For tribes, economic need is colliding with tradition.

The headline says it all. The ancient Indian tradition of preserving the Earth is being challenged in the time of an economic crisis. Native Americans are in need of jobs and more income. The best way to create jobs within the tribe is to allow coal that is on their reservations to be mined. However, the removal of the coal is going against a long time tradition of preserving the Earth. Tribal president Leroy Spang was recently elected and one main focus of his campaign was to create mines. "His election proves that most Northern Cheyenne want to mine coal or dig wells." This election marks the starting point of a new age of coal exploration within tribes. Still, many Native Americans have mixed feelings about it, especially the eldest. Firecrow believes "life on the reservation wouldn't stay the same" with if reservations were used for mines. "Elders like me are trying to keep our sacred traditions alive." Yet younger members believe "coal was put here by Mother Earth to improve life on the reservation." Most Native Americans do want to preserve their traditions, but their resources seem to be the only way out of poverty. With the extremely low unemployment rate within Native American reservations, it seems coal mining is inevitable. But, there are more ways to create jobs and increase income, like wind turbines. This helps create natural energy and doesn't do much harm to the land. I think it is unfortunate the Native Americans feel their tradition is being broken, but in order to improve living conditions and education, i think it is absolutely necessary to create more jobs using the land.

Keen, Judy. "For tribes, economic need is colliding with tradition.(NEWS)(Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation)." USA Today. (March 4, 2009): 01A. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Deerfield High School. 8 Feb. 2010 .

"Indian casinos have no obligation to share profits with the government"

In recent years, politicians have been expecting tribes to share profits from successful casinos. This article argues that the Native Americans owe the U.S. government nothing, if anything the government owes the Native Americans. "Citizens of the United States have an immeasurable debt to the Native Americans who suffered so that others could prosper." The author uses historical evidence to back this statement up. He talk about how the Native Americans have been stripped of their land and culture and are victims of a power hungry country. Ever since the colonists had come to America they had kept on taking and taking from the native Americans and they couldn't do a thing about it. And now, in the present, the government is saying Native Americans are not being fair because they are not sharing their profits. "It is highly ironic for Native peoples to be accused of not being 'fair' to a state historically responsible for destructive, even genocidal policies against them." I understand that what the U.S. government did in the past was very wrong, but I don't think that the Native Americans should get everything back that they lost. If every body were to go back where they started and live where and how they used to live in the distant past, then nobody would be where they are now. So I do not think it is fair for the United States government to give anything to the native American people, but I agree that the Native Americans should not give the government anything either. The past is something we all can and should learn from, but we should not keep old grudges or try and relive the past. What is done is done and all we can do now is work to a better future by working together, not against each other.

Newcomb, Steve. "Indian Casinos Have No Obligation to Share Profits with the Government." At Issue: Indian Gaming. Ed. Stuart A. Kallen. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2006. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Deerfield High School. 7 Feb. 2010 .

Indian Gaming Promotes Native American Sovereignty

I've already read and analyzed the downsides of gaming with Native Americans, now I'm going to look at the other side of the argument. This article claims that money is the main necessity for sovereignty, and to gain money, it is best to use casinos. Casinos allow the tribe members to get jobs and renew their native nationalism. These employment opportunities give Native Americans a chance to prove themselves in the working world. Money from gaming enterprises has been invested in other job areas to secure a economic basis for the future. The best benefit from gaming revenues is that they are invested by Native Americans under the control of the tribes.
In the past, when tribes didn't have casinos, they were under so much pressure and poverty that they would accept any economic opportunity they could get. This led to their lands being strip-mined and becoming garbage dumps. Revenues from casinos have prevented this and are currently being used to clean up reservations. Not only that, but profits are being used to improve education and make schools.
Having casinos gives the Native Americans a chance in this current working world by putting them in better positions and giving them a sense of nationalism.


Thompson, William, and Diana R. Dever. "Indian Gaming Promotes Native American Sovereignty." Current Controversies: Native American Rights. Ed. Tamara L. Roleff. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1998. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Deerfield High School. 7 Feb. 2010 .

Indian Gaming Hurts Tribes

The Navajo Nation is the largest Native American tribe in the United States, yet they have struggled for centuries to overcome poverty. People have proposed that casinos can be the solution, however, most Navajo people disagree because of their experiences with addiction. It is easy for a Navajo, who is leaving pay check to pay check, to become addicted to alcohol gambling. Research has shown that "gambling addiction is significantly higher among minorities and lower income individuals." With at least 50 percent of the Navajo people depending on welfare, its easy to get hooked on gambling. Alcohol and gambling provide a temporary escape from all the financial stresses of their lives, yet these things only lead to addiction and more financial loss. Casino adds create a positive look on gambling, but never shows the true dark side of what really happens. "What we don't get is the other side, the dark side- what's happening to the families, people addicted to it, the children." I think it is wrong that the government and media create a positive outlook on gambling through adds, but doesn't show what could really happen.
Casinos claim they will increase employment because they are creating more job opportunities. Indian gambling has skyrocketed, yet employment has not because most positions are held by nontribal persons. "Unemployment on reservations stayed at about 54 percent between 1991 and 1997 despite the casino boom." In reality, the casinos do not benefit the tribes that much, and create even more problems with addiction. Gambling addiction has a powerful impact on Native American families. One family used to manage themselves pretty well until the father won 5, 000 at a casino. Ever since, he's been hooked and cant stop playing. As soon as he gets his paycheck he goes down to the casino and loses it all. The wife has finally given up and filed for a divorce. "What they say is true; gambling breaks up families. He's lost all respect from the kids, and I lost all trust in him." With the father's addiction to gambling, the family can go nowhere and eventually breaks up or becomes homeless. Reading this article, I don't see that much benefits of casinos to the Native American people who already mostly live in poverty.

