Category: Native American

Stereotypes in many ways accompany Native Americans because of their origins, the most important of which has to do with communicating with nature and pets. The stereotype is about attitudes toward, and a particular love of, horseback riding. Traditionally, horses have been used for transportation since, in desert conditions, it is most convenient. However, even with the development of the locomotive industry and technology, people did not stop traveling by horse, which led to the stereotype. The stereotype is maintained mainly by Native Americans, so they are the ones with whom horseback riding is associated.

The stereotype of horseback riding was formed around Native Americans because of their love of nature. Horses allow you to travel safely on different terrains because they are very hardy and strong animals. Exploring nature on horseback is much easier than on foot, which is why all people involved in tourism in Latin America resort to this method (Davis-Delano et al., 2021). The horse for Indians symbolizes wealth and income, and animals are treated with special respect. Many identify with horses in an effort to achieve the same grace (Jacobs, 2021). Riding is not a bad thing, but society treats this Native American activity with suspicion and as if it were dismissive of their unwillingness to depart from tradition (Toka, 2021). Because of this, the stereotype continues to be reinforced in society.

For Native Americans, the horse acts as a sacred animal and is valued among the people. Riding is part of the culture, becoming the focus of many traditional rituals and ceremonies. Society associates them, with horseback riding, perhaps reinforcing the view that they are not modern. Nevertheless, horses continue to be important animals, sometimes valued far more highly than other pets. Despite a reinforced stereotype that may be culturally damaging, people will not stop feeling affection and love for horses.

References

Davis-Delano, L. R., Folsom, J. J., McLaurin, V., Eason, A. E., & Fryberg, S. A. (2021). Representations of Native Americans in US culture? A case of omissions and commissions. The Social Science Journal, 1-16. (n.d.). Web.

Jacobs, M. R. (2021). You Should Be Proud! NativeThemed Mascots and the Cultural Reproduction of White Settler Space. Sociological Inquiry. Web.

Toka, K. (2021). Progression or Stagnancy? Portraying Native Americans in Michael Apteds Thunderheart (1992). Ad Americam, 22, 87-100. (n.d.). Web.

I don’t think that sports teams should use Native Americans as mascots. It is often offensive to Native Americans and their culture and they should start making the change. I think there are some names that are more offensive than others. Considering the Chiefs, although it still is not right that they use someone else’s culture as a symbol of their team, this one seems less offensive and was maybe actually used as honor to their culture when they first put the name in place. Where it becomes offensive for this team is when the fans and mascot start dressing and acting as Native Americans

One of the most offensive names is the Redskins, this name has almost always been a derogatory term towards Native Americans, and people still use it in an offensive way. The Redskins should be one of the first teams that should change their name.

Native Americans would protest the use of their culture as a sports mascot because they were simply mocking them. Even if these teams claim that is not their intent, when they bring all the fans out and put on a little show with their mascot it turns into something bad.

I think the reason teams and their fans refuse to change their mascot is because they have developed an attachment to the name and the characters they’ve created for the games. They basically worship their team and mascot, but it’s often done in a way that’s offensive. They have created costumes and followed the team for years and don’t want to change that. In a way they kind of back up the way the Native Americans feel, they would be getting a piece of their culture ripped from their lives, although they have no right to feel this way.

I think the teams that use Native Americans as mascots should have to change their mascot. Even if they don’t intend to be offensive, they still come across that way and it wouldn’t be that hard to make the change. Other teams use animals as mascots, not a culture, it really doesn’t make sense why this was started. The only instance where I find it okay to have a Native American as a mascot is when the school is predominantly Native American, this way they are actually doing it for honor. Native American’s deserve to be respected and have the mascots changed.

There is a well-known principle in social psychology that involves in-groups and out-groups. Those who share a particular set of qualities are categorized together as the “ingroup”, while those excluded are labeled the “outgroup.” The groupings can be somewhat arbitrary, such as when UNLV students naturally despise UNR students on the simple premise of which school in Nevada the student attends. But is there a fundamental difference between a UNR student and a UNLV student? Is one born with higher intelligence than the other? The answer is, “No,” but rivalries like this occur all the time, and it is not exclusive to school attendance; in-group out-group rivalry can also occur between religions.

School rivalry is generally a lighthearted competition, but things start to shift when the grouping changes from attending different schools to practicing different religions. This is a recurrent behavior seen throughout history, especially during Western migration. Western settlers were not used to seeing the sun dances, piercings, and sacred rituals that were so common to Native American practice. An in-group out-group complex developed between Native Americans and American settlers of the West, resulting in violent confrontations and stiff relationships. This paper will discuss the nature of Native American religion as well as how it was affected by the interactions between Native Americans and Western settlers.

Firstly, in discussing Native American religion, it is important to note the vast variation between tribes, clans, and bands. One group may be monotheistic while another may be polytheistic. But, a common theme that is seen in their spiritual practices is the way in which traditions are passed down. By use of oral histories, stories, allegories, etc., their traditional beliefs are inherited by the next generation, in which that generation will subsequently pass down said traditions. This allows for the study of individual community-based theology. Nevertheless, the practices that are discussed in this paper should not be used as a precise definition of Native Americans as a collective whole, but rather as a general idea of some of their spiritual practices.

Beginning with the spiritual beliefs of the Iroquois, they generally believed in numerous deities that include the Great Spirit, the Thunderer, and the Three Sisters. The Great Spirit particularly was viewed as the Supreme Being similar to the Christian concept of God. Known as a conceptualized spirit of creation, the Great Spirit was associated with the creation of plants, animals, and humans to control “the forces of good in nature” (Reid 167). Several individuals held the position as “speaker” and would serve as a mediator in the communication between humans and the Great Spirit. These speakers additionally had an obligation to preserve the spiritual traditions of their respective lineage (Cave). Due to some of these perceived similarities with that of the Great Spirit and the Christian concept of God, Europeans frequently referenced the Great Spirit during their efforts to convert indigenous Americans to Christianity (Schoolcraft).

Upon the arrival of Europeans, many Christians made attempts to convert some Iroquois to Christianity. Among those Iroquois interested in Christianity was a Seneca religious leader known as Handsome Lake, also known as Ganeodiyo, who introduced to the Iroquois a new religious system that was a mix between Quaker beliefs and traditional Iroquoian culture (Schoolcraft). In the religious system, a key aspect was the principle of equilibrium, where the unique talents of each person are incorporated into a functional community. His teachings also centralized on parenting and peace. By the 1960s, at least 50% of Iroquois followed this religious system (Reid 167), showing how the Christian influences of Handsome Lake eventually became a huge part of the Iroquois. In spite of the spiritual differences between Christianity and Iroquois culture, Christians found a commonality that allowed them to spread Christian beliefs, even if it was not a full conversion.

