Colonists v.s. Native Americans
To some Americans, the childhood rhyme "in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue" summarizes the depths of their knowledge of America's discovery and foundation. While many people both today and in the 19th century acknowledged that a group of people called the Native Americans, not Columbus and his men, were the first ones to set foot on American soil, the Native Americans throughout history have been treated with little respect and tolerance by different groups of people, including the American government. For years, different Native American nations lived peacefully in various regions of western America; although, in the late 1800's, as settlers moved west in search of new land and wealth, the Native American's territory and lives were forever disrupted. While "ethnocentrism and cultural misunderstanding, rather than greed, was the key driving force behind the Native American policy in the late 1800's" the American settlers also acted barbarically towards the Native Americans for the sole purpose of establishing and fostering their personal wealth and success. America's hostility and insincerity towards the Native American groups can be explained by America's general sense of "cultural misunderstanding" and close-mindedness.
During the 1800's, the Native Americans' spiritually based and liberated lifestyle bewildered and frightened the conservative American colonists, who thought this way of life to be savage and unconventional. The Ghost Dance, a native ritual of the Sioux Native American Indians, is a prime example of the Native Americans' thick culture; according to Wovoka, a well known prophet, this dance would help to bring the Sioux away from their reservation and back to their home in the Plains. Wovoka once stressed the believed importance of the dance by the inspiring quote, " all Indians must dance, everywhere, keep on dancing.." ( Brown, 390). Even though this ritual was quite peaceful, military officials grew anxious and wary of its sudden popularity. As a result of the military's misunderstanding of the Ghost Dance, Chief Sitting Bull was blamed for causing chaos and was arrested; this event quickly turned violent, and ended with Sitting Bull and many others massacred. Another example of the settlers' inability to understand the ways of the Native Americans was the Dawes Severalty Act, which was passed in 1887. The act was created to "reform what well-meaning whites perceived to be the weaknesses of Indian life...by turning Indians into farmers and landowners." (Boyer, 543). While this act uprooted the Nati
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Approximate Word count = 882
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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