Acknowledging the Treatment of Native Americans Throughout History
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Tesfanesh Peterson
Only two days after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, he ordered the deadliest mass execution in American history. Thirty-eight men were hanged; the list was originally 300. This hanging was the result of the rebellion led by the Santee Sioux Nation against the U.S. government. They rebelled because the government wasn’t giving them the supplies of food and resources that they had promised through treaties. Due to this rebellion, the government saw fit to hang the Natives who revolted, they started with a list of 300. But, President Lincoln was able to bring the list down to 38. How is it that as one minority in America was gaining their freedom, another, Native Americans, was continuing to lose theirs?
I remember when I was younger we were taught about Native Americans to an extent. We learned about Columbus “discovering” America. We have a holiday commemorating him, even though he couldn’t find a route to Asia and instead ended up in the Bahamas. I remember watching Pocahontas and thinking, “How romantic.” Now I think, “This couldn’t be further from the truth.” We learned about Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims and were taught that the colonists and the Native Americans not only coexisted, but lived happily together. Although there were cases where it was peaceful, it was far from the norm. We act like that's where their story ends. I think it's taught this way because, after those first few cordial encounters, things turned dark. Maybe that's why it's taught that they all lived happily ever after…and then all of a sudden Natives were wiped from history. Maybe it was thought to be too dark for elementary kids to learn about.
What I think I failed to grasp when I was younger, as I would assume others did as well, was that Native Americans were here living peacefully before European empires started to conquer their land. Natives had fully functioning societies with their own culture, religions, traditional practices, communities, and governments. The point was, that Native Americans didn’t need saving. The people who inhabited America before exploration were fully functioning and capable. When European powers came, very few of these nations looked to Natives as potential allies. Most only saw them as obstacles in the way of wealth. Obstacles: not people, friends, or human beings, but obstacles. The English colonists pushed them westward upon arrival to America. The Spaniard colonists tried enslaving them through the encomienda system. This was a system where colonists could buy land in North America and the Native Americans who occupied the region came with it. It was essentially a way to get Spaniards to move to the New World, with the enticement of free Native labor. Only on very rare occasions did colonists try to befriend Native Americans, with these cases, it was only really seen with the French and Dutch colonists; they, however, were not in the majority of colonists.
America was founded on liberty and freedom. Getting older makes you look differently at the American Revolution, a war between colonists and Britain for land neither group owned. America wasn’t for sale, and Native Americans continually fought to get that point heard; they were resilient and determined to fight for their ancestral lands. Native Americans are strong and put their everything into preserving their way of life—that cannot be disputed. Native Americans, over centuries of history, have never given up on obtaining what they so rightfully deserve, and yet we continue to silence them.
Millions of Natives inhabited North America before colonization and once America became independent from Britain, those numbers continued to dwindle. To know that when important documents, such as the Articles of Confederation or the Constitution, were being drafted there was no clause to protect Native Americans is heartbreaking. There was no discussion as to how to resolve what was so wrongfully taken from the Natives. This is especially seen when there were presidents like Andrew Jackson who passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 pushing Natives westward or his overruling of Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, which pushed the Cherokee west, again. The ruling of this case led to the Trail of Tears, where most of the Cherokee nation died because of harsh conditions moving westward. The forced westward migration of about 17,000 Cherokee people led to the death of 6,000 men, women, and children of this Native tribe.
Even President Abraham Lincoln contributed to this genocide, signing the biggest mass execution in American history only 48 hours after signing the Emancipation Proclamation, as a result of the Santee Sioux Uprising. America was moving toward freedom for African Americans while the country continued to neglect the same rights for Native Americans. What was such a pivotal moment for African Americans and America as a whole was tainted so horribly by the execution of Native Americans. As America was taking steps forward with African Americans they were still stuck decades behind with the treatment of Native Americans. Our government has done well in bringing freedom to different minority groups, but never to Natives, who have arguably been waiting the longest. It's one of the stains on American history that makes you question just how much this country was built on liberty and freedom.
Americans throughout all of our history have had the craving to move westward. This is seen especially during the Manifest Destiny. Americans believed it was our God-given right to accumulate more and more land; this land, however, was never really ours for the taking. Americans were willing to take advantage of Natives and have them sign treaties they didn’t know the full capacity of, only to slowly take away their lands. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 was created to establish boundaries for tribes such as the Cheyenne and Arapaho in Colorado. Shortly after this treaty was signed, miners flooded in because of the discovery of gold. This was not the first or the last time America would break treaties like this. The second Fort Laramie treaty of 1868 gave the Arapaho and Sioux tribes the land of the Dakotas including the Black Hills, which they consider sacred land. The government also promised that they wouldn’t allow white settlers onto their reservations. This treaty too was broken when gold was discovered in the Black Hills. Native Americans fought back against all the promises the government put into treaties throughout the decades and broke so regularly. The Santee Sioux fought back, and it ended in a mass execution. Or at the Battle of Little Bighorn, where the Lakota tribe went against General Custer and his men and won. The Native Americans regularly fought back for their lands; however, these revolts eventually subsided after the Wounded Knee Massacre. Where American militia opened fire on Native American men, women, and children, killing 300 people of the Lakota tribe.
Essentially, America did this because they were done with Native Americans not assimilating into American culture and because Native Americans weren’t going to stay quiet and let the American government violate their treaties.
Native Americans are currently living on reservations that are only a small portion of what was theirs to begin with. These reservations are sometimes seen as prisoner-of-war camps. Their land was stripped away from them and replaced with only a fragment of what was originally theirs, and they were stuck with unfathomable conditions. These conditions include black mold in their living spaces, multiple families occupying one house that is barely standing with high levels of disease, and poverty continually circulating.
The government has tried to justify these actions by paying off the tribes for the lands that were once theirs. But what I don’t think the government gets is that the land was never for sale. It was stolen, and no amount of money can change that. Instead, we give them these decrepit and hollow camps and say we’ve done our part, but this isn’t nearly enough to justify taking their homeland. More must be done to reconcile the crimes committed against the Native Americans.
How much of this is our fault? Is it simply the people who have come before us who are to blame? To that, I say, how could we not play a part in this? We sit back and neglect the fact that Natives are still here and have a voice that deserves to be heard. Maybe it wasn’t our generation or the generation before us that silenced Native Americans directly, but it is us who allowed the abusive cycle to continue against Native Americans. We can look at how freedoms have been granted to other minorities; why don’t we extend that olive branch to the Natives who have survived the Anglo-Americans of their ancestral past? We have let this problem fester for so long that doing what is right, giving back their lands, is practically impossible. How we fix this gaping hole in our history, I don’t know. But what I am sure of is that what's being done now isn’t even close to enough. Native Americans are human beings who have waited long enough for their freedom and liberation. I do not believe that is too much to grant. Do you?