However, consequences occurred because of the implementation of Christian beliefs in the Iroquoian culture. Handsome Lake established a religious movement known as Longhouse Religion, which was rejected by modern traditionalists as being too influenced by the First and Second Great Awakenings. The Great Awakening refers to the period of widespread religious revivals of American Christianity. These modern traditionalists were followers of Deganawidah, The Great Peacemaker, who laid down the Great Law of Peace. The Great Law of Peace was the oral constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy that presented a narrative of laws and ceremonies to be performed at prescribed times. What bothered modern traditionalists was that Handsome Lake’s teachings contradicted the articles that existed in the Great Law of Peace, such as the specific duties of positive role models in the community. In essence, the American Christian influence of Iroquoian theology led to inner conflict between groups of Native Americans. The inner conflict on the Great Laws of Peace may not have occurred without Native American interaction with Christian missionaries.

The Native American belief system was not only affected by missionaries, but they were also influenced by the United States government, albeit in a more violent way. In 1890, there was a new religious movement being incorporated in numerous Native American belief systems called the Ghost Dance. The foundation of the Ghost Dance was the circle dance, where people would sing and dance in a circle or semicircle at the accompaniment of music. Dancers moved to their left in a side-shuffle step as a way to reflect the pattern of the drumbeat, while simultaneously bending their knees to emphasize the pattern. The purpose of circle dances may be ceremonial or purely social. The Ghost Dance was a type of circle dance, but it had a specific meaning behind it.

The Ghost Dance was associated with the teachings of spiritual leader Wovoka, which had goals of living a clean and honest life, but most importantly, it wanted an end to white expansion. In February 1890, the United States government broke a Lakota treaty by adjusting the Great Sioux Reservation of South Dakota (Kehoe 15). The region was large enough to encompass the majority of South Dakota and it ended up breaking up the Great Sioux Reservation into five smaller reservations. The motive of the government was to accommodate white homesteaders from the eastern United States. But, there was another motive in that they intended to “break up tribal relationships” and “conform Indians to the white man’s ways, peaceably if they will, or forcibly if they must” (Wallace). Aiming for assimilation, the government forced the Lakota to farm and raise livestock and send their children to boarding schools where they would be taught English and Christianity. Essentially, the government tried to prevent as much expression of Indian culture and language.

As a way to help facilitate the transition, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) supplemented the Lakota with food and hired farmers to instruct on how to cultivate crops. But, the year of 1890 had a growing season that was met with intense heat and low rainfall, making it even more difficult to produce substantial agricultural yields. On top of that, the government’s support for the Indians was dwindling, leading to the rations for the Lakota being cut in half. At this point, the Lakota were facing starvation.

The Lakota turned to the rituals of the Ghost Dance, which frightened the supervising agents of the BIA. The agents were familiar with what was taking place and recognized it as a ritual that was held shortly before a battle was to occur. By response, they forced Kicking Bear to leave Standing Rock, as an attempt to circumvent the situation. The dances continued regardless of Kicking Bear’s presence and more troops were ordered to the scene. Sitting Bull was now accused as the leader of the movement and now there were thousands of additional U.S. Army troops at the reservation. Charged with failing to stop his people from practicing the Ghost Dance, he was charged arrested on December 15, 1890 (Kehoe 20). During this incident, one of Sitting Bull’s men shot at an Indian policeman called Lieutenant “Bull Head”. Shots were returned and it resulted in the death in both Lieutenant “Bull Head” and Sitting Bull.

Tensions were still high after that incident because a could days later was the Wounded Knee Massacre on December 29, 1890. The event occurred near Wounded Knee Creek and followed a botched attempt to disarm the Lakota camp. On that morning, as U.S. Cavalry troops went into the camp to disarm the Lakota, a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote was reluctant to give up his rifle because he claimed to have paid for it (Phillips). Simultaneously, an old man of the Lakota was reported to have been performing the Ghost Dance. The situation erupted when Black Coyote’s rifle went off and both sides began shooting at each other. The Lakota warriors, having most of their guns already stripped away, suffered many casualties. In the Wounded Knee Massacre on December 1890, the United States Army killed approximately 153 Miniconjou and Hunkpapa from the Lakota people (Utley).

Several reasons led to the conflict at Wounded Knee, such as land purposes. But, one of the biggest reasons why this event occurred was because of differences in religious practices. The U.S. government wanted to silence Native American culture, and it was evident with the Boarding Schools that Indian students were forced to attend as well as the banning of certain rituals. It seems as if there was a certain resentment toward their religious practices because it was so different in their traditional beliefs of Christianity. It is saddening to hear that the root cause of the Massacre was due to differences in the way of life.

In a documentary called The West, there is an episode called “Ghost Dance (1996)” where Native Americans are interviewed as they reflect on the events of Wounded Knee. One Native pondered the question: “Why did they have to ban something that was so sacred to us?” (“Ghost Dance”). It shows that the government didn’t want Natives to be together, to dance, or to carry on their traditions. Assimilation wasn’t a defensive procedure, it was an attack of Native American culture.

Every year on the fourth Thursday of November, millions of families in the United States reunite to celebrate Thanksgiving and reflect on the good things in life. On this day, people usually have a big feast with turkey as the star-meal, besides other foods such as mashed potatoes and pumpkin pies. And, besides spending some time with their relatives and eating, it is also common to watch football.

Even though this holiday may seem innocent and unoffensive, more and more people are labelling this celebration as offensive and racist due to its historical background, which is different from what Americans learn at school.

According to what it is commonly told, in 1630, a ship named the “Mayflower” with 102 people aboard left Plymouth, England towards what they called “New World”. Between these people, there were religious practitioners full of hope to find a place where they could freely practice their faith and people who had been bribed by the promise of lands. After 66 days, they arrived at Cope Cod, Massachusetts –far north from their intended destination: Hudson river. A month later, the Mayflower went across the Massachusetts Bay, where the Pilgrims –how the passengers are now known—settled a new village. After their first winter, only half of the original passengers survived due to exposure, scurvy, and outbreaks of contagious disease.

In March 1631, colonists moved ashore, where they were visited by an Indian Abenaki, who greeted them in English and a few days later came back with another Native American known as Squanto. He was the one who taught the Pilgrims how to grow their own corn, extract sap from maple trees, fish and avoid poisonous plants. Not only did he teach them how to survive, but he also helped them to forge an alliance with the Wampanoag, a local tribe.

After a successful harvest, the settlers decided to hold a three-day celebration and invited their Native American allies. Although this is what is usually told, there are no actual proofs that can confirm whether Native Americans were invited, some people think they weren’t really invited, but they passed by while the celebration was being held so the Pilgrims felt the need to invite them. This celebration is the one people refer to as “the first Thanksgiving”, but the colonists never really used that word.

