Chapter 6: The Native Americans

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Chapter 6The Native Americans
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Diversity

• Indian Culture glosses over diversity
• Language 1500 AD, 700 distinct languages
• Kinship system
• Political - economic
• In 1500 Native American population stood at
  10,000,000 and by 1900 declined to less than
  250,000

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Summary of Contact and Policies

• 1492 Arrival of Columbus
• 1607 Jamestown was founded
• 1620 Pilgrims landed at Plymouth
• 1622 First major Indian retaliation
• 1744 Treaty of Lancaster Indian loss of land
• 1778 First treaty between US and
  Indians

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Summary of Contact and Policies

• 1803 US Louisiana Purchase
• 1824 BIA established placed in the
  Department of War
• 1830 Indian Removal Act eastern tribes moved
  west
• 1854 Indian Appropriation Act
• 1862 Railroad Act
• 1868 Fort Laramie Peace Conference
• 1887 General Allotment Act (Dawes)
  Subdivided land

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Summary of Contact and Policies

• 1924 Indian Citizenship Act
• 1944 National Congress of American
• Indians
• 1947 Indian Claims Commission Act
• 1948 Indians allowed to vote in Arizona
• 1953 Termination Act closes reservations and
  federal funding
• 1962 Indians allowed to vote in New
• Mexico
• 1968 Indian Civil Rights Act

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Summary of Contact and Policies

• 1972 Indian Education Act
• 1975 Indian Self-Determination Act
• 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act
• 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act
• 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act
• 1990 Indian Art Craft Act

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Reservation Life and Federal Policies

• Approximately 25 of the Native American
  population live on reservations with
  approximately 75 living in Urban areas
• There are slightly over 557 recognized
  reservations in the United States

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Native American Legal Claims

• From 1836 to 1946 Native Americans could not
  bring a claim against the government without an
  Act of Congress
• Only 142 claims were heard during this period
• In 1946 Congress established the Indian Claims
  Commission to hear claims against the government

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Native American Legal Claims

• Led to an increase in claims
• Commission was extended until 1978 - now cases
  are heard by U.S. Court of Claims
• Amount of awards and setoffs increased
• The case of the Black Hills
• Indian chose to recover land rather than seek a
  financial settlement

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The Termination Act of 1953

• The most controversial governmental policy toward
  reservation life
• It reduced costs and ignored individual needs
• Federal services were stopped immediately
• The effect of the governmental order was
  disastrous
• In 1975, the government resumed the services

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Employment Assistance Program

• Program led to the relocation from reservations
  to urban areas off the reservations
• Government provided educational and business
  assistance
• but the impact was disastrous on the economic
  development of the reservation and led to brain
  drain
• By 1965, about 1/3 returned to the reservation

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Collective Action

• Pan-Indianism
• Intertribal movement toward solidarity and common
  identity
• Emerged out of the effects of internal
  colonialism the treatment of subordinate
  peoples as colonial subjects by those in power
• National Congress of American Indians (NCAI),
  founded in Denver 1948
• Political role of NCAI was to lobby Washington
  for an Indian voice

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Collective Action

• Urban problems and AIM- founded by Clyde
  Bellecourt and Dennis Banks in 1968 at
  Minneapolis, MN police brutality to alcohol
  rehabilitation
• Conflict over fishing rights in the Northwest led
  to fish-ins civil disobedience acts
• Takeover of Alcatraz in 1969 Indians claimed the
  excess land left a year later, but this led
  to
• Red Power BIA sympathizers labeled apples
• AIM led a 70 day occupation of Wounded Knee, S.D.
  to oust the leader of the Ogallala Sioux tribe

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Sovereignty

• While collaborative action gathering cannot be
  minimized, there continues to be a strong effort
  to maintain tribal sovereignty or tribal self-rule

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Native Americans Today

• Poor economic development continued high rate
  of unemployment and poverty
• Tourism is a double edged sword
• It is a source of income but also a source of
  degradation
• Cottage industries - craftwork
• Some income from mineral rights
• Casino gambling significant income, but all of
  the negatives that associate gambling

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Native Americans Today

• Government employment major source of
  employment
• BIA subculture
• BIA educated workforce
• Federal control of Native American education
• BIA schools
• Some tribes formed their own education
  systemswith mixed results
• Educational Attainment - drop out or pushout rate
  is 50 higher than for Blacks or Hispanics
• Testing, schooling,
• and the crossover effect IQ tests taken in
  English instead of native language yields lower
  scores

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Education

• There is under-enrollment at all levels, from the
  primary grades through college
• There is a need to adjust to a school with values
  sometimes dramatically different from those of
  the home
• There is a need to make the curriculum more
  relevant
• Tribal community colleges are under-financed
• Reservation-born Native Americans encounter
  hardships when students later live in and attend
  schools in large cities
• The language barrier faced by the many children
  who have little or no knowledge of English is
  problematic

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Healthcare

• Native Americans suffer high rates of
• 1. Alcoholism and mortality
• 2. Under-nutrition
• 3. Tuberculosis leading to death
• 4. High rate of teenage suicide
• Lack of access to health care resources poverty
  is a major contributor

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Religious Expression

• American Indian Religious Freedom Act passed by
  Congress in 1978
• Act contains no penalties and enforcement
  provisions the law with no teeth
• Native American Church - ritualistic use of
  peyote and marijuana
• In 1994, Congress amended the Indian Religious
  Freedom Act to allow Native Americans the right
  to use, transport, and possess peyote for
  religious purposes

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Environment

• CERT was formed in 1976 - Council of Energy
  Resource Tribes
• Consisted of twenty-five of the Wests largest
  tribes
• Other tribes were added later
• Purpose is to protect and develop tribal natural
  resources such as natural gas
• Struggle for environmental justice

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Environment

• Land disputes continue
• Balance between environmental and economic needs,
  just as it is in larger society
• Spiritual needs are at times associated with
  environmental issues, such as the inability to
  restrict access to sacred sites that exist in
  very public places

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Figure 6-4 Intergroup Relations Continuum