Native American Questions

1. Use evidence to describe the economic impact of casino ownership and gambling on Native American tribes.
The Mashantucket Pequots own Foxwoods casino in Connecticut. Owning the casino has made their tribe rich but less than 1/4 of America's indian tribes own casino's. There are only 48 tribes out of 557 make more than 10 million dollars a year from casinos.


2. What is the most significant problem of trying to understand the condition of the modern Native American population?
There are 2 million Native Americans that belong to many different tribes. Not all of the tribes are in the same conditions. Some may be very well off while others are very poor. It is hard to generalize the condition of Nathive Americans because they are not all the same.



3. In what ways are Native Americans a unique minority group in the United States? Do these reasons seem justified today, or should Native Americans be considered as a "regular" minority group (like African Americans, Asian Americans, women, etc.)?
Native Americans are different than any other minority group because they are the only ones who have signed a peace treaty with the government and they are the only minority group with a government agency. I think their reasons are still justified today.




4. Please find 4 specific examples of the sorts of events generalized in this paragraph. For each specific example, include a hyperlink to a website explaining the specific event, and a summary of that event.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_reservation
American government relocated Native Americans to reservations. They are pieces of land that Native American tribes live on. Not every tribe has a reservation.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16516865
Native American children were taken from their families and forced to go to boarding schools. They went there are had their Native American culture taken away from them.


http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/chr1791.asp
The government made treaties with many tribes. This article is about the treaty with the Cherokee in 1791.


http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0600/frameset_reset.html?http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0600/stories/0601_0102.html

The American government made treaties with the Ponca tribe that they never kept. Such as promising things like money and educational institutions but never following through on theiProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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promises.




5. What is meant by the phrase 'diseases of the poor'? What is the relationship between economics and health implied by that phrase?
Native Americans are more likely to die of alchoholism, tuberculosis, and diabetes. They are things that are more likely to happen in places of poverty. Since the Native Americans have less money than average Americans, they have less money for medical attention and are more likely to die of diseases.




6. Is John McCain correct in his assessment of the treatment of Native Americans? Why?
Yes, because the American government had taken Native American land from them and forced them to live in smaller reservations. They had made treaties with them and the broken them and even taken their children to boarding schools.




7. Please define each of the following terms in the context of Native American policy:

* removal- The government take Native Americans from their land and relocate them.
* allotment- Allotment was when Native American reservations were split up into individually owned pieces of land.
* termination- Termination was when the government thought that Native Americans would be better off if they were like the average American and didn't have a different relationship with the government.
* relocation- Native Americans were moved to reservations.
* assimilation- American government tried to make the Native Americans more like the average people of America and get rid of their Native American culture.
* self determination- Native Americans need to be more responsible for governing themselves.





8. Finally, give a paragraph summary on what self determination means, and why it either is, or is not, the appropriate policy for Native American people with respect to the Federal government.
Self determination is what the American government as well as tribe leaders think that Native Americans need more of. Self determination of Native American tribes would mean that they govern themselves and become less dependent on the American government. If they had more self determination they would work harder to make the lives of their tribes better. There might be less poverty in the Native American tribes. It is a good policy for the Native Americans because it is something that the Native Americans and the government both want and the tribes would be better off.