America's Government's Indian Policy

Manifest Destiny

American's had been given by God

Americans had divine duty to replace inferior cultures they found, as they moved west, and replace them with a superior one

Indians were an obstacle to progress

Americans moving west and taking Indian land was named in textbooks the "Frontier" or "Western Expansion"

- Nationalism

Conquest and Removal

Remove people (Indians) with force from their land

Missionary groups "civilize" Indians with Christianity

Louisiana Purchase - 50 Indian wars

Indian Removal Act - Gave American military/gov. the power to remove Indians by any means necessary

1890 = less than 200 tribes (down from 500)

Policy of Confinement

Reservation System

- Segregate and control Indians

- Bureau of Indian Affairs - corrupt "Indian Ring"

- Disease, starvation, dependence

Indian Prisons

US wanted Indian land to be new states

Forced assimilation - removal of Indian culture and replaced with American Culture

Forced Assimilation

Chief Joseph - Did not want to give up his land because it was theirs and he promised his father he would protect it

Gov./Army's response was to send military force against Chief Joseph and Nez Perces

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Cochise & Geronimo - Apache and US settled for a treaty between Cochise and US

When Cochise died the treaty was ended by US and US sent military force against Geronimo and Apache

Geronimo sent to Indian Prison and was never let out

Reservations

A place for Indians to go without staying/going back in their homeland

To remove Indian Culture and them American

Virtual Concentration Camps

Corruption for food - Indian Ring

Abject Poverty

General Allotment Act

Assigned Plots to Indians

To make them more like white Americans

To sell reservation land to rich whites

Impacted Indian Culture, people, and Indian land had been exterminated

Indian Boarding Schools

Indian Children taken from families to convert Indians into people like white Americans

Impact:

Indians were no longer Indian

Indians were excluded from their tribe and had forgotten how to be Indian (their language)