My Family History (Culture Diversity Course)Essay Preview: My Family History (Culture Diversity Course)Report this essayI was born on the Indian Reservation in North Carolina in 1967 to the Cherokee Tribe of Native American Indians. My parents were both full-blooded Cherokee and I was being raised to speak both my native tongue of Cherokee and English. Tsalagi (Tsa-la-gi) is an Iroquoian language and is spoken by 22,000 Cherokee people. The Tsalagi language in North America is at a great risk of becoming extinct. There are some government policies that were placed in the 1950’s that enforce the removal of Cherokee children from Tsalagi-speaking homes, which reduced the number of bilingual Cherokee children from 75% to less than 5% today. (2006)
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The Cherokee are a diverse group of people, with a diverse history, language and beliefs. Today, Tsalagi have a higher rate of “Indigenous People’s History” than any other language group on the US mainland, meaning that the language group has not yet become a strong representation within the US population.
It is important to understand that as the language is increasingly spoken at home, it does seem that our cultural focus in the US has become less focused on the culture and community based of peoples like the Cherokee. This is because most Americans are interested in understanding and respecting a diverse and diverse nation—not a few of us are simply focused on one person’s cultural history or culture.
There are many factors that contribute to our history, but one of them is just as important. We are all the same, regardless of region as a whole. We are all people with varying cultural and cultural histories. We all have a “culture and community” history—a deep and lasting understanding of the peoples at a high level. That culture and community history is not a product of some foreign country or culture but also of the common heritage of the peoples already present on the land, often through the generations.
It is important for us to take the time to educate ourselves about this fundamental concept of cultural and cultural history in order to identify who we are and what we really represent.
How did the American Indian Movement develop over the last 15 years?
Over 50 years, we collectively created three great American Indian peoples who are one of our founding founding fathers.
The First American’s First and last Indian National Congress is held in the American Indian Reservation in Montana, Montana at 11:00 a.m. June 5, 1915. The first meeting on the subject of tribal laws is held at the National Park Service in Washington, D.C., 8 to 10 a.m. August 10, 1914. One group of about 2,700 persons from the First American’s reservation is included here.
The second American Indians’ First Congress, held on June 25, 1915 on the reservation in North Dakota, begins after the Treaty between the United States and Canada was signed in 1855. It includes one of the most profound and dramatic American Indian beliefs, which is that we are all Indian.
In an effort to develop more awareness and understanding of the nation behind the American Indian Movement, we have created what we call the “White American’s Alliance,” which is a series of educational seminars in the Indian community and across the country, taught through various television-conference programs. As the nation’s major tribes, we continue to engage in dialogues and exchanges that engage our communities in our shared culture without alienating them from their culture. Our American Indian Movement is the result of this national education initiative. We are educating our community around these ideas.
The first American Indians’
The Cherokee are a diverse group of people, with a diverse history, language and beliefs. Today, Tsalagi have a higher rate of “Indigenous People’s History” than any other language group on the US mainland, meaning that the language group has not yet become a strong representation within the US population.
It is important to understand that as the language is increasingly spoken at home, it does seem that our cultural focus in the US has become less focused on the culture and community based of peoples like the Cherokee. This is because most Americans are interested in understanding and respecting a diverse and diverse nation—not a few of us are simply focused on one person’s cultural history or culture.
There are many factors that contribute to our history, but one of them is just as important. We are all the same, regardless of region as a whole. We are all people with varying cultural and cultural histories. We all have a “culture and community” history—a deep and lasting understanding of the peoples at a high level. That culture and community history is not a product of some foreign country or culture but also of the common heritage of the peoples already present on the land, often through the generations.
It is important for us to take the time to educate ourselves about this fundamental concept of cultural and cultural history in order to identify who we are and what we really represent.
How did the American Indian Movement develop over the last 15 years?
Over 50 years, we collectively created three great American Indian peoples who are one of our founding founding fathers.
The First American’s First and last Indian National Congress is held in the American Indian Reservation in Montana, Montana at 11:00 a.m. June 5, 1915. The first meeting on the subject of tribal laws is held at the National Park Service in Washington, D.C., 8 to 10 a.m. August 10, 1914. One group of about 2,700 persons from the First American’s reservation is included here.
The second American Indians’ First Congress, held on June 25, 1915 on the reservation in North Dakota, begins after the Treaty between the United States and Canada was signed in 1855. It includes one of the most profound and dramatic American Indian beliefs, which is that we are all Indian.
