In 1799, a new religious movement was born among the Seneca Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy. The new religious movement, considered to be a traditional Iroquois religion today, began with a series of visions received by Handsome Lake. Among this vision was the prophecy that the world would end in 2010.
Handsome Lake was born into the Seneca Wolf clan in 1735. (The Seneca are one of the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy.) As a young man, Handsome Lake followed the traditional Iroquois role for men and was a warrior. In 1765 he was a part of a group of 100 Seneca warriors, under the leadership of Giengwahtoh (Old Smoke). The war party journeyed to the southeast where they raided the Cherokee and the Choctaw.
World War II brought many changes to Indian reservations and to American Indians on the home front. These changes began during the war, and then continued following the war.
It should be noted that an American Indian reservation was attacked during the war. In 1945, a Japanese bomb carried by balloon landed on the Hupa reservation in Northern California.
In New York, the Six Nations Iroquois - Mohawk, Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, Tuscarora, Cayuga - declared war on the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) in 1942.
A high percentage of American Indian men served in the military during World War II. During the war, nearly 25,000 American Indians served in the military and received the following awards: Air Medal (71), Silver Star (51), Bronze Star (47), Distinguished Flying Cross (34), and Congressional Medal of Honor (2). More than 480 Indians were killed during the war. While the armed services were segregated by race, Indians were generally integrated into Caucasian units.
A number of Indians achieved high military rank during the war. Brigadier General Clarence Tinker, an Osage from Oklahoma, headed the Hawaiian Air Force. Joseph ("Jocko") Clark, a Cherokee from Oklahoma, was the only Indian naval admiral.
In World War I, American Indians had to register for the draft even though they were not eligible to be drafted since they were not citizens. By the beginnings of World War II, however, American Indians had had citizenship conferred on them twice by Congress: once in 1924 and again in 1940. The Nationality Act, passed by Congress in 1940, not only conferred citizenship on American Indians (even though they had be granted citizenship in 1924), but required that Indian men register for the draft. Passage of the Act was opposed by the Indian Defense League of America. Tuscarora leader Clinton Rickard urged those who wished to volunteer for the armed services do so as alien non-residents.
There were a number of concerns, controversies, and conflicts regarding the draft and American Indians.
One of the issues that many Native American men and boys have faced concerns long hair. For them long hair is not a stylistic concern, but is a religious issue. For many Native Americans having long hair is a symbol of tribal religious traditions which teach that hair is only to be cut when one is in mourning for the death of a close relative. The American government, public schools, and prisons have all forced Indian men to cut their hair in spite of the teachings of their tribal religions.
The most recent long hair case involves a five-year- old Lipan Apache boy in Texas. In 2008, Adriel Arocha was denied admission to school because the school policy did not allow long hair for boys. After a two-year court battle, an appeals court finally ruled that the school's policy regarding hair length was a violation of his religious freedom rights. According to the court:
Long hair is part of Arocha's religious beliefs. He wears his hair long, as he did as a young child before he was forced to cut it for school-an experience he describes as "unsettling." His grandfather wore his hair short, but his uncle wore his hair long and in one or two braids. As an adult and over time Arocha came to find religious meaning in wearing his hair long as he gained greater understanding of his grandfather and uncle's teachings.
In 1966, Richard Hugo was teaching a poetry class at the University of Montana. One of his students was James Welch who had been born on the Blackfeet Reservation and raised on the Fort Belknap Reservation. Hugo realized that Welch knew nothing of poetry, but he encouraged him to write about what he did know: life on the reservation. As a result, Welch began to write about the reservations and the people on the reservations. These writings resulted in Riding the Earthboy 40.
James Welch was a part of the renaissance of American Indian literature. When he began his writing, Indian authors were unknown. He later noted that D'Arcy McNickle's The Surrounded was out of print at this time and that the other major Indian authors that are widely studied today were just beginning their careers.
During the nineteenth century the United States engaged in three wars with the Seminole Indians in Florida: 1816 to about 1824; 1835 to 1842; and 1855-1858.