Even though this is the commonly told story, there is even more historical background that people rarely talk about. Teachers never mention what occurred in 1637 when Massachusetts’ governor officially celebrated Thanksgiving for the first time after ordering a mass murder of Native Americans during the Pequot War. This mass murder is the first Native American genocide, followed by many more for the following 200 years only to take their land.

Understanding Sherman Alexie’s life from early childhood until now, is a significant way to understand his works and Native American society in the past and in the current time as well. Sherman Alexie is a prominent contemporary native American author. He was born on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Welpinit, Washington on October 7, 1966. Despite the hydrocephalic disease, water in his brain, from his birth, Alexie could read by the age of three. He read Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath by the age of five. By the age of six, he confronted a brain surgery and he survived. In the middle of his academic concern in reading and abnormal physical challenges, he was an easy target among his friends. In addition to this, he is from a poor Indian American family. His life was filled with tragedy and poverty. His father, Sherman, was a Coeur d’Alene Indian. He sometimes worked as a driver of trucks and as a logger chopped the woods. He was an alcoholic addict. His mother was a Spokane Indian woman who was doing two jobs at the same time. In order to support Alexie and his brothers and sisters, she scraped money by working as a clerk and doing sewing. His sister and her husband were killed when he was in the eighth grade. This accident affected Alexie severely (Grassian, 2005: 1).

Alexie’s early life was manifested by uncountable therapies and treatments, as well as being one of six kids alive on a reservation. He was one whose life was filled with suffering from poverty and many other tragedies. Despite that, his parents were alcoholic addicts. All these tragedies have served as a recurring motif in Alexie’s writing. According to Alexie, grief can be changed and it can even get smaller but never ends. Grief in Alexie’s life rolled as the main character to attempt him think of a way to find life off the reservation. His parents and Alexie as well, decided that the best way for him was to enter high school outside of the Indian reservation in the White’s society. It revealed that life in the reservation was in aggravating circumstances and rehabilitation. These circumstances motivated Indians to escape from their society to the mainstream and modern American society. For this reason, Alexie decided to live and get educated off the reservation. Thus, he could find a comfortable place in a new environment (Webb, 2014: 1-2).

He graduated from Reardan High School, then he could get Gonzaga University scholarship. Before graduating from Washington State University in Pullman in 1991 with an academic degree in American Studies, he attended the Gonzaga University. In Washington State University, Alexie registered his first creative writing class, where he was influenced and encouraged by Professor Alex Kuo. Via his Professor, he found himself in strong connection with the poetry of contemporary Native American writers and poets such as Joy Harjo, Simon Ortiz, James Welch, Adrian Louis, and Leslie Marmon Silko, whom he refers to them alongside Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson as poets who influenced him most. Thus, he started his literary works as a poet and then turned to fiction writing (Velie, 2007: 9).

Alexie is a contemporary novelist, short story writer, poet, and filmmaker. He is known as the most recent Native American literary star. He has already written twenty-six books. Alexie has published 16 texts in twelve years and produced two films. He started with two books, collections of poetry and blended few short prose pieces, I Would Steal Horses (1992), and The Business of Fancydancing (1992). Later, he published two books, First Indian on the Moon (1993), Old Shirt and New Skins (1993). The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993) is his first collection of short stories. This book was the source of blessings for him. He got recognized nationally. He gained the respected PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Book of Fiction and earned the Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Writers Award as well. His publisher encouraged him to write a novel. Then, he continued to write full-length fiction. He published his first well-known novel Reservation Blues (1995). A year later, he published his second novel Indian Killer (1996). For his novels, he gained the Granta award of the Best of Young American Novelist, the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award, and the Murray Morgan Prize. He also received the People’s Best of Pages award and New York Times Notable Book recognition. He wrote additional works: Ten Little Indians (2003) is his latest collection of best short stories, which included nine valuable short stories. Washington State awarded him the Regent’s Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2003. In 2007 he published The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indians, an autobiographic novel. The protagonist grows up in the Indian reservation and got educated in the mainstream American society as the writer himself. It is exactly a semi-biography of Alexie (Grassian, 2005: 4-5).

Alexie’s Style and Techniques in His Fictional Works

Alexie as Non-traditional Author

Sherman Alexie is known as a non-traditional Native American author. The sacred theme is one of the most popular tradition in Native American literature which is used widely by many Indian writers. Opposite to this, sacred theme as traditional writing is refused by Alexie. According to Alexie the time of sacred things is flown, in the present time Native Americans are in the modern age and they confronted many problems in the modern mainstream. As he argued in an interview: ‘…the sacred things in my tribe. I don’t write about them ever. Some Indian writers do, and a lot of non-Indian writers writing about Indians do. I don’t write about those, that is… forbidden.’ (Alexie, 1996: 187)

Moreover, he focuses on modern issues in Native American society. Alexie is a postmodern writer and appears as an exception among the other Native American writers, due to the fact that he does not do anything with oral tradition. However, the period of his writings goes further than the oral tradition. Oral tradition is a distinctive tradition in literary writings which is used by many Indian American writers. At the same time, Alexie exposed that all his writings are typed by himself. In this case, how could it be regarded as or influenced by the oral tradition? Arnold Krupat argued that nowadays Native American author writing has never stated any kinds of appreciation and faithfulness to the predominant oral tradition. Krupat’s aim is to highlight on Alexie’s work indirectly. According to Krupat these works emerged under the shadow of postmodernism and postcolonialism. Similarly, Alexie emphasizes that there is a strong relationship between the effect of colonial history and his writings.

Furthermore, he declares that he is a colonized man and he has to write as a colonized one. So, by his refusing to use oral tradition, he wants to make a distance between himself and the authors of Indian American renaissance (Newton, 2001: 413-414).

The mixture of cultures and the resulting transmutations are one of Alexie’s concerns. In this respect, he is not so far from Leslie Marmon Silko, a Native American writer who commonly contrasts with Alexie by critics. Silko has a different view to the Native American rituals. Moreover, Silko exposes that, rituals must grow to sustain their effectiveness. For the sake of promoting growth and change, Alexie attempts to put all his fictions squarely in a Native American literary tradition. Continually composing with sharp recorded mindfulness, Alexie changes past conventions – in the case of moving, drumming, or narrating – to fit a changing world reality. Alexie says his fictions don’t try to restore a past legacy, but instead to depict its reality in the present. As Sherman Alexie responds in an interview, which is quoted by Coulombe, and states:

I’m not talking about four directions corn pollen mother earth father sky shit. I’m not talking about that stereotypical crap about being Indian. There’s always a huge distance between public persona and private person. In my art I try to keep that as narrow as possible. I try to write about the kind of Indian I am, the kind of person I am and not the kind of person or Indian I wish I was. (qtd. 2011: 128)

In this manner, Alexie’s writings outline that the Indians not only confronted the realities of harsh cultural situation but also the strength and arrogance that maintain them.

