Nick CataldoMr. HyerUS History 2September 7, 2007
Question: The Greatest damage done to the Native Americans in the late 19th century was by those who believed that they had the best intersests of the Native Americans at heart. Asses the validity of this statement using these documents and your own knowledge.
The people who believed that they had the best interests of the Native Americans at heart were the ones who hurt the Indians the most is a valid and invalid statement regarding the Indians. There were people that wanted to hurt the Indians, to wipe them out completely. Many people hated them because they were savage and wild. However, many people liked the Indians and tried to help them. They tried to thelp them by giving them certain amounts of land and by trying to civilize them, to try to make them Americans. These ideas were not liked by the Indians however, because they were free, they could not be locked up in certain amounts of land. And they could not be civilized because they were self efficient and they liked being that way. According to document C the people believed that the Government's connection with the Indians was a "shameful record of broken treaties and unfulfilled promises." The people say that the white mans connection with the Indians was a "sickening record of murder, outrage , robbery, and wrongs commited by the former." Those quotes, according to the speaker in Document C was the refusal to let Indians have the rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. The speaker was trying to say that Indians only cause trouble and that they deserve no rights and should be torn from the Earth. As demonstrated by document D the people speaking were trying to help the Indians when in turn, they were really hurting them instead. The speaker said that Indians deserved things including land even if it was only one quarter of a section per head of family. The speaker tries to give them land that he thinks is resonable when really, to the Indians, it was just a small piece of land on which that they could do nothing. The speaker also states that the Indians that tae up American life as their own will be an American citizen of the United States and is given the rigts of every other American citizen. This hurt the Indians though because they were hunters os wide regions not closed off areas. Also, they were very self efficient and they could become citizens but they didin't have to because they knew how to live their lives without the help of others. According to document H the speaker would also like to give the Indians a certain amount of land. This would not work because they lived free range. Also, the speaker wanted the Indians to be protected for their land for twenty to twenty-five years. So that if anything ever happened to their land they had like an insuance policy. And the speaker wanted one more thing, the creation of Indian schools. This would not have been welcome with the Indians because they taught their children so that they knew all that their parents knew. Also, the idea of them learning like civilized people wouldn't have worked either because they relied on no one. As demonstrated by document I the speaker would like to civilize the Indians and educate them so so that they would be fit into the twentieth century. The speaker wanted to train the Indian children in practical arts in order to promote personal cleanliness, social purity, and industrious family life. The speaker wants the Indians fit into American life quickly to end their savagry and wildness. The speaker wants Indians to be made into Americans so they could all be one. These ideas would not have worked out because Indians liked being self efficient and they do not want to be made in Englishmen. According to Document J the speaker understands the problem that the Indians face and he/she would like to see that the Indians get more land because the land that they were given was not enough for their life styles. The speaker quotes, "you will find that these people have been put off with a piece of land that is absolutely inadequate for their needs. The speaker is trying to help the Indians by fighting for what he believes in which is that the Indians deserve more land. This idea however will make more people want to make the Indians have less land because they are so savage and wild that they deserve absolutely nothing. The people that thought they had the Indians best intersests at heart were the peole that ended up hurting them the most is a valid statement. The people though that the Indians should at least get some land, but the Indians couldn't live off a certain piece of land they needed spave for hunting. Also, the people that thought they should civilize the Indians hurt them because the Indians were self efficient and di now want to be made into Americans and their ways of life.