When
Christopher Columbus and his crew discovered America, they gave the people of
America the name Indios. When Columbus wrote to the King and Queen of
Spain, he was impressed by Indios’ kind nature and spirit. “So tractable, so
peaceable are these people, that I swear to your Majesties there is not in the
world a better nation. They love their neighbors as themselves, and their
discourse is ever sweet and gentle, and accompanied with a smile; and though it
is true that they are naked, yet their manners are decorous and praiseworthy.”
It was also kindness what led the Native
Americans to help the Englishmen at Plymouth in 1620. They would have starved without the aid of
the friendly natives of the New World. “They shared corn with them from the
tribal stores, showed them where and how to catch fish, and got them through
the first winter. When spring came they gave the white men some seed corn and
showed them how to plant and cultivate it.”
Some white settlers may have endured
religious persecution in their country of origin; yet they did not respect the
spiritual and religious beliefs of Native Americans. Furthermore, the kindness
of the natives was considered a sign of weakness, and the white settlers looked
down on them and labeled them as “savages.”
Before the invasion of white settlers, a
variety of Native American cultures thrived in various regions of America. Some
of them were semi-nomadic and relied on buffalo for their survival; others were
established on a specific area and their lifestyle depended mostly on
agriculture. This is the case of the Ponca community located initially in what
is now known as Nebraska and Iowa.
The Indian Removal Act and its impact
The president responsible for the Indian
Removal Act was Andrew Jackson. This legislation, which was also
supported by Congress, enabled President Andrew Jackson to impose treaties on
Native American communities. Through these treaties Native American people were
forced to leave their ancestral homelands. If the Native Americans resisted the
removal of their communities, the military was sent to force them out
violently. The treaties were used by the U.S Government to send them to barren
areas called “reservations,” where they starved and did not have enough clean
water and resources to survive. If the Native American people tried to
escape from those reservations they were persecuted and either killed or
imprisoned. The forced removal of
Native Americans cut off the intimate connection they had with the land, where
their ancestors had lived for centuries, where they had learned how to interact
with the Earth in harmony with the seasons, practicing their religious
ceremonies and rituals.
The violent removal from their ancestral lands
destroyed their livelihoods and disrupted their cultures in various ways. Not
only did the white men force them out of their lands, but they also destroyed
the environment Native Americans relied upon to live in harmony with the Earth.
For example, white men drove buffalo to extinction; they logged forests and
mined the land for gold. White men viewed land as a commodity to create wealth
and help America become a prosperous country. To do this, they were prepared to
exterminate the native people. They were determined to kill or to imprison them
whenever the Native American people refused to move to the reservations. To
justify their power over the native people, white Americans promoted the idea
of Manifest Destiny.
Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny was the belief that white
men had the divine right to seize the lands where Native Americans lived. White
Americans believed that it was their Christian right to do so, because they
considered themselves the ones entitled to manage the land, even though the
native people had lived there for hundreds of years; Native Americans were not
even considered Americans in those days. White Americans viewed native people
as “savages.” For this reason, with the
support of the U.S. Government, white men forcibly transferred Native American
people to regions where they could not grow food. Those places assigned to Native
Americans were called “reservations.” On those reservations they were destined
to perish because they did not have access to food and clean water. In other
words, they were transferred to uninhabitable lands and expected to survive
there.
Broken promises and betrayals
The U.S. Government promised to support them
by sending them food and other resources, but it never sent the supplies needed,
and the Indians had two options: they could either escape from those
reservations or they had to die there. If they escaped, they were persecuted by
the Government and then they were either imprisoned or hanged. Their desperate
situation of deprivation was blatantly ignored; no compassion was offered. When
Native Americans defended themselves, false accusations were made against them
and promoted by the press.
The
false promises of food, blankets and other supplies worsened the suffering and
frustration that Native Americans experienced. Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce
community expresses this reality in the following words:
“I have heard talk and talk, but nothing is
done. Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do not
pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country, now overrun by white
men… Good words will not give my people good health and stop them from dying.
Good words will not get my people a home where they can live in peace and take
care of themselves, I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart
sick when I remember the good words and broken promises.”
The forced removal was driven by the belief
that Indians’ lives were of no value.
This is clearly stated in the words of
Captain Chivington in the state of Colorado, “Damn any man who sympathized with
Indians!” he cried. “I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and
honorable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians.”
