As suggested, I am putting one of my old papers out there for everyone to take a look at.  We can work together to format it in APA style.  Everyone feel free to join in. 

Native American history, as it intersects with United States history, is fraught with much loss and devastation, however it has an undercurrent of strength and power as their will to survive in their new and changing world wins over.  The young United States of America carried with it a superiority-complex over Native Americans which carried over into virtually all of their policies towards Indians.  This is evidenced by the major themes that reoccur throughout the readings of United States-American Indian history including the federal governments drive to assimilate Native  Americans into white society, their nefarious legal practices with Indian tribes, and their drive to obtain complete domination and control over Native Americans. 

     The United States government attempted assimilation of the Native Americans through a variety of means, but began by Christianizing (and thereby “civilizing”) and by stripping as most of their “barbaric” culture from them as they possibly could.  The belief was that their savage, barbaric lifestyles were a major obstacle in becoming a civilized people (which was necessary for assimilation to occur).  Early American presidents vocalized their desires to “Christianize” and therefore “civilize” Native Americans and proceeded to do so by outlawing many Indian religious practices and encouraging Christian missionaries to serve the Indian reservations.   For example, in 1819, the United States congress approved legislation that would allow funds to be given to religious organizations to educate and convert Indians in hopes of saving “souls that might otherwise perish” (Wilkinson, 2005, p. 34).  In addition, the government made illegal many of the traditional, religious ceremonies that Native Americans held sacred.  Such was the case of the Sun Dance, a “grand religious and social occasion embodying all that it means to be Sioux”, made illegal in 1881 as part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs “drive to assimilate the Sioux” (Wilkinson, 2005, p. 25).  As part of their assimilation goal, the United States government looked to Native American children who could be more easily molded.  They sought to gain control of the children with the use of boarding schools where children could be removed from “the harmful, counterproductive influences of their homes and communities” (Iverson, 1998, p. 19).  While at school, Native American children were stripped of their cultural identity. They were made to shed themselves of their native clothing and wear white-clothing, were given white-name, and were often punished severely for speaking in their native languages.  Anything that opposed white-social convention was discouraged and/or made illegal.  The sentiment of the day was expressed by Richard Pratt, who had established the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, who promised as part of his educational curriculum to “kill the Indian in him and save the man” (Iverson, 1998, p. 21). 

     The United States government further tried to assimilate Native Americans with the passage of the General Allotment Act (Dawes Act) in 1887.  The Act divided up Indian reservations in order to give each Native American their own portion of the land and then the surplus land was to be sold and the money given to the tribes.  The premise behind the Dawes Act was to turn Indians into farmers; the American ideals of the day and to hopefully one day do away with reservations altogether.  As private land ownership was an important aspect of American society, this division of the land would assist in assimilating Native Americans into the white world.  Allotment was designed in such a way as to “hasten Indian assimilation" (Wilkinson,  2005, p. 58). 

     The United States “termination” policy sought to dissolve Native American tribes completely, thereby creating another means to which to hasten Native American assimilation into white-American society.  In 1943, the Senate Indian Affairs Investigating Subcommittee opened the doors to ending federal “responsibility” towards Native Americans and advocated “full-blown termination programs, throwing Indian lands open to taxation and sale, liquidating the Bureau of Indian Affairs, closing all bureau schools, and abandoning Indian health care facilities” (Wilkinson, 2005, p. 63).  It would eliminate the privileges afforded Indians through the treaties they had made with the United States government (Hurtado & Iverson,  2001).  Termination was a last ditch effort to fully assimilate Native Americans into white society after all other policies had failed. 

     Despite numerous, powerful efforts by the United States government to assimilate Native Americans into white society, Native Americans have survived and adapted while still managing to maintain much of their cultural identity. Although there is no arguing that Native American traditions and some aspects of their culture have been forced to change, the federal government worked hard to abolish all of these “Indian” characteristics; something to which they failed to do.  For instance, despite the laws and regulations passed and the harsh punishments handed out for breaking those laws, religious practices thought to have disappeared were secretly maintained.  “Although standard accounts once reported that Sun Dance disappeared after the 1883 ceremony, we now know that the Sioux kept it alive” (Wilkinson, 2005, p. 11).  So, too, did the boarding school system fail to assimilate all Native American children.  Some students “loyalties and bonds were too deep to be easily or quickly uprooted” (Iverson, 1998, p. 26)and others, upon their return home, returned to their traditional upbringing.  Native languages, customs, and traditions have been maintained despite a long, arduous journey against a larger force of people fighting to extinguish them, proof of the strength and determination of Native American people.

