NATIVE AMERICANS’ RIGHTS CARLOS MONTEZUMA Carlos Montezuma (1866 -1923) ò A Native American doctor and tireless activist for Native American rights. He was the second Native American ever to earn a Medical Degree in a US University. ò Born in Arizona into a Yavapai-Apache family, his real name was Wassaja (the “message”). ò At the age of 5 he was kidnapped by Pima raiders to be sold or bartered. These Native American scouts were paid by “the palefaces”. ò He was purchased by an Italian photographer, Carlo Gentile, who renamed him Carlos Montezuma, after the Aztec emperor of Mexico. He studied medecine and became a doctor. ò He died of tuberculosis in 1923 at the age of 57. Carlos Montezuma ò 1866- ò 1923 Native Americans • 10 to 90 million Native Americans inhabited America at the time of the European arrivals. • During the Ice Age (2.6 million years ago), they had travelled across the Bering Strait, from Siberia into Alaska. They had gradually migrated across the land and southward into Mexico and beyond. • The name Indian was given them by Christopher Columbus who mistakenly believed he had landed in the Indies. Early relations ò Initially, they tried to co-exist with the Europeans. They met the new 16th and 17th century visitors from Europe with enthusiasm. ò But the Europeans soon manifested their intention to conquer the new continent. ò Moreover, the colonists brought measles, smallpox, cholera, yellow fever, and many more devastating diseases. ò This drastically diminished the Native American population and destroyed entire villages. NATIVE AMERICANS ò At the beginning of the 19th century Native Americans were considered free and independent nations within their territories, on the ground of British international principles. ò In 1824, the Bureau of Indian Affairs was founded. It was meant to solve the land problems with 38 treaties with American Indian tribes. 1830-1848 ò The Indian Removal Act of 1830 marked the US federal government policy of forcibly moving Native populations away from European-populatedareas. ò Around that time gold was discovered on Cherokee lands in Georgia, so the number of settlers grew and a series of laws were passed to gain control over their lands. ò Eventually a group of Cherokee negotiated a treaty with the government in 1835. The result was the Trail of Tears, where Native Americans walked from Georgia to Oklahoma for about 900 miles. Over 4,000 people died. ò In 1848 gold was discovered in California and the Gold Rush started. Trail of Tears Homestead Act ò Since the beginning, the US Government had tried to expand into the West through legal purchase of Native American land, which they were encouraged to sell to “become civilized”, abandoning hunting and the clan- tribe organization to become farmers and live in family units. ò President Lincoln issued, in 1862, the Homestead Act granting free soil (160 acres = 650,000 square metres) to the first occupants. The “free” soil had to be outside the 13 original colonies. Former slaves could also apply. Homestead Act FORCED ASSIMILATION ò In 1868, President Grant reorganised the Bureau of Indian Affairs, with the goal of relocating various tribes from their homes to parcels of lands established by the Bureau. ò This policy called for the replacement of government officials by religious men, nominated by churches to teach Christianity to the native tribes. The Quakers were especially active in this policy on reservations. RESERVATIONS (1868-76) ò Reservations were created by President Grant. They were areas of land managed by a Native American tribe under the US Bureau of Indian Affairs. ò Enforcement of the policy required the United States Army and led to a number of Native American massacres and some wars. The best-known conflict was the Sioux War on the northern Great Plains, between 1876 and 1881, which included the Battle of Little Bighorn (Montana), in 1876, where General Custer and his troops were massacred. ò By the late 1870s, the policy established by President Grant was regarded as a failure. Sitting bull President Hayes ò In 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes began phasing out the policy, and by 1882 all religious organizations had relinquished their authority to the Federal Indian Agency. INDIVIDUALISED RESERVATIONS (1887-1934) In 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Act. The act granted small parcels of land to individual tribe members, instead of whole tribes. The policy continued until 1934, when it was terminated by the Indian Reorganization Act. At the time there were approximately 250,000 Native Americans in the USA – just 0.3 per cent of the population – most living on reservations, where they exercised a limited degree of self-government. Indian New Deal (1934) (Indian Reorganization Act) ò The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, also known as the Indian New Deal, laid out new rights for Native Americans, encouraged land management by tribes. The act, issued by F.D. Roosevelt, slowed the assignment of tribal lands to individual members. ò For the following 10 years, the U.S. government invested in infrastructure, health care and education on the reservations. Over two million acres (8,000 km²) of land were returned to various tribes. President F. D. Ro o s eve l t The Second World War ò There were approximately 350,000 Native Americans in the US in 1941, 25,000 of whom served in the armed forces. This was a higher proportion than from any other ethnic minority. ò 40,000 Native Americans worked in war-related industries. For many, this involved a permanent relocation to the cities. Native Americans in WW2 Termination Program (1945) ò In 1945 the new Indian Commissioners approved the “Termination program”, to end the government's responsibility and involvement with Indians and to force their assimilation. ò The Indians would lose their lands but be compensated (though many were not). ò Many individuals were relocated to cities, but one-third returned to their tribal reservations in the decades that followed. The Policy of Termination ò The notion that it was time to terminate the wardship status of Native Americans became increasingly popular in the postwar years. ò This would mean that the Bureau of Indian Affairs could be abolished, the reservations broken up, Indian resources sold off and the profits divided among tribal members. Indians would become just like any other Americans. END OF THE TERMINATION POLICY ò The pace of termination slowed in the mid- 1950s, as it became clear that many Indians had not been “properly consulted” and few had fully understood its implications. ò In the 1960s the policy was abandoned. RELOCATION ò A new relocation policy bagan. By 1960 nearly 30 per cent of Native Americans lived in cities, as opposed to just 8 per cent in 1940. ò Most ative Americans found the adjustment to new working and living conditions traumatic: coping with prejudice, understanding the everyday features of urban life such as traffic lights, lifts, telephones and clocks was hard on many Native Americans. ò Many suffered unemployment, slum living and alcoholism. Others drifted back to the reservations. The present situation ò In the 1960s the policy was abandoned. ò Nowadays there are 326 Indian reservations in the United States, associated with a particular Nation. ò Not all of the country's 567 recognized tribes have a reservation: some tribes have more than one reservation, some share reservations, while others have none. ò According to 2020 Census Bureau, there were over 6.6 million Native Americans in the US – about 2% of the entire population - with about 1.3 million living on reservations. The state with the highest percentage of Native Americans is Alaska at 13.7%. Native American celebrities Adam Beach, Kiowa Gordon, Leslie Marmon Silko.