NA responsibility

• Native Americans advanced their own rights across the entire period

  • NA did little to directly help the advancement
  • Divisions between different tribes made it easier for both the state and federal governments to pursue their own policies
  • After WW2: increasing sense of unity between different tribes
  • Red Power movement
• Impact that a lack of unity amongst the NA in enabling them to fulfil their aims and goals

  • Tribes were willing to provide US forces with guides who know the land
  • Rivalry on reservations
  • Indian Rights Association 1882: devoted to cause of assimilating NA. Branches lobbied Congress
  • Society of American Indians 1911: group of educated NA men and women
• Meriam Report

  • Condemned allotment policy and outlined terrible conditions
  • Concluded that government should be concerned with the social and economic advancement of Indians
  • Encouraged change - Rhoads reforms
• Rhoads Reforms: Meriam Report

  • Reforms closed off reservation boarding schools to which NA children had been sent
  • Schools replaced by better schools on reservations
  • Medical improvements
• WW2 seen as turning point for Native Americans

  • Establishment of National Congress of American Indians - tribes joined together to improve their position and rights
  • Lots of NA fought during the war- encouraged them to join campaigns
  • Pressure exerted on government: establishment of Indian Claims Commission
• Emergence of the National Youth Council 1961

  • Clear indication of change in NA attitudes and of a willingness to white in protest
  • Protecting fishing rights in the North-West
  • Its role developed and it took on laws to protect treaty rights
  • 1970s: filed lawsuits to protect Indian land from exploitation of its mineral resources
  • 1968: they staged a fish in after Washington State SC ruled against protecting the fishing rights of the tribes
• Red Power movement of the 1960s reflected developments in the broader civil rights campaigns

  • Inspired by Black Power
  • Adopted militant approach - culminated in the establishment of American Indian Movement in 1968
• Most significance after 1968:

  • To tackle discrimination that many young NA were facing - established a group to patrol the streets and monitor police activity -> decline in number of arrests and imprisonment of young NA
  • Fish in staged in Washington State when State Supreme Court failed to uphold treaty rights
  • Publication of literature : Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
  • Pursuing Supreme Court to gain the return of former tribal lands
• Siege of Alcatraz and its significance

  • A group of NA occupied it and demanded its return led by Richard Oakes
  • Occupied offered $24 in beads and cloth
  • Unsuccessful, it had some positive achievements: worldwide media coverage, brought them together, increased awareness of need for solidarity - native sovereignty
  • Richard Oakes: aims - to gain a deed to the island and establish a NA university, cultural centre and museum
• 1971 Occupation of Mount Rushmore

  • Sacred burial ground of Sioux
  • Protestors established camp
  • They were evicted
  • NA have continued to claim it back
  • Ownership is still in dispute
• 1972 AIM takeover the Bureau Of Indian Affairs Washington DC

  • 10000 protestors
  • Aimed to draw attention of treaties US government broken
  • At time of a presidential election- gain further publicity - supposed to be a peaceful protest
  • Took over the Bureau - violence
• 1973: Occupation of Wounded Knee

  • Site of Sioux massacre in 1890, Wounded Knee was important
  • occupation lasted 71 days, saw violence and resistance to government agents
  • a negotiated settlement was achieved 2 leaders arrested
• 1975: Pine Ridge Reservation

  • near Wounded Knee violence broke out and resulted in shootings, which left 2 FBI agents
  • protestor dead
  • member of AIM was found guilty of murder
  • Appeal Court blamed the killings on the overreaction of authorities