Carlos Montezuma What Indians Must Do

Improved Essays
After reading Carlos Montezuma, “What Indians Must Do”, it speaks at the time of adversity for the Indians due to the fact that they were treated horrible during the Progressive Era. As the Indians were restrained by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Montezuma stated that “Convinced that outsiders exerted too much power over life on the reservations, he insisted that self-determination was the only way for Indians to escape poverty and marginalization.” This address represents the assurance for Montezuma to influence the Indians in “We Must Free ourselves.” This quote is significant because Montezuma elaborates the value of freedom “Our people's’ heritage is freedom. Freedom reigned in their whole make-up. They harmonized with nature and lived

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    In fact, according to “Statistics on Native Students,” in 2011, only 27% of Native population spoke another language at home. Before boarding schools, 100% conversed in their native tongue. This elimination of native language has caused important stories regarding the entity of native history and culture to disappear. The lessons from the stories are lost. One crucial value taught to Indians through these lost stories was the appreciation of the land.…

    • 1304 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In the chapter, Menchaca discussed how the colonial movement and settlement of the Southwest initiated a social restructuring of the lives of many indigenous peoples and interjected race as a central source of social organization (Menchaca 67). Throughout the chapter the Spanish, who governed and controlled Mexican society felt that they were superior and needed to control more land for their own benefit and ability to gain more land and wealth. The Chichimeca tribes stood in the way of Spansih interests. The Spanish began a series of invasions to gain more land in the north of Mexico. Many indigenous tribes were forced off their land, while other indigenous group resisted Spanish invasion.…

    • 244 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Cherokee Removal

    • 933 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Perdue and Green’s “The Cherokee Removal, A Brief History with Documents” is an introduction to the social and political period surrounding the removal of Cherokee Indians. The authors’ inclusion of many documents, shares with readers, the Indian voices as well as key political figures’ position on sovereign governance. This complex period is successfully outlined by Perdue and Green, with a chronological account of the Indians’ first encounter with Europeans through the inevitable journey, “Trail of Tears”.…

    • 933 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Within numerous societies many individuals must give up their uniqueness for the good of civilization as a whole, succumbing to such things as minority status and inequality. However, Dorothy Lee’s intriguing piece Individual Autonomy and Social Structure, discuses how individual integrity and social structure are able to function simultaneously (Lee 14). This is crucial to the community, yet it is often lost within the confines of social structure that creates barriers around what one can and cannot do. These barricades prevent the freedom of self, a concept that all should willingly embrace instead of neglecting entirely. This essay will discuss the fundamental social problem of individual autonomy and social structure, the paper will critically analyze the Navaho Indians’ child rearing methods to prove that the two are able to coexistence effectively, thus concluding with the basic resolution of the key social dilemma presented by Dorothy Lee.…

    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Latcrit Theory

    • 1059 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The methodology that use LatCrit to achieve its goal is narrative: “One of the goals of CRT and LatCrit has been to challenge and add context to racialized histories. This particular CRT/LatCrit intervention has often been achieved through narrative methodology.” (Barnes, 2011) In this way the stories of several circumstances of discrimination can be understand from the perspective of Latina/o people. In addition to this, what is interesting is that LatCrit Scholars are more open to new ways of expressing research, such as drama and image (Johnson, 2004).…

    • 1059 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Removal Act DBQ

    • 1805 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The question of the rights of Native Americans in the Americas was not a new one when the Indian Removal Act of 1830 was passed. European colonial empires mostly chose the route of oppression. The United States of America, a new nation lacking precedent, had to decide the path it would take regarding the Native American. After nearly a half-century of discussion (of varying intensity) of the issue, the pressure to make a decision reached its peak, and in 1830 the United States determined to relocate the Native Americans to advance white society at any cost necessary. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the actions associated with it were in gross violation of the Constitution and the founding principles of the United States.…

    • 1805 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In the articles, the authors highlight important notions such as “sovereignty,” “recognition,” “separateness,” “domestic dependent nations,” “dominate the physical space,” “reform the minds,” and “absorb the economic”. The authors argue that the legal and juridical sovereignty of American Indian provides them with the right to maintain and protect their traditional distinct political and cultural communities. In this pretext, to deal with the growing environmental problems at an alarming level, the tribal governments have inherent and statutory right to set their own environmental standards to meet the emerging environmental challenges. These challenges are serious threats to their socio-cultural, economic, politicolegal, spatial, and temporal…

