Native Americans Over the Years,

Native Americans

Over the years, the United States has exerted oppressive force over the Native American Indians who were in this country long before settlers arrived from Europe. Not only did the white European settlers cheat, rape, and steal from the Natives; they also managed to decimate nearly the entire Native American population. Native American tribes are now forced to live on reservations that are technically separate from the rest of the United States of America, although their sovereignty is still an ongoing matter of debate.

The Supreme Court has assumed in recent years that although non-Indians have the right to be free from political control by Indian nations, American Indians can and should be subject to the political sovereignty of non-Indians. This disparate treatment of both property and political rights is not the result of neutral rules being applied in a manner that has a disparate impact. Rather, it is the result of formally unequal rules. Moreover, it can be explained only by reference to perhaps unconscious assumptions about the nature and distribution of both property and power. This fact implies an uncomfortable truth: both property rights and political power in the United States are associated with a system of racial caste. (Singer 4)

The constant struggles for Indian sovereignty against the United States government came to a forefront in 1973 at the infamous standoff at Wounded Knee. On February 27, 1973, followers of the American Indian Movement occupied the town of Wounded Knee in South Dakota for seventy-one days while U.S. Marshals laid siege. The event nearly sparked off a civil war, and brought Indians' constant struggle for sovereignty to the public eye.

Wounded Knee had been the site of a major massacre by the United States military of over a hundred Native American Indians in the year 1890. The town of Wounded Knee is located on the present day Pine Ridge Reservation. The leaders of the resistance purposefully chose Wounded Knee as the site for their protest, as it is loaded with spiritual and political significance for Native Americans.

The United States government and military responded immediately to the Indians' occupation. The United States military's force by far exceeded that of the Indians. The government attempted to block food and medical supplies, aiming to starve the occupiers out of Wounded Knee. During the course of the stand off, two Native American Indians were fatally shot. By the fifth of May, the occupiers reached an agreement with the United States government to disarm. The siege would come to an end three days later, and the town was evacuated, at which point the United States government took control of Wounded Knee.