Native Americans

Question 1

population decline of Native Americans

Answer 1

ethnic group declined from 1.5 million to 250,000 in 1920 alone

Question 2

how did Americans know Native American were struggling and had a diminishing land base

Answer 2

A report known as the Meriam Report 1928 made it known that Native Americans were suffering from extreme poverty, poor education and lower life expectancies than any white American.

Also had a diminishing land base. Native Americans were forced out of their sacred lands and moved to assigned reservations in the Midwest of the United States.

Question 3

whites reforming native American culture

Answer 3

white Americans were actively ATTEMPTING to reform their culture, religion and traditions.

FACT: in 1920, over 10,000 Native American children were separated from their tribes and moved to boarding schools with the aim to destroy their culture and ridicule their own values and were forced to implement European beliefs and appearances into their lives.

Question 4

improvement of Native Americans

Answer 4

• Native Americans were given American citizenship and voting rights under the Snyder Act in 1924
• recommendations from the Meriam Report were put into practice by Charles Rhoades - the first (white) Indian commissioner - in 1929
  (This led to laws such as the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 under Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency and the “New Deal” (1933-1939) for Indians, gaining the right to form their own self-governments.

This was the end of an era - whereby Americans discarded the goal of assimilation and began renewing Native American rights.