Cushman, Candi. "Indian Gaming Hurts Tribes." Opposing Viewpoints: Gambling. Ed. David Haugen and Susan Musser. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Deerfield High School. 7 Feb. 2010&contentSet=GSRC&type=retrieve&tabID=T010&prodId=OVRC&docId=EJ3010221235&source=gale&srcprod=OVRC&userGroupName=deer63488&version=1.0>.

"Lullaby" by Leslie Marmon Silko

This short story is sad but captures the life styles of past Native Americans. As whites began to take over the land, they began forcing their culture upon the Native Americans. Ayah, the main character, was having trouble living in the whites' world by not knowing their language. In a way, Ayah did not want to learn the whites' culture and language to adapt to their lifestyle because the older Native Americans told her it was dangerous to learn. "the old ones always told her about learning their language or any of their ways: it endangered you." Knowing the language of the whites would allow Ayah to understand, but she would be tricked or persuaded because she wouldn't completely understand certain laws. A Native American that knows the language may be persuaded or tricked to give up land, but one that does not understand is not affected by the language because he or she cannot listen. Ayah's husband, Chato, has learned to speak and write English. Chato had taught Ayah to sign her name in English, and she regretted learning it. One day two doctors speaking English came to her house and Chato wasn't there to translate. Ayah couldn't understand them, but she realized they wanted her to sign some papers. "Ayah could see they wanted her to sign the papers, and Chato had taught her to sign her name...she only wanted them to go." She did not know what the papers were for but she signed so that they might go away. Then the men went to take her children, but she grabbed them and ran away. They came back later with a policeman and the papers and had the legal right to take her children and they did so. This just shows how unfair it is for a Native American to live on their land, then whites come over and change everything, even the language and take advantage of the Native Americans using the "law." The doctors wanted to take the children to bring them to a school. A special school for Native American children to learn English and English culture in order to wipe out the Native American language and culture. The children came back sometimes to visit, but they were changed. They barley new their own mother and could not relate to their own rich Native American culture. Ayah talked to her son in the native language, but "when he tried to answer her, he could not seem to remember and he spoke English words mixed with Navajo." This shows the tragic depletion of a rich native American culture. The doctors were purposely trying to erase the children's culture and replacing it with their own, "better" culture. Sadly, this fictional short story is an accurate representation of Native American assimilation and what happened to them during westward expansion.

Silko, Leslie Marmon. "Lullaby." Storyteller. New York, NY: Grove Press Inc., 1981. 43-55

Where I'm at now

This project has been coming along good. I have been able to write successfully about the topic and add some of my personal opinion into it. Throughout the project I have been primarily focusing on westward movement and significant figures in the events that took place. That is fine and interesting, but I've found a little information on the current rights of Native Americans in my post called native American Rights and it seems very interesting. I think I would like to find out more about the current situation of Native Americans and find out how they feel about the current position they are in.

Sitting Bull's speach on keeping treaties

In Sitting Bull's speech, he talks about him and his people living in their own land in peace until the colonists came. He says now that the white man has come to his country, their land and warriors are gone. Sitting Bull believes that whites cannot call him a theif because they had stolen his land, not the other way around. "What white man can say I ever stole his lands or a penny of his money? Yet they say I am thief." The whites claimed that the land was theirs and the natives had stolen it. Nobody could say that to Sitting Bull because he and his people lived there first. Sitting Bull tries to make peace with the white men by compromising with treaties, but they always are violated. "What treaty that the whites have kept has the red man broken? Not one. What treaty that the whites ever made with us red men have they kept? Not one." This line being said, Sitting Bull and his native followers always wanted peace and were willing to keep a treaty under the white's word, but it is the whites that always broke the treaty's rules. The native Americans always stuck to their promises, but the whites never did. The U.S. government had a lot of power, so they used it to limit the Native American's land and freedom by creating treaties and breaking them to create even more limiting rules for another treaty. Because of the power positions, the native Americans had no choice but to accept peace treaties and obey them, and eventually see the treaty broken by greedy, power hungry generals and miners.

Sitting Bull also talks about how the social position the Native Americans was very unfair. Sitting Bull always acts genuine to anybody and was sure to present himself in a respectable manner. Yet the whites call him a bad Indian and a theif, simply because of his race. "Is it wicked in me because my skin is red; because I am a Sioux?" Sitting Bull wondered why people mistreated him and his people even though they were decent human beings. He understnads that the whites do not like him because of his race. This relates a lot to African Americans and their struggle for equality. Native Americans especially should be treated with repect because they lived in America first and have a right to equality.

"Sitting Bull: speech on keeping treaties (1891)." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 2 Feb. 2010. .