Contrary to some popular opinions, there was no traditional overall governmental or political organization among the Seminole at this time. They tended to be politically organized around busk groups, each of which had its own medicine bundle on which the annual busk (green corn) ceremony was focused. Thus the military actions against the U.S. military did not have a single leader or coordinator.
In this diary, I'm going to look at the Third Seminole War.
When the Spanish began their conquest of Mexico in 1519 they encountered a powerful nation known as the Aztec. The Aztec called themselves Mexica and from this the name Mexico is derived.
According to oral tradition, the Aztec originated in a land known as Aztlan. Some experts feel that Aztlan was actually in Arizona. The Hopi-an ancient Arizona people-are linguistically related to the Aztec. Furthermore, there are some similarities between some of the Hopi stories of origins and those of the Aztec. There are others, however, who feel that Aztlan was in Northern Mexico, perhaps in the present-day state of Sonora.
For many people in the academic world, one of the major foundations of Native American literature was laid with the publication of The Surrounded in 1936. This novel, written by D'Arcy McNickle, was not the first novel written by an Indian nor was it particularly successful at the time. The book came out in the midst of the depression and found relatively little readership in spite of good reviews. In the 70 years that have passed since the book's publication, however, it has become one of the most widely read and studied American Indian novels.
The United States government and American historians have been as reluctant to acknowledge women leaders among Indian nations as they have been acknowledging women warriors. The fact is that many Indian nations have had women leaders. In the many treaty councils which the United States held with the Indian nations, it was unusual for the United States to allow Indian women to speak.
In 1831, when the Sauk returned to their traditional village of Saukenuk in Illinois, the Americans called up a force of 700 militia volunteers to protect the citizens of the state from the Sauk invasion. The Sauk were determined to remain peaceful and met in council with the Americans. The Americans wanted the Sauk to move to new lands west of the Mississippi River. Black Hawk informed General Gaines that the women own the fields, not the men. The Sauk then selected a woman to speak for them. She told the Americans that the women owned the fields, not the tribe, and that the women had never sold any of the land nor consented to the transfer of it to the United States. Gaines simply dismissed her comments saying that the President did not send him to make treaties with women nor to hold council with them.
When the Europeans first began arriving on this continent they were amazed that Indian women were very much unlike European women. Indian women were not subservient to men, they often engaged in work - such as farming and warfare - which the Europeans viewed as men's work, they had a voice in the political life of their communities, and they had control of their own bodies and sexuality. Unlike the patriarchal European societies, Indians were often matrilineal, a system in which people belonged to their mother's clans or extended families. When Indian people spoke of a neighboring tribe as "women" or as "grandmothers", the Europeans often misinterpreted this compliment as a derogatory statement.
During the nineteenth century Indian women, and particularly Indian women leaders, were invisible to the American government. Some Indians have gone so far as to say that the Americans were so afraid of Indian women that they would not allow them to sit or speak in treaty councils with the United States government. Even today, Indian women are conspicuous by their absence in American history.
In 1776 a group of American colonists signed the Declaration of Independence which condemned King George III for preventing the colonists from appropriating western lands which belong to Indian nations. Among the allegations against the English is the charge that King George has not helped the colonists against the "savages of the interior" (referring to their conflicts with Indian nations.) From the perspective of American Indian nations these were uncomfortable words: if these rebellious British colonies prevailed, Indian nations would have to defend their homelands against an invasion of settlers.
James Wilson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, felt that Indians must give way to progress.
"The whole earth is allotted for the nourishment of its inhabitants, but it is not sufficient for this purpose, unless they aid it by labor and culture. The cultivation of the earth, therefore, is a duty incumbent on man by the order of nature."
During the nineteenth century the United States engaged in three wars with the Seminole Indians in Florida: 1816 to about 1824; 1835 to1842; and 1855-1858.
