“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?"
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What I learned from the documentary was that the act that give the Indians land and other things wasn't exactly what it seemed. The fine print of the act or just the real truth about that act was that it was to take away the native in the natives. The government wanted to kill the Indian and make him a man. This was a common theme back then because of the assimilation movement that was taking place to try to make every immigrant like each other. To strip another person of thier identity is not a good thing to do, no matter the circumstance.
From watching the documentary "White Man's Image" I learned that Native American's were told that they had a choice, they could fight with the American's and lose, or they could assimilate. White people thought as if they were the Chosen People and that this is what God wanted. God wanted white people to "fix" the "uncivilized man". The White Men took it upon themselves to change them. I learned how harshly the Natives were really treated and how awful it must have been for them.
I learned from the documentary that white men were very deceptive towards the Native Americans. They told them that if they were to give up their land they would be granted citizenship. Even though that was the case all the white men really wanted was the land. With the land in their hands they didn't aid the Native Americans in any other way. The white men thought the Native Americans were just crazy drunk savages so they believed that taking their land wouldn't be an issue. When all was said and done the white men totally left the Native Americans out to dry.
This documentary was an additional look at assimilation of Native Americans for me because my history class had just recently learned about this topic. In the film, the Native Americans were forced to become a part of white culture because they were seen as uncivilized, uneducated, and savage. The children were taken away from home to go to English schools where their traditional garb was taken away and they were forced to cut their hair. Cutting their hair symbolized death in their culture according to one of the historians in the documentary. The white men also wanted the land the Native Americans lived on so they could farm it. The white men passed the Dawes Act in attempt to break up the reservations and have Native Americans live separated and farm like many other men at the time were. The white men believed that they were the superior race and didn't want resistance from the Natives saying, "the Indian has to die as an Indian in order to live as a man." The dominant white Americans removed the identity and uniqueness of the Native Americans when they tried to assimilate the Native Americans into white culture.
I think the documentary was really interesting and important because its easy to forget that these crimes against Native Americans happened in American history. It wouldn’t seem right for us to fight against these acts elsewhere if we couldn’t even acknowledge that we had done the same thing. I think the way we used our power to bully and trick Native Americans out of land was horrible. Not only did we take their land, we saw them as less than human, and made attempts at destroying their culture entirely. It is important to recognize that even if we intended well with ideas of assimilation and the Dawes Act, ultimately we were committing crimes with our own benefit in mind. We should learn from our actions how wrong it is for one group to over power another group, and how devastating it can be to be the smaller group.
The whites believed that they were doing something good in the long run for themselves and maybe even the Natives. I thought assimilation was very effective but it must have been extremely devastating to be helpless as your people are stripped of their identity and made into someone else. It’s a little hard to believe that people would be so harsh when making other people conform to their society and also rude that the whites believed they were so superior. I think that both groups had strong views of their identity and valued their traditions and customs. The whites were just aggressive to others and their mindset as the chosen people justified their poor treatment toward everyone else.
The article made me realize how racist whites were to Native Americans. Whites during the mid-1800 destroyed hundreds if not thousands of Native American tribes in the Great Plains. In a lot of ways, the Native Americans were right by whites being selfish, arrogant, and controlling. For them to come into the Native Americans territory with up to date technological weapons and supplies wiping out their communities shows how selfish not just the whites, but any race can be. It must have been very hard on the Indians to go through the ordeal of having to move by force from the whites and set up new villages. Another main problem was that their main source of food which was buffalo was dropping rapidly. The whites decided to kill that source of food for game. Very soon, the Indians had a very low food income. This was a very arrogant, selfish move on the whites.
From watching this documentary I learned that a lot of the white men did not actually think that the way they were treating the Native Americans was wrong. The idea that they as whites were superior to all other races was such a common, accepted practice that they thought they were justified. For this reason, they took the Native Americans as prisoners and tried to assimilate them into the white culture. Now, it is easy for us to look back and question how this could have happened, but this documentary showed us that the ideas off of which the white men were basing their practices were accepted in that time. The issue was not in the individuals who were carrying out the assimilation, but rather in the values of society at large that allowed them to do so.
