美国西进运动的耻辱历史

The Dishonor of Westward Movement
Abstract: American Westward Movement, movement of people from the settled regions of the United States to lands farther west. This westward movement, across what was often called the American frontier, was of enormous significance. The westward movement of these Anglo-American settlers was one of the most influential forces to shape North American history. However, this expansion also resulted in great suffering, destruction, and cultural loss for the Native Americans of North America.
Key words: Westward Movement, buffalo, reservation, frontier, trail of tears, the Removal Act, Wounded Knee
American Westward Movement, in which people from the settled regions of the United States moved farther west. During the century, Anglo-American peoples and their societies expanded from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Coast. By expanding the nation’s borders to include more than three million square miles, the United States became one of the most powerful nations of the 20th century. Therefore, the movement is highly praised by some scholars. The “Great American Desert”, Charles Nordhoff wrote in 1873, “the very desert becomes fruitful, and you will see corn, wheat, potatoes and fruits of different kinds growing luxuriantly”. For h im, settling the West was a poetic ideal, a hymn of progress. However, they ignore the fact that this expansion also resulted in great suffering, destruction, and cultural loss for the Native Americans of North America.
There are many reasons to motivate the im1igrants to the west, and it is the result of the driven force of the east and the attraction of the west. With the development of society, the east became more and more populous, the land is almost all occupied. In order to improve their lives, seek new opportunities and
restart new career, those unemployed, debtors and bankrupts went to the west. Many European immigrants who suffered wars and starvation also joined the tide, and for them America is a new paradise.
The policies taken to the Indians are divided into two phases. First, when the early colonists first came to the west, they received a lot of help from the Natives. It’s said that they all admitted the Indians were sacred. The Indians were also called “the noble red skin”. At that time, the government wanted to create a relatively stable environment and they feared that if they overacted, the Indians would rebel massively. They just made contracts and treaties to force the Indians cede the land. What’s more, the Indians with no knowledge of sovereignty had no idea of the land privatization, so no definite boundary is left in the history. The fertile land in the west became a temptation to the east, and nothing can slow the Americans’ step to the west even the natural barriers like the Appalachian mountain, the Rocky Mountains, and the Mississippi river.
Second, between the 1820s and 1830s, with the process of the movement, the conflict between the whites and the Indians became more and more intense, as the whites struggled for land and resources. The peace and friendship turned into hostility and endless conflicts. On 27, January, 1825, the president James Monroe officially raised the state message in which the Indian troops should be migrated to the assigned areas, which is barren and isolated. The founder of the Frontier thesis, Frederick J Turner characterized the Indians as the common danger of developing the west, and alliance action should be taken to deal with the danger. The land was also described as free land that nobody occupied. The federal government ignored the promises to the Indians, and they expelled and persecuted the Indians with violence.
The Europeans came to the new world with diseases like polio, measles, yellow fever, while the Natives are not immune at all. The diseases quickly wiped out many of the Indians. As whites colonized the new lands, then, they faced greatly weakened tribes that, when not outnumbered, were outgunned. Some groups, after resisting the whites, were simply destroyed. The large
southeastern tribes---the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws---were finally conquered during the presidency of Andrew Jackson and forced to relocate west to lands that would be theirs “forever”.
Here came the concept of reservation. In 1830, the Congress passed the Indian Removal Act raised by Andrew Jackson. The Act established a process whereby the President could grant land west of the Mississippi River to Indian tribes if they agreed to give up their homelands. The law allowed the Indians financial and material assistance to travel to their new locations and start new lives and guaranteed that the Indians would live on their new property under the protection of the United States Government forever. With the Act in place, Jackson and his followers were free to persuade, bribe, and threaten tribes into signing removal treaties and leaving the Southeast.
The Cherokee Nation resisted, however, in his 1831 ruling on Cherokee Nation v. the State of Georgia, Chief Justice John Marshall declared that the Indian Territory is admitted to compose a part of the United States, and affirmed that the tribes were domestic dependent nations. However, the following year the Supreme Court reversed itself and ruled that Indian tribes were indeed sovereign and immune from Georgia laws. President Jackson nonetheless refused to heed the Court's decision. The Cherokee signing party represented only a faction of the Cherokee, and the majority followed Principal Chief John Ross in a desperate attempt to hold onto their land. In response, Jackson ordered military action in 1838. Under the guns of federal troops and Georgia state militia, the Cherokee tribe made their trek to the dry plains across the Mississippi. In the long journey, staving, coldness and diseases killed many lives. While the land became fertile through the hard work of the Indians, the federal government ate words again. They sent out troops and swam into the west and seized the newly reclaimed land. Finally, the Indians were driven to the barren reserves again. To some degree, those who went to the west took the bloody trail of the Indians, and the Westward journey can be called “the trail of tears”.
