Native American Rights

Native Americans have a unique legal position in modern day America because they live under two forms of government. On one hand they live like the rest of Americans and have all the unalienable rights as every other citizen does. On the other hand they belong to their own self-governing tribe. Native Americans still maintain their traditional tribal rights that are passed down unto them. This combined form of government for the Native Americans is the result of the many conflict is the past with the Federal government. many treaties had been broken and the natives had been deprived of their tribal sovereignty. As a result of this unfair treatment, the modern government has recognised the native Americans as a unique people that are allowed certain unique rights because of their ancient history and culture with American land.

Tribal sovereignty is the traditional inherited right that each tribe has the right to govern itself. When the colonists first came to America, they had broken this right when they had dominated the land and took control of the native tribes. However, it is important to know that the modern government understands what they did in the past was wrong and would like to give the Native Americans unique rights in order for them to keep some tribal sovereignty. Still, the federal government sets the limitations for the current tribes, but gives them some unique rights. Native American tribes that live within reservations still are self-governing. Within these boundaries, Native Americans are allowed to practice any cultural or traditional practice.

Even though the whites have greatly mistreated the native Americans in the past, it seems that the current U.S. government is trying to make up for what they have done. They specifically give Native Americans unique rights so that they may still live how they would like. Also, the government retains all peace treaties made in the past even if they were broken, to show that they are sorry for breaking them.

"Native American Rights." West's Encyclopedia of American Law. Ed. Shirelle Phelps and Jeffrey Lehman. Vol. 7. 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2005. 195-204. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale. Deerfield High School. 1 Feb. 2010 .

Battle of the Little Bighorn

Tension between the growing Nation of the U.S. and the Native Americans grew. After the discovery of gold, the whites did not care for the Native American's land what so ever and claimed the land was theirs to take. To take their land, the U.S. Army sent George Armstrong Custer and his Seventh Calvary. Custer followed an Indian trail to track down the Plains Indians. He soon discovered that the Indians knew of his whereabouts and attacked quickly. Custer thought he could easily take over their village in Little Bighorn. However, he had underestimated the Indians and their numbers and found their resistance to be great. "Encountering much stiffer resistance than he anticipated, Custer halted his charge down the valley, retreated into the timber along the river, and finally abandoned that location and fled in panic." After discovering she Indians' fierce power, the army had no choice but to retreat. Custer still held a defensive position and tried to make a last stand, but was overwhelmed and had to retreat further, giving the Plains Indians the victory. This was a very significant victory for the Native Americans. It showed they were a force to be reckoned with and are willing to to anything to defend their land. This was a humiliating defeat for the U.S. Army and for Custer, but showed the beginning of a great Indian resistance.

"Battle of the Little Bighorn." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. .

Sitting Bull

Sitting Bull was born into the Sioux nation and became a great war chief just like his father. His main goal was to protect his tribe's hunting grounds and prevent the whites' westward expansion into them. In order to do this, he communicated this to representatives of the U.S. government and he was the first Native American who had done this. This is important because his idea of non-violent communication gave the Native Americans a better chance to keep their land. Sitting Bull was also a great leader because he was able to unify different tribes against the whites' westward expansion. Normally these tribes would have individually defended their own land, but Sitting Bull was able to unify them to defend all the land because of his great leadership. Sitting Bull had agreed upon a truce with the whites to keep their land under reservations. Eventually, because of gold found, this treaty was broken. By then, Sitting Bull had unified 4,000 troops from many tribes and would not move from their territory of the broken treaty. Feeling threatened by this great number of Native Americans, the U.S. government sent troops to kick them out, but they retaliated and this resulted in the Great Sioux War. I think it was very unfair how the government used their power to control where the Native Americans lived. Their land was very sacred to them and was their traditional home, but because of a greedy and powerful government, they had to be pushed back. Sitting Bull, determined, remained and would not give an inch of ground, fought the Army with his ally Crazy Horse and defeated them in the Battle of Little Bighorn. This was a humiliating defeat to the U.S. army and caused much tension between the two forces. This tension led to constant attacks by the U.S. Army and they eventually forced Sitting Bull's army to retreat. Most of his army died and he was later arrested. After he was released, he rejoined his people and continued to resist white assimilation through the Ghost Dance religion. Sitting Bull was a very important figure in the preservation of Native American culture because he resisted assimilation. The whites were trying to force their culture, language, and religion upon the Native Americans, but Sitting Bull resisted and preserved much culture. As a result of Sitting Bull's great leadership, much rich culture and land had been preserved and gave the Native Americans a new respect.