Notwithstanding Alexie’s positive portrayals of renewal and change, he no more supports the unchecked approval of mainstream culture, instead, he will suggest the insignificance of past cultural traditions. For instance, Alexie reveals the occasional grotesque distortions, which is the result of mixed cultures. The misogynist refused and angered with the unknown mother and wife, who is a woman protagonist. He also argued that the Indian society faced, and was assimilated into the gender discrimination and misogyny in the modern white culture. The Fun House, one of the powerful short stories by Alexie in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, uncovered how whites damage Indians and their culture, and the weaknesses in white culture. For these changes in culture and tradition of Native Americans, Alexie supposes that not only white America is the original cause but also the Indians are blamed (Coulombe, 2011: 128).

Alexie is criticized by some critics for blaming the whites. As Owen exposes that Alexie accuses white culture again and again without certain evidence. As he argued, ‘No one is really to blame but the Indians, no matter how loudly the author shouts his anger’ (Owens, 1998: 80). Owen thinks that the Indians themselves are the cause of their own failure. He reveals that Alexie himself blames the Indians since in his writings he accuses Indian people as drunken and careless.

Contrarily, Alexie criticizes the United States government in The Fun House, for the woman’s suffering from cleansing program enact: ‘The doctor tied her tubes, with the permission slip my aunt signed because the hospital administrator lied and said it proved her Indian status for the BIA’ (Alexie, 2013: 81). In this vein, he emphasizes to accuse the modern society which systematically oppressed on the Indian people rights for hundreds of years. Despite the fact that white Americans has frequently shaken their head over the iniquities of the remote past, few of them try to recognize the present unlawful and immoral machinations. Similarly, The Trial of Thomas Builds-The-Fire highlights slaughters committed against Indians. A court docket scenario allows Thomas to tell Indians about a chain of white crimes tales, including lynching, massacres and thefts. It ends when Thomas being sent to prison with ‘ four African men, one Chicano, and a white man from the smallest town in the state’ (Alexie, 2013: 103). Alexie shows the negative reality of modern justice in the United States of today: the system of face colour, the poor, especially poor in colour, racism, inequality, cultural trauma, and oppression that Indians confronted in the modern American society and how Native Americans have remained so for a long time. (Coulombe, 2011: 129).

Modern Native American Identity

Sherman Alexie is considered to be as a non-traditional Native American writer and at the same time, he is calling himself so because he makes use of his own experiences to write creatively and honestly about the modern issues and subjects in his real life. He wants to play a role in painting a new identity for Native Americans in this modern world. Hence the major topics in his writings are those key aspects such as alcoholism, stereotypes, and self- worth. Sherman Alexie in his past two periods has accurately painted a modern Native American identity. This identity reflects the struggles and sufferings that inflict a great majority of Native Americans in the United States today.

Stereotypic Portrayal of Native Americans

A stereotype is an immovable and frequently oversimplified specification of a specific class or group of people. For example, Native Americans have been stereotyped as alcoholics over the centuries. However, this stereotype has dominated them in several ways, but indigenous Americans have made little effort to prevent this stereotype from ongoing. Ethnic writers frequently use typical stereotypes and ethnic identifiers to comment on racism, racial prejudices, or an ethnic community problem. Alexie is one of these ethnic authors who write about native Americans in a stereotypical point of view. Ethnic authors can help to transform these negative depictions into positive changes in their communities by owning and deploying the stereotypes that target them. Extraordinary characters breaking out of the stereotype help to change the understanding of their communities which is based on stereotypes (Bryan, 2015: 3).

According to the reports by The American Psychiatric Association (APA) that jointly worked with the National Centre for Health Statistics alcoholism is the main reason behind the top four deaths in Native Americans which are accidents, domestic, violence, and child abuse and physical deterioration. There are many connections between Alcoholism and Alexie, both in his literature and his own personal life. Both his parents were alcoholics, and he himself has addicted to alcoholics for six years which led to many sad and sobering moments in his life just as we can see in his young adult literature novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian. Junior, the young character, loses a sister to a terrible fire due to careless drinking. Alexie writes this as a fact as early as his childhood; alcohol claimed the life of his older sister in the same fashion.

Sherman Alexie’s Social Realism

Social Realism is also known as naturalistic realism which concentrates on social problems and the hardships of human’s everyday life. Social realism is pertaining to the civilized urban American view of miserable artists. These artists were affected by the Ashcan school, a group of American artists who mostly highlighted a realistic view of the city life in their painting, of the early 20th century.

Alexie, as a Native American version of social realism, is famous for his clear description of the unpleasant social realities of life in reservations. He is unconventional, but rather a postmodern voice of the perpetual search for Native American cultural identity and social reality. His writings are the reflection of the Native American community. Alexie’s poetry, short stories, and novels have been evaluated by scholars, reviewers, and critics for the realistic representations of the Indian American involvements in confrontation to the modern American mainstream. In his works, Alexie portrays a realistic picture of Indians in the reservation and off the Reservation. Sherman Alexie’s writings show dark humour, the crippling impact of alcoholism, housing reservation, dysfunctional existence, the struggle of race, and poverty which penetrates the individual’s daily life on the reservation, the anger which appears from the deformation and extinction of the Native American true identity.

In general, he focuses on three major issues in the Native American community: alcoholism, self-representation, and stereotypes. They can be counted as the modern culture of Native Americans. He depicts the urban Native Americans who are mixed with white immigrants and lost their culture. To Alexie, culture is a significant part of identity. Beside the Indian identity, they forget their cultural identity. Many urban Indians are mix-blooded. Instead of searching for their identity, Native Americans are addicted to alcohol severely. He portrays the modern culture and identity of Native Americans. The reader can easily be attentive to Alexie’s techniques: for example, turnabout stereotypes that are seen in his works. Besides, humour is seen as superficial. He criticizes the dominant culture with the stereotypes attached to the Indians.

Alexie’s writings display dark humour, the devastating impact of alcoholism, lack of health care, unemployment, suicide, poverty, housing reservation, and racial struggle, that permeate Indians life on the reservation in addition to the anger which arises from the obliteration and misrepresentation of a factual identity of Native Americans. Alexie is identified as an inventive realist and scholarly contributor to Native American modern tradition. Irony and satire are kinds of humour conveyed through conversation. It shows Alexie’s anger at the victims of the colony which still exists in modern American society. Talented blips, remarks, and epigrams are Alexie’s weapons in the literary warfare to battle the multicultural society which torments the indigenous people. Additionally, according to Alexie being a traditional writer and dreaming the past is useless. The twenty-first century Native Americans still suffer from injustice and race trauma in modern American society. As a real Indian, he appropriates his writings with modern problems in the modern age. He writes for nowadays Native Americans. Undoubtedly, to show the miseries, suffering, inequality, and immorality, is horrible and may not be endured by the reader. So, Alexie handles the modern technique of humour. He uses humour as a green card for two reasons: to make the reader laugh even on the negative things, and to criticize the USA government for neglecting Indians and Native Americans themselves as well.