In general terms, Jackson’s government succeeded. By the end of his presidency, he had signed into law almost seventy removal treaties, the result of which was to move nearly 50,000 eastern Indians to Indian Territory. At the same time, millions of acres of rich land east of the Mississippi were opened to white settlers. Despite the vastness of the Indian Territory, the government intended that the Indians destination would be a more confined area--what later became eastern Oklahoma.
History witnesses that it’s impossible for the government to keep its promise. The government represents the interests of the capitalists, land owners and the plantation slave owners. So they perform dual characters when dealing with the Indian problems. On one hand, they must put on the hypocritical mask to respect the sovereignty of the Native Americans to make the grasp of the land seemingly legal a nd comply with the Indians’ interests. On the other hand, if the Indians refused to cede their land to them, they would force the Indians to sign on the contract through violent threats, deception and bribery to drive the Indians out of their home gradually or just massacre the troops. The result of the dual character is to set the reserve policy for Indians, which become the core of the federal policy against the Native Americans. The policy also reflects the cruelty and hypocrisy of the American governors on the Indian issues.
In 1887, the Dawes Severalty Act was passed and Curtis Act in 1898. The act deprived the sovereignty in the reservation and all the treaties. Till then, the strong civilization against weak was ended.
What’s more, they unleashed a ma ssive massacre to the Indians. The massacre at Wounded Knee is considered the last battle between white soldiers and Native Americans. December 29, 1890, the soldiers entered the camp demanding the all Indian firearms be relinquished. A medicine man named Yellow Bird advocated resistance, claiming the Ghost Shirts would protect them. One of the soldiers tried to disarm a deaf Indian named Black Coyote. A scuffle ensued and the firearm discharged. The silence of the
morning was broken and soon other guns echoed in the river bed. At first, the struggle was fought at close quarters, but when the Indians ran to take cover, the Hotchkiss artillery opened up on them, cutting down men, women, children alike, the sick Big Foot among them. By the end of this brutal, unnecessary violence, which lasted less than an hour, at least 150 Indians had been killed and 50 wounded. In comparison, army casualties were 25 killed and 39 wounded. Forsyth was later charged with killing the innocents, but exonerated The cruel and inhuman actions against the Natives are not only limited to wars, but also the animals on the Great Plain. The buffalo was of great importance to the Natives as the living basis. Since the tannery in Pennsylvania found that they could make a large fortune from the fur of the buffalos. The famous “Buffalo Bill” once shot 4280 head of buffalos in 18 months. The number of buffalos was reduced sharply from 60 million to less than 200 in 1883. The existence of the Plains Indians was closely bound up with the buffalo. During the development of the American West the white immigrants killed the buffalo so savagely that this animal became nearly extinct after the Civil War. According to statics, before Columbus came to America, 5 million Indians were living on the undeveloped land, while there were only 250,000 left by the 1890s. Maybe the Americans should never forget the disgraceful past when the genocide is unleashed and predatory exploitation of natural resources. What’s worse, the result was more of that. However, the extinction of the buffalos made the Indians lose the confidence towards life. They were finally limited in the reservations and depend heavily on the federal government for food and clothes. As the white man pursued the genocidal policy with the support of the American Government, the Indians lost the necessities of life .This inhuman action is an irretrievable fault in history.
The history of the Government connections with the Indians is a shameful record of broken treaties and unfulfilled promises. The history of the border, white man's connection with the Indians is a sickening record of murder, outrage, robbery, and wrongs committed by the former, as the rule, and
occasional savage outbreaks and unspeakably barbarous deeds of revenge by the latter, as the exception.
In many history books in America, however, the Indians are described as barbaric, cruel and irresponsible killers. From the mentioned above, we may find that who is the real killer and who is the victim? As a country which claims having individuality rights and democracy, why did it unleash such inhuman action to the so-called uncivilized? Might is right, as a country having suffered wars, depression and exploitation, this may be the best lesson China can learn from the history of Native Americans in order to avoid repeating the trail of tears.
Reference:
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