The making of a nation: 3. The Indian question : behind the myth.

1. The making of a nation: 3. The Indian question : behind the myth. To what extent does the Indian question both enlight and contradict the American myths?

2. A- Indians were partners and supporters of the making of the nation: • The natives played an important role in • the establishment of the Europeans • then in the conquest of the West. Capacity to survive to hard conditions Knowledge of the geography (mountains...), of the wild life (animals, dangerous or useful, all the plants)...

3. The Lewis and Clark expedition : started 1804. Ordered by President Jefferson. Aims: - to widen the knowledge (flora and fauna ), - to extend the US territory - to exploit the resources Lewis and Clark took about 12 men with them to begin, among whom Indians.

4. The expedition used the “know-how” of the natives, especiallySacagawea’s, a Shoshone guide. Their work consisted in mapping the rivers, and make a count of the different species of animals they would find during their trip. As well, they met local Amerindians, and started creating links with them. Lewis and Clark were one of the first to trade with the Nativesof the West. They exchanged goods, and tools which were necessary to the survival of the expedition in its everyday life. They were really interested in the manners and the cultures of the different tribes.

5. B- The European impact: In some ways, the European coming had a good influence... Allowed the Indians to extend their territories Introduction of horses (which escaped from the settlers and became wild) Facilitated hunting Widened the possibilities of social games thanks to their rapidity and obedience Links and exhanges Contacts between tribes Trade and discoveries

6. But tensions soon prevailed: The first mortal action of the settlers was heavily violent, even though not planned. They brought new diseases (smallpox, flu) from their countries into America. The natives were not protected from these simple but very dangerous diseases. Europeans also brought firearms, which were used by the American Indians to hunt, but also to fight between them. They changed the relations to nature too…

7. Indians were often used as scapegoats and warriors to satisfy the ambitions of the colonial leaders: Two examples: The Mystic Massacre (1637): in eastern Connecticut, lived the Pequot (allied to the Dutch), the Mohegan and the Narragansett (allies to the English). On May 26th 1637, the English and 200 natives from the Narragansett tribe attacked a village of Pequot. The aim was to kill the more people as possible, so as to reduce the Dutch power in the region. The Schenectady Massacre (1690): once again the Amerindians fell in a war where they did not have a real interest in. The French took a group of Algonquins to attack the English village of Schenectady. They killed 60 settlers, with 10 women and 12 children. Many other massacres happened from 1600 to 1900, killing so many Indians that today, they are less than 2.5 M in the United States.

8. A people to be evangelized: The British started to christianize. e.g. in 1641 John Eliot, a Presbyterian pastor, undertook to convert the more Amerindians as possible. He gathered all the believers in “prayer-villages” where he translated the Bible in Mohacan and Algonquin. In the villages the church is built first - this is a very important mark for the population. Then he raised Amerindian pastors, to teach other tribes. He also created christian schools.

9. C- Indians were an “obstacle to progress and civilization”: The priority in the 19th c became todeprive the Natives of their lands. How did the American government justify it?

10. Indians were enemies of the making of the nation: the revolutionary war (1776-1784). The Natives played a consequent role in the War of Independence. Some stayed neutral or joined the American side, but 13,000 warriors were with the English. They wanted to defend their lands from a further expansion of the US territory which would encroach on their lands, and then, reduce it. The non-combatant were the most touched. Entire Amerindian villages were destroyed, causing thousands of indigenous losses.

11. What ideological construction was made to deprive them of their lands?  Not Christian (enough), too “wild”...  Unfit to business development (Railway Cies needed profit, esp. after the 1873 Krach, by which they lost many sotcks)  Disturbing the needs to feed the growing demand for land (an increasing immigrants’ nation that the former colonies could not satisfy)

12. The near-extinction (1880s) of the Bisons (or Buffalos) was planned by the WASPs to downturn the Prairie economy of the Natives.

13. Slaughtered buffaloes lying dead in the snow in 1872 USNational Archives.

14. The myth of the scalp? « Pale faces » scalped by brutal « Red Skins »… Historians confirm Indians were as much victims as perpetrators. e.g. British colonial authorities offered a bounty (reward) on Indian scalps… In 18th c. Salem, scalps were hung along the walls of the town courthouse… "First Scalp for Custer," image from a 1903 brochure for Buffalo Bill's Wild West. Why to practise body mutilation acc. to you ?

