American Indians weren’t even considered CITIZENS, until 1924! And even then, some states would not let them vote til 1957!
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/jazz/jb_jazz_citizens_3.html
The government gave a certain number of acres to individual Indians. I don’t know about other states, but in Oklahoma, these land grants were “managed” by white men -— usually lawyers, who cheated most Indians out of that land, by telling the recipients that they were sorry, but the land had to be sold to pay for the manager to take care of the grants, which of course was a huge lie. Not to mention that lots of that land had oil on it. In the area in which I live, there are several “famous” wealthy families, whose recent ancestors amassed huge amounts of land through this evil, avaricious behavior. Ever see the movie, “The Little Foxes”? Nothing to do with Indians, but the morally bankrupt characters in it, will give you a picture of the type of characters who cheated Indians out of their land.
Yes, there were some atrocious acts committed by Indians, but what would YOU do, if a bunch of people decided to take over YOUR land, whether you were an educated person, or not, just because they wanted it? I imagine you would fight with everything you had, to try to keep it. And Indians did make treaties, and give up land willingly (even though they were given such a pittance, as to be shameful). But nearly 100% of those treaties were broken by the government and their proxies. There was plenty of land to go around; there weren’t that many Indians. But no -— whites wanted it ALL, or very nearly so. And with few exceptions, the land that WAS “given” to tribes as reservations, was the land whites didn’t want anyway (unless oil was discovered, or some other precious metal, in which case they took THAT, too.)
I understand progress. But throughout the ages, all over the world, at what price was “progress” achieved? I don’t doubt that the dungeons of hell are populated by those who were just furthering the cause of “progress”, “expansion”, “religion”,or “colonization”, because they did so at any cost to the people they “civilized”, and by any means.
They should have NEVER gained citizenship.
You know, that sounds really horrible and all that, but it overlooks the fact that American Indians insisted on retaining the sovereignty of their 'nations', even after they were a thoroughly conquered people, and we allowed them to maintain that fiction. I certainly object to citizens of other nations having a say in our government. I believe the legal fictions of their 'sovereignty' needs to be relegated to the dustbin of history. Either they are Americans or they aren't.