Native Americans

  The 19th century was a time of major efforts in evangelizing missionary expeditions to all non-Christian people. The whites obligated the Natives Americans to change their names to Christian common names and their cultures too. Even though that in one of the Amendments said that they have freedom of religion they banned the Natives Americans to change that. The whites send troops  to the reservation because the Native Americans did not followed the directions that they give.


Whites officials became alarmed at the religious fervor and in December 1890 banned the Ghost Dance on Dakota reservations. The presence of the troops in the reservations exacerbated the situation. General Miles ordered the detention of Big Foot. On December 29 in the same year the soldiers entered the camp demanding all firearms. They put the firearms away but some of them refused. A fight between them began, the soldiers start shooting all the womens and children with the mens. By less then an hour the fight and with 150 Indians killed and 50 wounded. In the army just 25 were killed and 39 wounded.


The Ghost Dance was a ceremonial religious dance connected with the messiah doctrine. During the fall of 1890, the Ghost Dance spread though the Sioux villages of Dakota reservations, revitalizing the Indians. The white superiors were scared because of the crazy dance of the Sioux villages and they said that they need protection.  They ordered the officers to arrest Chief Sitting Bull, he was killed on December 15.


The assimilation was a hard time to the Natives Americans, the whites want them to change their names and cultures. Their culture means too much for them so they refused to change. The 19th century was a time of major efforts in evangelizing missionary expeditions to all non-Christian people. The political ideas during the time of assimilation policy are known by many Indians as the progressive era, but more commonly known as the assimilation era. The progressive era thinkers  wanted to look beyond legal definitions of equality to create a realistic concept of fairness.


With officials believing in the virtue of Christianity, the United States Government worked to convert American Indians to Christianity and suppress the practice of the Native religions. Federal legislation made education compulsory for Native Americans,they remove students from reservations with the parent authorization. Once they arrived in the school they were usually given new haircuts, uniforms of European-American style clothes, and even new English names, sometimes based on their own, other times assigned at random. It was so hard for them, the whites always think in what they want and what was the best for them but they never think that that was affecting the Natives Americans mental health and their hole lives.