Native American Issues Background and Thesis

Other Native American tribes did not capitulate so quickly or so easily to the white Settlers, fighting bravely to retain their ancestral territories after the white Settlers had repeatedly and systematically broken treaty after treaty, eventually dispensing altogether with the fiction of "negotiations" and implementing the forced removal of the remaining proud Native American tribes from the "Indian Country" that would soon become known as the "Great Plains" (Anderson, 1986; Stannard, 1993).

Those Indian tribes that remained in the disputed territories have been portrayed ever since as ruthless savages who wantonly raided and massacred innocent white settlers, thereby justifying overwhelming retaliation by the U.S. Army (Anderson, 1987; Stannard, 1993; Takaki, 2008). However, those historical narratives conveniently omit the corresponding atrocities committed by the white man against the Indian tribes as well as the degree to which the Indian tribes rather than the white Settlers were actually the victims of atrocities and massacres rather than the perpetrators (Anderson, 1987; Stannard, 1993; Takaki, 2008).

The U.S. forces became even more ruthless in their treatment of the Sioux and the other tribes who had not brokered a peaceful resettlement in between 1830 and 1865 (Anderson, 1987; Stannard, 1993; Takaki, 2008). After the conclusion of the War Between the States, the U.S. Army thought nothing of deliberately exploiting long-standing bitter rivalries between the various Native American tribes.In particular, U.S. forces secured a surrender of arms from the Pawnee in return for a guarantee of protection from the Sioux. Thereafter, the U.S. Army relied heavily on Pawnee scouts to assist their efforts eradicating the Sioux, but in the process, U.S. forces also abandoned their promise of protection and allowed the Sioux to exact revenge against their (now) unarmed rivals the Pawnee (Anderson, 1987; Takaki, 2008).

Ironically, even the superior military might of the U.S. government was never fully successful in overcoming from the Sioux resistance (Anderson, 1987; Stannard, 1993). By the 1880s, the most effective weapon against the remaining remnants of the Native American tribes were the railroads and their destruction of the last herds of buffalo rather than the U.S. military (Anderson, 1987; Takaki, 2008). Ultimately, the ignominious end of the once-proud Sioux was a function of the destruction of their natural resources rather than their spirit. Anderson's account of the entire history of the decline of the Sioux tribe (and of the other Native American tribes) throughout the 19th century is a valuable supplement to the contemporary historical record precisely because it provides a more historically accurate and less culturally biased account of the truth of how the American West was "settled."

References

Anderson, G.C. Little Crow: Spokesman for the Sioux. Minnesota Historical Society

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