“By 1871, the federal government stopped signing treaties
with Native Americans and replaced the treaty system with a law giving
individual Indians ownership of land that had been tribal property. This
"Indian Homestead Act," official known as the Dawes Act, was a way
for some Indians to become U.S. citizens. This created complex problems for Native Americans. What did you learn from watching the documentary, "In the White Man's Image?"
20 comments:
What I learned from this documentary is how powerful the effects a group can have on an individual. In this situation, the "white man" began doing all they could to try and change Indians into THEIR mold of how a person should be. By doing this, eventually the Indians did change, even if in their hearts they knew this was not who they are. The Americans practically took away the Indians identity. They stole who they were. And they succeeded in doing this simply by making them think that this is the way the modern world should be. So this documentary taught me to recognize the strength people can have in numbers, and how you have to stay strong in order to stay being yourself.
By watching this documentary, I learned of the unfair laws that the States imposed on the Indians and caused them to leave their own lands. I also learned of the unfair actions of the settlers that came in contact with the Indians. It felt like they were eliminating a culture and the freedom of expression. This in my eyes was an act of evil that should have been stopped. They should have been free to express their opinions
This documentary showed me how easy it can be to lose oneself in a foreign and hostile situation. The Native Americans in the film were tricked into leaving their homes and families with the promise of an education that would allow them to aid in relations between their tribes and the U.S. government. That is not what shocked me, what really stunned me is how some of the Native Americans in the film believed that if they threw away their way of life and took up white customs that they would be better people. Americans didn't just steal their lands and dissolve their tribes. Americans tried to annihilate their cultural identity because it appeared savage and barbaric when compared to industrialized culture. Thankfully the efforts of the government were not successful and a small portion of Native American culture still exists, but the damage can never really be undone. We need to take this lesson and apply it to our view of the world. Culture is something that is meant to be shared so that others may learn from it, not something to be destroyed because it is different.
This video just reinforced for me, how terrible the Americans were to the Native Americans. The fact that they stole people out of their communities and forced them to convert is sickening. It reminds me of slavery the way that the children were practically held hostage. It was so sad the way that one child said that if he lived in a wood house it would be easier to be good. The fact that they brainwashed him to believe that his culture was so bad and that the only way to do well is to conform so much to the whites that he would be living in a wood house. Also that the wood house would be what kept him from reverting back to his culture. It made me sad to see the way they physically changed the Indians into what their image of goodness was. This is similar to the way that people nowadays try and change other people to fit in. This story also reminds me of how HItler brainwashed all of the Nazis into thinking that they were doing something good in slaughtering all those innocent people.
By watching "In the White Man's Image" I realized how easily a group of people can be oppressed and forced to change. The natives were transformed into 'civilized' individuals because the majority of the people in the United States deemed them as 'uncivilized' and 'savage'. The natives began to believe through acting like the whites they would become better people, that they weren't good enough the way they were. It shocked me how the whites brainwashed the Native Americans let go of their tribal culture by convincing them of this. The amount of power the whites held over the natives was disturbing. By taking them from their homes and teaching them to be 'civilized' they destroyed an entire cultures identity.
The documentary/the article was about institutions that forced Native American men and children to drop their culture and made them accept Western culture. This was informative to me as I had heard/read of the Carlisle School and attempts to brainwash Native children, but I never knew about the previous attempt to do so with Native men. Some people may see the leaders of these Indian schools as racist,but looked at this a helping them. I found it fair when many of the white teachers were abusive and got away with their abuse easily.
Watching this documentary, I learned that you can't try to change other people. Everyone has their own culture and has their own unique characteristics to themselves. If you try to change them, most likely they will remain the same because a person can't actually change their personality or their culture. Every individual has their own personality and character. Even though the Natives were forced to try to be someone they were not, they still were Natives.
I found the documentary that we watched in class very sad. I think it is so unbelievably wrong to try and force people to change and to try and strip them of their identity. It was so wrong if the Americans to tell little children that their culture was bad. They made them feel less and forced them to change who they were to fit in with everyone else. Sadly the native Americans began to believe what they were hearing about their culture and started to change.
After watching the documentary i had a better understanding of the wrong assimilation. In all my history classes I always learned that assimilation was America trying to unite Americans and Indians to become one nation. From this I always got a positive perspective on the subject matter. However, this documentary reminded me how much Americanism or assimilation stripped the Indians of their cultural and even physical identities. America basically forced them to learn and adopt the American way of life and by doing so, singled them out as minorities because at first they knew nothing about America's culture. The treatment they received in schools for Indians completely contradicted the point of Americanism. If American children are not treated in this way, why were Indians, who were being forced to be like those American children, treated in awful, unhealthy conditions? This just showed to me all the mistakes our country made as a still developing nation. It made me recognize the true meaning of culture in that it is more of a sense of pride one has in their identity than it is a label.
