Native American inJustice

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Native American (in)Justice

• Renée Ametanée Roman Nose
• Tsistsas (Cheyenne)
• Graduate Student-M.A.I.S.
• Anthropology, Ethnic Studies, Art

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Historically and Anthropologically Speaking

• 28,000 B.C. Santa Rosa Island, California
  Hearth charcoal dated
• 8,000 B.C. World population est. 5 million
• 4,000 B.C. Kodiak Island, Alaskan sites
  dated
• 3,500 B.C. Sumerians settle in Babylon
• 3,372 B.C. Date which Mayan calendar is based
  upon. (This calendar was more accurate than the
  one later adopted by Pope Gregory and was based
  upon celestial observation (Nies, 15).

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• 1,200 B.C. Olmec civilization in Mexico
• 753 B.C. Founding of Rome
• C.A. 1 Hohokam build sites near the Salt
  River, created a system of irrigation that
  exists today and is now home to present
  day Phoenix.
• 313 Edict of Milan declared freedom of
  all religions
• 500 Hohokam create oval ball courts for
  the playing of a game with a rubber ball
  (Nies, 36).
• 1300 Native populations reach estimated peak
  of 65 million in the continent later known as
  the Americas.

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1492
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In his own words

• All these lands are densely populated with the
  best people under the sun they have neither
  ill-will nor treachery.
• Christopher Columbus, 1493

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And in return

• (The Spaniards) made bets as to who would slit a
  man in two, or cut off his head at one blow or
  they opened up his bowels. They tore the babies
  from their mothers breast by their feet, and
  dashed their heads against the rocksThey spitted
  the bodies of other babes, together with their
  mothers and all who were before them, on their
  swords(They hanged Indians) by thirteens, in
  honor and reverence for our Redeemer and the
  twelve Apostles, the put wood underneath and,
  with fire, they burned the Indians aliveI saw
  all the above thingsAll these did my own eyes
  witness.
• Father Bartolomé de Las Casas (Spanish priest)

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The American Holocaust

• "As for the vast mainland, which is ten times
  larger than all Spain, even including Aragon and
  Portugal, containing more land than the distance
  between Seville and Jerusalem, or more than two
  thousand leagues, we are sure that our Spaniards,
  with their cruel and abominable acts, have
  devastated the land and exterminated the rational
  people who fully inhabited it. We can estimate
  very surely and truthfully that in the forty
  years that have passed, with the infernal actions
  of the Christians, there have been unjustly slain
  more than twelve million men, women, and
  children. In truth, I believe without trying to
  deceive myself that the number of the slain is
  more like fifteen million" (Devastation of the
  Indies, pp 30-31).
• Father Bartolomé de Las Casas

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Doctrine of Discovery

• AKA Might makes right or We dont care if your
  people have lived here for millennia, we want it
  all and we want it now!!

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Perspective can be painful
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Federal Policy and its Effects

• 1495-1496- Diseases spread by Spanish explorers
  wipes out tens of thousands of Arawak/Taino as
  measles, smallpox, and other virulent diseases
  came into contact with local populations. Tribes
  virtually exterminated.
• 1500s Massive invasion by Europeans begins in
  earnest
• Spanish decree from King and Queen gives
  indigenous people to conquistadors as slaves
• Columbus tried in Spain for excessive cruelty to
  Native people of the Americas
• 1506 Columbus dies
• World population estimated at 400 million
• Indian Removal Act of 1835
• General Allotment Act of 1837 resulted in the
  loss of 90 million acres
• 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie guaranteeing the
  Black Hills to the Sioux Nation
• 1863 Ruby Valley Treaty with the Western Shoshone

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Indian Givers

• Gold Potatoes
• Silver Chilies
• Medicines Beaver pelts
• Chocolate Democracy
• Tobacco Slavery
• Quinine
• 60 of foods now used worldwide

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• 1613 Pocahontas captured and encouraged to
  marry John Rolfe even though she was already
  married to another Powhatan.
• 1633-1635 10,000 Huron die from smallpox, many
  infected from blankets given from missionaries to
  the unbaptized Natives.
• 1638 First reservation established in
  Connecticut
• 1659 10,000 Florida Natives die from measles
• 1763 Sir Jeffrey Amherst (Amherst College),
  Could it not be contrived , to send the smallpox
  among these disaffected tribes of Indians? We
  must on this occasion use every stratagem in our
  power to reduce them.
• Trails of Tears The Longest Walk (Navajo), The
  Trail of Death (Potowatomi), Oregon Tribes
  relocated
• 1835 Indian Removal Act
• 1837-1838 Smallpox epidemic among Mandan people
  reduces their numbers from thousands to 130.
• 1842 Seneca Indians moved to a reservation
• 1849 Indian Service moved from War Department
  to Interior
• 1849-1850 Pomo Massacre, 130 lives lost in
  fishing village
• Treatment of California Indians due to gold rush
  called, as close to genocide as any tribal
  people had faced, or would face, on the North
  American continent (Nies, 258).
• 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, over 120 children,
  elders, women and a few men are murdered. Not
  one was left undesecrated or unscalped.

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• 1878 Hampton Institute in Virginia becomes first
  Indian boarding school in the nation
• 1879 Carlisle Indian School opens for Native
  children only.
• 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre
• 1900 237,196 Native people in America
• 1900-1910 More than 18 million acres taken from
  Tribal people
• 1903 Policy of Plenary Powers utilized to
  justify taking of Tribal lands
• 1904 Sun Dance outlawed for the Sioux
• 1917 Indians encouraged to volunteer to fight
  in World War l, but not allowed to vote, nor were
  we considered US citizens at that time.
• 1920 Life expectancy was 43 years.
• Alaskan and Arizona Natives had life expectancy
  of 33 years.
• A student graduating from high school had the
  equivalent of an eighth grade education (Nies,
  325).
• 1924 Indians granted citizenship in MOST
  states, allotment ended
• 1945-1960 Federal Policy of Relocation and
  Termination

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We Wont Back Down

• 2007 143 countries vote Yes, for the United
  Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
  Peoples
• Four countries vote, No.
• The United States
• Canada
• New Zealand
• Australia

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Where do we go from here?
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Who are we?
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Cultural Continuity

• Oral history
• Strong community ties
• Historical connection

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Were still fighting for our rights
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Peaceful Protest at Tyenidinaga, Ontario, Canada
in April, 2008
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What does it take?

• To create respect
• To share our land
• To live in peace with one another

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Take a Stand

• One voice can
• make a difference!
• Your voice can
• make a difference!

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References

• http//www.spvocation.org/site/external/fckeditor/
  data/Image/FOTM/LandingofColumbus.jpg
• http//www.reformation.org/american-holocaust8.jpg
  
• indioheathen.blogspot.com
• http//www.the13thstory.com/krg/HomelandSecurity14
  92.jpg
• http//images.google.com/imgres?imgurlhttp//www.
  dakotaswtraders.com/images/native_american_looking
  .jpgimgrefurlhttp//cerebraldeathmatch.blogspot.
  com/2007/07/of-american-culture-anyone-with-good.h
  tmlh574w478sz30hlenstart10um1tbnid-M
  oqy_Dh2ez6DMtbnh134tbnw112prev/images3Fq3
  DNative2BAmerican26um3D126hl3Den26sa3DN
• http//ili.nativeweb.org/sdrm_art.html
• Jack Weatherford, Indian Givers
• Judith Nies, Native American History A
  Chronology of a Cultures Vast Achievements and
  Their Links to World Events
• Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee An
  Indian History of the American West.
• http//www.dominionpaper.ca/weblogs/stuart_neatby/
  1813