Evan's History Blog: Poverty with Native Americans

Ever since the migration of Europeans into North American the Native Americans have always been seen as inferior. With the expansion of colonial american the natives were forced to move west which caused many problems. One of the most famous events related to that was the trail of tears which was policy that forced natives to move from their land east of the Mississippi river to land in the west. Many suffered from hunger, thirst, and exhaustion causing nearly 30% of the 15000 to die. When they finally reached their destination the natives faced even more problems. The land they were put on was seen as worthless by the whites and completely different than the natives original homes, meaning they had no way to survive due to their heavy connection with nature which also damaged religion.
Aside from their devastating blow to native culture, the U.S. government kept going with the Dawes act of 1887. The goal of that act was to eliminate indian culture without eliminating indian people. That led to actions where indians were prevented from living in their tradition tribal style and instead were forced to each own pieces of land just like the americans did. Aside from tribal culture being killed indians were also banned from making money in their traditional ways such as fishing, hunting, and art. Due to no sources of income the native americans were left in poverty and very few have been able to escape in modern times with nearly 30% of American Indians and Alaskan natives being in poverty according to the U.S. census bureau. With indian reservations normally being nowhere near other civilizations, many do not know the suffering natives go through but, with the spreading of awareness actions can be taken to help them achieve normal lives.