Government’s Policy
In the 19th Century, Indians were forced to migrate from the eastern sides of the United States to the west of Mississippi River. During that time, The Indian Removal Act that was signed by Andrew Jackson in 1830 did not take effect during his regime because he took a hard stand on that matter. One of the factors that stimulated Indians’ removal was the fact that European settlers wanted to occupy those lands. The Americans also believed that Native Americans were primitive, and thus, they did not want to live close to them. Americans also considered Indians traditions as barbaric and intolerable.
Therefore, they believed that assimilation was a vital process that will make them live in peace with them. At that time, Americans claimed that Indians should forsake their religion and accept Christianity so that they could be saved from ‘fires of hell.’ According to Washburn (2014), the establishment of the Dawes Act reinforced numerous changes to the ways of life of Indians by eliminating Indian culture and confiscated and redistributed tribal lands. Indian nations were forced to comply because they wanted to continue living in America. Thus, a large section of them gave lost their communal lands and started adapting to American culture.
References
Washburn, K. (2014). Dawes Severalty Act. Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets. https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780199827251-0149