Native Americans And Blacks example essay topic

Although the federal governments attitudes and actions towards blacks and Native Americans civil rights in the 19th century were very different they also had lots of similarities. Both blacks and Native Americans were treated poorly and did not have many rights. Blacks were slaves and Indians (Native Americans) were fighting to stay alive. All these negative actions were a bad look for a country that was growing bigger and bigger by the day to someday reach what the United States is today. Culture was a huge part of Indian life in the 19th century, from hunting buffalo and respecting and loving the lands that they lived on to amazing spiritual and religious ceremonies.

Blacks did not have much culture because they were mostly all born slaves in the U.S. ; except for the ones that were born in Africa and had good memories about they " re past culture. There were also elder slaves that had experienced the African culture who tried to pass it on to the American born slaves who didn't have any sense of there culture. From the 1850's all the way until 1924 the Indians were battling the U.S. militia, government and army. The Indians were being kicked off there land and forced onto reservations. Many battles such as Red Clouds war in 1863, Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and even the Battle of Little Big Horn (Custer's last stand) in 1876 are all examples of battles that the Indians fought against U.S. men. Many of these battles were over land and gold mining.

The Indians won some and lost some but in the end the U.S. won the "war". The Native Americans kept losing men and the U.S. kept on pushing forward. Every reservation that was set up for the Indians sooner or later was destroyed and taken over by the U.S. The U.S. did not want the Indians to continue believing in their gods and religions. The Indians culture was a huge threat to the U.S. who wanted to try and Americanize the Indians. In 1887 the Dawes act was put into action, which was an attempt to eliminate tribal ownership of land and give individual "families" 160 acres of land to live on. The U.S. was hoping this would make the Indians live the American way and give up there Indian culture.

This was very hard on the Indians and they did not let this be the way they made peace with the U.S. people. Then in 1924 the Snyder act was granted which gave the Indians their citizenship so that they could believe in their culture and own land. Blacks were not as open about there culture because it was passed on threw songs and stories. Most of them were all slaves so they had no understanding of there culture. It was passed on from the older slaves from Africa through many hours or stories and songs.

The blacks were slaves and that meant they were considered property so they could not be as nearly open and free-spoken about the culture that they knew of. In the later half of the 19th century blacks and Native Americans did not have many or any political and social rights. Neither group was considered citizens of the United States they didn't have all the rights that the white Americans had. Post 1850 the government's policy towards Native Americans changed from "one big reservation" policy of the early part of the century to a policy labeled "concentration". This policy was carried out under the theory of "divide and conquer". Each Native American tribe was dealt with individually resulting in either the establishment of small, limited treaties that were controlled by the government or as a last resort small battles were fought with the individual tribes and not the entire Native American nation.

This made it easier on the U.S. government to take over land that small tribes were living on and also easier to make the treaties and then break them. The cultural group that will become known as African Americans spent the second half of the 19th century free, but for the most part extremely oppressed. For the vast majority of this ethnic group of people freedom was just a word. The 13th Amendment, Johnson's plan, the 14th Amendment, the Military Reconstruction Act and other laws that were passed during the 2nd half of this century were meant to provide opportunities for healing and reconciliation between the southern confederates and the newly freed Black Americans. The entire 19th century was a building block for Native Americans and blacks to eventually conquer, in the 1950's and 1960's, the major obstacles that the southern whites and early Americans had with the Native Americans and blacks.

This per say "stepping stone" period of time was one of the biggest changes in the United States, to make it what it is today.