BROKEN PROMISES

• History is the story of the never-ending struggle for control over land. People have traveled great distances and endured pain and suffering all for the chance to get land. They have fought in bloody battles and wars to claim their own little corner of Earth. Stories of explorers discovering new places and claiming them for their home countries have one stunning thing in common. In culture after culture, native peoples have been overlooked and abused. Foreign countries have claimed lands that had been used by indigenous people (those who were already living there), for thousands of years. In Africa, it was the native African tribes who were abused. In Australia, it was the aborigines. In the Americas, it was the native American Indians.

• In the early years of the United States, our government signed many treaties with American Indians. A treaty is an agreement in which both sides make compromises to agree on terms for peace. Unfortunately, these treaties were often unfair to American Indians. Many natives did not understand English well enough to understand what they were signing. Some native leaders signed away their rights to land in order to get personal wealth, neglecting the needs of their people. The ultimate purpose of the treaties was to push American Indians off of the lands where their people had lived long before the arrival of European explorers. The government wanted the native peoples to assimilate, rather than maintaining their own culture, but they resisted.

• During the 1830’s, the United States government forced the Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, Seminole and other tribes off their land on the east side of the Mississippi River. Thousands died from disease and exposure in a cruel winter march of up to 1,200 miles to an Indian reservation in Oklahoma. This was such a devastating event to the native people that it became known as the Trail of Tears. Once that had been accomplished, it wasn’t long before settlers decided they should be able to have land on the west side of the Mississippi River, as well. Several hundred Cheyenne were killed in Colorado in the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864. By 1890, Lakota peoples were killed by soldiers at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, even though they had already surrendered.

• As we look back over our history, many American are shocked and ashamed of the way native peoples were treated. We cannot change what has been. However, we can learn from our past to protect our future.

Name:__________________________________

Answer the following questions based on the reading passage. Don’t forget to go back to the passage whenever necessary to find or confirm your answers.

1.  Judge the effects of the forced march of native Americans in the Trail of Tears on their descendants.
2. What is your opinion about the things people have done in order to get land.
3. Which was more important, getting land, or treating people fairly? Why?
4. Why do you think native peoples have been abused in so many different countries?
5. What is the main purpose of this reading passage?