     Perhaps more than any other cultural group in history, the United States has been dishonest and even nefarious in its dealings with Native American people.  It is common knowledge that the United States has, on occasions where it best suited them, broken treaties they had agreed upon and signed with the Native Americans.  In 1868, for example, the Treaty of Fort Laramie was negotiated between the United States government and the Lakota Indians resulting in the creation of the Great Sioux Reservation, however, shortly after gold was found in the Black Hills of the reservation and the “U.S. government abandoned promises it had just made” (Iverson, 1998, p. 11).  In 1903 Lone Wolf, a member of the Kiowa tribe appealed the decision of the federal government to open up Indian land in the Oklahoma territory because tribal consent had not been given, as specified that it should by the Treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek of 1868.  The case made it to the Supreme Court as Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock where the court ruled that “the power existed for Congress to abrogate the provisions of an Indian treaty” (Iverson, 1998, p.52).  The Supreme Court of the United States of America, in effect, had said that Congress had the right to abolish provisions of a treaty as they saw fit despite being lawfully signed into action by the Federal Government, in opposition to Article Six of the Constitution stating that treaties were the “supreme law of the land”.  Treaties were not only outright broken but were also created under dishonest and unethical means.  Some treaties were outright broken while others were authorized by the United States government after being negotiated against tribal law such as The Treaty of New Echota.  It resulted in the ceding of Cherokee land but was never ratified by the Cherokee Council as tribal law dictates, thereby making the treaty null and void.  Despite Cherokee protest, Congress ratified the treaty.  To make matters worse, years later President John Tyler agree to negotiate a treaty to “replace the fraudulent one would be satisfactory and just to the Cherokees and just to both parties” (Hurtado & Iverson, 2001, p. 290) but failed to fulfill that promise; the treaty was never replaced.  In essence the President of the United States of America admitted to ratifying a “fraudulent” treaty and yet did not end up re-negotiating it.  United States-Native American treaties have long been a source of contention between the two groups due in large part to reprehensible acts on the federal government’s part. 

     The United State’s governments’ unethical responses to Native Americans did not begin and end with treaties.  Many of their words and their actions were corrupt, unscrupulous, and dishonest.  Such was the case in 1787 when nefarious justifications were used by the government to blatantly remove Indians from their lands by claiming to be helping them:

 “Since too much land encouraged idleness and presented an obstacle to “civilization,” and Indian people could survive in the new nation only by becoming “civilized,” the United States would deprive them of their lands for their own good.” (Hurtado & Iverson, 2001, p. 180). 

     Clearly, the government was looking for justifications for the illegal practice of taking away Native American lands.  Another example can be seen in the justice system in regards to Native Americans.  Although the Act of March 3, 1817 stated that should a crime be committed in Indian Country the same punishment shall occur whether committed by a white or an Indian, non-Indians, unlike Native Americans, were hardly ever punished based solely on the witness testimony of an Indian.  Unscrupulousness reared its ugly head once again when the members of the Quinault reservations opposed state jurisdiction and the government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs went over their head and wrote up an illegal petition to the governor of Washington (Wilkinson, 2005).  In 1953 a United States Senator, Arthur Watkins, unconscionably hid court-awarded claims money owed to the Menominee in the termination bill that he was lobbying for.  He then “told the tribal members that unless they agreed to termination, their own tribal funds would not be released” (Wilkinson, 2005, p.34).  The United States government has shows a high level of disregard towards moral and ethical behavior in its actions and policies toward Native Americans. 

     When attempting to come to an understanding of Native Americans, their history and how it pertains to their current situation it is important to recognize the oppressive and unethical interactions they have had to contend with from a more dominant government.  Native Americans lost a fundamental amount of land, resources, traditions, and even people to the unethical actions of the United States government and have struggled even to survive in a quickly changing world.  It is to their credit that they not only survived but built on what they were “allotted” by the early United States government.  They were a people who decided that, despite being weary and tired of fighting as one Chief declared in 1877, “I m tired; my heart is sick and sad.  From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever” (Wilkinson,  2005, p. 42), continued to do so and have slowly risen from the ashes and have rebuilt many of their dying dreams.  Not only is it important to remember these injustices for the sake of understanding the strength and perseverance of a people long oppressed, but it is equally important to remember them in order to rectify these actions and prevent future ones based on the same mistakes.  When a citizen of the United States of American questions why the Native Americans have special privileges it is fundamental to remember history and its injustices and remember that, despite the unscrupulous actions of our government in past years the ancestors of these Indians bargained for the treaties that they had signed with the United States and no matter what “special privileges were afforded to them” (special fishing rights, for example) much more was lost than was gained.  

     The United States government’s history is a story of a body of people who have been almost relentless in their pursuit to control and dominate Native Americans.  While assimilation and the scrupulous, nefarious practices of the government were both related to the government’s desire to control the Indians, it was by no means the only method it used.  The United States control over the Indians began with the creation of reservations.  These reserved lands, while presented as a means to which to protect Indians from encroaching white American settlers, were a way to control where and even to some extent how Native Americans lived.  While they treaty processes, which created these reservations were bargaining processes, they were done so with one group who was stronger and more dominant than the other which makes the process more controlled by one group as opposed to the other.  The Treaty of Paris, for example, stated that “all tribes south of the Great Lakes should be considered to be under American influence” (Vine Deloria & Lytle,  1983, p. 60), thereby diminishing the Indians independence and increasing America’s control.   The Indians lost land, lost privileges, and lost freedoms through these treaties and, in effect of that, the United States government gained more control over the Indians.