What I learned from this documentary is the large effect that the majority can have on an individual or the minority. The Native Americans were forced by white men to be molded into what they thought real men and women should be like. With little persuasion the Native Americans sent the majority of their children to be reformed purely because the white men, who seemed at the time to be smarter, told them that was whats right. I never knew before that Native American children were forced into schools where they were taught how to live as the typical white person. It sort of reminded me of hitlers visions of a world where everyone was basically the same. It was surprising to see that that could happen in our own country.
Before watching this video I had no idea how bad the relationship between the Indians and Americans were. I was surprised at how bad it was. This reminds me of the holocaust because everyone changed the way they looked so they wouldn't be taken away from their families. Also the people made them go to schools to become more Americanized. Also it made the community think Americans were superior to their natives.
From watching this documentry I have learned how with the influence and power of a specific group is powerful enoguh to change any smaller, less power built groups. In this film, the big powerful group represents the whites. The less powerful group was the native americans. Because the Native Americans had no power over the whites, it became easy for all the white people to change the identity of the Native Americans to look just like the white people. This documemtry shows how easy it is (when you posess alot of power) to persuade/ trick someone into doing something they really don't want to do. The Americans were awful to the Native americans, just becuase they wanted to show how "superior" thye are over all of cultures/races.
After watching this documentary I have a better understanding how bad of a relationship the Native Americans had with the Americans. The American's forced the Native Americans change their culture, the way they lived; nearly everything about them, so that they could be more like them. I though it was horrible that the Native American's were striped of their identities and I couldn't imagine having to change my whole way of life so that I could fit the mold someone made for me. In addition I noticed how this documentary can be related to the high school because the Native Americans were changed to fit in. This happens everyday at high school. High school students will try to change themselves in order to fit.
After seeing this movie, I have figured out that the large majority groups can force a minority nation to be lost. Through trickery America convinced the Native Americans to send the up coming generation to become "normal". Once the future generations lose the culture of a nation it is easy to erase the nation completely. Instead of turning another nation against a minority, the white Americans turned the nation against themselves without even knowing it. I didn’t realize how truly mislead the poor native Americans were, just as the jews were.
In the white man's image
Through this documentary, I learned how unaccepting America was towards the Native Americans. The film showed how quick Americans were change the appearance and behavior of the Natives. The Natives were told that they would be changed from savages to men and many attended the schools, even though many did so unwillingly. The film showed how easy it is to change a group of people. The Americans changed the appearance and behavior of the natives, even giving them new names. The Americans completely changed the identities of the Natives to mold them into something they saw as more acceptable.
The documentary In the White Man's Image showed the helplessness of the Native Americans in holding on to their property and keeping their lifestyle and culture as compared to the expansionist United States, or the "white men," in the late 19th century. The Indians were out manned and outmatched and basically were forced to act as whatever the whites decided they should act. They were a sovereign nation only when the U.S Government decided they were. As they were forced to be educated and assimilated into white culture, they tried to resist and keep their own way of life but in the end they succumbed to the power of the whites.
When watching this documentary, I found how "the group" can not only absorb people by their acts, but also take a completely different person, from a completely different group, and transform them into a mold of their own group. The White Man took young Indian children and taught them customs that would make them walk, talk, and act like the White Man. They took their clothes, cut their hair, and taught them English. Inevitably, they destroyed the Indian's identity and swapped it with the White Man's. This is the same effect on anyone joining a group. They lose who the truly are in order to fit in and in fear of being dropped from the group.
In this documentary I learned that people often feel as if they are superior to anyone that is different than them because they feel that they are "perfect" and that everyone should strive to be more like them. The whites in this time period felt as if they should change the indians to fit their image because the indians were "savage" and "inhuman". The whites persuaded people into thinking that the indians were bad people and this is how they got so much support and effort to change the indians and even kill them. Overall I think this documentary was very powerful in showing how people who feel superior often feel like they are the perfect image of a human being.
What I learned from this documentary was the immense hatred whites had towards Native Americans, and there great quest to rid the entire Native American culture and to "Americanize" all the Tribes. The main agenda of the white man was the want for land and the Native Americans sure had it. The shocking thing was that some tribes were actually completely americanized and lost all connection to their culture just to fit in and in a way fall under peer pressure. I guess the Native Americans felt they would be punished less or not targeted by the Americans for attacks. If you think about it for a second and wonder if some one came to America and told everyone they have to start living a completely different way I don't think that many people would go along. Culture is what defines who you are and stripping that away from someone does not seem civilized.
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