Native Americans

1. Native Americans Geronimo (1829-1909), Chiricahua Apache

2. Cherokee Removal The Cherokee who were forced to flee from their own lands carried the case to the supreme court. The head speakers were president Andrew Jackson and the principal chief of the Cherokee John Ross. There was decided that the Cherokee had to leave most of their land and travel westwards to a colony west of Arkansas where the Americans "gave" them place to stay. Main reason for Jacksons decision were that he preferred his "own" people to the Natives. He saw that there was peaceful way to live with the Indians whom he sought to be ignorant and unable to live a civilized life. His statement was "All preceding experiments for the improvement of the Indians have failed." Which means he'd tried to negotiate and make the Cherokee lives better. He thought that Natives couldn’t live beside white man because of their barbaric ways. He saw them as the scattered remains of a ones proud people. One of the reasons were also resurcial. The area where the Cherokee lived was said to be rich in gold and other valuables. In his statement Jackson also pointed out the plan to place Natives to live in reservations where they wouldn’t be in the white mans way. Andrew Jackson

3. Treaty of New Echota/Cherokee Retreat After the treaty of New Echota, the Cherokee were forced to move eastwards to lands the white man pointed for them. The journey was thousands of miles long and it came to be known as "The trail of tears" because so many was lost during it and the agony the Cherokee suffered.The Cherokee were escorted by U.S military which was led by general Scott. First the people were led by in massive groups were they had no food for everyone and traveling conditions were horrible. It was only with the intervention of the tribes chieftain John Ross that most of the Cherokee survived to the area where they were heading. Ross pledged to general Scott that he could lead his people to their designated place. When Scott accepted, Ross began to make smaller groups from the withdrawing Cherokee so they could gather food more efficiently and prevent further loss of life. Over 4000 Cherokee died on making that journey and it is mourned to be one of the saddest things in American history. As the state of Georgia continued to harass Native American lands, a group of Cherokees called ''Treaty Party'' began negotiating a treaty with the federal government. The group was led by Major Ridge, his son John, Elias Boudinot and his brother Stand Watie. They signed a treaty in New Echota on December 29th 1835. Despite the majority of Cherokee opposed this treaty, the eastern lands were sold for $5 million and the Cherokee agreed to move beyond the Mississippi River to so called ''Indian Territory''. The Senate ratified the treaty though only a minority(less than 500 out of 17,000 Cherokee in North Georgia) of Cherokee accepted it. Also, this treaty was not signed by the official Cherokee leader. However, U.S government had now (illegal) treaty to justify Cherokee removal.

4. Native Americans, Civilized or Not? First of all you have to define ''civilized''. Native Americans had their own way of leading their nation and keep it going. Tribes made trading and treaties, sometimes went to war, which is not any different or worse to our ways of living and doing things. They took care for one and other and had extremely healthy way of living. You could call Native Americans as a children of nature. What is so uncivilized with that? They treated nature with respect. Nature gave them shelter, food and water. Well, unsafe things too like predators, but they are children of nature as well. Native Americans were also in a better shape, and probably still are, than us. In 16th century Native Americans actually said that they could smell white men from many meters away. This was due to low hygiene of Europeans of that era. From the beginning of the invasion of Northern America, different tribes were willing to co-operate with Europeans. They were not savages as white people thought them to be. Sure they went to wars against white people and killed them, but after all who wouldn't do that to conquerors who treats you like subhuman. Besides different treaties were not fulfilled by invaders which too of course made Native Americans angry. At that time, many white people was thinking these five tribes to be most civilized of all the other tribes:Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee, Chickasaw, Seminole. A list of five most civilized tribes( Painted between 1775-1850) They were considered civilized because they adopted some of white man’s manners and for exampel, Cherokees had their own syllabary (Made by Sequoyah). Cherokees also lived in houses made of wood. Those are basically main reasons why they were called most five civilized tribes.

5. Hollywood Stereotypes Cartoons shows them also ’’doing their yelling’’ or singing while drumming and dancing around fire. Feathers are also presented only as Native Americans thing. They eat their food by hands and in some cases they look like they do not care about their hygiene. This is what hollywood presents to american kids. In movies like The great sioux massacre(1965) and Pawnee (1951) Native Americans is shown as a vicious savages. This was very normal at that time. There was no hiding about showing white man being above of ’’Indian’’ in every level. In many movies it was seen to be righteous to kill an Native American. They were shown to be starters of different conflicts. Kevin Costner’s film Dances with Wolves(1990) takes place in U.S Civil War. It’s about Lieutenant John Dunbar who requests a position on the western frontier, but finds it abandoned. He finds out that near his outpost lives a Lakota tribe and he eventually becomes friends with them. John Dunbar also falls in love with white women who was raised by Lakota’s. Later Lakota tribe gets invaded by U.S forces and John Dunbar stays fighting with the tribe. Dances with the wolves is unique because it gives alternative view of Native Americans culture and life style. They are presented as normal people with their own manners. There is still a typical stereotype of Pawnee’s. They are shown, once again, to be brutal savages which not only kills whites but also Lakota’s. Nevertheless, the movie is great and worth watching. In cartoons, for exampel in Pocahontas(1995), Native Americans are often shown to communicate with nature. Like trees and different animals.