Warm Up Activity
What kinds of good characteristics
describe life at LHS and the people who
are in this community?
Warm Up Activity
Imagine that a new group of students is coming to LHS.
These newcomers want you to wear a particular type of clothing,
give you new names, change the Lancer mascot and LHS school
colors.
Because the new students will eat in the café at lunchtime, you
must eat in an empty classroom.
Since these new students don’t speak English, you will not be
allowed to speak English and have to learn their language
Conflict
&
Struggle
The federal government began moving the Indians to large reservations.
•Most reservations were on poor land and the Indians were often tricked to
move there.
•Many Natives moved to the reservations but some resisted.
•In turn there were several deadly battles with mostly Native American
deaths.
A
Changed
Culture
•Reformers like Helen Hunt Jackson were horrified at the treatment
of Native Americans and pushed for reforms.
•Felt the situation could improve if Native Americans could
assimilate into American society as landowner and citizesns
The
Dawes
Act of
1887
•The law aimed to give Native Americans private
individual ownership of land, eliminate their nomadic
lifestyle, and encourage them to become Americanized.
•The law broke up the reservations in an attempt to end
tribal identification so these people could assimilate to
American society.
What Makes Someone
Civilized??
Ethnocentrism
Congressman Henry Dawes, author of the act, once
expressed his faith in the civilizing power of private
property with the claim that to be civilized was to "wear
civilized clothes...cultivate the ground, live in houses, ride in
Studebaker wagons, send children to school, drink whiskey
and own property."
The tendency to believe that one's ethnic or cultural group is
centrally important, and that all other groups are measured in
relation to one's own.
The ethnocentric individual will judge other groups relative to his or
her own particular ethnic group or culture, especially with concern
to language, behavior, customs and religion
Captain Richard H. Pratt
• While some colonizers advocated outright physical
extermination, he thought it wiser to “Kill the Indian
and save the man.”
• In 1879 Pratt, an army veteran of the Indian wars,
opened the first federally sanctioned boarding school
called Carlisle Indian Industrial School
• His philosophy was to “elevate” American Indians to
white standards through a process of forced
acculturation that stripped them of their customs
• They were each given new haircuts, uniforms of
European-American style clothes, and even new
English names
School Time or Rule Time?
• Most children sent to
schools to become
deculturized
• In these schools they
were forced to speak
English, study
standard subjects,
attend church, and
leave tribal traditions
behind.
Wanted them to Become
Christianized
• Felt these people needed
Jesus and the Bible in
their lives to become
civilized
• Church officials,
missionaries, and local
authorities took children
as young as five from their
parents and shipped them
off to Christian boarding
schools
• They forced others to
enroll in Christian day
schools on reservations.
Quote Examination
1.
"The Indian may now become a free man; free from the thralldom
of the tribe; free from the domination of the reservation system;
free to enter into the body of our citizens. This bill may therefore be
considered as the Magna Carta of the Indians of our country.” Alice
Fletcher.
1.
"The Dawes Act was a way to break up the whole tribal structure
of Native American nations. Instead of saying you are a group of
people, all of a sudden you are individual landowners ─ you are
Americans. And so it was designed to break up community, to
civilize people, make us farmers, and also break up our tribal
structure."Charlotte Black Elk
Some called this assimilation "making apples",
as the Indians would still appear 'red' on the
outside, but would be made 'white' on the inside
Dawes Act was a Failure
• Few Natives Americans
had the training or
enthusiasm for farming or
ranching
• They found the allotments
too small to be profitable
• Few were willing or able
to adopt the American
settlers’ lifestyles in place
of their own culture
Wounded Knee
The frozen body of one of the victims at Wounded Knee. The caption written on this photograph identifies him as the medicine man
who triggered the conflict with a handful of dust tossed into the air to illustrate how the power of the Ghost Dance would sweep the
whites from the plains.
•The Dawes Act changed the Natives way of life and in despair they turned to
Wovoka in 1890, a prophet who claimed the Sioux would regain their greatness
by performing a ritual known as the Ghost Dance.
•The reservation officials became alarmed by the dance and arrested Sitting Bull
as the leader of the movement. He was shot during the arrest.
•In response the Sioux gathered at a creek called Wounded Knee in South Dakota
and were confronted by the army. In the battle 150 Sioux and 25 soldiers were
killed. This ended the armed conflict between whites and Native Americans.
The Ghost Dance