"Sitting Bull." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. .

Westward Expansion

Westward expansion was one of the most important episodes in American history. This expansion allowed the colonists to gain resources to grow and expand. After the colonists had gained their Independence from Britain, they were finally allowed to colonize westward. However, expansion caused conflict with the people who already lived there; the Native Americans. Even though Indians had been living in America for centuries, the colonists just attacked and forced them to leave. The Indians did resist expansion into their territory, "although these conflicts often slowed white settlement, they could not stop it, particularly as the whites usually had the backing of the federal government."America was a growing Nation and nothing could stop its expansion, especially because the Indians had no connections with the government of America. The president, Andrew Jackson, simply pushed the Indians aside far west and said stay there. He made reservations for them in order to stop conflicts, but it is still very unfair that the Native Americans had to leave from their own land. Soon, the reservations got smaller and smaller as the Americans gained more and more land and needed more because of overpopulation. As the Americans continued to take the land from the Native Americans, they use"manifest destiny, the drive to spread American culture and values across the continent" to justify their actions. The Americans believed they had a right to expand and force their culture upon others. They believed they were dominant over any other culture, but that is not fair at all. Each people should be able to do what they want and believe what they want and not have others taking their land or forcing their beliefs upon them. Then congress passed the Homestead Act which also encouraged westward expansion limiting the Indians' territory even more. Then gold was discovered in California which lead to even more migration. Once the transcontinental railroad was built, it was easy to expand and there wasn't much hope for the Native Americans.

"westward expansion." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 28 Jan. 2010. .

Native American topic = cool

Luckily I got the topic I wanted; Native Americans. I wanted this topic because I'm very interested in the way of life of Native Americans. It is interesting to know that they were the ones who lived here in America first before the colonists came and took over. I want to learn how they lived and how they reacted when the colonists came over. Also, I want to know how the colonists reacted to the Native Americans. I know that the colonists took their land and many battles were fought and I am interested in reading those stories to find out the details how it happened.

State of the Union

State of the Union

Obama’s first few opening sentences were inspiring goals for the future. He wants and hopes for America’s future to be brighter and to succeed. In order for America to succeed, he says we must unify to help the country and he has a few ideas to do this. Obama claims “the worst of the storm has past.” I believe that to be true because our economy has made a slow but definite recovery from the lowest point of the recession. The Recovery Act (Stimulus Bill) is what helped us recover from the recession. 25 acts were passed to cut taxes. However, the devastation still remains. Still, many people live in poverty because they cannot get a job.
Obama’s primary focus is to make more jobs available to people and employ more people in the essential fields for America such as National security, Energy, and environmental. I think this will greatly help America and people in need of jobs to support themselves and their families. Right now, it’s hard to start your own business and get your idea off the ground, but Obama has proposed 3 billion dollars to give to the banks to help out small businesses just starting and give people an opportunity to succeed.
Obama believes improving education is the best way to stop poverty. That is true because when people have a good education they can get a job and make some money. Now days getting a good education through college may be expensive, that is why Obama is giving some families 10 thousand dollars for families moving on to college.
So many people now days are limiting their spending and creating a budget to only buy the essentials, so why shouldn’t the government? Obama’s other goal is just that; to reduce government spending and to spend only out of necessity and create a budget. That’s a very good idea because our government is very much in debt. This is an excellent idea, yet Obama seems to be tossing around a lot of money around, but it might be for the better. Finally, Obama proposed all government spending to be shown to the people so they may see how their government is spending.
Obama sums up his speech by saying he WILL get America out of the war and support our troops when they come back. I think this is a good idea because we are spending a lot of unnecessary money on the war and seem to be gaining nothing. I have a tremendous amount of respect for our troops and hope that Obama does find a way to support them as they return.
So America should unify against doubt and reduce spending to work to a better future…sounds good to me. I think if Obama sticks to his goals and plans, we should continue to make a steady recovery.

First post

This is my first post. This blog thing is very different. Lets see how it plays out, but for right now I dont know what to think of it. Oh yea and heres this really funny blog I found... http://icanhascheezburger.com/ The melon video is the funniest thing.