American Indian Movement
The poorest people in America are the American Indians and it is also a fact that Indian reservations have unique laws that has made it a nation by itself within the United States. The modern movements focus on the American Indian reservations being empowered by self-determination. This is important for the economic, social and cultural improvement of the American Indians. It was with the Nixon administration that the welfare of the tribes became the focus of the government. The subsequent administrations encouraged the Indians to adapt to a policy of political and economic self-determination. Today many reservations have become economic hubs with tax and regulation havens for investment. Thus as of now the Mescalero and White Mountain Apaches "have become premier private managers of multiple-use forest resource economies." (Legters; Lyden, 1994)
However it must be stated that only during the Reagan administration that there were major reports on Indian economic self-determination. A look at America's past and recent history will point out the reasons for the American Indian Movement -- AIM movement, how it came to be and how it functions today. The history of the strife begins with the colonization of America. On the formation of the United States, the new government continued the Indian policy that was formulated by Great Britain in colonial times. The English had made allies of the Indians and had deputed deputies or agents, to maintain proper relations with tribes and had created many boundaries for the Indian country that was distinct from the English held territories. Likewise there was a fair-trade plan and these were retained after freedom by the United States. (Fritz, 1963)
Much later there were clamor for reform especially from the settlers of the western frontier, and some prominent persons who advocated the cause of the Indians were eminent persons like John Beeson, and other missionary societies and their work caused the creation of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in 1818. By the same time there was the formation of the Indian Office, with Thomas McKenney, as its head. He suggested that there be individual allotment of land to youthful Indians as part of an educational program. (Fritz, 1963) It was a continuous process but was still discriminatory on account of the bureaucracy and corruption. The Indians did not receive notice until the recent Nixon administration as mentioned earlier.
The basic problem:
Grabbing the Indian lands was the basic cause of the strife. Called the removal of the Indians policy, it was started in the 1830s by Andrew Jackson, and this resulted in the Whites encroaching the Indian lands, and likewise moves were made to altogether remove eastern Indians to west of the Mississippi, an area between the Father of Waters free of encumbrance. The concept of exchanging lands was the brainchild of Thomas Jefferson in 1803, and the removal of the Five Civilized Tribes from the southeastern states was met with public disfavor. Likewise the Cherokees' conflict with Georgia caused the legislation for the making of the removal policy and in the Removal Act of 1830. The South Indians had five nations with well-defined land that had centuries of history; the northern tribes were weak and numerous. Thus between these tribes the removal policies were different. Indian self-determination inside their territories has now brought better deals in the community development and many judgments have provided them with safeguards. (Prucham, 1984)
While we consider nationhood, the violence that went behind the formation of the nation must be forgotten. But dispossession of the American Indians has been the part of a guilt that began with the expansion until the present time as a continuing act of violence that borders genocidal violence and the American history of the nineteenth century which established that the national identity carries this stigma. (Scheckel, 1998) The nation within the nation did not seem to work. It is with this background that the reasons that led to aggression by the Indians and the later formation of the movement that became popular as the AIM is to be examined.
American Indian Movement:
American Indians were inducted into the war effort during the Second World War. It was the experience in the Second World War that caused many Native Indians to take part in the national politics. Thus the veterans who witnessed the idealism overseas and the apathy to them within the country caused the formation of the protest groups far back in 1944 and in that year the...
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