Native American Relocation

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-J7R8JliI8)

The US president has pledged to improve the lives of Native Americans. But he faces huge challenges, such as those on Pine Ridge Indian reservation where unemployment is more than 80%, the average wage is £4,400 – and life expectancy is 50

"Few have been more marginalised and ignored by Washington for as long as Native Americans, our first Americans. You were told your lands, your religion, your cultures, your languages were not yours to keep," he said. "I know what it means to feel ignored and forgotten, and what it means to struggle."- President Obama 

There is an image that Byron Dorgan, co-chairman of the task force and a former senator from North Dakota, can’t get out of his head. On the Spirit Lake Nation in North Dakota years ago, a 14-year-old girl named Avis Little Wind hanged herself after lying in bed in a fetal position for 90 days. Her death followed the suicides of her father and sister.

was the forced removal by militia in 1838 of 859 members of the Potawatomi nation from Indiana reservation lands in what is now eastern Kansas.During the long 660 mile long trail, which lasted approximately two months 40 people died, most of them children.

  Cherokee Confederate Reunion

A conundrum fell onto the shoulders of many Native leaders during the Civil War. Although many people are not aware of Native Americans participation during the war, many Native Americans fought for both sides. Similarly, to why African Americans decided to join either the Union or Confederate force, the Native Americans wanted to either earn their freedom, gain land or even earn some rights for themselves and their people.

“Despite the prevalence of beliefs such as Andrew Peabody's, the Union Army welcomed many Native American volunteers to fight in the Civil War. James Blunt’s December 2, 1862 letter to Kansas Citizens requests aid to nearby refugee Indians driven from their homes “by the Rebel for no other reason than adhering in their allegiance to their great Father.”

Ironically, a year later, Kit Carson led the Union Army in an attack on the Navajos in the desert Southwest. Union Soldiers destroyed crops, orchards, livestock, and homes in a campaign to relocate the tribes to a federal reservation.