Introduction

I am called Nova from the Cheyenne tribe. I am an important part of the tribe being the chief's daughter and I am a voice for the voiceless. I do not believe what is going on is right, I know that both the whites and Native Americans are not handling the conflict as best as they could. I also know or have an idea of what we can do better for the whites and Native Americans both. Conflicts between us and the whites are that their people in charge had once promised us peace and that the land we are on is "ours", well that promise was broken when they found something on our land that was valuable to them. The whites did what they say they wouldn't do, they brought violence in (which the both of our cultures in some way are fearful of) and took the land they told us was ours. The whites took us from our lifestyle, the way we live, they took us from all of that and tried to change it. The new white men coming into this land and claiming it as their own even though that is not how my culture views land, we move upon it freely.

Problems

The three main problems that are in my focus are; the broken promises made by the U.S. Government to the tribes and fear of violence between the two cultures is mutual thing, valuable resources on native land and U.S. Government/people wanting them, settlers moving west into native lands, and the two cultures (Whites and Native Americans) viewing land ownership differently. Assimilation, the Whites trying to "take the Indian out of the man." The white men are trying to erase a culture so they can do all they need to make it "better" for themselves.

The first problem: broken promises made by the U.S. Government to the tribes and fear of violence between the two cultures is a mutual thing. In Red Cloud's Speech he says in the first paragraph the things they were promised and what they hoped for, "When we first made treaties with the Government our old life and our old customs were about to end; the game on which we lived was disappearing; the whites were closing around us, and nothing remained for us but to adopt their ways, the government promised us all the means necessary to make our living out of the land, and to instruct us how to do it, and with abundant food and support us until we could take care of ourselves. We looked forward with hope to the time we could be as independent as the whites, and have a voice in the Government." In the 3rd and 4th paragraph of Red Cloud's Speech it describes how the "promises" slowly began to be taken advantage of and their hopes were being snatched from them. In the last paragraph of his Red Cloud's Speech it describes how both Whites and Native Americans are both mutually afraid of violence, "The white men were frightened and called for soldiers. We begged for life and the white men thought we wanted theirs; we heard the soldiers were coming. We did not fear. We hoped we could tell them our suffering and could get help."

The second problem: valuable resources on native land and U.S. Government / people wanting them. This problem is about how the whites found Gold and cool resources that were special to them and they wanted to get to the gold but they couldn't get to it with the Indians on the land. So the whites went against the treaties made and moved the Native Americans off their land. The land that the Native Americans have made their life on and the land that they depend on. All just to get gold... What made this such a big problem is because lives had to be lost to get to a greedy want of the whites. Lives being lost by killing, and being driven out of everything they know as survival and life.

The Third Problem: settlers moving west into native lands, and the two cultures (whites and Native Americans) viewing land ownership differently. The Dawes Act was made to be a solution to this problem. But the problem is that it is not at all a solution, because the fact that it just does what the whites want and it doesn't do anything for the natives. It isn't a "win win" situation for the whites and natives. The Dawes Act is something that in a way makes the natives have to be citizens of the U.S. in order to own land. Also there are valuable resources on native land that the U.S. government/people want.

Solutions:

Well some solutions for these problems are not exactly solvable... It is inevitable to have conflict especially between two completely different cultures that see everything so differently. Two cultures that do not even speak the same language. The whites and the native Americans would have had to make compromises with each other and seen at least some things the same. They would have had to agree to disagree. They would have had to give each other half and half, they needed to share. The two had to learn to learn each other and each other's cultures. The land was already being used first of all, and second nobody is entitled to anything. And yeah, I guess life isn't far but they made promises, there were treaties, but the whites went against it. They should have at least TRIED to keep peace but they brought violence. In the end, What happened was inevitable. Not everybody sees things the way they should, which is fair.

The End...