The Great Land Rush Analysis

The document “Colonists Encroach on the Stanwix Line”, records a speech made by a Native American, John Killbuck to the governors of three separate English Colonies. He tells of the English and other European Settlers invading Naive American lands base on their own greed and compete against one another. The English haven’t always agreed on bringing about peaceful compromises on the lands they and other European Nations have conquered, instead, wars erupted and whoever were the victors reaped all the rewards, land that consisted of Native American tribes. The Native had tried to make a peaceful compromise of a land dispute by setting a boundary between Native American tribes and the English Colonies. However, with the increase of Europeans flooding

On October 9, 1806, Joseph Bird Joquips, a 70 year old Native Indian from the Mohegan Tribe, petitioned the State of Connecticut General Assembly for a portion of the land in Connecticut that was divided among Natives in the Mohegan tribe. He emphasized his devout military career that began in 1758 during the Seven Years’ War to convince members of the General Assembly to allot him a portion of land that belonged to the Mohegan Indians. While Joquips had already rightfully possessed a piece of the land because he had lived on it prior to European presence, the Europeans did not recognize his authority to the land; and thus, forcibly seized control of Native lands so that they could distribute it as they saw fit. It was not important for Joquips to possess a piece of land, but to have the Europeans recognize that the land belong to him. Thus, this petition represented Joquips manipulation of the European system to secure a piece of his tribe’s land with hopes to collect the land for the Mohegan tribe piece by piece.

Discovery of land brings with it the right to obtain title either by purchase or conquest, subject to the Indians’ right of occupancy. However, the treaty ending the American Revolutionary War transferred sovereignty and power of the lands under such transfers from the British to the United States. The land conveyance to Johnson in this case was made under English rule. The land came under American rule and thus the transfer to Johnson became invalid under American law after the American Revolution,. Additionally, the Indians had a right to annul the agreement with Johnson and reserve the land for themselves in the treaties between the Indians and the United States,.

“Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England” was published in 1983 by historian William Cronon. The book focuses on environmentalism and history of New England. Cronon describes the shift from Indian to European dominance, the European’s view of nature through an economic lens, and the anthropogenic changes to the environment that occured. Throughout the book, Cronon argues that the European colonists used various tactics to assert dominance over the Indians.

Between the years 1600 to 1700, English colonists were just settling the New World and establishing their own colonies, yet this colonization didn’t come without obstacles. Upon entering the seemingly unscathed land, colonists were greeted by Native Americans. At first, the two groups expressed a relationship characterized by amity and cooperation, yet as time went on, the “white superiority” of the colonists and the belief that they were primary owners of land soured the relationship. It was just a matter of time before the colonists would take over and run out the Native Americans. Primarily peaceful and affable, the relationship between the Indians and English steadily depreciated as the English overran the lands of the Indians while the

The major question that the court attempted to determine was whether Stanley’s “conduct with the gun was a marked departure from the level of care that ‘a reasonable person’ would have exercised in ‘the same circumstances.’” One major discrepancy in answering this question is determining how credible it was for the Indigenous youth to enter Stanley’s farm. On the one hand, the court framed “reason” through the settler colonial lens in respecting property endowed to Stanley by the Canadian government. Therefore, they saw Stanley as reasonable because it was the Indigenous people who drove onto his land. Contrary to these beliefs, Indigenous people understand “reason” as respecting land rights established in Treaty 6, which designated Stanley’s farm as being in Red Pheasant territory.

In our textbook, Experiencing History, the settlers are portrayed as people whom, “established most of their settlements with an eye to stability and order” (page 89). However, in Changes in the Land,

After reading Native Americans and the “Middle Ground,” I realized how narratives of historians are quick to shame and blame Native Americans in history. This article begins by revealing how European settlement presented the Indians as obstacles. Recent historians, such as Gary Nash, show the Native Americans as being conquered by the Europeans. Author of The Middle Ground, Richard White, seems to be one of the first to examine the culture of Native Americans and the relationship between colonists. White writes about the “middle ground” of the politics and trade that is eventually established.

In 1742 the chief of Onondaga of the Iroquois Confederacy knew that his land that the people shared would become more valuable than it has ever been. (Doc B)The reason for this was because the “white people” also known as the Americans wanted the land of the chief. The feelings of the Chief result in complaining to the representatives of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia,

Many Americans were influenced by the Homestead Act which gave them 160 Acres of land as long as they maintained the land for 5 years. Eventually, the Native Americans no longer had somewhere to go. They decided to sign a treaty with the Americans which granted them a small reservation in which no American would cross and a promise that supplies would be sent. However, the supplies never came and Americans continued to cross into the reservation. The Native Americans wanted to fight back but they were powerless against the American’s

Throughout the seventeenth century, conflict between Europeans and Native Americans was rampant and constant. As more and more Europeans migrated to America, violence became increasingly consistent. This seemingly institutionalized pattern of conflict begs a question: Was conflict between Europeans and Native Americans inevitable? Kevin Kenny and Cynthia J. Van Zandt take opposing sides on the issue. Kevin Kenny asserts that William Penn’s vision for cordial relations with local Native Americans was destined for failure due to European colonists’ demands for privately owned land.

As for the western land, struggles over the state and national authority over the Native Americans affairs which were critical to sustain. Yet, the creation of two imperial superintendents was to manage relations with the tribes, the assertions of British’s rights to Native lands and a settlement boundary from the Proclamation of 1763 reserving territory west of the Appalachian crest for Native nations (Ablavsky, 2014). Therefore, it took eighteen years for the federal government to cede all states’ western land, as a result of the Continental Congress granting Virginia and large landowner’s “reserves of small land in the west (Schultz, 2010). With the government lacking the authoritative control, it could not regulate foreign trade or interstate commerce leaving states control over their own trade policies and unable to protect the manufacturing and shipping from the inability to establish commerce and economic

In the book, The Cherokee Removal, Perdue and Green argue that the Cherokee Nation was treated unfairly by the U.S. Government in the 1800s. The majority of Americans were not fond of the Native Americans, and the Americans felt as if the Native Americans were on their rightfully owned property. Perdue and Green display how the states were trying to remove the Natives when they write, “A state could use its legal institutions to make life for Indians so miserable that they would gladly sell their lands and flee to the West” (Perdue and Green, 73).

We are ‘settlers’. We take up land that belongs to us, American citizens, by paying the government price for it.” (Burton 238). This comment on a deeper context was the view and beliefs of American in 1848. Additionally, the social hierarchy is apparent and supports Alamar’s comment that there is inequality and prejudices within the U.S. government.

Ownership of land was the concept of private property that one person or group owned permanent, absolute control of a part of land. This was difficult to understand for many Native Americans because they have practiced a communistic land system for a long period of time. Land was not a product, perceptible, or an inert item that could be sized and sold. The Native Americans never established a structure or civilization of personal land ownership. Their land was not possessed by people and instead belonged to the community as a whole.