ipl-logo

What Was The Most Damaging To The Native American Dbq

1417 Words6 Pages

Document Based Question Essay: What was the Most Damaging to the Native American Nations? By: Yara Al-Rayyan We have all learned about Native Americans in some form or another. From the first Thanksgiving to Columbus's voyage to the new world. But, it truly seemed from that point on, that Native Americans somehow disappear from our history classes. That's more than 300 years of history that just vanished and cease to exist from that point on. Recently I have learned about some of the numerous events that happened in those 300 years. Over time, Native Americans were forced to flee or cede the land that they have hunted, gathered, and lived on for countless years. Through treaties, acts, and battles, they found themselves on reservations …show more content…

Children would be taken away from their parents and forced into these boarding schools where they were harshly punished, constantly malnourished, and remained poorly educated. In these two pictures we see Chiricahua Apaches. The first picture of when they had first arrived at the Carlisle Indian Industrial Boarding School and the next was taken 4 months after that. The boys were seen with their hair now cut sort and all in western style of clothing. These boarding schools were clearly very much damaging to Native Americans and their intent was to, as Richard Pratt from the Carlisle Indian School, “Kill the Indian. Save the child”. Some of these boarding schools were privately owned and operated but school such as Carlisle were paid for by the federal government and under federal authority. These schools had some of the worst conditions imaginable and had the soul purpose of deculturalize all of these children. The next document further goes to prove how the federal government is to blame. The under supplying of reservations was harmful to Native Americans living there because it did little to stop epidemics and periods of starvation. In the photograph we see the extent of the lines on ration day on the pine ridge reservation in 1891. The line extend to dozens …show more content…

I can see why someone may say that. The federal government went to all this trouble to get Native Americans onto these specific pieces of land where they wanted Native Americans had to live. Lives were lost in the process and the US kept at it until it happened. But, if this were true then why id it that the reservations didn't quite work. Why is it that today 26% of Native Americans live at the poverty level. Also, that there is a 60% higher infant death rates among Native Americans as opposed to Caucasians. The list goes on and on. It is true that the efforts that were put into trying to get Native Americans onto reservations were damaging, but the federal government could have done much more to help out later. Their under supplying of reservations and all of the un kept promises didn't help Native Americans into becoming truly independent and sovereign nations. There was a lot that could have been done so that Native American Culture was still preserved and Native Americans could still be independent as they used to be. Although what it took to get Native Americans onto reservations was damaging, the battle literally did not stop then and what hasn't been done still has its lasting

Open Document