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...A Forum for American Indian Issues...
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History 
Wed Feb 01, 2012 at 21:14:41 PM PST
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Throughout the first century of its existence, the United States had carried out policies intended to decimate the First Nations that had occupied the lands for thousands of years. Having accomplished its manifest destiny of occupying the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, by 1890 American Indian policy was focused on: (1) assimilating American Indians into American society just as other immigrants had assimilated; (2) eradicating Indian cultures, including traditional languages, marriage customs, religions, and ways of dress; and (3) destroying tribal governments and breaking up tribal land holdings. The policies and programs of the American government in 1890 were driven by the viewpoint that American civilization was superior and that the existence of Indian cultures was somehow an impediment to the progress of "civilization."
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Wed Jan 25, 2012 at 16:17:11 PM PST
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When describing the Wounded Knee massacre of 1890, many history books make two major errors: (1) they claim that this was the end of the Ghost Dance movement, and (2) they claim that this was the last armed conflict between Indians and the U.S. military. Neither of these is true. The Ghost Dance movement originated with the vision of the Paiute prophet Wovoka and continues to be celebrated today. It did not die at Wounded Knee.
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Mon Jan 23, 2012 at 17:46:04 PM PST
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Bear Butte in South Dakota is a sacred site which is used as a vision quest site for the Sioux, Arapaho and Cheyenne. The Sioux describe Bear Butte as their most sacred altar. The Seven Sacred Rites of the Sioux were learned at the top of this mesa.
The view from Bear Butte is shown above.
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Sat Jan 21, 2012 at 11:34:34 AM PST
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The Crow Reservation in Montana was first defined by the United States government at the Fort Laramie Treaty Council of 1851. Subsequently, the Indian Office (later known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs) assigned Indian agents to administer the reservation. In 1902 Samuel G. Reynolds became the Indian agent for the Crow reservation and began to implement a program of self-sufficiency. He cut off all tribal rations and began to abolish the tribal farms which had been collectively farmed by the Crow. He announced that he would discontinue the practice of meeting with the tribe in a council or powwow. Reynolds' authoritarian policies were carried out in part by Big Medicine, a tribal police officer.
The location of the Crow Reservation is shown in the map above.
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Mon Jan 16, 2012 at 16:32:04 PM PST
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The Spanish entrada (entrance) into the American Southwest began during the sixteenth century with explorers who were driven by greed. The Spanish hunger for gold and other fast wealth was justified in their own minds by their religion: their attempts to harvest souls for their religion justified their brutality toward the native peoples they encountered. They had absolutely no doubts about their own cultural and religious superiority. Not only did they have no respect for the Indian cultures which they encountered and the hospitality which was freely offered them, but they expected the Indians to recognize their superiority and to serve them as porters, concubines, and slaves.
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Thu Jan 12, 2012 at 17:06:09 PM PST
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In 1817, James Monroe became the fifth President of the United States. He was the last Revolutionary War veteran and founding father to assume the Presidency. From an American Indian viewpoint, his presidential administration is important as it set the stage for Indian policies and for the administration of these policies which would guide the American government for two centuries.
A portrait of President Monroe is shown above.
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Wed Jan 11, 2012 at 20:46:25 PM PST
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While the idea of "indefinite detention" of people determined to be "enemies" of the United States is currently being debated, for American Indians this is an old issue and one in which they have had a great deal of experience. In 1885, the Chiricahua Apache-men, women, and children-surrendered to the United States Army on the condition that they were to be held as prisoners for two years and then they were to be allowed to return to their own land. Instead, they spent the next 27 years as prisoners of war in prisons in Alabama Florida, and Oklahoma.
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Mon Jan 09, 2012 at 08:37:04 AM PST
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English really isn't a Native American language, but virtually all of today's Indians speak this as their first and primary language. During the past several centuries the English-speaking Europeans and their descendents who have come to occupy what is now the United States and Canada have consistently shown intolerance for other languages. Consequently, native languages have been suppressed. Native Americans have been required to learn English, and have not been allowed to use their native languages.
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Sun Jan 08, 2012 at 15:38:31 PM PST
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Most Navajo ceremonies are focused on health: on healing someone who is ill or on maintaining health. Navajo ceremonies, often referred to as "sings" or "chants," are often a reenactment of the creation of the world through myth, song, prayer, and drama. The patient is placed in this recreated world which closely identifies the patient with the powers of the Holy People.
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Sat Jan 07, 2012 at 19:03:33 PM PST
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Following World War II, the United States decided that it wanted to sever its relationships with American Indian tribes. In order to do this, it needed to settle all possible legal claims which might arise out of its past dealings with the tribes. Thus, in 1946, Congress created the Indian Claims Commission to adjudicate all claims arising out of fraud, treaty violations, or other wrongs done to the Indians by the government. Under the Indian Claims Commission Act, a tribe could receive full and just compensation for wrongs. It was presumed that most of these claims would deal with land: lands which had been illegally seized from Indian tribes, land which had been purchased from them at less than their true market value, and damages to Indian land by non-Indian intruders.
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Thu Jan 05, 2012 at 15:59:15 PM PST
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When the Dutch and the French, and later the English, began to enter into what would become New York State searching for trading partners in the seventeenth century, they encountered a large, well-organized alliance of tribes known as the Iroquois. The League of Five Nations, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy, was composed of five culturally and linguistically similar nations who had come together to promote peace among themselves.
The map above shows the approximate location of the Iroquoian and Algonquian tribes when the Europeans first began to enter the area.
