began to earnest, the Native Americans had learned from the West many invaluable life skills. These included production activities as observed in Agriculture, the use of technologies, military skills and above all the art of writing. Thus in comparison and contrast, event after the west had settled and developed, Native Americans in some remarkable and ways still were able to control their future. For example, the Native Americans in the West regrouped and were able to oppose the West’s plans for expansion into their boarder lands. Nonetheless, the Indians did not suffer any major big blow hence did not succumb to permanent military defeat witnessed during the revolution. On the same note, no Native American representative attended the 1783 peace treaty signing it. Under such diverging opinions, the Native Americans and the Indians participated in negotiations that allowed access to the white settlements in the west.
The Native Americans thus were able to control their future by participating in development activities including the construction of the railways. The completion of the construction of the railways in the West marked a great influx of the white settlers who had come to farm, exploit minerals and practice ranching. The completion of railroads marked a time of increased settlement and economic development. In this view, the assurance of improved life standards among the natives might have prompted a Norwegian in Minnesota by 1866 to right a letter quoted as follows to his fellow Norwegians in Europe “Minnesota, which is still a young state, can undoubtedly look ahead to a great future. By the end of this century it will probably be one of the richest and mightiest states in the whole Union. Its size is about 85,000 square miles. Its fertility is unmatched by any other country in the world. The climate is healthful and pleasant, though the summer is terribly hot. Although the winter is short, it is said to be almost as severe as Norway. Miles of vast prairies alternate with extensive oak forests here…. In the meantime, construction of several important railroads is being carried forward with energy. I advise everybody in Norway who lives under unhappy and straitened circumstances to come to Minnesota.
Industrialization was becoming a norm and mineral exploitation in the west had become an economic activity. For example in a later written to William from his brother Henry Eno, he explained the various developments that were taking place in the West. Henry, did write the following “I came here expecting to find a rich mineral country, also to find much such a population as California had in 1849 and ’50. The great mineral wealth of eastern Nevada has not been exaggerated. In fact I did not expect to find so rich or so many silver mines.” In Hamilton Nevada “There are two banking establishments, two express offices. Wells Fargo and Union Express, some ten or twelve assay offices, and a small army of lawyers…. There are, I judge, nearly 200 paying mines within four miles square. There ought to be a dozen more quartz mills erected and would find full employment…. It will never be considered a good grain country, but as a pastoral country, it is unquestionably a good one. Millions of sheep can be kept here and without cutting hay for winter. It is also a good dairy country.”
In terms of education and the urge to master the art of writing and reading, Red Cloud then a chief of the largest tribe in 1870 while giving a speech, recognized the importance of adoption of education among the Native Americans. In his letter, he wrote the following “My brethren and my friends who are here before me this day, God Almighty has made us all, and He is here to bless what I have to say to you today. The Good Spirit made us both. He gave you lands and He gave us lands; He gave us these lands; you came in here, and we respected you as brothers. God Almighty made you but made you all white and clothed you; when He made us He made us with red skins and poor; now you have come. When you first came we were very many and you were few; now you are many and we are getting very few, and we are poor…. At the mouth of Horse Creek, in 1852, the Great Father” (US Government) “made a treaty with us by which we agreed to let all that country open for fifty-five years for the transit of those who were going through. We kept this treaty; we never treated any man wrong; we never committed any murder or depredation until afterward the troops were sent into that country, and the troops killed our people and ill-treated them, and thus war and trouble arose…. Look at me. I am poor and naked, but I am the Chief of the Nation. We do not want riches, we do not ask for riches, but we want our children properly trained and brought up.”Education was the only way to obtain the necessary skills for communication and acquisition of knowledge for the management of the growing industries and factories as well as other sectors including the banking sector.
Native Americans in a bid to control they had to put up with the presence of the settlers. According to Walker the then commissioner of Indian Affairs, the Indians had different ideologies regarding the government continued tolerance of the whites. Walker on his report noted the following “It is hardly less than absurd, on the first view of it, that delegations from tribes that have frequently defied our authority and fought our troops and have never yielded more than a partial and grudging obedience to the most reasonable requirements of the government, should be entertained at the national capital, feasted, and loaded with presents... And yet, for all this, the government is right and its critics wrong; and the ‘Indian Policy’ is sound, sensible, and beneficent, because it reduces to the minimum the loss of life and prosperity upon our frontier and allows the freest development of our settlements and railways possible under the circumstances…. It is not, of course, to be understood that the government of the United States is at the mercy of Indians; but thousands of its citizens are, even thousands of families. Their exposed situation on the extreme verge of settlement affords a sufficient justification to the government for buying off the hostility of the Savages, excited and exasperated as they are…by the invasion of their hunting grounds and the threatened extinction of their game.”