In this vein, social realism and humour overlap each other. Undoubtedly, in realistic issues, humour existed and behind all the humours a believable realism is found. As it can be seen in Alexie’s style and techniques in writings, he handles a positive way to explore a negative side of life.

Screeching, chanting, stomping, murderous, barbaric, savages. Portrayed in The Last of the Mohicans, A Man Called Horse, Windwalker, Cheyenne Autumn, and countless others, these are the American Indians that Hollywood has created for viewers across the country since the 1960s. In movies and novels, the same brutish men wearing colossal feathered headdresses protecting the one beautiful Native girl from their tribe, the American explorer triumphantly rescuing her and giving her what her people never could–this is how Sherman Alexie depicts the widespread view of his culture in his poem, “How to Write the Great American Indian Novel”. In it, he hyperbolizes Native American culture, thus employing the use of verbal irony to imply that the opposite of what he states is true. Alexie uses this sardonic poem to portray the dichotomy between the Hollywood depiction of Native Americans, and the actuality of their culture.

Alexie is exceptionally credible regarding Native American culture and sympathizing with the endeavors that the people faced; however, to be sure of this, the reader must have a knowledge of his personal life. Born a full-blooded Salish Indian, he was born in 1966 on the Alexie grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington (Poetry Foundation, 2010), before eventually moving out to high school and then college, later earning his bachelor’s degree. At a young age, he fell victim to drinking as many Indians on reservations do as well; thankfully, he quit shortly after and has maintained his sobriety since. When he began writing, his Native American roots became the driving force of all his works, in defense and commemoration of his culture (Britannica, 2019). Not only an author, Alexie also became a distinguished poet, novelist, performer and filmmaker (Poetry Foundation, 2010). As opposed to what he expressed as misleading films and novels about Native American life, and objective historical books of such, Alexie was renowned for modernizing accounts of reservation life. His work allowed those lacking credible knowledge on present-day American Indian life to not only understand the culture objectively but also instilled a respect for his culture in those who viewed it. Common themes within all of Alexie’s works are verbal irony, often expressed through dark humor, and deeply troubled characters that struggle with anything from poverty, to alcoholism, to self-destruction, to unjust abuse (Britannica). Through these repeated elements, Alexie evokes great empathy for the character that is representative of all Native American culture. In his writing, the reader is left feeling indignant, and prompted to help the struggling character. Alexie does not fail to provide the reader with every aspect of Indian history. Whether a historical approach, modern-day life, or his own personal experiences, the reader is given a well-rounded view of Alexie’s culture throughout time (Poetry Foundation). As stated by an editor named Ian Jack, “fiction, if it’s any good, should persuade you of individual and inner lives. Alexie’s book wasn’t sanctimonious or pious or a piece of political pleading—it introduced you to characters who were native American and made them as complex and odd as everyone else.”

Sherman Alexie’s poem, “How to Write the Great American Indian Novel” is an audacious work, not only taking a jab at authors but at Hollywood by exposing its embellishment and discourtesy toward Native American culture. Alexie begins the poem, writing, “All of the Indians must have tragic features: tragic noses, eyes, and arms. / Their hands and fingers must be tragic when they reach for tragic food (1-2).” This powerful opening to the poem immediately addresses a prevalent belief about Native Americans, painting them as inferior people. Alexie’s sardonic tone throughout the poem communicates to the reader that the more incessant the repetition of certain words and phrases, the more he contradicts them. His repetition of the word “tragic” robs the culture of their pride in heritage, of joy, of beauty, and of their capabilities. Written off as tragic, those viewing the film are instantly met this preconceived notion, regarding the Native peoples as less than the average person.

Alexie further perpetuates the concept of tragic Indians, by continuing, “The hero must be a half-breed, half white and half Indian, preferably / from a horse culture. He should often weep alone. That is mandatory (3-4).” In two short lines, Alexie addresses two major issues. In line three, he writes that the hero must be half-breed. As the viewer already understands that to be a Native American is to be tragic, the hero being classified as half white means that he is given a sliver of hope from his white side, the side that is not totally tragic. The hero has inner turmoil over his opposing cultures, but once he can overcome his Native American side, only then is he empowered to save the story. Alexie argues that Hollywood instills in viewers that an Indian could never be a hero, in and of himself. A large majority of the poem beyond these lines is spent describing Hollywood production of Indians, how the hero must be half white, how a Native American woman can only fall in love with a man at least half white, and that a Native American is never sufficient on his or her own. The lines that best summarize this say, “An Indian man can be hidden inside a white woman. An Indian woman / can be hidden inside a white man. In these rare instances, / everybody is a half-breed… (22-23).” He concludes by saying that, at the end of the novel, “all of the white people will be Indians and all of the Indians will be ghosts (28).”

In the beginning of line four, Alexie argues the second issue. When he writes, “from a horse culture”, this is addressing only a few tribes of Native American culture. According to the NCAI (National Congress of American Indians) in 2019, there 573 Indian Nations federally recognized by the United States today. Very few tribes at the time were centered around horses, and in this, Hollywood not only fails to represent more than a few tribes but stereotypes all Indian Nations as one. This key issue is repeated throughout the rest of the poem. “But if she loves an Indian man / then he must be a half-breed, preferably from a horse culture”, “White women dream about half-breed Indian men from horse cultures”, and again, “Those interior Indians are half-breed / and obviously from horse cultures.” The phrase “horse cultures” is yet another instance of the employment of verbal irony, conveying how ridiculous he finds the lack of variety of Indian Nations provided by films and novels.

Alexie’s satirical poem was not written as a mere jest but is purposed to encourage the reader to uncover the truth of Native American culture. One of the first stereotypes that Alexie opposes is that Native Americans are “tragic”. Indians in fact, have been an extraordinarily prosperous group of people. Despite being “behind” on the times and being far outnumbered by the U.S., Indians were and continue to take great pride in their achievements and their history.

Although a humorous poem, Alexie’s “How to Write the Great American Indian Novel” is a compelling proposal about the issue of nullifying Native American history through Hollywood portrayal. As Charlie Hill stated in film Reel Injun, “We’re creative natives. And we’re like the Energizer Bunny. The mightiest nation in the world tried to exterminate us, anglicize us, Christianize us, Americanize us, but we just keep going and going. And I think that Energizer Bunny must be Indian. He’s got that little water drum he plays. And I always say, ‘Next time you have a powwow, have the Energizer Bunny lead the grand entry, and after a few rounds then we can get together and EAT him’, because we never waste anything.”

