Of all the groups/ nationalities of people studied/ discussed in this course, the Native

North Americans had the most difficult time being accepted. Upon seeing many Indian
Reservations, it wouldnt be too difficult to argue that Native Americans havent been accepted,
at all. However, the U.S. is a big nation. And native tribes have assimilated many different ways,
to varying degrees, all across it. Some native groups have done better than others over the last
400 plus years.
It is widely believed, among scientists, that Siberian hunters came to North America
34-42 thousand years ago on a land bridge between Siberia and North America, following big
game (Olson and Beal p17). This group of people then spread out through the Americas and
became the First Peoples, as they are called in Canada. This is the only group who can claim
this as their story of coming to The Americas as the North American and South American
continent are called, collectively (Olson and Beal p17). By around 1500 CE Native Americans
had become divided into roughly 7 different groups spread out across what is now the lower 48
states of the U.S.: the Pacific Coast, Northern Plateau, Great Basin, Southwest Desert, Great
Plains, Northeastern Woodlands, and Southeastern Forests peoples (Olson and Beal p18). What
happened next is described as a changing of the good times, by a Mohegan Native, from
Connecticut (Olson and Beal p18).
Around 1560, a Spanish expedition became the first of many Europeans to migrate to
North American land (Olson and Beal p29). The original Spanish expedition to North America
was also the first of many Europeans to perpetrate some form of violence against Native North
Americans, by kidnapping a young Powhatan boy in order to teach him Spanish and then use
him as an interpreter (Olson and Beal p29) According to the Library of Congress, the Native
North Americans were subsequently, almost totally wiped out as the direct result of treaties,
written and broken by foreign governments, of warfare, and of forced assimilation throughout
the next few hundred years, across the nation (http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/
presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/native_american.html). These three factors
(political domination, warfare, and forced assimilation) were the biggest factors resulting in the
decimation of the Native Americans.
The first in a long line of legislature segregating the Native North Americans was in 1675
and called for the arrest of all American Indians entering Boston (packet 6). Later, as the
beginnings of what is known as Manifest Destiny the United States enacted all manner of
legislation aimed at removing Native Americans from what had been their lands for centuries.
Claiming things like superior use, stipulating that because [Europeans] were politically
centralized and economically developed, could make better use of the land than native peoples
Europeans removed Native Americans from their tribal homelands (Olson and Beal p66). This
led to such travesties as The Trail of Tears, where southeastern tribes were forced off their
land, some during the dead of Winter, and made to march thousands of miles and many would
die on the long journey (Olson and Beal p64).
The term marginalization does not capture what was done to the Native North
Americans at the hands of white European settlers. Genocide is a more apt term, if not
completely correct by sociological definition, it encapsulates what happened to the First Peoples
over the next couple hundred years. Helen Hunt Jackson described what happened to the Mission

Indians from Southern California as shameless fraud and pillage, after seeing their population
decline from 15,000 in 1852 to 3,000 in 1881 (Olson and Beal p192). Native North Americans
suffered all manner of atrocities, Dominated through technology and health issues related to
European disease and culture. (packet 6).
Around the 1900s, nearly three out of every four families had incomes below the
national average, tuberculosis seven times as high, and life expectancy nearly 10 years
lower (Olson and Beal p318). Around this same time Natives started to find a sense of panIndian ethnicity (Olson and Beal p318). And in 1944 the National Congress of American Indians
formed, which started an era of positive steps made for Native Americans (Olson and Beal
p318). Counterparts to the NAACP and LULAC were formed for and by Native American
groups. Some of them were more militant than others, however many groups made very
significant inroads towards taking back what was rightfully theirs, into the 21st century.
Many tribes started demanding their lands back, and through some of the special interest
groups, a lot of land was won back. In 1991, the Hopis were even able to stop extraction of
gravel from lands that were found 50 miles away from their reservation because this land was
considered sacred by them (Olson and Beal p325).
Native American also had a lot to contribute to American society. Genetic diversity adds
to the strength of any given species, so diversity of thought must add strength, as well.
Chief Smohallas quote from The Ethnic Dimension illustrates some differing thought found
amongst some Native North Americans that would do so well to diversify the U.S. culturally,
You ask me to plow the ground! Shall I take a knife and tear my mothers bosom? Then when I
die she will not take me to her bosom to rest. (Olson and Beal p23)
For the polytheistic Native North Americans the Earth was sacred and Native Americans
found much more beauty in things that white puritan society takes for granted. Everyone would
be better off if everyone could study this point of view. Native Americans offer a different
perspective from the whitewashed puritanical one that pervades American society today. And it is
such a shame that they were so annihilated by white Europeans.