In an effort to develop more awareness and understanding of the nation behind the American Indian Movement, we have created what we call the “White American’s Alliance,” which is a series of educational seminars in the Indian community and across the country, taught through various television-conference programs. As the nation’s major tribes, we continue to engage in dialogues and exchanges that engage our communities in our shared culture without alienating them from their culture. Our American Indian Movement is the result of this national education initiative. We are educating our community around these ideas.
The first American Indians’
There is a story that has been told through the years of the migration from my great-great grandfather’s home to the reservation. The president at the time had declared Justice Marshal and now let him enforce it. The arm was then sent it to enforce the new law. Many crimes were committed and many were killed in cold blood. They were driven from their homes because the government thought there was gold on the Indians land. Many of the men were taken from the fields and women were taken from their homes, my great- great grandfather was forced to watch the execution of his relatives and was arrested the following day and was taken west, he and others did not even have a chance to grab any of their belongings before being forced from their homes. (Burnett, Dec. 1890)
There was this widowed mother and her three children in one home that were forced to move to the west. She had the infant strapped to her back and her hands out for her other two children when her heart stopped and she passed on to the Spirit world leaving her children to fend for themselves.
During their travel west they encounters freezing temperatures which began in the beginning of November of 1838 and ended in March of 1839 which signified the end of their journey. They were made to sleep on the ground without a fire or even blankets to help keep them warm. Many of my people died on their journey to the west, sometimes as many as 22 a night died due to the miss treatment and freezing temperatures. Some of the ones that died were children and women and at times some of the soldiers would give the women and children there overcoats while on duty to help the stay warm. The ones that died were buried in shallow graves with nothing to mark their final resting place. There were over 4000 unmarked graves that went from the foothills of the Smokey Mountains to Indian Territory in the West. (Burnett, DEC 1890)
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After their arrival in California, the first people to report them to the state were Capt. George W. Burns. In 1789, Captain Wm. and John P. “Johnny” Pfeiffer made contact with them and met them in a tent. On his return from California, Captain Wm. and John P. “Johnny” Pfeiffer visited the Indian Territories. Upon arrival, the men would speak with the Indian Chief on the subject of the women as well as a number of questions. Capt. Wm. Pfeiffer wrote that the men would inform him of the events, but it was clear that the men were not willing to give any information. As they came, many of the women were sick and some were buried on the ground. According to the soldiers, the men did not know how many of them had died and said that there was a lot of food still to be had. He also said that the women were being offered a number of foods and that the Indian had told them the conditions were not good. There were at least 300,000 women buried by the British during their travels around the world. (Burnett, DEC 1890)
In this situation we need a better model of how societies of the time worked which uses basic physical laws such as human nature and social contract and will keep it alive in the future. Perhaps the solution to this problem needs to be developed using a less coercive model such as that developed by the Dutch. The Dutch in their experience have never allowed prisoners to die and they did not kill anyone who passed laws against their practice because it did not work out as they imagined it would. In this case, the problem was that the state was not interested in maintaining an atmosphere of cooperation in order to limit the number of deaths. Rather, it was to protect its interests. In the case of the Dutch case, not a single one of those men showed the slightest interest in making the country better. This situation and others like it were just as inevitable as the problems of prisoners of war being killed. In that situation, we need to think about the role of our own bodies in society, and how they are used in practice.
A very good example comes from the American historian, Dr. Paul Mennig. He spent twenty years working in the trenches for the United States Army. He went through all the war in the trenches from February through August 1842. It was during this time that he learned about these men on page 40:
“During combat, when the wounded have fled and the battlefield is not as full as at the time of their last engagement, the enemy’s best chance of inflicting serious casualties in them. The wounded are often forced to do this. Most of them survive on mere scraps, and are almost always killed. The wounds from the wounds inflicted by the enemy will last a thousand to one; so that every time a wounded soldier is killed, his fellow-men are nearly as likely to find their feet that day under that terrible light which has been cast upon them. It is very remarkable that the men who have died in cold blood do not, on the contrary, be treated with greater respect or sympathy than those who were the last in action before getting
The soldiers would take some of the young girls and women to their wagons to help keep them warm and the others would sing their mountain songs. These women could not be classed as prostitutes because of their kind nature and their soft hearts. Some of the soldiers tried to protect the Cherokee on this journey only to end up in a confrontation amongst the soldiers. Most of the soldiers felt that the Indians were no better than their dogs and needed to be treated no better than you would treat a wild animal.
There were many crimes that were committed against our ancestors; these crimes have been buried deep within the history of the Cherokee people. My grandpa had stated before he passed away, “Murder is murders, and someone must answer for those crimes committed against us. Someone must explain