Durning the documentary nothing seemed fair. The whites were so judgmental and the native Americans weren't given the opportunity to show their culture and spirituality. I understand that life isn't fair but this film dramatisised that. The native Americans were immediatly thought of as wild savages even before the whites tried to form a "contract". I don't understand how people can make assumptions about an entire group of people based on no hard facts. I learned that the native Americans were manipulated into treaties without understanding the outcome of the decisions, this lead to lossing their land and culture which were a major part of their identity. The whites stripped the native Americans of thier identity.
From watching the documentary, "White Man's Image" taught me that settlers would try every method they could think of to take away the Native Americans' land. White men started by making treaties with the Native Americans, but each treaty ended with the Native Americans being removed from their sacred lands. Violence was another solution for white men to rid themselves of Native Americans. Finally, giving these "savages" an education seemed the best way to take away to wildness of the Natives. To "assimilate" adults was difficult because they were already surrounded in their spiritual beliefs and would not simply disregard them. So children were taken away with the promise of their return after learning how to be civilized like the white citizens. Their identity was stripped from them, and they soon forgot the way of life they had previously lived.
From reading and watching information regarding the trouble between the Native Americans and the whites, I learned to what degree the Native Americans were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Though they were presented with a choice to fight or to assimilate, they truly didn't have much of a choice at all. Either way, the Native Americans would lose: they'd either be conquered by the whites, or they'd lose their culture and identity. It was such a terrible situation. I think it's a perfect example of how a lack of understanding between groups of people leads to violence. When the class filled out chart from the two different perspectives, I could easily see the misconceptions each group had about the other and how it led to battles, death, and hardship for the Native Americans and whites alike.
From watching the documentary "White Man's Image" I learned that the treaties with the Native Americans were not fair to them, and served to benefit whites. The white people forced Native Americans out of their land and made them assimilate into American culture. The whites stripped the Native Americans of their identities and took their land. The white men were very sneaky and deceptive towards the Native Americans, they made it seem like they were helping them, when really they were taking away their identities. This documentary showed how the white men really believed they were superior, and the harm this caused on Native American culture.
From the "In the White Man's Image," I learned what can happen when one large group of people dehumanizes another a group of people. Whites were able to justify manipulating, deceiving, a controlling an entire culture with their belief that they were the superior and that the Native Americans were savage, uncivilized, and uncultured. Not only were they able to justify the actions that deprived the native Americans of their land and resources, this belief in their superiority fueled efforts such as Pratt's transformation of the exiled warriors, and led schools to be established to practically force the assimilation of native children. Essentially, Native Americans were seen as a charity case, treated by the white as if they children who didn't know better, who desperately needed the guidance and leadership of the more learned white society. Above all, the documentary made me consider the lengths that men were willing to go when it comes to someone they see as a threat. The Native American's were seen as a threat, a threat to the 'American' way of life the country was trying to establish, as well as a threat to the various economic ventures of the country, and, being incapable of acceptance, the whites were willing to dehumanize the natives to justify their actions.
The documentary of the White Man's Image depicts how unfair and injust the whites were to Native Americans. Whites forced assimilation towards the Natives without any thought of how the would feel about it. Their children were made to go to schools and learn the American ways and how to dress like them. As for the adults they had to own their own land and cultivate it and also learn how to live and work as the average mainstream American. I feel like when the Whites forced the Native American to cut their hair and dress like them plus go to school really killed their culture. It wasn't fair for them to make the Natives leave their culture and adopt theirs just so they could fit in.
From watching the documentary in class I really started to understand that United States federal government was ruthless to the Native Americans. The U.S. Violated almost all of their treaties that they had made with the Natives which goes to show how badly they treated them. Not only that they also forced them to become a part of white culture by cutting their hair and giving them new clothes, this stripped them of themselves and their culture. Its a shame really that the US imprisoned them and forced them to become white, taking away from them their culture.
From watching the documentary "In the White Man's Image" I learned that the American Government was unjustified in granting the Native Americans small parts of land to live on in the United States instead of the entire piece of land that the Native Americans wanted to pay and live on in the first place. I also learned that the American Government unjustifiably treated the Native Americans as second class citizens by having forced them to work without being paid any amount of money at all. I also gained insightful information into an American citizen's opinion of the Native Americans in the video. The American citizen in the video was a woman who was a witness to the Native American's arrival to her hometown. She expressed how impressed she was with the goodness of the Native Americans personal characters and the high intelligence of them.
I was absent to class this day.
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