Historical Report on Race

Tina Statton

ETH/125

Professor Anderson

May 25, 2014

Historical Report on the Native American

The history of the Native American goes as far back as 1492 when Christopher Columbus first came in contact with Native Americans in Bahamas. “The name “indian” was given to them from Christopher Columbus who mistakenly thought he had landed in the “Indies”. (History.com Staff, 2009)

How the attitude and image of the Native American people would change with the induction of the early settlers in Virginia in 1607. With the increase in immigration of settlers and the greed of the “white man” to lay claim to Indian lands, violence erupted in their conquest. After the American Revolution, Britain released all of its North American holdings to the United States. The claims of Native Americans were completely eradicated by this action. For a short time, United States regulated under the presumption that the Indians were overthrown, and therefore, had no rights or claims to the land.

On May 28, 1830 Congress passes the Indian Removal Act, allowing the president to pursue ownership of all Indian lands east of the Mississippi River. Under this act, the Indians would be payed back with new lands drawn from the public land west of the Mississippi River.

President Andrew Jackson was relentless during the 1830s, despite Supreme Court rulings in favor of the Indian Nation, to remove all eastern Indians to land west of the Mississippi River. During Andrew Jackson’s presidency he scheduled to remove over 90,000 Native Americans. President Martin Van Buren would succeed President Jackson and continue with President Jackson’s initiative on the relocation of Native Americans. On April 5, 1838 the first band of Cherokees, that had resisted, begins the march westward to their new lands in present-day Oklahoma, later named the Trail of Tears. Sixteen thousand Cherokee Indians, mostly at gunpoint and shackled, marched the same trail. Five...