American Indians Essay Research Paper American IndiansThroughout

American Indians Essay, Research Paper

American Indians

Throughout the history of the United States, American Indians have be treated poorly. Ever since the white men crossed the Atlantic ocean 200 years ago till the mid 1900 s, the poor treatment and killing of Indians never ceased. US Policies passed between the Revolutionary War and the mid 1900 s hurt American Indians and put them at an extreme disadvantage.

Before the Revolutionary War, the first hint that the relationship between the American Indians and the white people would be rocky was when the British ordered the Proclamation of 1763. It prohibited any white settlers to settle west of the Appalachian Mountains because of numerous conflicts with the American Indians. After the Revolutionary War, the concept of Manifest Destiny , to expand the nation to the Pacific Ocean and possibly Canada and Mexico, motivated many Americans to look beyond their territories.

After the Revolutionary War, they successfully gained all the land east of the Appalachian Mountains, from the St. Lawrence River to the 31st parallel. When the United States signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1783, it gave them the Great Lakes and Mississippi. The United States were able to expand even more after they were able to urge the Native Americans to give up their lands in the Northwest Territory in 1784 and 1785. In 1802, all the states had given up their territories to the federal government as part of the new Constitution. Most importantly, when North Carolina gave up its territories, it stopped making payments that were guaranteed to the Indians in earlier treaties. The United States were to pay off the debt, but they failed to do so. A large contribution to the expansion of the United States was acquired through the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803. Then in 1819, Florida was purchased from the Spaniards. Texas freed itself from Mexico in 1845, became an independent state, and joined the United States. Lastly, in 1848 the last major land the United States obtained was California and New Mexico from the Mexican Cession. On the 75th birthday of the nation, the United States had fulfilled its Manifest Destiny and its borders crossed the entire North American Continent (Jones, Pg. 9-12).

The trouble for the American Indian began here. With all the new land acquired, many white Americans headed to the west and mid-west to settle. During these settlements, the Indians got in the way. The settlers were taking their land away from them and the white settlers killed the Indians to get rid of their problems easily. In the minds of many white Americans, the best way to solve the problem with Indians interfering was to exterminate them. The first major battle that erupted between the Indians and the Americans over land ownership and Indian treatment from the Americans occurred during the War of 1812. In 1813, the Indians along with their allies the British, fought the Americans at the Battle of the Thames River. Here Tecumseh died. Tecumseh was the leader of the Shawnee Tribe who also led and united many Indian tribes to drive the Americans off of their land. After he died, the Indians lost an important leader and hence lost their sense of direction and stopped fighting for awhile.

In 1828, Andrew Jackson, the war hero who defeated the Creeks and British became the new President of the United States. Andrew Jackson was considered a frontier man. The Americans on the frontier looked up to him and expected him to have a no-nonsense policy toward the Indians (Jones, Pg. 19). The Cherokee Indians were the first Indians to be a victim of the Jackson policy. At the time, the Cherokees were the most prosperous Indian nation. The white settlers in the area began to raid the Cherokees. The federal government did nothing about this. But when the Cherokees retaliated against the white settlers, the Cherokees were tried and punished severely. Finally, the Cherokees got fed up and appealed to the federal government and worked fiercely to keep the treaty obligations that required the United States federal government to protect the Cherokees and their lands. But the federal government said that the white settlers who took their land were too numerous to be moved and thus were unable to help the Indians. So instead of following the treaty with the Cherokees, the federal government under the Jackson administration took land away from them. The Cherokees brought their case to the Supreme Court to seek justice. Rather, the United States Senate ratified the Treaty of New Echota and President Jackson signed the treaty into law allowing the government to remove all Cherokees from their land (Satz Pg. 20). This decision by President Jackson was the first in a series of massive Indian removal (Gilbert Pg.23) . Finally, the Cherokees were forced to flee to Indian Land , also known as Oklahoma. After the successful removal of the Cherokees, the federal government decided to remove the Choctaws, Creeks, and Chickasaws to Oklahoma as well. The Indians were harassed by the whites and suffered from diseases while traveling to Oklahoma on the trail known as the Trails of Tears (Gilbert Pg. 27,28). In 1832, US troops chased the Sauk nation across the Mississippi River. They killed at least 200 Sauks. As a result of this inhumane act, the federal government gave the remaining Sauks their own land in Iowa. Most of the removals made by the United