Return of the Native
1. Signed in 1783, the Treaty of Paris was a peace deal between the United States of America and The Great Britain. It was responsible for the creation of the first international boundary for the United States. It divided the land of the newly formed American Nation and the American Indian tribes. The conflict was ready even before the agreed borders took effect. Although the French assumed that the Americans would honor the territorial rights of the Indian nations, they were apparently unaware of the settlements which extend well into Indian lands. Moreover, the economy of the American nation, much like the pilgrims before them, depended on Indian lands. The American economy had to grow significantly in a short span of time to ensure their dominance on the continent. The treaty saw the revolutionary war come to an end and the independence of the USA was recognized.
The only way to achieve this was to displace the American Indians from their lands. The people also saw an opportunity in building an economy out of farming. Slave labor was in abundance. With more lands, the farmers could become wealthy. Hence, they supported any politician who was in favor of seizing Indian lands. The territories marked under the Paris Treaty expanded enormously within a few short years. Seemingly, the American Federal Government was open to the idea of exterminating American Indian tribes if they resisted. People from Europe flocked to cross the Atlantic and immigrate to the United States since there was a shortage in human resources. They also knew that the quickly expanding nation would allow them to own large portions of property in relatively quick time. For the American Indians, their habitat was shrinking at an alarming rate in the name of the American agrarian revolution. They were forcibly, for the sake of survival, made to relinquish their lands. Unlike for the Indians, the Americans did not view the lands as continuity. They only viewed the landscape as commodity. Hence, the two things that affected White-Indian relations were land and survival.
2. The allotment policy threatened both the survival of Indians and orchestrated discrimination at its largest scale. The allotment policy was an option of choosing plots of land for individual sustenance. The Federal government wanted the Indians to sustain on their own produce instead of becoming dependent on the growing American economy. The Federal government was not for allowing Indians to live in the midst of White people despite their usefulness. Indian lands are vast and each section of the land entitled to a tradition which helped the nations to survive. The first problem with the allotment problem was that it eliminated a tribe’s access to its traditional grounds. Without such access, the tribes struggled to adapt. Even those who managed to take advantage of the allotment and successful, their stay in the land was temporary. Whites were ready to displace them from their lands. The Mormon displacement of the Apache is an example of that trend.
The second problem with the allotment policy was that Indians did not have fertile or resource-rich lands to choose. The lands available for Indians were almost certainly infertile. They also had no resources which they could use to sustain themselves. Moreover, the allotment of fertile lands to White settlers interfered with the irrigation of Indian farms. The federal government also went to great extents to ensure that Indians did not have any form of developmental plans approved. The goal was not to marginalize the Indian population. The goal of the US Congress was to eliminate the Indian presence from the continent. Hence, the allotment of infertile lands and the constant denial of any significant livelihood were common. In addition, the US Congress wanted to keep the Native Indians from any type of development. This was the plan to constitute a means of forcing the Indian tribes to surrender leasing rights to the federal government should there be more resources discovered in allotted lands. The discovery of oil in Navajo territory and the subsequent snatching of leasing rights from the tribe is a relevant example.
3. The formative processes that shaped the Indian political resurgence are the evolution of the American Indian and Tribalization. The evolution of the American Indian pivoted on the trade conducted with the European settlers. The Native Indian tribes wanted to adopt government structures along with their trading partners in order to make their existence feasible. This meant discarding ancient practices of clans, villages, tribal councils, shamans, and chiefs. This form of political enterprise depended on cooperation from all the factions within the villages. However, when it came to the relationship with the federal government, incorporating a law structure and government were important. The government model of the Cheyenne is an example of this model.
Tribalization was a concept that the Western settlers were unfamiliar with at the time. Their governments did not recognize family groups, shamans, or class as valid government layers. Moreover, the Indians were unable to govern any substantial territories on their own. Their governments were micromanaged by local leaders. The Apache model for example did not have the expertise to unite all the clans under the same banner. These distort organizations allowed western government authorities to exploit the conditions. Corruption was rampant and no individual decision by a certain chief remained unchallenged. Bribes were effective to destroy any chief who resisted negotiations into relinquishing authority over their lands. Since several groups held ownership, it was easy for Europeans to seize what they needed. Furthermore, the constant inconsistencies within the loosely tied alliances did not allow Tribalization to hol adequate power over their peoples.
Cultural Representation in Native America
4. The development of the corporate Neo-shamans in the US can be attributed to such reasons as the varied and created moments of self actualization and the business fable. In the former, the interested individuals participate in an imagination of “a spirit” speaking to them in a dream(s) that is deemed to be very important. It is usually founded on the ability to recognize and call to that spirit and serves as a way to justify the neo-shamanism. The establishment of corporate neo-shamanism was caused by the desire to transform the mode of operation for corporate entities, companies, to ensure they are well managed and achieve good performance.
The practitioners of shamanism include the PRIMTEC CEO Leon King. He is acknowledged for his relentless efforts to revive and keep afloat the failing business of the company.
Richard Whitley has been a corporate shaman and has held a healing office in Boston since the mid 1980’s. His key focus is on the promotion of healing in companies and enhances the organizations’ spirit or soul. He is a successful entrepreneur and a healer to the misanthropic corporate culture today. He is also focused in restructuring the way in which companies conduct business today. Another shaman is Jason Hand who is also a corporate consultant who has a keen focus in finding, healing and delivery of spirit back to the suffering corporations.
5. HCR 108 was a historical landmark in the Native American resistance that marked a turning point for the lives of many Native Americans. It was a federal legal provision (law) that was passed in August 1953 in a bid by the congress to abolish the federal supervision over the American Indian tribes in the US the soonest possible. The law also meant that the Indians could be subjected to laws, privileges and legal obligations similar to those governing the legal conduct of the other US citizens. The law sought to halt the tribal landholding tenure system and political orientation. Basically, it sought to establish a middle level ground for the Americans and the American Indians. The enactment of the HCR 108 enabled the American Indian to obtain and own their share of the tribal property. The liquidation of the reservations allowed them to live on their own land just like the other communities in the US. They could eventually exercise absolute rights over their tribal property after removing the same from the federal trust states. Such rights included the ability to sell or mortgage their property as they wished.
The overall objective of the HCR 108 was to provide an exemplary liberation and freedom for the American Indians who had previously been deprived of the rights to private property. It came as a sigh of relief for the Native Americans who had for long lived in the reservations without the rights to own or dispose property. The land tenure system in America before the HCR 108 in 1953 was purely discriminatory against the Native Americans. The land was held and owned depending on one’s tribal or political affiliations.
6. Grandpa Joe is the father to the author’s mother; A grandfather to the author for that matter. Born in Okla-homa, Grandpa Joe took after his biological father Grandpa Otis in a number of ways. He first differed with his father and opted to give up his Indianness and relocated to marry a Brit- adoptee wife. The significance attached to Grandpa Joe to the history of the author’s family is entrenched in the fact that he married a non- Indian wife and sired children of a mixed race. He is the reason behind the mixed race status of the family of the author. The mixed race status served as a hiding place for the author and his kind at a time when discrimination against the Native Americans was rife.
Works Cited
Bergman, Peter, and Berman-Barrett, Sara J.The Criminal Law Handbook: Know Your Rights, Survive the System. Berkeley: Nolo Publishing, 2011.Print.
Jolivétte, Andrew. Cultural Representation In Native America. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2006. Print.