15. For Indians, scalps were not mere trophies of war « Male scalp decorated with jewelry, paint, and feathers, represented the person's `soul' or living spirit. To lose that hair to an enemy was to lose control over one's life, to become socially and spiritually `dead', whether biological death resulted or not ». James Axtell, historian.

17. The Removal Act (1830)  the Trail of Tears (1838) = the forced relocation of the Cherokees from their lands to the « Indian Territory » (= Oklahoma) Resulted in the death of approximately 4,000 Cherokees. In the Cherokee language, it is called Nunna daul Isunyi—“the Trail Where They Cried”.

18. Indian reservations: In 1851, Congress passed the Indian Appropriations Act = creation of the first Native American reservations (= modern day Oklahoma)... Presented like a “Peace Policy” by president Grant, it aimed to stop the strained and bloody relations the white settlers had with the Natives... It also targeted the “civilization” of the Natives (future citizens...). The condition was to be taught christianity and to convert. The Quakers were especially active.  Wasn’t it forced amalgamation?

19. General organization of the Indians Appropriation Act: Federal Indian Agency Indian Agencies on Reservations Protects the land rights of the white settlers Indian houselholds and lands Quaker representatives LAND

20. A government picture of an Indian household, South Dakota, 1877. The Lakota family lived at South Dakota's Rose Bud Agency. It had both a teepee and log cabins...

21. Facts & impacts: Most of the appropriations were determined by executive orders, not negotiated, and located sometimes in arid regionsunsuitable for agriculture. Risks of starvation became actual for many. It led to the last American-indian wars…

22. The battle of Little Big Horn: 1876 - Custer’s Last Stand…

23. Death of Custer - A dramatic portrayal of Sitting Bull stabbing Custer, with dead Native Americans lying on ground, in scene by Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show performers. c.1905

24. The Wounded Knee Massacre (1890); 153 killed - 50 wounded - 150 missing among the Natives. It happened in the context of the Ghost Dance religion, a messianic movement that since 1889 had caused great excitement among Indians in the area and that was interpreted by whites as a general call to war.

25. Mass grave for the dead Lakota after massacre of Wounded Knee.

26. Casualties: • 250,000 native Americans remained alive at the end of the 19th century. • Before the Europeans colonized North America: numbers vary from 10M to 18M. • Not only the spread of Western highly contagious diseases (to which the Natives had no immunity, esp. smallpox) is at stake... • Conquest? Ethnocide? Genocide?

27. The discovery of gold in California in 1848, the railway challenges etc. brought about a fundamental change in Indian-white relations. “By the early 1850's, whites in California outnumbered Indians by about two to one, and the lot of the natives, gradually forced into the least fertile parts of the territory, began to deteriorate rapidly. Many succumbed to starvation; others, desperate for food, went on the attack, stealing and killing livestock. Indian women who prostituted themselves to feed their families contributed to the demographic decline by removing themselves from the reproductive cycle. As a solution to the growing problem, the federal government sought to confine the Indians to reservations, but this was opposed both by the Indians themselves and by white ranchers fearing the loss of labor. Meanwhile, clashes multiplied”...

28. Epilogue: Indians were still needed… as Americans. All along the American history, the American Indians have contributed to the development and the life of the country. During WWI, the Amerindians fought with the American troops. They were 12,000. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 gave United States citizenship to Native Americans, to see them merged with the American mainstream, and also because of the heroic service in World War I.

29. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, also known as the Howard-Wheeler Act, was sometimes called theIndian New Deal. It laid out new rights for Native Americans, reversed some of the earlier privatization of their common holdings, and encouraged self-government and land management by tribes. For the following twenty years, the U.S. government invested in infrastructure, health care, and education on the reservations, and over two million acres (8,000 km²) of land were returned to various tribes. The Indian Reorganization Act also provided for termination and relocation of certain tribes. This eventually resulted in the legal dismantling of 61 tribal nations.

30. The Navajos in particular were involved as their language was impossible for the Japanese to translate. During WWII, more than 44,000 Native Americans struggled all over the world against the Nazis.

31. Many Natives today have mingled their religion to the new one. They believe in a mix of the indigenous believes and Christianity. This the “Native American Church”. The picture to the left represents the Amerindian Virgin, and the one to the right shows the Amerindian Jesus Christ. The whole Bible has been presented to the Natives with Amerindian personalities, in order to make them project themselves into the religion and also to identify themselves to the characters shown. Some rites are accompanied with traditional indigenous music i.e. drums and vocalizations.

32. The Native Americans have now a place in the US society. Their culture is now recognized, even though they have been persecuted by the European Christians.