The Indian Removal Act, part of a U.S. government policy known as Indian removal, was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830.
The Removal Act was strongly supported in the South, where states were eager to gain access to lands inhabited by the "Five Civilized Tribes". In particular, Georgia, the largest state at that time, was involved in a contentious jurisdictional dispute with the Cherokee nation. President Jackson hoped removal would resolve the Georgia crisis. While Indian removal was, in theory, supposed to be voluntary, in practice great pressure was put on American Indian leaders to sign removal treaties. Most observers, whether they were in favor of the Indian removal policy or not, realized that the passage of the act meant the inevitable removal of most Indians from the states. Some Native American leaders who had previously resisted removal now began to reconsider their positions, especially after Jackson's landslide reelection in 1832.
Most white Americans favored the passage of the Indian Removal Act, though there was significant opposition. Many Christian missionaries, most notably missionary organizer Jeremiah Evarts, agitated against passage of the Act. In Congress, New Jersey Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen and Congressman David Crockett of Tennessee spoke out against the legislation. The Removal Act was passed after bitter debate in Congress.
The Removal Act paved the way for the reluctant—and often forcible—emigration of tens of thousands of American Indians to the West. The first removal treaty signed after the Removal Act was the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek on September 27, 1830, in which Choctaws in Mississippi ceded land east of the river in exchange for payment and land in the West. The Treaty of New Echota (signed in 1835) resulted in the removal of the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears.
In 1823 the Supreme Court handed down a decision which stated that Indians could occupy lands within the United States, but could not hold title to those lands.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Our Land, Our Life
2007 AIFF (American Indian Flim Festival) Winner, Best Documentary Feature
Carrie and Mary Dann, two elderly Shoshone sisters, are engaged in a thirty-year battle for rights to their own land.
The U.S. government unlawfully seized a significant parcel of Shoshone territory in 1974, beginning a battle that went to the Supreme Court and beyond, and inciting humanitarian intervention from organizations including Amnesty International and the United Nations.
Directors Beth and George Gage eloquently piece together the story of the long and tireless efforts that two incredible women put toward securing indigenous rights in the United States. This is a film that reveals shocking information about crimes that continue to be committed against Native Americans.
Director: George Gage & Beth Gage
74 Minutes • USA • Documentary Feature
Carrie and Mary Dann, two elderly Shoshone sisters, are engaged in a thirty-year battle for rights to their own land.
The U.S. government unlawfully seized a significant parcel of Shoshone territory in 1974, beginning a battle that went to the Supreme Court and beyond, and inciting humanitarian intervention from organizations including Amnesty International and the United Nations.
Directors Beth and George Gage eloquently piece together the story of the long and tireless efforts that two incredible women put toward securing indigenous rights in the United States. This is a film that reveals shocking information about crimes that continue to be committed against Native Americans.
Director: George Gage & Beth Gage
74 Minutes • USA • Documentary Feature
Celebrating roots in Iraq
Staff reports - Tulsa World
A strange thing sits in the Smithsonian Institute's Museum of the American Indian: a 50-gallon drum, cut in half, with canvas material from an army cot stretched tight over the open end.
Though not a traditional drum, it served its purpose — to help bring together American Indians serving in Iraq for the first inter-tribal powwow in a combat zone.
Pryor resident and Cherokee citizen Jon Ketcher was at the powwow, along with Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Osage citizens, dancing, singing, playing stickball and Indian marbles and giving other servicemen and women a chance to learn about American Indian culture.
A Cherokee Nation Marshal for almost eight years, Ketcher, 37, entered the military in 1989 straight out of high school.
When U.S. forces began preparing for the Gulf War in 1990, Ketcher and the VMFA 212 squadron, under the Marine Corps' Third Air Wing, were sent to Bahrain; when the war began in 1991, he served as an ordnanceman, loading and reloading aircraft with ammunition for combat missions.
Often, alarms signaling incoming Scud missiles would sound, with a voice coming over loudspeaker telling troops to don masks and gloves and to take cover, Ketcher said.
