The Impact of Westward Expansion on Native Americans

1. The Impact of Westward Expansion on Native Americans A review of Primary Sources

2. How Did Westward Expansion Affect the Native Americans? • Brainstorm with your seatmates… • Write your answers on the egan boards given you and report back to the class using-- K / W / L What you know…what you want to know…what you learned (after the lesson)

3. Historical Context Since the first English settlers arrived at Jamestown in 1607, the story of America has been one of movement westward. As more and more Europeans came to our shores, colonists spread further and further into what was called the frontier, which is defined as an area of unsettled land. We know, however, that America was already inhabited by Natives whose ancestors had arrived thousands of years earlier. Conflicts over land ownership, religion, and culture, combined with broken promises by the U.S. government, moved the Indian population away from their homeland. The presidency of Andrew Jackson forced the removal of the tribes of the Southeast on the “Trail of Tears” to what is now Oklahoma.

4. Historical Context continued In the period following the Civil War, many people moved west for new opportunities and a new life. This would mean more clashes—this time with Plains Indians. Although America had changed much in the 250 years since the first settlers arrived, the attitude toward Native Americans had not. The building of the transcontinental was the beginning of the end for many proud tribes of the West.

5. Historical Context The railroads in the United States helped to open the West, develop the country economically, and create a sense of national unity, while also displacing Native American peoples. Trains carried the US mail and provided the same rights of way for the telegraph lines, setting the foundation for mass communication systems vital to the operations of big business.

6. Your Task • With your seatmates review the following primary source documents/photos and write your findings on the doucument/photo analysis sheets given you…you will need to report your findings to the class.

7. Swan to Commissioner (document A) • The Indians here I find are not very unlike white people, some are willing to labor for what they have and others think they ought to be supported in their idleness. It has been my aim from the first to put a premium on industry, and condemn indolence (laziness) in any and all. I find the complaining and fault-finding usually belong to this class. The Indians here as a rule learn the trades easily, perhaps more readily even than farming. There are goodly numbers who can perform service in the shops or mills, and show evidence of rapid advancement in mechanism. • 1. What does industry mean as used in this passage? • 2. What does idleness mean in this passage? • 3. How is Swan changing the Native Americans he comes in contact with? • 4.What judgments are being made about Native Americans ways of life?

8. Second Annual Address to the Public of the Lake MohonkConference (document B) 1st. Resolved, That the organization of the Indians in tribes is, and has been, one of the most serious hindrances to the advancement of the Indian toward civilization, and that every effort should be made to secure the disintegration of all tribal organizations; that to accomplish this result the Government should . . . cease to recognize the Indians as political bodies or organized tribes. . . . 4th. Resolved, That all adult male Indians should be admitted to the full privileges of citizenship by a process analogous to naturalization, upon evidence presented before the proper court of record of adequate intellectual and moral qualifications. . . . 6th. Resolved, That . . . our conviction has been strengthened as to importance of taking Indian youth from the reservations to be trained in industrial schools placed among communities of white citizens. . . . 14th. Resolved, That immediate efforts should be made to place the Indian in the same position before the law as that held by the rest of the population.

9. Questions • 1. What does the word “assimilation” mean? • 2. What does the Mohonk Conference want to do to the tribes in their area? • 3. Why was it important that the Indians be “in the same position before the law”?

10. Government Agents distribute sacks of food to Native Americans (document C) Government agents distribute sacks of food rations to Native Americans. Credit: Group of Non-Native Men, Government Agents with Sacks of Food Rations to Be Distributed, Circles by Seated Group in Native Dress; Log Buildings, Tipis, and Corral Nearby (no date) by Taylor E. James, Photographs of American Indians and Other Subjects, 1840s–1960s, Smithsonian Institution National Anthropological Archives.

11. Questions • 1. Who are the people sitting in the picture and who are the people standing? • 2. How and why are the sitting people relying on the standing people?

12. Buffalo Population (document d) By 1889, only 1,091 buffalos were left in North America. A combination of factors caused this rapid depletion of the buffalo population: white hunters, the construction of the railroad, the introduction of European livestock diseases. This greatly impacted the lives of Plains Indians, who used the buffalo for many products.

13. Questions 1. What was the buffalo population in 1800? 2. What was the buffalo population in 1889? 3. What was the cause of this decline? 4. What effect did this have on the Plains Indians?

14. What Did You Learn • Time to fill our the KWL Chart with what you learned… take time to discuss with your seatmates. • Consider the question: What was the effect of Westward Expansion on the Native Americans, White Americans, and Big Business • What technological invention made the biggest difference with the expansion?

15. Credits • http://www.smithsoniansource.org/display/dbq/viewdetails.aspx?TopicId=1000&DbqId=1017