Question

What does the United States owe Native Americans

Answer 1

I have always felt we owe the Native Americans more than we ever gave them. Over the last couple of days I have been doing some research one the Quileute Tribe in Washington and that has cemented my feelings on this. We have wronged the Natives as much as, if not more than, the slaves.

The Quileutes live on an area that covers a square mile, that is all they were given, and most of that is in a flood area and can't be used. They have been fighting to be given more land, as they are surrounded by a national Forrest and could be given more land without much consequence.

Only 4 people living can fluently speak Quileute, partially due to the efforts of this country to modernize the Natives. We would send their children to boarding schools that would punish them for speaking their native language.

Not to mention all the times we purposely gave them diseases in an effort to wipe them out.

We aren't the only ones at fault here either, Canada has their fair share of issues against their natives as well.

Canada allowed the Salish cave, Spaet (pronounced spa-eth) to be destroyed. Literally destroyed for land development.

Do we owe them nothing? Shouldn't we preserve the land just b/c we don't have much untouched left? We like to talk about how we free oppressed people and all of that, yet I feel like we are oppressing the American Indian