Native American Letter

Native Americans

Elizabeth Jay

There has been a struggle for Native Americans since the first settlers arrived in the United States. The experiences of the different tribes that make up the Native American peoples are all different in details, but with common themes. As more and more settlers came to the New World, Native American tribes were moved from their ancestral lands. Some tribes were able to get along with the neighboring settlers, but in many cases there were tension between the groups. This tension and conflict lead to outright warfare between the settlers and the Native Americans over land, violated treaties and hostilities on both sides of the issue. There were massacres on both sides of this war that caused tensions to get even higher between the races.

The settlers not only wanted to establish a new life with their own land, but they also brought over diseases that were not known to the native people which caused them to be more susceptible to these diseases as they did not have immunity to them. One of the big problems was smallpox. In the hostile environment between the settlers and Native Americans, there were times when blankets that were infected with smallpox were given to Native American to cull the population. While some scholars believe that this practice was not as widespread as thought previously, there were cases of this behavior actually happening with the intention of spreading disease.

Probably one of the more serious social and cultural issues in the past for Native Americans was the establishment of boarding schools for young Native Americans to attend. These schools were set up to assimilate the students into white society and get them away from their Native American culture. Upon arriving at the school, the children had just about every aspect of their Native American culture stripped from them. Their clothing was exchanged for dresses, shirts, pants and soled shoes. Their hair was cut and styled, especially...