What do u think about native americans? (Plains, Custer: homes, neighborhoods)

[Blitzrunner15]

I am proud to a native american.
i wish we could get rid of the native american "reservation/s". Rez life is no fun. Its boring and i wish i could change that. but the time for change may or may not come. Any comments?

[A Neighbor]

If you really want to do something about Rez life, start with a book called Going to Pieces and see what you think. I believe that there could be a lot of benefits to native peoples to remove the reservations and to assimilate into the rest of society as citizens of America just as the rest of us are. Good luck and remember that your life is what you make of what you have.

[mthawki]

I'll be the first to admit that the US Gov't completely hosed (for lack of better words) the Native Americans in the late 19th century. They were transplanted to some of the most god-awful land that the government could dump them on and have been "stuck" there for generations. Some of the reservations that I've driven through in MT and AZ are pretty much rural ghettos and are just depressing.

You state that life on the rez isn't fun and is boring (understatements I'm sure). This is probably because of the lack of employment, education and opportunities in general that reservation life has to offer.

My question back at you is what's keeping you there? A lot of people grow up in depressed little farming communities or the inner city. But they leave and go on to have successful and productive lives that they wouldn't have otherwise achieved if they just stayed where they were. Too many people they days just give up because of the hand that was dealt them. If you have hopes and dreams, then there's nothing stopping you but yourself.

[former wv kid]

The White europeans fought a corrupt and greedy war against the Native Americans and had all kinds of excuses for it. The way I see it now, the proud Indian tribes must not lose their culture but must take the hard long walk towards making a better life for themselves, just as we all do. Education, hard work, persistence, becoming good at things and thus valuable to someone (a corporation most likely).

Look, it is going to be harder on a native than on a White immigrant like me. There is hatred, fear, bigotry, and all kinds of things out there. There are also millions of good Americans who could care less if you are Lakota, or Blackfeet, Crow...just learn and show them you can do a trade or job and you will be welcomed. We need good people in this country, all colors.

[AQHA]

Originally Posted by mthawki

My question back at you is what's keeping you there? A lot of people grow up in depressed little farming communities or the inner city. But they leave and go on to have successful and productive lives that they wouldn't have otherwise achieved if they just stayed where they were.

Good post, I agree.

I am proud to be a European American but there are parts of our history that make a person wonder. The treatment of Native Americans is a scar on our history. I wont use my modern day morals to judge them, it would not be fair to them, but I will say that I wish a few things in our country's early days could have been tweaked.

[Elkman]

Like the Jewish Holocaust, America had it's own Holocaust, the Native American Genocide. This should be very unsettling to all White Americans. We killed their wives, sisters, brothers, husbands, but most disturbing of all...........children. Tell me this. What would you do if a gov't was out to wipe you off the face of this earth and you saw your family, let alone your OWN children, die in front of you because they wanted your homes and land? I would fight, just like those American Indians who did. Somethings are worth dying for. NO man or woman, no culture, should EVER go through this. Look at a detailed map of the United States, look at particular states and you see the word Indian Reservation. To me, this is shocking. This is stuff I learned in History books that happened generations ago. So why is it still there? Why hasn't our gov't done away with labeling Indian Reservations? It's a shame. How many have you driven through the West for hours upon hours and all you see is land that seems so endless while in a car or from above? All that land and we couldn't share it with the Native Americans? We had to kill them and unrightfully taken it from them. It's a dark dark scar in American History and all I see is a means to cover it up and forgotten because our Gov't, and white Americans, don't even want to think about it and if it's not thought about, then I assume most pretend like it never happened. As a white American, I don't pretend. It happened and I hang my head down in shame. And the Native Americans should be looked upon with respect and treated that way. Blitzrunner. I hope you embrace your race and cherish it because for you, that dark dark scar doesn't exist in your culture. Be proud. Teach others your culture. We all know public schools skim through history and it's meaning is forgotten faster than it is skimmed in education and it becomes non existent. Our History is never learned.
Has anyone watched the TV Miniseries by Stephen Speilberg's "Into the West". I believe this miniseries depicted as much as it could have happened that way. It's a powerful emotional miniseries that should be taught in our schools. We should have it shown because this is how it happened to a degree and when done watching the series, we should asked "why did we let this happen"?
I own a few books that I have not read yet. I have one on Indian Wars which explains each battle that happened and maps the locations of where it happened and I hope one day I can tour our country and see for my own eyes what happened at this spot back in the 1800's. I also have a book I bought based on the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. Native American Indian mothers and fathers gave up their own children from their reservations and they were sent back East to be educated in the White American way and culture and there they were educated in our ways and forced to forget their own heritage and culture.
The death of General George Custer should be celebrated by all. The good guys won in my book. His image depicts what a white man's attitude was back then. I won't respect those attitudes. I would say times have changed.....or have they?
I believe we all could learn from the Native Americans, no matter what race we are.

