By Stephen L. Pevar
Every schoolchild is taught that the holiday of Thanksgiving
commemorates the feast the Pilgrims arranged to thank the Indians for
their friendship, for sharing their land, and for showing them how to
grow, harvest, and store food. Accounts say that the generosity of the
Indians saved the colonists from starvation during the harsh New England
winter of 1620.
Very few schoolchildren are also taught, however, about the
deprivations and atrocities that occurred to the Indians afterwards,
first at the hands of the colonists and then by the United States
government. Ironically, if the United States believes today that it has a
poor immigration policy, imagine how self-destructive the Indians’
immigration policy was by welcoming the very people who would soon seek
to destroy them.
Within 100 years after the United States gained its independence from
Great Britain, tens of thousands of Indians were killed in wars
defending their homelands. The United States entered into nearly 400
treaties with Indian tribes between 1783 and 1871 (when Congress ended
treaty-making with the Indians), during a time when tribes were very
powerful. In exchange for Indians relinquishing most of their
territories and ending their defense of them, the US set aside smaller
portions of land that were forever guaranteed to the treaty tribe.
When the federal government became stronger, however, it broke
virtually all of these treaties and confiscated most of the land
guaranteed in them. During the 1830s, for instance, Indians living in
the Southeast were marched at bayonet point nearly 2000 miles to “Indian
Country,” now the state of Oklahoma, during which thousands died.
These land grabs and treaty abrogations were even approved by US Supreme Court. The case of
Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock,
decided in 1903, involved an 1867 treaty in which Congress guaranteed
the Kiowa and Comanche Tribes that no additional land would be taken
from their reservation unless the tribes gave their express
consent. Several years later, the federal government took additional
land despite opposition from the tribes. The Supreme Court held that
Congress has “plenary power” (full and complete authority) over the
Indians and can break a treaty essentially whenever it wishes.
In addition to taking Indian land, the federal government, during the
latter part of the 1800s, encouraged social reformers and missionaries
to remove Indian children from their reservation homes and place them in
boarding schools (sometimes thousands of miles away), where their
Indian culture was literally beaten out of them. The government also
prevented the Indians from leaving their reservations to obtain food,
and many Indians starved to death. When some Plains tribes continued to
resist placement on reservations, the government began slaughtering the
bison on which they depended. Millions of bison were killed and left to
rot, until by 1900, there were less than a thousand bison left. With
their food gone, Indians were forced to surrender. Hatred for the
Indians was so profound that General Sheridan, when told by one Indian
that he was a “good Indian,” reportedly smirked and said, “The only good
Indians I ever saw were dead.” Sheridan was one of the generals who
ordered the slaughtering of the bison.
During the past 50 years, conditions have improved for most tribes as
a result of a shift in public attitude towards Indians and a change in
congressional policies. A few tribes have even become wealthy as a
result of casinos. But conditions on most reservations remain
substandard and impoverished. As President Barack Obama noted in
November 2009, the unemployment rate on some Indian reservations is 80%,
nearly a quarter of all Indians live in poverty, 14% of all reservation
homes don’t have electricity, and 12% don’t have access to a safe water
supply.
Non-Indians often wonder why more Indians haven’t left the
reservation to seek a “better” life. But this underestimates and
misunderstands the importance to many Indians of their tradition,
culture, and religion, much of which is tied to the land. Whereas
millions of immigrants came to the United States to join the “melting
pot,” many Indians have resisted assimilation and remain deeply rooted
in their ancestral homelands.
For those non-Indians who wish to commemorate the origins of
Thanksgiving, there are many ways to do so. One would be to urge public
schools to tell the whole story about the Indian experience. Another
would be to lobby Congress to enact more helpful Indian policies and
programs. A third would be to donate to organizations that give
assistance to Indians in their efforts to rejuvenate their governments
and restore their economic, political, and social structures, such as
the
Native American Rights Fund, the
Association of American Indian Affairs, the
National Indian Child Welfare Association, and the
National Congress of American Indians, among many.
Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday. Hopefully, this year and in
years to come we will spend part of the holiday reflecting on its
origins and dedicating ourselves to fostering the values of the Indians
who selflessly assisted their new neighbors.
Stephen L. Pevar is the author of The Rights of Indians and Tribes,
Fourth Edition. He is a senior staff counsel of the American Civil
Liberties Union. Mr. Pevar worked for Legal Services on the Rosebud
Sioux Reservation from 1971-1974, and taught Federal Indian Law at the
University of Denver School of Law from 1983-1999. He has litigated
numerous Indian rights cases and has lectured extensively on the
subject.
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