The Varied Value of Land Essay Example for Free

The Varied Value of Land EssayLand represents a quintessential issue between Native Americans and Europeans. This has been full-strength since Columbus discovery and the era of Spanish exploration, invasion, and settlement. During the latter periods of Native American history we observe how English colonization and then the birth and growth of the coupled States affects the Indian Nations. During this period we mark how two divergent societies value bestow differently and the disparities resulting in conflict and Indian subjugation. The English Colonial Settlements initi aloney viewed the land similarly as the aboriginal Indian inhabitants in a particular way. The land was the provider of sustenance to both. The early English Colonies sought refuge in the land, which was unlike the early Spanish whose North American invasions sought to pillage riches through lands traversed in the name of religious virtue. The original English Colonies had fled their get religious persecution and instead settle lands to build their society within its borders. The initial contention between Indians and the English Colonies grew from the fundamental differences in each civilizations ideal of a settlement and territory.Whether an Indian Nations involved permanent towns or not the Tribes Bands where predominately hunter-gatherers throughout its territory. Furthermore and unlike Europeans these Indian deal shared cosmology that identified them as being one with the land. The European view of land was that of property and possession. As English Colonies and the later Americans further envy Indian land to satisfy expansionism and economic enterprise we observe an unending encroachment on Indian resources.At first there was an aggressive unlaced Indian land grab and then ongoing assaults on natural resources residing on the ever-dwindling Indian lands. The stereotypes of American Indians as inferior beings with limited intellect, or cantankerous warriors, or lacking acceptab le morals initially justified Colonial expansionism under pretense of ordained religiosity. Indian resistance to relentless encroachment was very much confronted with rebellion and the question of sovereignty was debated.The establishment of the United States and the subsequent 1823 Supreme Court belief of Johnson v.McIntosh made clear the government accepted that early Europeans had rights to all Indian lands by having discovered the lands. Having previously defeated the British and securing American independence allowed the victors title be transferred to the United States. It is from this point that triumph by Law guides the history of land possession between Native Americans and Americans. This conquest gained popular social acceptance by the mid 19th deoxycytidine monophosphate as American society adopted the political decree that it was Manifest Destiny to encompass the continent.The national conquest gained a legal endorsement to authorize government separate Indian Nati ons from their land as assured in 1831 by the Supreme Courts Cherokee Nation v. Georgia ruling that minimise Indian sovereignty to that of being a dominated people at best classified as dependents of their United States government guardian. In 1832 the Worcester v. Georgia ruling held that the aforementioned Cherokee treaties and the Trade and Intercourse Acts passed since 1790 did recognize Indian Nations as political entities with authority within its borders.It now excluded States from having any jurisdictional power over Indian Nations. Though this ruling established Indians as autonomous from States it put in motion what would later become Congressional plenary power and it marks the rootage of federally exercised relocation to feed American land hunger and later efforts to manage the Indian problem. The vastly different views regarding land combined with organized efforts to dismantle Indian culture and pushed towards Indian eradication.Second to the impact of European intr oduced disease it would be habitat destruction and alteration to natural Indian environments that battled Indian Nations and drove them close to extinction. More so than overuse of natural resources it was the onset of the land being fenced and parceled which relegated Indian Nations to immobile and economically poor and spiritually smash people faced with generational social disintegration. The series of governmental polices both purposefully and seemingly inadvertently legalized this conquest.Some of the most damaging and consequential actions include the movement to reservations through the late 1800s. The reservation insurance reversal known as the Allotment Act of 1887 pushed to assimilate Indians using land as the fomite by requiring such parcels provide for the Indians as it did homesteaders without any regard to the traditional Indian land relationship. From the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 through the Termination policy and Relocation programs of the mid 20th Century the importance of Indian land affinity was never validated and to do so would have required true enforcement and complete adherence to treaties.The current era of Tribal Self-Determination beginning when the Indian Civil Rights Act enacted in 1968 does acknowledge Euro-American infringement on Indian lands. Government interventions and enforcement, whether or not serving in the best interest of sovereign Indian Nations, has not sought to return these Indian Nations to a subject of a being a harmonious civilization that can be described as a confederacy of tribes, bands, and familial clans pursuing their life roll throughout a vast ecosystem. The Euro-American value of property and possession has prevailed.