     In 1832, the United States government further increased their control over Native Americans by creating a position called the commissioner of Indian affairs, which later paved way for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.  The Bureau of Indian Affairs began to oversee all things Indian.  They placed individual “supervisors” over the Indian reservations and virtually all actions performed on the reservations by Native Americans had to be decided through the supervisor and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).  The BIA “exercised a nearly unfathomable degree of authority” as they were the reservations “governor, banker, educator, doctor, and land manager” (Wilkinson, 2005, p. 21).  Their control even extended to the Native Americans use of their own money.  When they would need something, Native Americans would have to ask permission to spend their money (that the government employees held onto for them), much the way a child would have to ask a parent, and in some cases the items were even bought for the Indians so that they wouldn’t use the money for anything less than what was agreed on (Hurtado & Iverson, 2001).  The Bureau of Indian Affairs exercised complete dominance over the Native Americans by means of manipulation and complete control over the very reservations that the United States had helped create in order to “protect” the Indians.   

     Although the United States of America has sought to control, dominate, and even abolish the Native American culture it has, despite its strength, its manpower, and its riches, failed to do so completely.  The government’s goals was to fully assimilate Native Americans and do away with reservations altogether and yet Indians and their cultures still exist as do many of their reservations.  Once again, the strength and power of the Native American people are demonstrated in their ability to survive despite the crushing effort to destroy them. 

     Native Americans have not only survived, though, but have fought the government who so long had sought to oppress them and have begun to slowly rebuild and gain back what they had once lost; their freedoms and their ability to govern themselves.  Native Americans began to educate and organize themselves as they realized that they would have to battle the American government on their battlefield.  The formation of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) was the real beginning of such organization.  It was the first real national organization to support Indian right made up of only Indians and although its successes ebbed and flowed it was a major stepping stone in the progress of Native American rights (Wilkinson, 2005).  More and more Native Americans were educating themselves in order to be more aggressive in their fight against the government.  By the mid-1960s the young, college-educated Indian people had begun to come up with a new political agenda and an activist’s strategy in order to gain momentum in their fight.  Vine Deloria, Jr. was one of these people.  By 1964, he had obtained a masters degree in sacred theology and had begin fighting the system by becoming the executive director of NCAI where he “revived the organization and made it into an effective advocate for tribal rights” (Wilkinson, 2005, p. 107).  He took his fight to Congress, becoming an increasing presence in Capital Hill but he also used his writing skills to bring attention to the plight of the Native American when he wrote Custer Died for Your Sinsin 1969.  It served to humanize Indians and empower and bring pride back to the Indians (Wilkinson,  2005). Native American groups finally made major headwind when Congressed passed the Indian Self-Determination Act and Education Assistance Act in 1975.  It turned out to be “the launching platform for tribal advancement generally” (Wilkinson, 2005, p. 197).  Despite setbacks in the execution of the self-determination act, Native Americans were relentless in its pursuit and it finally began to settle in the 1980’s.  Although the United States government had long fought to control and dominate the Native American tribes, they had begun to, at last, concede that Indians were here to stay and that they would not be able to fully control and assimilate them as they had once thought that they could. 

     Although the journey has been a long and often disastrous one for Native Americans it has also been one of strength, power, and perseverance as they have survived and fought their way back, eventually gaining in ground.  Their fight is not one that is yet over, but with as history shows us; Native Americans are up for the fight.  As Wilkinson points out, “Indians are resourceful people, survivors who endured wave upon wave of tragedy yet somehow never lost either their lightheartedness or the grit to preserve their way of life”  (2005, p.108).   

                                                                                References

Hurtado, A. L., & Iverson, P. (2001). Major problems in american indian history. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Iverson, P. (1998). We are still here. Wheeling: Harlan Davidson, Inc.

Vine Deloria, J., & Lytle, C. M. (1983). American indians, American justice. Austin, Tx: University of Texas Press.

Wilkinson, C. (2005). Blood struggle. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Since the above are all books, here are some practice references for journals and websites:

Jorge M., & Hull M. L. (1986) Analysis of EMG measurements during bicycle pedalling. Journal Of Biomechanics 19(9), pp. 683-94.

Bertucci, W. (2005 December). Validity and Reliability of the PowerTap Mobile Cycling Powermeter when Compared with the SRM Device. International Journal of Sports Medicine, 26(10), 868-873.

Cluett, J (nd). Running Injury. Retrieved from http://orthopedics.about.com