Similarly, in regards to the dilemma of the Indians, Carl Schux noted in his concern whether it was civilization or extinction of the natives in a letter that entailed the following “But it is only just to the government of the United States to say that its treaties with Indian tribes were as a rule, made in good faith, and that most of our Indian wars were brought on by circumstances for which the government itself could not fairly be held responsible. Of the treaties, those were the most important by which the government guaranteed to Indian tribes certain tracts of land as reservations to be held and occupied by them forever under the protection of the United States, in the place of other lands ceded by the Indians…. Thus were such reservations guaranteed by the government with the honest belief that the Indians would be secure in their possession, which, as subsequent events proved, was a gross error of judgment. It is also a fact that most of the Indian wars grew, not from any desire of the government to disturb the Indians… but from restless and unscrupulous greed of frontiersmen who pushed their settlements and ventures into the Indian country, provoked conflicts with the Indians, and then called for the protection of the government.”
The Indians were the major frontiers in controlling their future independent of the white’s influence. As such, they in many occasions faced the whites in contest of their military conquest. Helen Hunt while documenting actions of the U.s government with various Indian tribes, quoted that “There are within the limits of the United States between 250,000 and 300,000 Indians, exclusive of those in Alaska. The names of the different tribes and bands, as entered in the statistical tables of the Indian Office Reports, number nearly 300…. There is not among these 300 bands of Indians one which has not suffered cruelly at the hands either of the government or of white settlers….One of its strongest supports in so doing is the widespread sentiment among people of dislike to the Indian, of impatience with his presence as a ‘barrier to civilization,’ and distrust of it as a possible danger.”
In regards to air their grievances and live a life free of the white’s oppressive rules, the Native Americans sort through courts the disengagements with the whites. The Dowes act of 1887 ,thus, urged for the resolution of reformers to cease poor treatment of the government towards the Native Americans. In this view, Senator Henry Dowes did say that “Be it enacted, that in all cases where any tribe or band of Indians has been, or shall hereafter be, located upon any reservation created for their use, either by treaty stipulation or by virtue of an act of Congress or executive order setting apart the same for their use, the President of the United States be, and he hereby is; authorized, whenever in his opinion any reservation or any part thereof of such Indians is advantageous for agriculture and grazing purposes to cause said reservation, or any part thereof, to be surveyed, or resurveyed if necessary, and to allot the lands in said reservation in severalty” (removed from the reservation’s control) “to any Indian located thereon in quantities as follows:
-To each head of family, one-quarter of a section;
-To each single person over eighteen years of age, one-eighth of a section;
-To each orphan child under eighteen years of age, one-eighth of a section
The Native Americans in a bid to control their future fought for equality and resisted actions that were tolerant of the racism. Wovok through her slogan among the Native Americans, tribes said that “All Indians must dance, everywhere, keep on dancing. Pretty soon in next spring Great Spirit come. He bring back all game of every kind. The game be thick everywhere. All dead Indians come back and live again. They all be strong just like young men, be young again. Old blind Indian see again and get young and have fine time. When Great Spirit comes this way, then all Indians go to the mountains, high up away from whites. Whites can’t hurt Indians then. Then while Indians way up high, big flood comes like water and all white people die, get drowned. After that, water go away and then nobody but Indians everywhere and game all kinds thick. Then medicine man tell Indians to send word to all Indians to keep up dancing and the good time will come. Indians who don’t dance, who don’t believe in this word, will grow little, just about a foot high, and stay that way. Some of them will be turned into wood and be burned in fire.”
Finally, in actions that could lead to the Native Americans controlling their future, the Native Americans even though tolerated, accommodated and exercised some of the changes that came with the whites; they did not totally forget about their culture, which defined them. Luther noted this in short to be Back to the Blanket as note in his quote “According to the white man, the Indian, choosing to return to his tribal manners and dress, ‘goes back to the blanket.’ True, but ‘going back to the blanket’ is the factor that has saved him from, or at least stayed, his final destruction. Had the Indian been as completely subdued in spirit as he was in body he would have perished within the century of his subjection. But it is the unquenchable spirit that has saved him—his clinging to Indian ways, Indian thought, and tradition, that has kept him and is keeping him today…. To cloth a man falsely is only to distress his spirit and to make him incongruous and ridiculous, and my entreaty to the American Indian is to retain his tribal dress.”
Conclusion
Concisely, the Native Americans in order to control their future after the settlement and development in the West had to learn the ways the whites. After knowing and learning their ways in terms or strengths and weaknesses, they retaliated through alliances and fought back for their lands, political and economic control. Above all, the Native Americans in order to control and spell their future fought for complete independence.
