Peter N. Herndon
This teaching unit, "Native Americans and The Clash of Cultures" is intended for high school students enrolled in either World Cultures or United States History courses at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School. The recent court battles that Native Americans have been fighting, some of which are included in my lesson plans, can be used in the Law course that I teach. I have several overall goals in teaching this material to my students. First, to learn about the conditions surrounding the arrival of the first Americans to this continent. Second, for students to acquire information about the spread and development of some of the early cultures of the First Americans. Third, to acquaint my students with some reasons for the misunderstandings between the earliest Americans and Euro-Americans, many of which continue to the present day. A final major goal is to find out more about recent Native American history and what modern Indians are doing to preserve and promote their culture in a country in which they have been systematically excluded from the political and social mainstream.
Five hundred years after Columbus' "discovery" of the New World, the descendants of the original native "immigrants" he encountered continue to feel the effects of the 'second great immigration'-the European invasion. What happens when claims of older inhabitants and new immigrants conflict? This question was first addressed in U.S. history in the conflicts between the native tribes and European colonizers, and it has never been resolved. There are still major issues that concern Native Americans: citizenship, civil rights, religious practices, land use, fishing rights, resource development and self-governance. Here in Connecticut, the Mashantucket Pequots and Mohegans are making new rules in a game that includes amassing huge amounts of money by way of immensely profitable gambling casinos. Tribes in New Mexico, California, Nevada, Wisconsin and Washington State have won court cases that re-establish ancient land and fishing rights, while local citizens can only stand back and complain. Ancient Native American ancestral artifacts and bones have been removed from anthropological museums across America, due to successful Indian lawsuits. How is it that these victories have been won in courts that for centuries shut the door on so-called Indian cultural and legal claims? What are some of the implications for the future, if courts continue to reinterpret the law in favor of Native American claims? And what implications do these Indian settlements have on civil rights cases that may be brought into courtrooms on behalf of other native minorities or immigrant groups in America today?
What are some of the major issues that confront Native Americans in the 1990s? What tribal rights--political, religious and cultural--should be given protection from our government? Should Indian lands be returned to them, even if it means displacing other citizens or industry? How has government policy changed since the late 1960s when President Richard Nixon stated that federal policy would include Indians on key committees and "assured the Indian that he can assume control of his own life without being separated from the tribal group"? (Bordewich, p. 12) What of the legendary mismanagement of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), which a Congressional report in 1990 called a "national disgrace"? How realistic are notions of preserving a distinct Indian culture in an America in which statistics reveal that Indians are continuing to blend in with the dominant population through intermarriage at an ever-increasing rate?
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I hope to create a teaching unit that addresses not only past issues of cultures in conflict but also will make students more aware of legal issues that continue to plague our society as many Indians are continuing to find it difficult to cope with life in present-day America. Are Native Americans just one more minority ethnic group that is finding it difficult to become "mainstreamed" into American life? Or does their status as "first peoples" make them so historically and culturally unique that they belong in a separate category where conventional laws and values don't apply? The ultimate question I want students to pursue is: "Who are the Indians in the 1990's? What are they to us and what are we to them?"
To most of us, there is something appealingly noble and free about an Indian warrior. In the 1991 film, Dances with Wolves, the main character, John Dunbar, played by Kevin Costner, found something he had always been missing when he became accepted into the Sioux community: the mystery of his own personal identity. The cavalry soldier, Dunbar, toward the end of the film, makes the amazing statement, "I had never known who John Dunbar was, but as I heard my Sioux name being called, I knew for the first time in my life who I really was." I plan to show segments of this Oscar-winning film as part of my unit, primarily because the movie is very sympathetic to American Indians, who are depicted as heroic people with real ambivalence toward whites. In my view the film poses two major conflicts that are virtually always present between older inhabitants and new immigrants: conflicting cultures and conflicting values. I would like my students to observe and write about the more obvious external conflicts portrayed in the film; and also the more subtle inner conflicts. Is the film true to history? Are there any stereotypes in the movie? Is the ending a satisfying one? Is there more to the story? I want students to divide into groups and try their hand at writing a sequel to the movie. This film is very much about the Indian identity and the ruthlessness of the policies of the United States government. This is a popular view. To what extent was it true? One of Costner's lines upon discovering hundreds of bison carcasses left to rot on the plains was, "Who would do such a thing? It must be a people without values, without soul." He is, of course, referring to members of his own race. In referring to the Sioux, in contrast, he declares, "Every day ends with a miracle." John Dunbar has reversed himself. He now despises what his own race represents and acknowledges what he perceives to be the higher ecological and spiritual plane that his blood brothers, the Sioux have attained. Students must be careful not to stereotype Indians as people that have always lived in complete harmony with the land and have somehow passed down this attribute to their descendants. How far must the courts go in protecting sacred Indian religious rights? We will be discussing these issues later in the section on modern court cases involving Native claims to tribal sovereignty and self-determination.