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Wed Jan 04, 2012 at 11:05:18 AM PST
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When the Europeans first began their invasion of what would become known as New England, they encountered people-American Indians-whose origins and existence puzzled them. They were firm in their conviction that they knew the true history of the world and that this history had been written down in their holy book. Since American Indians were not mentioned in their book, they had to come up with some explanation of their origins. Ignoring American Indian oral traditions, they simply superimposed their own creation story on them, regardless of whether it made any realistic sense of not.
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Mon Jan 02, 2012 at 10:07:57 AM PST
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While Europeans tended to build the places they considered to be sacred-churches, statues, memorials-for American Indian people sacred places were often not places constructed by humans, but places which were naturally sacred. In looking at the landscape around them, Indian people did not see a landscape that needed changing, nor did they see it as a landscape which they were to dominate: rather, they saw a landscape filled with living things. The living things within this landscape included the plants and animals, as well as the rivers, the rocks, the mountains, and the hills. Sacred places in the landscape were often portals through which Indian people could make contact with the sacred.
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Sun Jan 01, 2012 at 13:22:59 PM PST
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During the nineteenth century, academics, politicians, teachers, historians, and the general public knew that Americans Indians were a vanishing race, destined to disappear before the relentless superiority of American manifest destiny, greed, private property, and capitalism. More than a decade into the twentieth century, however, American Indians continued to exist and Indian reservations were generally places of great poverty. The nineteenth century policies regarding the administration of Indian affairs continued, and seemed to be more determined than ever to make sure that Indians would disappear. During the twentieth century, many historians and others, believing in the myth of American superiority, actually believed that Indians had disappeared and thus twentieth century Indians are usually invisible in the histories of this century. Looking back to a century ago, to the year 1912, we see that there is, however, an Indian history for this year.
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Sun Jan 01, 2012 at 09:12:53 AM PST
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While the English history of the colonization of Massachusetts often characterizes the Indians as nomadic hunters with no claim to the land, it is interesting to note that the first action of the Pilgrims when they landed in 1620 was to rob an Indian grave of the corn offerings which had been left there. Corn, or maize, as most people know, is not something hunted by nomads, but is a domesticated plant. While the first English colonists survived in the beginning on plant foods raised by the Indians, they often failed to see the Indian fields, as they didn't look like English fields.
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Fri Dec 30, 2011 at 10:44:17 AM PST
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In 1865, some drunken American squatters murdered Pai headman Anasa. In retaliation, Pai raiders attacked several wagon trains, ran off livestock, and shut down the traffic on the road between Prescott and Fort Mohave. In response to these attacks, the U.S. Army created a line of demarcation which declared that all Indians living more than 70 miles east of the Colorado River were to be considered hostile and subject to extermination. Under this declaration, not only were the Pai considered hostile, but also the Yavapai and Western Apache.
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Wed Dec 28, 2011 at 10:33:52 AM PST
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( - promoted by navajo)
The Sand Creek Massacre and the Washita Massacre both led to the Wounded Knee Massacre. The Sand Creek Massacre brought the realization that "the soldiers were destroying everything Cheyenne - the land, the buffalo, and the people themselves," and the Washita Massacre added even more genocidal evidence to those facts. The Sand Creek Massacre caused the Cheyenne to put away their old grievances with the Sioux and join them in defending their lives against the U.S. extermination policy. The Washita Massacre did that even more so. After putting the Wounded Knee Massacre briefly into historical perspective, we'll focus solely on the Wounded Knee Massacre itself for the 121st Anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre.
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Sun Dec 25, 2011 at 12:58:14 PM PST
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In the United States the concept of insanity has often been associated with notions of racial purity and the racial superiority of Europeans. In 1898, Congress was considering establishing a facility for insane Indians. One senator testified:
"It has been well established that the percentage of insanity is greater among half-breeds than among full-blooded Indians. That is explained by the theory of crossbreeding, that has a tendency to weaken the race. For this reason it is confidently expected by those who have made a study of these conditions, that the rate of insanity will greatly increase as our civilization grows."
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Sat Dec 24, 2011 at 15:21:03 PM PST
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The Hopi had lived in their mesa-top villages in what is now northern Arizona for many centuries before the United States acquired the right to govern the area. They did not, however, sign a treaty with the United States and therefore did not reserve a portion of their homelands for themselves.
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Fri Dec 23, 2011 at 10:01:30 AM PST
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The media has never been fair and balanced when it comes to serving Indian people and reporting on events which impact Indian lives. Many Indian leaders have felt that it is critical for Indians to have media which they control. One example of Indian media can be seen in The Indian Journal, a newspaper born in Indian Territory (later known as Oklahoma).
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| In Memoriam |
In honor of my mother, THE FLORA SOMBRERO LIND NAVAJO ENDOWMENT FUND has been set up to accept your donations.
This scholarship endowment has been established at the American Indian College Fund to honor Flora Sombrero Lind, as an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation who was born at Inscription House, Arizona of the Many Goats clan circa 1925. This scholarship endowment is funded by Flora's family and friends who want to see Navajo students pursue higher education and carry on their great Navajo heritage.
Please leave a comment here if you donate.
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- Please specify what your donation is for in the notes section of the PayPal window. Either propane for Pine Ridge or Rosebud or Hosting fees for this blog. --navajo
If you like to help Aji and Wings please mail a check to them at the address here:
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Native American
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...a forum for the discussion of political, social and economic issues affecting the indigenous peoples of the United States, including their lack of political representation, economic deprivation, health care issues, and the on-going struggle for preservation of identity and cultural history
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