What Was The Impact Of Native American Imperialism

Imperialism is the age-old way of increasing a country's power and influence by diplomatic or armed action in which the imperialized community can benefit, but more so become harmed. The imperial system under discussion will be the U.S. empire and how, through its hunger for expansion, encroached on the lives of the natives of the land. One community in particular that was victim to American imperialism was the Cheyenne tribe and more specifically the male warriors within that tribe. The Cheyenne warriors were a nomadic Native American tribe who lived in the Great Plains area of the United States. They were known for their horsemanship, and excellent hunting lifestyle who actively moved wherever the American buffalo went and hunted them for

One photo will show little Cheyenne boy, soon to be a Cheyenne warrior, and a photo of Cheyenne and White men at a temporary camp.

The Cheyenne tribe (men, women, and children) are a Native American group who originally occupied the Great Plains area of the United States. The Cheyenne tribe was divided into two subgroups, the Southern Cheyenne and the Northern Cheyenne, but later the two merged in the early sometime after 1883 (Wikipedia, Cheyenne). The Cheyenne men had a strong nomadic culture and were a “horse and warrior people who developed as skilled and powerful mounted warriors” (Wikipedia, Cheyenne). The Cheyenne warriors were so skilled

was a vast empire and as it continued to grow, it needed a more efficient means of transporting goods and resources along the different sides of the country and “in the 1890s America's territorial maturity could be thought to have been achieved” (R05, p. 102). From 1863-1869, the U.S. was building its transcontinental railroad, from the Eastern end to the Western end of the country where “massive growth had given new importance to the influence of business interests in American government” (R05, p.102). Such a project benefited the U.S. but “in its wake, the lives of countless Native Americans were destroyed, and tens of millions of buffalo. . . were nearly driven to extinction in a massive slaughter made possible by the railroad” (R03, p.3). As a safety measurement against the Native Americans, soldiers from East were sent along the construction of the railroad. As they accompanied the railroad, “Massive hunting parties began to arrive in the West by train. . . leaving a trail of buffalo carnage in their wake” (R03 p.6). This caused great conflict between the native tribes (including the Cheyenne) and the U.S. An example of this is where Gen. Sheridan “set about destroying the [Cheyenne’s] food, shelter and livestock with overwhelming force, leaving women and children at the mercy of the Army and Indian warriors little choice but to surrender or risk starvation” (R03, p.5). These kinds of invasions overwhelmed the Cheyenne warriors in the sense of how they were the