Peter Layne

Cooper

AP Language

13 May 2018

Roots of Modern Abjection

In early 1607, three ships arrived in the new world from England. 100 men, led by

sailor John Smith had left England some 5 months earlier, chartered by the Virginia in

search of the new world. Quickly after settling, these colonists met a new people, the

Algonquin tribe. While these two groups would eventually find a way to work together,

the seeds for conflict were sown. This conflict, as it evolved over the next four hundred

years, would turn out to be awfully one sided. Leading up to the American revolution

and for many years after, Native Americans were systematically forced off of their land,

often for little or no compensation. The systematic removal of Native Americans off of

their land removed them destroyed their culture and hurt them economically due to the

fact that the Federal Government was given almost entire control over their land.

Following the American Revolution and the War of 1812, America had asserted

itself as a functioning government with significant military might. This period also had

significant ramifications for Native American nations. America had a growing population,

and an entire continent to explore, and it was only a matter of years before the

Government turned west. By 1830, Andrew Jackson had signed into effect the “Indian

Removal Act”. The Act forcibly removed Native Americans to reservations west of the

Mississippi. Eric Hemenway, a member of the Odawa Indians, describes the destruction
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the removal act caused: “Unable to perform ceremonies and traditions in native

tongues, a slow loss of tradition and identity became inevitable”, Hemenway continues

“Losing Indian lands resulted in a loss of cultural identity, as tribes relied on their

homelands as the place of ancestral burial locations and sacred sites where religious

ceremonies were performed” (Hemenway). Hemenway then goes on to discuss how

attempts to assimilate Native Americans into American culture hurt native communities,

saying it helped create the modern “American hegemony” (Hemenway). Government

actions like the Dawes act attempted to use assimilation to make more Native American

land available for sale additionally. By forcing Native Americans to drop their culture for

a more materialistic American culture, the Dawes act made it easier to divy up Native

American land into individual units, and then to have them be bought and sold to white

settlers.

Another consequence of continual and almost cyclical removal off of allotted land

was the subsequent economic struggle. One of the largest problems created by the

Dawes act, and similar acts, was the idea of Allotment. Allotment was the idea of

dividing up Native American land, to either be given to individual families, or sold to the

non native settlers (Similar to and also part of the Dawes Act mentioned above). The

Native Americans were deemed unfit to own their land, so the government would keep

legal ownership of their land as an “Allottee” (ILTF). This allotment process caused

Native American land holdings to drop by 90 million acres, well over half of all owned

land from 1887 to 1934 (ILTF). Additionally, the federal government has incredibly

complex laws around corporate use of Native land, making it extremely hard for tribes to
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capitalize on their land holdings and resources. For example, energy companies must

go through 49 different process to get a permit to use Native American land, as

opposed to the 4 they normal need to go through to get a permit anywhere else (Flows

1). While some of these protections may be beneficial and protective, the majority do

nothing more than inhibit economic growth on reservations. Many companies will just

expand elsewhere, leaving Native communities out of the economic development. It is

easy to see where some of these regulations stem from, Uranium mining on Navajo

land has led to a staggering 27% of Navajo in the area with higher than average

Uranium levels (Morales). But it should also be noted how problematic the current

policies are. Many Native reservations, especially in the Southwest struggle with a

variety of issues: Substance abuse, Domestic abuse, and struggling education system--

All of which can be tied back to poverty.

The American Government’s conduct toward Native Americans for nearly 200

years has been nothing short of oppressive. While recent administrations have

moderated and made considerable progress in the right direction, there is much work

still to be down. Acknowledging that the current state of life on a number of Native

reservations is largely a product of the land theft that has continually occurred through

much of American history would be a huge step in the right direction. The cyclical theft

of Native American land not only resulted in a loss of culture, but also had serious

economic ramifications.
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Works Cited

Flows, Capital. “5 Ways The Government Keeps Native Americans In Poverty.” ​Forbes​, Forbes

Magazine, 13 Mar. 2014,

www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/03/13/5-ways-the-government-keeps-native-america

ns-in-poverty/2/#1532d8fd7b7f.

Hemenway, Eric. “Indian Children Forced to Assimilate at White Boarding Schools (U.S.

National Park Service).” ​National Parks Service​, U.S. Department of the Interior,

www.nps.gov/articles/boarding-schools.htm.

“Land Tenure History.” ​ILTF​, ILTF, iltf.org/land-issues/history/.

Morales, Laurel. “For The Navajo Nation, Uranium Mining's Deadly Legacy Lingers.” ​NPR​,

NPR, 10 Apr. 2016, ​www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/10/

473547227/for-the-navajo-nation-uranium-minings-deadly-legacy-lingers.