Beginning when Christopher Columbus landed in Hispaniola (what is modern-day Haiti) and continuing to this day, Native American societies have been systematically destroyed throughout America. This is extremely evident during the American Westward expansion. Why did this happen? What made the government think that this genocide was ok? Let's take a closer look at the government-sanctioned destruction of Native American society together with facts, consequences and, more.
Destruction of Native American Society Summary
When the colonizers came to North America, the Native Americans had something that they wanted, land. The colonists made treaties with the Native Americans trading land for peace. In the late 1700s, the land that once belonged to the Native Americans had been stripped from them and reservations began to pop up.
Fig. 1 - Colonists targeted Native American people's land when they first arrived in the Americans.
Reservations were created to be territories that "reserve" the Native American nations. The reservation would have been a smaller portion of the tribes' ancestral homeland. While Native Americans were still considered sovereign nations within the reservation, they felt like the reservations were more like prisons.
Sovereign
An independent, self-ruling nation.
Reasons for the Destruction of Native American Society
In the 1810s, Americans began expanding to the West. They believed that America was destined to reach coast to coast. This belief in America's God-given right to expand is called Manifest Destiny. Unfortunately for potential settlers, the land was already owned by Native Americans.
Manifest Destiny
Americans believed that God had given them the right to expand Westward. This sense of entitlement to the lands of the Native Americans led white Americans to believe that whatever they did to get that land was justified in the eyes of God. America was destined to stretch to the West coast, and it would, no matter the cost.
Native Americans were different from white Americans. They spoke different languages, looked different, and had different customs. White Americans could not understand why anyone would want to be different from them. This difference gave white Americans the excuse to view Native Americans as "others" and lesser.
History of the Destruction of Native American Culture
Government officials had many tactics to get rid of Native American residents. One of the most common was treaties. The treaties were famously unfair to the indigenous nations, Natives called them "bad paper".
Native Americans didn't want to leave their homes so officials would use different tactics to get Natives to sign them. One way was to get the indigenous people drunk. Another was to bribe them. If all else fails, the official would threaten them and then force them to sign it.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830
President Andrew Jackson passed an act in 1830 called the Indian Removal Act. It forced indigenous nations to trade their land for land west of the Mississippi. If they did not want to leave, then they would have to assimilate and live with the settlers who took their ancestral land.
Fig. 2 - Andrew Jackson was the President of the United States between 1829 to 1837.
Assimilate
To take someone's culture and replace it with your own culture
If people chose to stay, then they would no longer be sovereign. Some chose to assimilate, hide, leave, or resist. It would be a long journey for the people who decided to leave. The most famous of these tracks was the Trail of Tears but it happened to many Native American Nations across America.
Men, women, young, and old were forced to travel by foot to the new reservations, escorted by white American guards. If someone fell behind, crumbled from exhaustion, or even if a child could not keep up then they were shot and killed.
It is not possible to attribute a specific number of Native American deaths directly to President Andrew Jackson. However, his policies, particularly the Indian Removal Act of 1830, led to the forced relocation of Native Americans from their ancestral lands in the Southeastern United States. The Trail of Tears resulted in the deaths of thousands of Native Americans due to exposure, disease, and starvation during the journey. The exact number of deaths is unknown, but estimates often cite around 4,000 of the 15,000 relocated Cherokee people.
War Against Native Americans
Another way that indigenous culture was destroyed was through war. Wars often forced Native Americans to move to new reservations or die.
The Creek War (1813-1814)
There were two factions of the Creek Nation: the Red Sticks, and the White Sticks. The White Sticks wanted peace with the Americans while the Red Sticks wanted to fight for their land back. This tension was built on decades of unrest. The Creek Nation was devastated by war with the white colonists and diseases that the colonists brought to the Americas.
The settlers took more and more of the Creek's territory, so they attacked them killing men, women, and children. The White Sticks sided with the Americans and Andrew Jackson led the charge against the Red Sticks.
The attacks against the villages were so brutal that women killed their children. They did this because it was a more merciful death than if the Americans did it. Jackson caught one woman preparing to do so; he took the child and presented them to his wife to be raised by the Jacksons.
Fig 3: Red Stick Chief Weatherford and Andrew Jackson signed the Treaty of Fort Jackson in 1814.
When the Americans won, Jackson took more than twenty million acres of Creek territory and formed Alabama. This land was taken from all Creeks, even the White Sticks who aided Jackson. The surviving Red Sticks moved to Florida and joined the indigenous tribes there.
