The Reservation Land For Native Americans - 980 Words

Poverty Imagine a life where the government legally owns all your assets, and you report to a special bureau set up to handle your affairs. The land you live on is held in trust, and each exhausting step you take to climb out of poverty is snagged in mountains of legal red tape. In 1831, Chief Justice John Marshall started Native Americans along the slippery slope to poverty when he established a federal doctrine that assigns the government as trustees of Indian affairs. The reservation lands set aside for Native Americans are often the poorest, least desirable areas; better suited for ranching than farming. Since most Native Americans don’t own their homes, or the land they are on, they can’t mortgage their assets to get a loan like other Americans. Even the reservation lands with valuable natural resources can seldom reap any financial gains, due to the notoriously slow progress of bureaucracy. Delays or inability to acquire permits for energy development on Indian lands renders any natural resources â€Å"dead capital,† and unable to generate desperately needed income for impoverished tribal communities (Forbes). In Sherman Alexie’s book, â€Å"The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,† the reader experiences firsthand the overwhelming devastation poverty wreaks on the lives of those living on a reservation. The story’s awkward teenage narrator, Arnold, expresses frustration when he shares how he l ives â€Å"with his poor-ass family on the poor-ass Spokane IndianShow MoreRelatedNative Americans During The European Settlers920 Words   |  4 PagesAmerica--a promising land for the European settlers was a home to many Native Americans tribes. Slowly, as settlers migrated to the U.S, they began to expand into lands owned by the Native Americans for hundreds of years back. Before the civil war, Native Americans had initially welcomed European settlers as they believed in sharing the land with the newcomers. They would help the settlers in their travel across the plains by providing supplies and expert advice on location. In return, European settlersRead MoreThe United States And Native Americans Essay1300 Words   |  6 PagesThe history between Native Americans and Americans is harsh. Native Americans have been pushed off of their land by Americans and put into smaller reservations. The united states have enforced a number of treaties trying to better the relationship but it has oppressed Natives. Recently the united states were plaining to build an oil pipeline that would run through native land and the native Americans did not want the pipeline to be built. So this created more tension between the two. History ofRead MoreThe Treatment of Native Americans on Reservations1437 Words   |  6 PagesThe Treatment of Native Americans on Reservations Ever since white men came to the New World, they were never at peace with the native peoples. One of the first white men to come to North America was Sir Walter Raleigh, who took the Indians he met as slaves as early as 1584. In the years that followed, settlers forced the Native Americans further and further west. By the year 1850, there had been many attempts at peaceful negotiations and uprisings on both sides, but the government eventually decidedRead MoreThe Dawes Severalty Act of 1887826 Words   |  3 PagesThere has been much documentation on the plight of Native Americans throughout the beginnings of this nation. In spite of the attempts by the early government of the United States, the culture of many Native American tribes has survived and even flourished. The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 is just one of many examples of how our government attempted to wipe out Native American culture. This paper will discuss the Dawes Act, particularly the time leading up to the act, the act itself, and finallyRead MoreNative Americans and the Frontie Essay989 Words   |  4 PagesNative Americans and the Frontier The Native Americans of today are descendents of the Mongoloid people who migrated from Asia into N. America somewhere in between 20 to 40,000 years ago. When the Europeans rediscovered N. America at the end of the 15th century, the Native Americans whom they discovered were particularly diverse in nature. They were diverse in terms of their religion, political organisation and their language. Aspects of the relationshipsRead MoreThe Differences Between Native Americans And Europeans1323 Words   |  6 Pagesdisrupted the life of the Natives. The natives had their own culture in America with their own special beliefs. When Europeans arrived they tried to alter the way Native Americans lived their lives to resemble their way of living. The Natives did not respect this because they had previously built a lifestyle in America that they wish not to be transformed. The two cultures had different opinions about government, religion, land, and society. Due to the many differences between the Native and European peopleRead MoreThe Discovery Of The 19th Century1511 Words   |  7 Pagescentury Americans saw it as their duty to accomplish what many might believe to be unrealistic, to connect North America from coast to coast. Manifest Destiny is a term that describes the attitude that many Americans had during this era of transformation and progression. Americans claimed the ri ght to bring civilization westward and transform the unknown world into a land where men could live and be free. However, with this movement of progression Westward meant destruction for many Native AmericansRead MoreNative American Cruelty Essay1180 Words   |  5 Pagesyears Native American removal has caused a lot of pain and suffering for many Indians in America. How we have treated Native Americans in the past is an embarrassment to our history. Removing Native Americans from their land when we first settled here was wrong because we caused them a lot of hardships, took something from them that wasn’t ours to take, and in the end we all the pain and suffering we caused them was really for nothing. People still believe today that taking away their land was theRead MoreThe Treatment Of Native Americans1426 Words   |  6 Pagesinsulting the Native American people with poor excuses. This paper will discuss the fairness of the treatment of Native Americans in America by the US government over the years, and consider the effects of this treatment and abuse even today. It will look into the lives of those living on the Reservations, the Native Americans who have moved into an urban society. It will be explained by researching how they are being treated even in modern times. The cruel treatment of Native Americans is nothingRead MoreDiscrimination Against Native American Indian1588 Words   |  7 PagesThroughout history there have been many minority cultures. Americans first minority group was that of the Native American Indian. The claim made in 1492 by Columbus of being the first to discover America, was the first discrimination against the Native American Indian. How can one claim to discover a body of land when there are already inhabitants on that land? This was just the beginning of the discrimination against Native Americans and this discrimination continues to this day. When European