Native American Racism Essay Research Paper Native

Native American Racism Essay, Research Paper

Native Americans: 500 years of Racism and Oppression

“In fourteen-hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” This little saying is something that I’m sure we all learned as children, to help us remember the year that Columbus discovered America. However, Columbus did not discover America, it has been here as long as Spain, England, and the rest of the countries in the world at that time. Although not as nearly technologically advanced as the countries of Europe, the Native American nations functioned as well, if not better, as these advanced nations of Europe. However, because the Native Americans were viewed as inferior savages when Columbus set foot on America, he saw it fit to take their land and life. Columbus was the beginning of a long history of racism and oppression against all Native Americans living in the Americas. Through this course of time, there have been many different areas in which racism has shown itself: through now forgotten wars, environmental racism, and the forcing of beliefs upon these nations.

Most people have heard the saying “history repeats itself.” There is another saying that is not as well known, written by the author of Wa*censored*a: Genocide on the Great Plains, James Horsley: “History is only the past when we choose to do nothing about it” (Gibson 7). These two sayings could be molded together to say “History repeats itself when we choose to do nothing about it,” or “The past repeats itself because we choose to do nothing about it.” Although Horsley was referring to the Wa*censored*a massacre and the Marias River incident when he wrote his quote, it is true in all cases. Racism has constantly been repeated since the beginning of time, and will always exist because people are different and have different ways of life; from racism comes fighting, which, in the past, has led to massacres and wars.

Although some people think that racism is gone, it surely is not. Although it is at much lower levels than the past (at least, in the U.S.), it still does exist. Racism by whites towards Native Americans is something that has been going on since day one, when Columbus set foot on North America. The Natives were viewed as savages and inferior to the whites. Because of this, the whites did not want the Natives to live with them, so they had one option: extermination. This racism and extermination continued over the continent into the Pacific Northwest, where racism still exists. One example of the Native American extermination is the Marias River incident. Although this massacre is not widely known, it is a prime example of racism. On January 23, 1870, the U.S. Army wrongfully killed almost 200 Piegans:

This event was almost certainly a pre-emptive act of military terrorism [Horsley's emphasis] against the troublesome Blackfoot Confederacy of Blood, Piegan, and Blackfoot tribes. General Phil Sheridan, the architect of the Wa*censored*a Massacre, did indeed specify the camp of Mountain Chief as the [Major Eugene] Baker target – but Baker’s local superiors urged him to use his own discretion and “punish” the Piegans who might [Horsley's emphasis] be guilty in the past or future (Gibson 3).

Horsley is trying to show that the United States Army killed Native Americans because they might be guilty; guilty of being different. Major Baker was urged to attack and punish these Indians. It was almost as though it didn’t matter what the Army was fighting to gain, as long as there were Indians to kill. This is a perfect example of the racism and hatred that Americans have put on Native Americans throughout the history of the U.S.

The problem with racism is that it will never go away. There are still problems today in society, just not the same extent that it has been in the past. There’s that phrase again: the past. The past repeats itself because we choose to do nothing about it. We have not solved the problem of racism and probably never will. People look and act different, it is just something that must be accepted in order to eliminate racism.

Racism can have different forms. In the case of the Coeur d’Alene tribe, they suffer from what is known as environmental racism. Environmental racism is not widely talked or thought about, but is more abundant than most may think. In cases of environmental racism, minorities, usually Hispanic or blacks, are trying to keep polluting factories out of their communities, arguing that they have been unfairly protected from environmental hazards. In the case of the Coeur d’Alene tribe, their battle has been an ongoing one since the early 1920’s, when chemicals were showing up in Lake Coeur d’Alene. Henry SiJohn, a Coeur d’Alene tribal leader, argues that his tribe has been unfairly protected from environmental hazards, and has little doubt that anything will change (Cooper 534).

SiJohn argues that this battle for environmental hazard protection began as far back as 1920, when the water potatoes that the tribe grew in the lake started having a metallic taste. When the tribe first complained, the government told them that they had no voice. In his interview with Mary Cooper, SiJohn talks of environmental racism, saying that minority communities are more exposed and receives less protection from the government than white Americans do. SiJohn states that even today, the EPA does not protect the environm