Little Crow's War (1862)
The Dakota Nation was a peaceful tribe. They allowed white settlers to build a fort in the Dakota territory, but the settlers began cutting down the forest and scaring off the wild game. The Dakota leader, Little Crow, was forced to sign the Treaty of Mendota in 1851 which traded the majority of their territory for food, money, guns, and supplies.
Fig. 4. Little Crow III was a Mdewakanton Dakota chief who lived between 1810 to 1863.
When the American government did not keep its end of the bargain, the Dakota were forced to buy supplies on credit. Then they had to sell even more land to pay their credit. The Dakota was starving, in debt, and unable to hunt because the game was gone.
We made a treaty with the Government . . . and then can't get it (payment from the treaty) till our children was dying with hunger.
-Little Crow
Some Dakota men raided for food. When the Dakota asked for help, they were told to eat grass. Little Crow reluctantly led his warriors to war killing 400 settlers in five weeks. The Dakota lost the war and 400 of them were tried and found guilty. President Abraham Lincoln pardoned all but thirty-eight of the men.
Did You Know. . . This was the largest mass execution in American history. Settlers had picnics as they watched.
Removal of Native American Children
Another way that Native American society was destroyed was by the removal of Native American children. In 1875, Richard Henry Pratt conducted a social experiment on Native American prisoners of war. He was able to assimilate them and then use them as evidence that indigenous people could be "civilized".
The government provided Pratt with the funds to build Native American boarding schools. Indigenous children were kidnapped from their families and forced to go to these schools. Their names were changed, their hair was cut, their clothing was taken, and they were forbidden from speaking their languages.
Fig. 5 - In these schools, children experienced harsh discipline and poor living conditions.
Many of these children were physically abused and sexually assaulted. When they left the schools, many white people did not accept them because they were still indigenous. They were also too different from their families and could not fit in at home.
The Indian Adoption Project (1958-1967)
The last of the Native American boarding schools were closed or given to indigenous nations in the 1990s. With the decline of indigenous boarding schools, adoption became more popular. Adopting Native American children into white families was still assimilation and was cheaper than the boarding schools. This government-sanctioned event was called the Indian Adoption Project.
Social workers would take children from families for unfair reasons. A house might be too full if the grandparents live with them. A woman working a job was "neglecting" her children by allowing family members to watch them while she worked. Children were ripped from caring homes and placed with white families to remove their culture.
Many of these children were sexually and physically abused, and some were even suicidal. In 1978, Congress passed the Indian Children Welfare Act which would not allow indigenous children to be placed with white families. The children would either be placed with extended family or with their tribe.
Consequences of the Destruction of Native American Societies
By removing Native Americans from their ancestral land, the government denied them access to the plants that were used for food and religious purposes. They could not hunt because settlers destroyed the forests that housed their game. Starvation made Native Americans dependent on and compliant with the government.
The rights of tribes as sovereign nations were stripped away. They were forced to comply with the laws of the American government which oftentimes did not protect them.
By kidnapping indigenous children, the government prevented Native Americans from passing down their culture. This resulted in the loss of language, religion, and more. These children lost their cultural inheritance.
It is challenging to estimate with certainty how many Native Americans were killed following the arrival of Europeans due to the absence of comprehensive historical records. However, some scholars estimate that the indigenous population of the Americas declined by about 90% after 1492, largely due to disease but also from violence and forced labor. This could represent tens of millions of people, given that pre-contact population estimates range from 50 million to 100 million.
Native American Society Destruction Facts
The destruction of Native American society began when Christopher Columbus landed in Haiti and continues to this day. The government committed genocide against the Native American people with events like the Indian Removal Act and the Indian Adoption Plan, Native Americans were stripped of their cultures.
The destruction of Native American populations in Latin America was caused by a combination of factors. Most significantly, diseases brought by the Europeans, such as smallpox, measles, and influenza, decimated indigenous populations who had no immunity to these new diseases. Additionally, violent conflict, forced labor, cultural disruption, and the displacement from their lands also contributed to the population decline.
Yet, the Native American population has grown. By 1900 there were only 237,200 Native Americans in America but by 1990 the number had risen to two million. As the American government tried to erase indigenous people, they continued to survive.
Destruction of Native American Societies - Key takeaways
- The destruction of indigenous society began when Columbus found Haiti.
- Native Americans died because the colonists' brought diseases and battled them.
- Westward expansion and manifest destiny caused many indigenous people to lose their culture as the land is tied to their way of life.
- The War over land caused Native American death.
- The removal of indigenous children caused a loss of cultural inheritance.
References
- Jeffrey s. Passel, The Growing American Indian Population, 1960–1990: Beyond Demography, pg 81.
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