Reference no: EM133245869
1-If American Indians had been white, and/or shared the same values of the dominant culture, do you think the U.S. government would have treated them differently throughout U.S. history?
2-Weren't Indians, as human beings, also born with these rights? As such, was the American government's historic policy towards Indians a form of cultural imperialism, or at least, spurious and questionable?
Wounded Knee Massacre: The Final Defeat of American Indians
On December 29, 1890, a few hundred Lakota Sioux Indians gathered together in Wounded Knee, South Dakota, to dance the Ghost Dance: a peaceful religious movement that became popular among American Indians in 1889. Concerned about the gathering, the U.S. military sent the Seventh Cavalry to Wounded Knee. After mounting guns in the hills above the encamped Sioux, soldiers fired into the peaceful camp below, massacring approximately 150 Sioux, including many women, old men, and children. A U.S. soldier took the following photograph of a mass grave of American Indians at Wounded Knee in 1890.
Burial of the Dead at Wounded Knee, S.D. ca. 17 Jan. 1891. Photographic Print. Prints and Photographs Div., Lib. of Cong.
Acts of unwarranted brutality occurred on both sides over time - American Indians ambushed peaceful settlers, while American military leaders ordered acts of genocide on peaceful villages. However, since the American Revolution, the goal of U.S. leaders, as well as a majority of U.S. citizens, was to secure all Indian land, sans the Indians. This presents an ethical dilemma. The founding fathers courageously created a democratic republic founded on the principle that all people are inherently equal, and have the right to live, enjoy liberty, and pursue happiness.
Historians generally view race, gender, and class as a tightly bound trinity that has powerfully shaped the events of all of human history. Ethnicity (one could use the term race, but ethnicity is more accurate, and race biologically does not exist-race is a social construct) ultimately played a key role in the plight of American Indians