One night as Ketcher was walking out to the tarmac, where crews were working only by flashlight, the alarm sounded, followed by two loud booms that signaled Patriot missiles being launched to intercept the Scuds.
Ketcher said he heard tools dropping and hitting the tarmac and saw the crew members throw down their flashlights, then heard the running coming toward him.
"It sounded like a herd of buffalo coming at you,'' Ketcher said. "They were giving it all they had to get to the maintenance bunkers, so I thought I would do the same."
Get the rest of the story here: http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20080526_11_A14_hAPryo259669
A strange thing sits in the Smithsonian Institute's Museum of the American Indian: a 50-gallon drum, cut in half, with canvas material from an army cot stretched tight over the open end.
Though not a traditional drum, it served its purpose — to help bring together American Indians serving in Iraq for the first inter-tribal powwow in a combat zone.
Pryor resident and Cherokee citizen Jon Ketcher was at the powwow, along with Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Osage citizens, dancing, singing, playing stickball and Indian marbles and giving other servicemen and women a chance to learn about American Indian culture.
A Cherokee Nation Marshal for almost eight years, Ketcher, 37, entered the military in 1989 straight out of high school.
When U.S. forces began preparing for the Gulf War in 1990, Ketcher and the VMFA 212 squadron, under the Marine Corps' Third Air Wing, were sent to Bahrain; when the war began in 1991, he served as an ordnanceman, loading and reloading aircraft with ammunition for combat missions.
Often, alarms signaling incoming Scud missiles would sound, with a voice coming over loudspeaker telling troops to don masks and gloves and to take cover, Ketcher said.
One night as Ketcher was walking out to the tarmac, where crews were working only by flashlight, the alarm sounded, followed by two loud booms that signaled Patriot missiles being launched to intercept the Scuds.
Ketcher said he heard tools dropping and hitting the tarmac and saw the crew members throw down their flashlights, then heard the running coming toward him.
"It sounded like a herd of buffalo coming at you,'' Ketcher said. "They were giving it all they had to get to the maintenance bunkers, so I thought I would do the same."
Get the rest of the story here: http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20080526_11_A14_hAPryo259669
Gas masks, bear spray used in Vancouver art heist
CBC News
The thieves who broke into a B.C. museum last week and walked off with $2 million in gold artworks wore gas masks and used bear spray, CBC News has learned.
The brazen burglary at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia took place Friday night while the lone security guard was out having a cigarette, museum director Anthony Shelton said.
The take included 12 artistic treasures fashioned in gold by the late Haida artist Bill Reid.
Four hours before the theft occurred, Shelton said, several key surveillance cameras went offline without explanation.
"The security cameras seem to have been working," Shelton said, "and this is just a couple of them. But it seems that they hadn't been recording."
An electronic alarm alerting campus security, responsible for patrols at the museum, was tripped when the cameras stopped recording, but it appears nothing was done about the problem, Shelton said.
There was only one guard at the museum Friday night, and about the same time he left for his smoke break, the thieves moved in wearing gas masks, Shelton said. The burglars then doused the interior of the museum with a powerful bear repellent.
Keep reading here: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/05/27/bc-gas-masks-ried-heist.html
The thieves who broke into a B.C. museum last week and walked off with $2 million in gold artworks wore gas masks and used bear spray, CBC News has learned.
The brazen burglary at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia took place Friday night while the lone security guard was out having a cigarette, museum director Anthony Shelton said.
The take included 12 artistic treasures fashioned in gold by the late Haida artist Bill Reid.
Four hours before the theft occurred, Shelton said, several key surveillance cameras went offline without explanation.
"The security cameras seem to have been working," Shelton said, "and this is just a couple of them. But it seems that they hadn't been recording."
An electronic alarm alerting campus security, responsible for patrols at the museum, was tripped when the cameras stopped recording, but it appears nothing was done about the problem, Shelton said.
There was only one guard at the museum Friday night, and about the same time he left for his smoke break, the thieves moved in wearing gas masks, Shelton said. The burglars then doused the interior of the museum with a powerful bear repellent.
Keep reading here: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/05/27/bc-gas-masks-ried-heist.html
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