Steven Huber's Indian Movement Movie Analysis

Steven Huber

Soc 122, M-W @5:30

Steven Huber's Analysis of American Indian Documentary

4/18/2016

 

Analysis of the American Indian Movie

 

            The American Indian people were lied to and treated horribly by "white" Americans time and time again. The Sioux Indians lived in a vast area from Canada to the Dakota badlands. Americans promised the area named the Black hills. Since this land was sacred to the Sioux, they fought the Americans over it until there wasn't enough Indians alive to continue. Even though The Treaty of 1868 assured this area belonged to the great Sioux reservation. It could not keep the gold addicted Americans from taking all the land for the purpose of finding gold. George Custard brought his troops to find gold in the Black Hills. They pressured the government to go back on their word and kick the Sioux Indian's off of their own land. Again, the Indians were lied to, there land was stolen and they themselves had to move to a worthless piece of land known as the badlands. Fast forward to the 1950's and you will find the Indians still being treated unfairly and being run off their land. Statistics show the majority of Indians now live in popular cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Minneapolis. The American Government implemented a new set of programs called relocation and termination programs. This allowed the government to assimilate the American Indians and declare entire tribes as non-existent. In the late 1960's out of the urban red ghettos came a movement by the name of AIM (American Indian Movement). This brought various tribes together and let to activist groups across the country. The AIM movement was the most radical of all Indian movements. Between the 1870's and the 1960's over 100,000 Indian children were forced into boarding schools. These poor children were taken from their families and scattered throughout the United States. They were forbidden to speak their language or even talk about their cultures ways. Prat made the Indians learn the American's ways through education. This was supposed to turn the Indian people into Whites. Finally congress noticed that large numbers of Americans actually started caring about Indians. So on July 8^th, 1970 President Nixon formed a bill that had a whole series of Indian reform measures. This was one of the most important happenings in Indians history. The government began giving back the land that was taken from the Indians. Land that was seized by President Roosevelt for National Parks was now returned by President Nixon.  This was no little plot of land. It was hundreds of thousands of acres the Indians had returned. At this time in the Indian's history. The majority of them say that their lives began to change for the better. They were now allowed to learn their culture, speak their language, and wear their original Indian clothing. This was not the end of the Indian Peoples problems but at least it was a huge step in a positive direction.