[DanielRead]

Originally Posted by A Neighbor

If you really want to do something about Rez life, start with a book called Going to Pieces and see what you think. I believe that there could be a lot of benefits to native peoples to remove the reservations and to assimilate into the rest of society as citizens of America just as the rest of us are. Good luck and remember that your life is what you make of what you have.

Moderator cut: put down I'm damn sure that we will never give up our reservations, we are few of what was once many and to take what little that we got left would be a sick thing.


While the concerted effort to assimilate Native Americans into American culture was abandoned officially, integration of Native American tribes and individuals continues to the present day. Often Native Americans are perceived as having been assimilated. In many studies and statistics they are considered as simply another minority of the general American populace, not as the individual semi-sovereign entities they remain according to the treaties that were signed between tribes and the US government. The following quote from the May 1957 issue of Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, shows this change in attitude.

"The place of Indians in American society may be seen as one aspect of the question of the integration of minority groups into the social system."

While a single quote cannot answer for a nation's perception, after centuries of adapting to Euro-American culture, through wars, treaties, acceptance, and mostly time, Native Americans, for better or worse, have become part of the American culture.



YOU MUST ALWAYS REMEMBER WHERE YOU COME FROM AND WHERE YOU WANT TO GO!

[Drover]

The only reservations I've been on are in Wisconsin and Michigan. Reservations there are very small compared to their Western and Plains counterparts, and only one of ones I saw was derelict and depressing enough to live up to the stereotype of reservation life, so maybe I'm not getting the big picture. But I don't think native tribal cultures can be preserved by any other means except reservations and the sovereignty they are afforded. Simply closing them and telling them, "OK, now go assimilate" is a death sentence to a tribe's culture.

I think the federal government gravy train has been extremely detrimental to the self-sufficiency and overall spiritual health of many reservations -- much the same effect it has had on urban minority neighborhoods. It might be a good thing to ease the reservations off that gravy train and toward a path to greater self-sufficiency. But I think that can be done without re-negotiating treaties; in other words, the tribes themselves would have to agree. I don't see that happening any time soon.

[Mattie Jo]

While I believe in removing the reservations I don't believe in assimulating the Indians since that would cause them to eventually lose their own culture. In Oklahoma it has been said that there are no reservations. I live in Cherokee County in Tahlequah, which is the seat of the Cherokee government. I came here because I fell in love with Tahlequah and all of East Oklahoma. My grandmothers were Cherokee and came here on the Trail of Tears. I am proud of my heritage and wish that I had more Indian blood than I do.

[montanahogrider]

I'm not so sure that assimilating the Native Americans in the rest of America would cause them to lose their culture. Norwegians, Scottish, Irish, and Germans still have places in America that their culture is practiced. But getting on to what people think the whites have done to the natives is this, In order to survive people have to assimilate. I know personally many natives and really I don't call them that I just call them my friends. It has never occurred to me that because their skin is darker than mine that would somehow make them inferior. And as a matter of fact some of my native friends are better at ranching than I am and isn't that supposed to be a white thing? LOL. The natives weren't the only race displaced by the white man in this country. Hispanics in the southwest, Texas thru to California were run off their lands and murdered. Blacks in the southeast were killed for just trying to be called a man. But I don't feel any guilt from it as I was not the one who did it. What happened 150 years ago is in the past. And all through history, the strong take from the weak. Including Indian tribes today who are fighting their brethren over casino rights. The Strong tribes are trying to prevent the weak tribes from getting casino's because they believe that will cut into their profit margins. Seems like business is business no matter what your race. What I'm saying is my native friends have a better life than most of their counterparts because they have assimilated. But they have not lost their culture. They still go to things like vision quest and their sons have been to a camp to learn how to be a proper native man in this world. I just believe that for this country to stick together and get along, we all have to have somewhat of a common background.