Transcript Native American (in)Justice

Native American
(in)Justice
Renée Ametané’e Roman Nose
Tsistsas (Cheyenne)
Graduate Student-M.A.I.S.
Anthropology, Ethnic Studies, Art
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).
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.
1492
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
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
rocks…They spitted the bodies of other babes,
together with their mothers and all who were before
them, on their swords…(They hanged Indians) by
thirteen’s, in honor and reverence for our Redeemer
and the twelve Apostles, the put wood underneath and,
with fire, they burned the Indians alive…I saw all the
above things…All these did my own eyes witness.”
Father Bartolomé de Las Casas (Spanish priest)
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
Doctrine of Discovery
AKA: Might makes right or We don’t
care if your people have lived here for
millennia, we want it all and we want it now!!
Perspective can be painful
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
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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
Indian Givers
Gold
Potatoes
Silver
Chilies
Medicines
Beaver pelts
Chocolate
Democracy
Tobacco
Slavery
Quinine
60% of foods now used
worldwide
 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.
 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
We Won’t Back Down
 2007: 143 countries vote “Yes,” for the
United Nation’s Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples
 Four countries vote, “No.”:
The United States
Canada
New Zealand
Australia
Where do we go from here?
Who are we?
Cultural Continuity
 Oral history
 Strong community ties
 Historical connection
We’re still fighting for our rights
Peaceful Protest at Tyenidinaga,
Ontario, Canada in April, 2008
What does it take?
To create respect
To share our land
To live in peace with one another
Take a Stand
 One voice can
make a difference!
 Your voice can
make a difference!
References
 http://www.spvocation.org/site/external/fckeditor/data/Image/FOTM/Landingo
fColumbus.jpg
 http://www.reformation.org/american-holocaust8.jpg
 indioheathen.blogspot.com
 http://www.the13thstory.com/krg/HomelandSecurity1492.jpg
 http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.dakotaswtraders.com/i
mages/native_american_looking.jpg&imgrefurl=http://cerebraldeathmatch.bl
ogspot.com/2007/07/of-american-culture-anyone-withgood.html&h=574&w=478&sz=30&hl=en&start=10&um=1&tbnid=Moqy_Dh2ez6DM:&tbnh=134&tbnw=112&prev=/images%3Fq%3DNative%2
BAmerican%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN
 http://ili.nativeweb.org/sdrm_art.html
 Jack Weatherford, Indian Givers
 Judith Nies, Native American History: A Chronology of a Culture’s 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