Whatever your situation is there will always be that one person consistently pushing you down and their constant berating urges you to stop. Even no matter how strong you struggle to block them out. They will always be in the back of your head being a persistent nuisance reminding you of your failures. Sometimes we have to admit we can’t win at everything and most of the time we give up. But if we prevail and push through, we may not get the upper hand, but it’s sometimes enough to recognize it’s not for the lack of effort. In John Steinbeck’s The Pearl the colonists higher education and self-righteous attitude gives them the tools needed to seize control of the native’s economic condition, healthcare, and feelings of self-importance.

The main contrast between the native people and the colonists is there are feelings of inequality preventing both races from seeing the other race as an equal. As Kino’s son Coyotito is becoming sick because of a scorpion bite, Kino takes his family to the city to hopefully seek aid from the doctor and as “They came to the place where the brush houses stopped and the city began, the city of harsh outer walls and inner cool gardens where a little water played and the bougainvillea crusted the walls with purple and brick-red and white.” (8) This reveals that the colonists hold down the native people and no matter how hard the native people try. The natives will never be matched to the colonists, at least in the colonist’s eyes. Another reason it indicates the split of race and unfairness is when the colonists feel they are better than the native people and force their authority upon them. For example, as Kino sees the doctor his malice and emotion rushes back to him. It triggers thoughts of anger and powerlessness like “The doctor was not of his people, the doctor was of a race which for nearly four hundred years had beaten, and robbed, and deprived Kino’s race, and frightened it too so that the indigent came humbly to the door.”(9) Although the doctor is a colonist and bitterly despises kino. Kino is willing to put aside his opinions to give a sliver of a chance to save Coyotito. This proves that the line of racial discrimination doesn’t just sprout on the surface of both communities but instead, the bitterness and fear run deep through Kinos and the native’s heritage. Both examples from the text show in great detail it’s a complicated wall between the colonists and native people and has been going on for four centuries ever since the colonists imposed their force among the native people.

Because of these differences in power and in race, it sets the colonists up to hold the advantage of the native people by having an attitude of snobbiness and self-righteousness. They trick the native people because the natives have no success stories and are uneducated. A mean by which the colonists reach the position over the natives is by buying the native people’s pearls for cheap prices. Tricking the pearl drivers into thinking they are having a genuine business exchange. But the reality is “There [is] only one pearl buyer with many hands, and the men who s[i]t in their offices and wait for Kino kn[o]w what price they w[ill] offer, how high they w[ill] bid, and what method each w[ill] use”(42). This shows that the pearl buyers thought they were making honest money for their pearls. But actually, the colonists are cheating them and taking advantage of the profit of the pearl buyers by using their vulnerability against them. The colonists take advantage from the native people by being more educated. So the native people do not question the colonist’s motives because they believe that the colonists are richer and better off. Then that must mean that whatever they’re doing has to be right. An instance of this is when the doctor comes to visit Kino’s hut because he has heard of Kino having the pearl and all he wants is to manipulate Kino into giving him money. When the doctor shows up to apparently save Coyotito from being poisoned from the scorpion bite “Kino got suspicious, and [will] not take his eyes off from the doctor’s open bag, and from the bottle of white powder there. Gradually the spasms [subside] and the baby relaxes under the doctor’s hands. And then Coyotito sigh[s] deeply and [goes] to sleep, for he [is] very tired with vomiting.”(35) This shows that although Kino suspects the doctor’s intentions to be wrong, he can not contradict what the doctor is doing because his son’s life depends on it. Kino also believes that the doctor knows better than he does and anything Kino tells the doctor will be taken as stupidity. Both cases show how easily the native people can be manipulated to the colonist’s needs. Even though the native people and kino know something is up, they are afraid to speak up because they think since the colonists are more educated and are successful than whatever they say must be right and the native people must be wrong.

These advantages the colonists use against the natives puts the natives at disadvantage such as making the pearl divers believe they are getting a fair price for their pearls. But instead what’s really going on is that they are being played and cheated. Putting them at an economic disadvantage. Another disadvantage that the natives are suffering is falling into the trap of believing whatever the colonists say or do must be right because the natives believe since the colonists are educated than they must mean that are right and therefore are better than the natives. Like when the priest tells Kino “Thou art named after a great man and a great father of the church. “ Thy namesake tamed the desert and sweetened the minds of thy people, didst though know that? It is in the books”(27) Although the priest is well aware of the fact that kino cant read he says how Kino’s name is in the books, making Kino feel uneducated even more. Flipping the balance of power in Kino’s own hut makes Kino feel weak. Then the priest implies that kino is named after a father of the church trying to guilt trip kino into giving money to the church. This is a good example of how the colonists have all the power and force the natives not to question the system. As the colonists constantly manipulate the natives through their higher education and self-righteous attitude, it puts the natives at a disadvantage affecting their economy, healthcare, and there self-importance

The natives are taken advantage of by being played by the colonists who use their power and higher class by implying that they are smarter and wealthier, therefore, they must be right. Setting the natives up for failure even if they disagree because of how the colonists are so heavily involved in the native’s lives. Kino shows that sometimes there is no happy ending even if there is a solution to solve the problems that are facing you. Because the colonists play such an important role in the natives lives that if the natives wanted to question the system, they would half to sacrifice their lives they worked so hard for.

While white settlers claimed they intended to shape the Natives into what they perceive as an “ideal American,” they failed — or rather refused, to recognize the goodness in what we have today, diversity. To the settlers, the American way was the only way. The Natives were told to rid of everything they once knew to become more ‘civilized’, and when they didn’t, they were forced to. Through laws, acts, and grants, decisions made by the people in power lead to the dismantling of not only their people, but to their culture.

The effectiveness of the Progressive Era simply wasn’t there for the Natives. Shown to us in the film, ‘In the White Man’s Image’, young Natives were sent off to boarding school away from their families, forced into impoverished living conditions, and stripped of their culture. They were forbidden to practice their religion, their traditions, their language. Policy throughout the country was, ‘Kill the Indian, save the man’. When the same Natives attempted to get jobs after they graduated, they were turned down. “A red skin in a suit is still a red skin”, employers would say. Most Native Americans that attended these boarding schools went back to their homes on the reservations as soon as they could. This depicts an overall dissatisfaction from the Natives that none of the knowledge they acquired was deemed useful, or the more obvious, that it was never wanted. Many of them also failed to communicate with their own families once they returned home. The only Natives who could be seen as remotely successful were Chonce Yellowrobe and Luther Standing Bear. Chonce worked as a disciplinarian in the boarding school system, pleasing his previous superintendent at the Carlisle Indian School, Richard Henry Pratt. Luther was a Hollywood actor who had his time in the limelight. Even then, he was predominantly typecast for Indian roles in movies and television. It was bittersweet, at best. As for the Dawes Act, it was a sorry excuse for progressiveness from the start. This act allowed the president to assign reservations to Native’s at his own will, without permission or assent from the people he was assigning these pieces of land to. Not only was the act successful in giving Natives land they already owned, but it was also successful in taking more land from them. White settlers felt so entitled to the land they stole, that they deemed any land that wasn’t being actively used by Natives as their own. In the same year the Dawes Act was passed, Congress approved six land grants to railroads on Native land. Twenty-three laws were again passed permitting the building of railroads in Native territories. I refuse to believe these policies were implemented in the Native’s best interests at all. These policies were created in the white man’s interest to assimilate and vanquish culture. If their true intentions were to assist Natives in living, they would honor the treaties that they proposed to the Natives in the past or would simply leave the Natives be. They would have agreed to coexist with Natives in their way of life. The agenda of the settlers were on the contrary. Were these policies effective? Yes, but for the oppressors alone. In no way, shape, or form is cultural erasure doing anything in their best interest.

