Today's Foundation
What makes a protest mean something? What makes it worthwhile pursuing and supporting? What makes it stand out in the public eye? I feel that the answer to these questions can be found within any historical protest, whether it was done two thousand years ago or is still going on. Although one could feel some sense of connection between many, many different protests and revolutions there is one that has been created and has been in the process of reaching its goals for over five centuries. This long lasting protest is the American Indian protest for Native American Rights.
The natives were once a proud force who spread across all of America and lived their lives of peaceful work and worship towards their ancestors and deities that surrounded them in the natural world they lived in. These men and women were content with the land their lived on and were happy with the lives they lived, until the day that the rest of the world found them. Christopher Columbus, an Italian, was the first person to "discover" America, in 1492, and find the peaceful natives that flourished there. He saw them as a kind people that created a "wonderful nation" that the Europeans should not fight battle with. Columbus then went on and got the Indians to work for him and adopt his culture's ways because what he saw ultimately led him to believe that their ways were those of "heathens" (Dee Brown 14). The white men continued to travel across the seas and have the natives work from them and soon take their land as well. After the first generation of Native Americans, who met the white men, died off the rebellious tribes then immediately fought to drive the Spaniards back to their own lands. This, however, proved disastrous for the natives because they had underestimated the settlers and, after a short time, they were massacred by the thousands (Dee Brown 15). The white men had better weapons and new recruits coming across the seas by the boat load. One example of the white man's brutality was after the Mohican tribe killed four soldiers in repentance for the killing of four of their own. The white men then attacked once more and massacred two entire villages worth of Indians (Wounded Knee 16). The white men also, for generations, would sign treaties and make promises towards the Native Americans, speaking of equality and justice, but they would figuratively tear them up and take from the Indians what they had earlier promised. The European descendents justified this by creating Manifest Destiny, which tried to explain their supposed dominance over the Indian "race" and "responsibility" over/for the natives as well as their land (Dee Brown 20). These acts of brutality and dishonor have been occurring ever since foreigners first came to America and have not stopped since.
Until the late twentieth century American Indians had fought against the foreigners separately but then in 1968 a group of people were able to find the strength and following to create a society of natives, the American Indian Movement. The group started out as an association to keep an eye on the police brutality that was brought against Indians and to attempt Indians from being abused in the first place. After the group became more well known throughout the Native American communities it began to increase in participants and soon found itself working in the political world to put notice on the issues that their people still had to live with. The activists took part in public protesting around the nation; such as, the Occupation of Alcatraz and the Occupation of Wounded Knee (Donald Fixico). The Occupation of Wounded Knee was a protest against the fact that Dick Wilson, a tribal leader, had given off part of his tribes land. The people then got him to get impeached but he was slow to get out of office. So AIM then decided to hold a press conference at Wounded Knee, which was the sight were 350 Lakotas had been massacred by the U.S. Army in 1890. The situation then became challenging when Wilson had the roads blocked and the reporters were unable to reach the sight. With that act of coward-ness and defiance the AIM were stuck on Wounded Knee and the occupation began. After many months the siege finally came to an end when federal officials promised to look into Wilson's management. This act of protest was just what the AIM wanted as it brought focus to the natives and gave them the opportunity to go into politics, the International Indian Treaty Council (ITC). Although it had taken the tribes many generations to get together as one people they were finally able to do so and start to fight back for their rights (Anonymous).
Now days the American Indian Protesting is still continuing but their past accomplishments still mean much to the people of today. Much of American History is not spoken of in society and when it is it is always shocking and taken in with joy when the listeners and readers aren't actually taken back by the entire thing. Once, a student in an Indian Study course took notice in the subject and stated, “Probably many have never seen it in this aspect, I know I did not. I was an Indian but I did not know what was expected of me” (Paul MCKENZIE-JONES). The past is always important to the future as it is the base of what is known today and what today's people thrive upon. To not know one's past is to not know what will work in life and what will not, what has been done and what must never be done again.
The American Indian fight for Civil Rights has been an enormous part of American History and will continue to be until all are truly treated equally and the statement "all are created equal" is actually meant in this nation. Once the Native Americans were a proud people, strong and powerful, but they are now weakened and divided. To this day, the county with the deepest poverty in the United States is still a tribal reservation (Dee Brown 8).
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