History · Ch 6 — Displacing Indigenous Peoples
The Winds of Change…
The Winds of Change…
The section opens with the American Civil War, which forced the US government to turn its attention away from the frontier and toward the conflict between the North and the South. Once the war ended, the government renewed its drive to push Native Americans off their lands, now with far greater military force and a new, harsher policy. This period saw the systematic destruction of the buffalo herds, the confinement of tribes onto reservations, and a series of wars that crushed armed resistance. The chapter presents this as the final, decisive phase in the displacement of indigenous peoples, where the federal g …
How three very different groups denied equal treatment under colonial/settler rule were
each given their own official "rationalisation":
| Group | How they were treated, and the rationale given |
|---|---|
| Indians under British rule | Taxed arbitrarily; seen as not equal — the rationalisation given was that they were not ready for the responsibility of representative government |
| Natives in America and Australia | Not seen as citizens; not seen as equal — the rationalisation given was that they were 'primitive', as in having no settled agriculture, no provision for the future, no towns |