The reasoning behind the Indian New Deal was to “socially engineer the Indian World” (Ronald Takaki, p.227). This policy was effective for the man who proposed it, Jacob Collier, and supported him and his agenda. We’re shown he holds little to no care for the Natives and their wellbeing when he reduces their stock reduction because he believes their stock is the cause of soil erosion. After their pleas went unheard, Collier proceeded to make more reductions to their stock, furthering their demise, and their way of life. The Natives consistently told Collier that their stock had nothing to do with the soil erosion, but it wasn’t until later that Collier was revealed to that fact, although the damage was already done.

The logic behind the Siege of Wounded Knee was heavily flawed. Native Americans were standing their ground in the name of equality, equity, and justice. Americans had committed economic terrorism on them and their ancestors, and they had had enough. The Natives were justified in their actions. Had it been the Americans facing oppression instead of Natives, their revolt would have been praised to this day. They were reacting to centuries of oppression, thievery, and abuse from the white settlers. The Siege brought about many trials and tribulations. Natives suffered many casualties of their friends, family, women, children. It was a tragic event that brought about much-needed change for the Natives. It was extremely unfortunate it had to be done this way. An example of the change shown in ‘We Shall Remain’ was when we see Marlon Brando, a Hollywood actor, refused his Oscar award for his role in the Godfather on live TV. He instead sent Sacheen Littlefeather on his behalf, a Native American woman who was president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee, to express the mistreatment of Native Americans at Wounded Knee. Another situation that brought light to the tragedies Natives faced was the amount of media that surrounded Wounded Knee. Over 90% of Americans watched the calamity that occurred; and in turn, raised awareness across the country.

The Progressive Era policies supplied little to no benefits to the Natives whatsoever. Both the boarding schools and the Dawes Act were made in spite of Native American culture and in an attempt to subjugate the entire race. While the Indian New Deal was supposed to be a savior for the struggling Indians, and perhaps a solution to the ‘progressive’ era, it instead proposed a false power complex for the Indians. They were made to believe that this new deal would give them their power back, their land back, their lives back. It instead led them to have increased poverty in their reservations and a large reduction of their stock. As for the Siege of Wounded Knee, the devastating event ending in bloodshed and over 300 deaths from the Lakota people, was what brought attention to the rest of the nation. With widespread media coverage, the rest of the country began to see and listen to the Natives, and their struggles. We can only hope that as we progress as a nation, we will continue to listen.

The Sioux Wars can be summed up as the heist of land and the theft of the way of life for indegeous Americans. Years of suffering and mistreatment on Native Americans lasted 100s of years.. Many others in the midwest area faced the same fate like Ho Chunk, Oneida, Menommine, Ojibwe and many more. The Trail of Tears is an example of blood shed from the relocation of Native Americans. To some people, these events are seen as missing links to American History. To natives in 2019, it is their reality. Some people are unaware of how the land we live on was actually acquired. Early settlers could have been compared to a ‘human cancer’ in how the only thing they wanted was to grow bigger and take up more area like a tumor mass. A lot of places in the USA are owned by tribes and are considered Tribal Land or ‘reservations’ but they are nothing compared to the amount of land these tribes owned about 1000 years ago. Native Americans in 2019 are plagued with addiction, obesity and different kinds of mental illnesses. Generational trauma is a way to simplify the result in the ‘relocation’ of Native Americans. Sadly, it is a downwards spiral and it is avoided from curriculums.

In 1830, Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act. This law removed indigenous people from their land and forced them to move to reservations. Thousands upon thousands of people were forced from their land in Mississippi and forced to move to different locations of the United States. About close to 90% of the Cherokee tribe was forced upon one of the most tragic events in the history of the United States. In the year 1838, A march took place where the army forced Indians to move to the new reservations. This event was called the ‘Trail of Tears’. An estimated 8,000 Indians died on the journey. Including women and children, many people were forced to walk with as many items as the clothes on their backs. Indians got frostbite, died from dehydration, starvation and were simply killed from walking too slow. The horrible things these people faced can be considered just the tip of the iceberg. The Indegnous people stayed strong. Guided by the Creator and the stars, they walked the cold months and hoped for better days. During the same time. American Indians were being ‘christianized’ and ‘taught to act more civil’ of course the Tribes refused and the ‘Battles of The Great Plains’ began to take place.

On September of 1855 General Harney took over one hundred troops to a village at Brule water and killed 85 people and took 70 people captive. Native Americans after the battles across the country, the battle of wounded knee on December 29th 1880, this wrapped up the main genocide the US army conducted on Native Americans. After about 50 years of barley following the rules and peace treaties made generations ago the United States government decided to plan an all out attack and conquer more land. It started with settlers on the Oregon trail and then pushing west to take more land. The Sioux Tribe and the Government fought many times in the East. As the Government attacked the indigenous people, they killed all the warriors defending their villages. They also took captive women and children. In the late 1880’s after many battles along the great plains. Tribe elders did their best to give their people hope. Tribe elders are people elected in charge of decisions to help the tribe and they usually come from different clans depending on the tribe. The plains was a ghost town. Many buffalo were dead beacuse, the army figured the best way to finish the genocide of the Indians of the plains was to eleminate the main food source. To these tribes, the buffalo was everything. Not only did it provide food, but it also was the source of clothing, homes and many more utilities from the different parts of the body. Unlike the Indians of the Great Lakes, who relied on the lake to provide for food, these Indians counted on the buffalo. Losing the buffalo hurt these tribes bad. To simplify things, they had run very low on materials since so many buffaloes were gone. Shaman Wovoka gave the American Indians of the Great Plains some much needed hope. He taught the traditional ways there were once stolen from his people. He believed that the buffalo would come back and the white man will be struck for his evil doing. Sitting Bull wanted his people to follow these beliefs and follow the ways the shaman was teaching. These teachings taught that doing the Ghost dance, they were protected. They were taught that their problems would be solved and their enemies would be conquered one day. So, people did the Ghost dance and gave thanks to the creator and hoped their ancestors spirits were watching over them. Around 1890 White settlers that were in charge of watching over these tribes grew nervous about the new faith the Indians had found over the years. The Army got word of it and sent 5,000 troops to the Plains to arrest all the chefs. On the morning of December 29th 1890, a total of 153 men women and children were murdered. This massacre ended the wars of the Plains and was the last large confrontation from the USA government.

