Analysis Of Night Flying Woman By Ignatia Broker

Night Flying Woman, by Ignatia Broker, is a book accounting Oona during tough times, where change was being forced among her people. While this was going on, the West was being “won” by the white people. The 19th Century was a time of westward expansion and growing the country as a whole. During the westward expansion, the natives to lost their way as they were oppressed and stripped of their traditions and religion while the white people prospered as they controlled the natives and gained land. In the process of moving West there was a lot of oppression of Indians. The Trail of Tears was a huge moment in history regarding the oppression of Natives. The Indian Removal Act of 1830, which allowed the government to force the Indians to move to

Oona and her Ojibway tribe were being forced out of what she called home for the first five years of her life. Her grandfather says, “’For all of your small life, this village, this place, has been your home, but now we must move toward the setting sun… We move because there is another people who are fast coming into the forest lands” (Broker 22). Oona and her people are being forced out because white settlers are coming to take the land her people have lived on for many years. Like the Cherokee they had to split up into smaller groups. They quietly navigated on a search for a new home on a six-day journey, which was a struggle because by the end some of the elder woman were on their last leg. These two events are similar, and obviously losses for Native American people. These groups were kicked out of their homeland for white expansion, so the settlers could have the land they wanted and control the native populations. Manifest destiny played a role in this loss because the Americans claimed they were destined by God to expand across north America. While it was a loss for natives, most of the American population did not think like this. It was a win for them because they were the majority and they were getting what they wanted, which means it’s a win for the country

In the beginning of the 19th century the Louisiana Purchase was made to double the length of the country. With this Thomas Jefferson and the country wanted to know what they got with their purchase. As a result, he sent out Lewis and Clark to explore this vast territory. They recorded their findings and had many encounters with native groups, who we would eventually push out of the way as we expanded across this territory. With the country growing so rapidly, people needed a new way to travel. As a result, the Transcontinental railroad was finished in 1869 providing new transportation. This invention, one of many inventions in this productive time period, dropped the price of traveling the country from 1000 dollars to 150 dollars ("Transcontinental Railroad."). That helps the common person be able to make this trip. Just having this land didn’t motivate people to move, therefore the government decided to give incentives. In 1962 the Homestead act was passed. This gave people incentive to move because they were given 160 acres of land for a small filing fee, and the land would be theirs if they lived on it for 5 years ("Homestead Act."). This was a loss though because many of the people who moved onto these lands did not have the resources to farm. The natives had their old, traditional ways of farming, and with the expansion the Americans had so much more land to farm on. The Ojibway people had a season specific