Contrary to some popular opinions, there was no traditional overall governmental or political organization among the Seminole at this time. They tended to be politically organized around busk groups, each of which had its own medicine bundle on which the annual busk (green corn) ceremony was focused. Thus the military actions against the U.S. military did not have a single leader or coordinator.
In this diary, I'm going to look at the Second Seminole War.
During the nineteenth century the United States engaged in three wars with the Seminole Indians in Florida: 1816 to about 1824; 1835 to 1842; and 1855-1858.
Contrary to some popular opinions, there was no traditional overall governmental or political organization among the Seminole at this time. They tended to be politically organized around busk groups, each of which had its own medicine bundle on which the annual busk (green corn) ceremony was focused. Thus the military actions against the U.S. military did not have a single leader or coordinator.
In this diary, I'm going to look at the First Seminole War.
The policies of the United States regarding American Indians have generally been based on two interlocked approaches: ideological and theological. During the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century, Indian affairs were guided by an ideology based on the concept of private property and a theology based on Christianity. Thus the formation of Indian policies required no actual understanding of American Indians.
I dreamed I was dead and talking to your spirit at the tree of life Mr. President. You were somewhat annoyed at having been summoned by greater powers than you, but you listened and were very considerate of hearing what I had to say. I didn't need to tell you all the details of what you are considering signing, and I understood your complex predicament. I told you that you had a choice to make since most the remaining natural resources of the Earth Mother are on Indigenous lands, and you are president of all the people of this country. I told you I pitied your predicament and would not want it for myself. When respecting one's sacred lands means compromising the survival of another, how do you decide between what is right and necessary but evil?
In 1917 the United States entered into World War I. While Indians were not liable to be drafted, they enlisted in large numbers. Many of the volunteers were eager to count coup, gain war honors, and to maintain the warrior traditions of their tribes. An estimated 10,000 Indians served in the military during the war.
The Onondaga Nation, a part of the Iroquois Confederacy, unilaterally declared war on Germany, citing ill-treatment of tribal members who were stranded in Berlin at the beginning of hostilities. The Oneida Nation, another member of the Iroquois Confederacy, also declared war on Germany.
In the Great Basin area of Utah, Nevada, and Colorado, the Fremont culture began to develop about 400 CE and lasted until about 1350 CE. During this period, desert foragers were replaced by more or less sedentary horticulturalists. Fremont originated on the northern frontier of the Anasazi culture, but developed independently of it. It seems to have grown out of Mogollon stimuli.
The Fremont were a farming people who supplemented their agricultural crops with some hunting and gathering. The Fremont raised at least three kinds of corn, including Fremont dent which was resistant to drought, cold, and climatic extremes. Fremont dent also matures in a short growing season. The Fremont dry-farmed corn. They took advantage of arroyo flooding and sheetwash during summer rains. They helped water their crops through the construction of small check-dams and there is some evidence that they may have irrigated their crops.
More than 2,500 years ago, American Indians brought agricultural prosperity to the Arizona desert with the construction of complex irrigation systems. About 425 BCE these Indians, the ancestors of today's O'odham nations who are often called Hohokam by archaeologists, began construction of the city of Skoaquik which means the "place of snakes." Archaeologists call this place Snaketown.
For more than 12 centuries the Hohokam prospered peacefully in the Arizona desert. In the Hohokam communities of Casa Grande and Pueblo de los Muertos, irrigation systems brought water to the agricultural fields from the river which was six miles away. These hand-dug canals were often ten feet deep and up to fifty feet wide. In order to prevent water loss through seepage, the Hohokam plastered the sides of the canals. These large canals fed hundreds of small ditches that brought water to thousands of acres of croplands.
After a legal struggle that has lasted more than three decades the Shinnecock Indian Nation, whose aboriginal homeland is in Long Island, N.Y., has received federal recognition. Their current petition for federal recognition was filed with the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1999. The tribe has 1,292 enrolled members and an 800-acre reservation in Southampton. With tribal recognition, the tribe can build a casino, though tribal leaders indicate that this is a secondary consideration at the present time. I would like to use this event to describe the process of obtaining federal recognition.
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