After the Wars Native American children were forced into boarding schools where they were taught english and christianity. These teachers were ‘white washing’ children and forcing them to act how society wanted them to. Kids in these schools were beaten, sexually assaulted and were forced to forget their culture. This is why today, It is rare to find Native Americans who remember or were taught much of their culture. Kids in those schools were told they would be beaten if they spoke their traditional language. They put fear into the hearts of innocent children and scared them for life. Those children grew up with PTSD and the leaders of these schools did exactly what they were trying to do by white washing these children. I was lucky to have a great grandmother who was vocal about making sure her family knew where they came from. Many more brave men and women who have faced things like these schools have families and are far from being ashamed of their culture. In 2019 there are schools dedicated to teaching youth their culture that was taken away before they were even born. In greenfield wisconsin there is a school far from the city called Indian Community school. They allow students to learn their language and teach them the core teachings of many Native American tribes. Trust, love, humility, and many more. Although their curriculum contains the common core system, the content also teaches Native American children about their culture. They can’t take away knowledge as these missing links are being filled in after generations of people not knowing where they came from.

A reservation is a pocket of land owned by a native american tribe. Enrolled members who live on the land aren’t required a license for hunting or fishing for most reservations because they have the right to. It wasn’t until the mid 1950’s till Native Americans were given rights for the practices they have. Most reservations have laws and regulations that are unique to teach tribe. For Decades, on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, alcohol consumption was banned. Alcoholism is a big issue in the Native American community says Irene Vernon. It seems like Native people get addicted to these things more easily and most elders can agree. Statistically, Native american children face many hardships that other minorities in our country face. For example, “Native communities suffer more of the usual predictors of poor health, such as poverty, unemployment and a steep high school dropout rate”. A scary statistic is that one in three American Indian women is raped in her lifetime, according to the Justice Department, which is more than twice the national average. It’s horrible to think that it’s more likely for a Native American woman to be sexually assaulted then go to college. A reason for the high amount of cases may because of how in villages where everyone knows everyone, It is unlikely for reports to be reported and further investigated which is sad. a 2007 Amnesty International report determined that “sexual violence against women from Indian nations is at epidemic proportions and that survivors are frequently denied justice”. This can be from a lack of resources and unresponsive tribal police. A loophole in the system is that it’s nearly impossible to serve justice with Tribal officials unable to prosecute non-native people. Native American women on the reservation who are raped and sexually assaulted by non-native men cannot report an incident to the tribe because they are only to arrest other Native Americans.

I feel it is important for schools to educate people on issues different cultures face in our country. This way, everyone is aware of different points of views and how other people live. Everyone has different struggles and problems in their everyday lives. Realistically, it is unlikely we’ll be able to understand each other’s perspective. However, I feel if common core and other education systems pushed for our youth learning different events that people of different backgrounds faced, it is possible for people to be less ignorant about what other people go through. Events in history impact our lives now. Native Americans faced years of suffering and it impacts what happens today in many communities around the globe.

Sources

1. http://www.nativepartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=airc_hist_siouxwars
2. https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1187.html
3. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/end-great-sioux-war
4. http://www.custerbattle.com/history-great-sioux-war/
5. https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/atlas_of_the_sioux_wars-2006-pt1.pdf
6. https://www.ranker.com/list/list-of-sioux-wars-battles/reference
7. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781444338232.wbeow579
8. http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/america-tonight-blog/2013/8/28/5-huge-native-americanhealthissuesyoudontknowabout.html
9. https://www.cowboysindians.com/2018/01/the-last-battle-of-the-american-indian-wars/
10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_indigenous_peoples

What comes to mind when you hear the term ‘primary source’? When I hear primary source, I immediately think of direct evidence of something or someone. A primary source is a source that derives from a person or something that has personal experience or contact with something. Do you believe primary sources are always vital? I do believe primary sources are vital, but I believe they are most important when it comes to gathering verifiable information relating to history. What is Worcester v. Georgia? Worcester v. Georgia was a legal case where the United States Supreme Court in 1832 of March removed the sentence of Samuel Worcester and supported that the Georgia criminal law which outlawed non-Native Americans from being able to be on Native American lands without holding a license from the state was unlawful.

This analysis of Worcester v. Georgia is primarily about the rights of the Cherokee tribe in Georgia and their relations with the state of Georgia. Worcester v. Georgia is a landmark case in the Supreme Court. The intended audience was for public consumption being it was an important court case. This document was created in 1832. Each branch of government neglected to uphold a balance of power. The president failed by disregarding a Supreme Court decision which was that the state of Georgia did not have the authority to undo boundary lines previously agreed upon by treaty between Congress and the Indians. This law was passed by Georgia legislator which tried to control who could be in Cherokee land and the state of Georgia did not have power according to the Constitution to enforce a law. The Supreme court failed by not taking adequate steps to enforce the decision. The Supreme Court judiciary can file for a judicial review if their decision is not enforced.

This situation tells us that checks and balances are sometimes not followed and if decisions are not enforce then there needs to be a judicial review. A vital part of the checks and balances in the constitution is the power of judicial review. What is a judicial review? A judicial review is where the courts have the power to assert that acts by the other branches of government are unlawful and goes against the constitution, and therefore unenforceable.

In 1838, the United States government began forcing Cherokee people off of their land. This became know as the Trail of Tears. The trail of tears was when about 15,000 Cherokee were forced off their land and marched westward on a strenuous journey which resulted in the death of almost 4,000 of their people. The Worcester v. Georgia case decision had an impact on the expansion of the cotton kingdom because the cotton kingdom was growing, and Indians were in the way. The reason the state of Georgia wanted the Cherokee off the land was so the land could be used for cotton.

In conclusion, Worcester v. Georgia demonstrated the rights of the Cherokee tribe in Georgia and their relations with the state of Georgia. The state of Georgia chose to unlawfully pass and enforce a law in which they had no right to do. The president failed because he disregarded a Supreme Court decision, and he did not do his constitutional duty of making sure the laws are devotedly executed. The Supreme Court failed by not filing for judicial review after their decision was not enforced. The Trail of Tears relate to Worcester v. Georgia because the Cherokee were yet and still forced off of their land and they had an arduous journey where many also died. The Worcester v. Georgia case decision impacted the development of the cotton kingdom because Cherokee people where in the way of land needed for cotton.