American Indian
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The Trail of Tears
Millions of acres of American Indian ancestral land (in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida) was stolen by the Federal Government. The reason? So that white settlers could move in and use the land for their advantage in such endeavors as growing cotton. The removal of native people from their lands and homes of many generations began in the early 1830s, when nearly 125,000 Native Americans began their tragic journey known as the Trail of Tears. They were sent to live in Indian Territory what eventually would become the state of Oklahoma. Oklahoma meaning: “red people”. The translation is from the Choctaw Indian words okla and humma. Source: http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears
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American Indian Memoirist Dies
The author, Mary Ellen Moore-Richard, died on Febuary 14th at the age of 58. She wrote the memoir Lakota Woman, which was published in 1990. Her life began on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. The reservation was, and still is, where the Sicangu Sioux, one of the seven tribes of the Lakota nation, live. When Mary Ellen was young, in the 1950s and 60s, life on the reservation was not easy. There was much poverty. Even today the same dire living conditions she had to endure remain unchanged, as reported in a CNN article: “Nearly half of the people in Todd County live under the federal poverty line, making it the…
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AMAZING GRACE
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The Death of Legendary Chief Crazy Horse
In the Great Sioux War of 1876-1877, one battle stands out in history; the battle of Little Bighorn in June of 1876 that resulted in the deaths of over 260 soldiers and scouts including General George Armstrong Custer. The U.S.government had promised in the Treaty of 1868 to set aside the Black Hills of Dakota for the Sioux people, but later after the discovery of gold in the area, the treaty was dishonored. Custer lead an army detachment in the encounter of the Sioux and Cheyenne encampment at the Bighorn River and as a consequence they were annihilated. From The Killing of Crazy Horse By THOMAS POWERS [This] is what rode south toward…
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American Indian Movement
One of the leaders, Russell C. Means, of the AIM (American Indian Movement) died on Monday, October 22. At the time of his death, being an Oglala Sioux, he was living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation at his ranch in the town of Porcupine, S.D.. He was 72 years old. The nation first came to know of Mr. Means on February 27, 1973 as he helped lead 200 Oglala Lakota (Sioux) activists and members of AIM in the occupation of Wounded Knee. Wounded Knee, South Dakota, a very small town where it is told that the Sioux chief Crazy Horse’s heart and bones were buried along the Wounded Knee Creek, was taken hostage by the…