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee provides information
and context to gain a deeper understanding of the tragic events that led to the
slaughter of thousands of Native American people. It is also an introduction on
how the different cultures of Native Americans lived in harmony with the Earth
before the white settlers interfered. It reveals the ways in which Native
Americans confronted the white men who questioned their right to exist on the
lands they had inhabited for hundreds of years. It exposes the brutality the
native people had to brave.
You
will learn about the Nez Perce, the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Navajo, Sioux, Seminoles, Ponca,
and many other Indigenous communities in North America. You will understand why
and how they fought to protect their communities against the invasion of the
white men.
Their forced settlements on reservations had
serious consequences for Native American communities. The pattern of violent displacements
led to a long history of marginalization and institutionalized discrimination.
Bear in mind that Native Americans were not even considered U.S. citizens until
1924.
Bury
My Heart at Wounded Knee focuses on the events of the nineteenth century,
but it does not include the actions of boarding schools that Native American
children were forced to attend. In these schools children were obligated to let
go of their culture; they were physically, sexually and emotionally abused. I
wrote about this in previous posts on My Writing Life: Awareness,
Reflection, Inspiration. This topic is not included in the book by Dee
Brown.
It was heartbreaking to read about the slaughter
of their horses and ponies, the plundering of their homes and the destruction
of the food they had carefully stored; the massacres and the humiliations Native
Americans endured for merely trying to exist is deeply disturbing. It was also hard
to read how the U.S Government betrayed them repeatedly, taking advantage of
their trust and falsely accusing them of actions they were not responsible for.
Moreover, the Government also manipulated them to make them fight against each
other.
The
Indian Removal Act triggered a pattern of abuse of Native Americans that forced
their communities to fight against the white men to defend themselves and the
land. It was hard to
read at times, but I now have a deeper understanding of their plight and
history.
It would have been important and necessary to include the voices of Native American women to learn more about their experiences, hopes and frustrations, but only the men’s voices are taken into consideration in this account. Unfortunately, Dee Brown did not seem to care about the Native American women’s perspectives.
We are
expected to learn history from men even though women make up half of the
population.
The legacy of Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson played a big role in setting in
motion the pattern of abuse and persecution of Native American people. His
decisions and actions led to the massacre of thousands of Native Americans from
several communities. They were attacked and killed systematically, and this
book explains how it happened. The survivors were demoralized, sad and angry. They
were also subjected to a life of deprivation and were vulnerable to the spread
of diseases. Their cultures had been ravaged by the forced relocations; their hopes were shattered by the broken promises and the arduous attempts to survive in hostile environments with scanty resources.
The situation today
Even though most of the events described in
the book happened between the 1860s and 1890s I found it even more
disheartening to read when I remember that Donald Trump has expressed that he
admires Andrew Jackson. He shared his intention to follow the legacy of this
white supremacist.
Far from learning from the devastating
consequences of Andrew Jackson’s actions, seventy-seven million people in
America voted for a white supremacist in November 2024; similarly, ninety
million people in America empowered a white supremacist to become president by
the simple act of not voting. Trump has even questioned the citizenship of
Native Americans.
The consequences of the November 2024
presidential election should not be ignored; the consequences impact not only
America as a whole but also the planet we all inhabit. We cannot ignore the
interconnections that bind us as members of the human race, and we should not
forget our reliance on a healthy planet to survive.
Today, various Native American communities
are struggling to protect their education, environment and public health.
Native American communities are also working against all odds to create a
sustainable path of energy production. They want to become energy independent.
Their reservations are good sources of wind and solar energy; as you
know, clean sources of energy are necessary not only to tackle the climate
crisis but also to protect the quality of the water and air. Let’s support their efforts to make this happen.
Even their
basic right to exist and move across American territory is now at stake. Please
watch this video by DW to understand the plight of Native American people:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_gkLA-7cXY
Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce community died
of a “broken heart” in 1904 on the Colville Reservation in Washington. His
words continue to be relevant today:
“Let me be a free man—free to travel, free to
stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own
teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and
act for myself—and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty.”
Other relevant
links:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231204-native-americans-are-building-their-own-solar-farms
https://www.networkadvocates.org/recommit-to-racial-justice/legacy/
If you enjoyed this post, feel free to check my writing on the following books:
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Spirit Woman: The diaries and Paintings of Bonita Wa Wa Calachaw Nunez
Unstoppable Native American Women by April Riverwood
