1. Native Americans and Relocation

2. Settlers’ Views Towards Native Americans
Favored displacement and dispossession of Native Americans
Convert Native Americans to Christianity, turn them into farmers, force them absorb white culture

3. Some tribes adopt white culture
Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, Creek, and Chickasaw – “Five Civilized Tribes”
Georgia, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
Whites wanted this land for farming and mining, railroad tracks, iron, gold
Established formal government with legislature, created constitution modeled after the U.S. Constitution, created written language, majority of members became literate

5. Not enough
Assimilation - policy adopted by the U.S. government encouraged/forced Native Americans to be more like white citizens
President Andrew Jackson didn’t think it could work
Would take too many troops to keep white settlers out of Native American Lands

6. The only solution
Believed that the only solution was to move the Native Americans from their lands to areas farther west
Creek Member – “Can [our white brethren] exempt us from the intrusion in our promised borders, if they are incompetent to our protection where we are?”

7. Indian removal act of 1830
Federal government funded negotiation of treaties that would force Native Americans to move west
Realized that they could not defeat the Americans in war
About 90 treaties were signed
Many federal government agents were not honest in their negotiations

8. Cherokee fight the legal system
Cherokee nation tried to win just treatment through the US legal system
Cherokee Nation had no federal standing – neither a foreign nation nor a state
Some Cherokee favored relocation – Why?
Federal agents decided that the minority who favored the relocation were the true representatives of the Cherokee Nation

9. The Cherokee treaty
Had them sign a treaty that gave the last 8 million acres of Cherokee land to the federal government
In exchange for approximately $5 million and “land west of the Mississippi”
1838 – about 20,000 Cherokee still remained in the east
Pres. Martin van Buren ordered their removal
U.S. army troops rounded up the Cherokee and drove them into camps to await the journey

10. The trail of tears
October and November 1838 – Cherokee sent off in groups of about 1,000 each
Some made the journey by steamboat and railroad, most made it on foot
Government officials stole their money
Outlaws and bandits stole their livestock

12. The trail of tears Exhaustion, dehydration, and disease were rampant
Cherokee had to bury more than a quarter of their people along the Trail of Tears
When they arrived in the west, they ended up on land far inferior to that which they had been forced to leave

13. buffalo
Overhunting by white settlers nearly pushed the buffalo to extinction
Settlers ground up bones for fertilizer
Many Native American tribes depended on the buffalo – food, hides for shelter, tools
30 million buffalo in 1800
Smithsonian Institute in 1886 – Difficult to find 25

15. Boarding schools
Native American children were forcefully removed from families to be civilized
Teach English, take away clothes, names, familial connections
“Kill the Indian, save the man”

16. boarding schools
Indian students would travel off the reservations, attend school and return home.
Reformers hoped that this system would allow the students to civilize their parents by sharing what they were learning.
The lessons of the day were obliterated at night by the realities of communal tribal living
Reservation Boarding Schools – families just moved closer

17. Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Carlisle, Pennsylvania – 1500 miles away from nearest reservation
Convinced parents and tribal elders to allow him to take 60 young boys and 24 girls to a new boarding school
Long distance would surely break the hold that tribal life had on students closer to home

18. Lone wolf of the blackfoot tribe
"[Long hair] was the pride of all Indians. The boys, one by one, would break down and cry when they saw their braids thrown on the floor. All of the buckskin clothes had to go and we had to put on the clothes of the White Man. If we thought the days were bad, the nights were much worse. This is when the loneliness set in, for it was when we knew that we were all alone. Many boys ran away from the school because the treatment was so bad, but most of them were caught and brought back by the police."

20. Strict rules Followed a military-style schedule
Prohibited from speaking native languages
Taught to hate their heritage
"Did I want to be an Indian? After looking at the pictures of the Indians on the warpath — fighting, scalping women and children, and Oh! Such ugly faces. No! Indians were mean people — I'm glad I'm not an Indian, I thought."

22. “I have seen the great father chief the next great chief the commissioner chief; the law chief; and many other law chiefs and they all say they are my friends, and that I shall have justice, but while all their mouths talk right I do not understand why nothing is done for my people. I have heard talk and talk but nothing is done. Words do not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country now overrun by white men…” – Chief Joseph

23. Chinese immigrants
Chinese peasants from the Canton Province began arriving on California's shores in 1850, pushed by poverty and overpopulation from their homeland
Five-year stints in the mines, after which they prospected or accepted jobs as laborers, domestic workers, and fishermen
Became known as “good workers”

24. Shunned by society Bathed themselves and washed their clothes
Stayed away from whiskey
Instead of water they drank lukewarm tea, boiled in the mornings and dispensed to them throughout the day
Avoided dysentery
Given hard work and poor living conditions on transcontinental railroad