    • 1111 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Chief Standing Bear

    • 1564 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Background Information and Thesis When America was still in its early years, Indians had a socioeconomic status less than that of a black person -- that is unless they became assimilated tax payers. The U.S. government toyed with them like puppets for years as America expanded west, forcibly securing them in federally controlled reservations under the guise of protecting them. By the mid 1800’s, all Native American tribes resided west of the Mississippi River on reservations due to the Indian Removal Act signed in 1830. Relationships between Indians and the government had been strained at best for decades. The government didn’t view Indians as human, which, in turn, made them think they could simply relocate the tribes whenever they pleased…

    • 1564 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian touches on many issues faced by many modern-day Native Americans throughout their lives, one such issue being poverty, which appears to be present in most Indian families. The sort of poverty that plagues the Spokane reservation is the same kind that has plagued Native Americans for generations. One possible root cause for the situation would be that the current natives on the reservation see that their parents couldn’t do anything to rid themselves of poverty, so they lose hope and, as a result, perpetuate the problem. While the degree of poverty in Junior’s Indian reservation is extreme, the underlying struggles that come with such a financial predicament are to be made note…

    • 1107 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Pueblo Revolt

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the essence of violent religious conversion, the Pueblo Indians demonstrated their greatest victory against Spanish control. Specifically, spanish missionaries and franciscan friars demolished the Native Americans’ opposing religious symbols in efforts to forcibly convert them to catholicism and potentially invade their land. The reaction to the violent act of conversion is especially reflected in the Declaration of Josephe, “ [...] burned the churches down and shouted in loud voices, “Now the God of the Spaniards, who was their father, is dead, and Santa Maria, who was their mother, and the saints, who were the pieces of rotten wood,” (Voices of Freedom, The Pueblo Revolt, p. 10). The document continues to advise and insist that the Native…

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    "The Name Of War" - Jill Lepore In the developments in the book, Lepore clearly states that “King Phillip’s War was the defining moment” in early American history. What she means is that the war was mainly fought on the basis of the need to maintain cultural identity. The Native Americans fought hard to ensure that they kept their Indian ways of lives while the English colonialists also wanted to introduce their new ways of lives and make allies with the Indians. The English colonist majorly developed their American identity before and after the wars through triangulating between their English cultural modes of living and the Indian experiences.…

    • 1013 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Thomas King's The Inconvenient Indian provides a harrowing and sarcastic but ultimately very real, look at the history of Indigenous peoples in North America from the time of first contact to the present. King details the relationship between non-Indigenous peoples and Indigneous peoples, establishing a subversion of history in which this relationship has continuously exploited and dominated over Indigneous people. At times a deeply personal account on his own conflicted activism, and at other times a revised edition of truths that show the identity of Indigenous peoples and how these identities have been affected by popular culture. In fact herein lies King's main theme of The Inconvenient Indian, how the stories and narratives by which legal…

    • 1694 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    When Alexie chose to include the detail of how his father was “one of the few Indians who went to Catholic school on purpose,” it raises the question that if his father’s passion for reading and learning was uncommon, how much was literature valued on the reservation? It is evident through this unpromising detail that literacy on the reservation was not valued. Alexie’s father was one of the few on the reservation who realised he must leave the reservation in order to succeed in life. His father had an obsession with books that he passed along to Alexie through his incorporation of literature in everyday life. Alexie chose to include this in order to convey how reading was non-discriminatory and was an escape from pain.…

    • 1414 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Poverty In New Mexico

    • 1069 Words
    • 5 Pages

    New Mexico is a breathtaking place, with the vibrant colors and the heart-stopping landscapes, it is portrayed essentially as the Land of Enchantment. The state is known for its rich history and luscious cultures that inhale residents from other states, along with bundles of foreigners from around the world. Although, to the world’s surprise, the implausible sweet land is one of the meagerest states in America. There are numerous reasons why New Mexico is dirt poor, although the primary reasons for poverty in New Mexico, are low levels of education, structures of common families, access to social and welfare programs, and diverse cultures and races. The following criteria demonstrates why New Mexico is ranked a leading impecunious state in…

    • 1069 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Bad Indians

    • 1141 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Deborah A. Miranda, a member of the Ohlone Costanoan Esselen tribe, in writing this tribal memoir, attempts to reveal the “truth” that has been hidden from American history books. History books that forget the first peoples who had been living on the soil we know today as the United States of America, cheating American Indians of having their history known to the world; a cruel twist of fate that Miranda will not accept, titling her memoir Bad Indians. Miranda constructs meaning in her writing about the experiences of indigenous peoples under colonialism through identifying negative changes brought over by Europeans and losses of her culture and language. Specifically, she discusses her father’s method of discipline, the indigenous people who…

    • 1141 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays