Native Americans Vs. American Settlers' Thesis

While this right applied to American settlers, who engaged in a variety of religions, from Puritanism to Deism, and spoke freely about them in publications and public forums. Native Americans, on the other hand, were denied their freedom of religion. American settlers saw Native American religions as uncivilized, so they encouraged missionaries to convert the tribes. Missionaries can be both beneficial and harmful to a culture. Some come excited to help the people through manpower and certain forms of scientific, academic, or medical knowledge, presenting their religion with love, and allowing the people to choose whether or not that religion is acceptable. Most of the American settlers, however, did not treat the Native Americans this way. Instead, they forced them to assimilate into European culture, even taking children away from parents, assigning missionaries to the reservations where the Native Americans had been forced, and often punished those who wavered from the teachings of Christianity ("History of Missions" n.d.). Although many Native Americans did eventually convert to Christianity, and some say that their religions were able to coincide with Christianity, the fact remains that freedom of religion was not extended to this group. Instead, they were forced to assimilate to the American settlers' ideas of religion. While freedom of religion was given to American settlers, then, it was denied to Native Americans, sometimes to the point of physically forcing this group to testify a change in beliefs.

Finally, the American settlers proceeded to deny Native Americans not only their rights to life and religion, but also to property. The right to property was grunted to the "inhabitants of the English Colonies in North America" in the Declaration of Colonial Rights (1774). The declaration came complete with a statement that the right could not be revoked by a "sovereign power" (Declaration of Colonial Rights 1774). But this is exactly what the American settlers did to the Native Americans. Claming themselves sovereign, the American settlers claimed their right to property in spite of the Native Americans, who were forced to give up land. President Andrew Jackson was behind most of this, encouraging congress to pass removal acts, which forced the migration of Native American tribes from their land to places that the government determined. Tribes were forced to sign treaties that gave up the rights to their land. The Cherokee resisted and took the case to the Supreme Court, and although the Court sided with the Native American nation, Jackson ignored the ruling, forcing the tribe to give up its land ("Indian Removal," n.d., para. 8). In 1838, Jackson, volunteers, and federal soldiers committed the crowning violation of Native American rights when they forcibly removed the Cherokee, taking them to a reservation on the Trail of Tears ("Immigration: Native American," 2003, para. 3).

Thus, the United States was founded on the guarantee of rights and equality, but these rights have not always been applied equally. For instance, while the American settlers took full advantage of their rights, Native Americans were summarily denied their rights to life, freedom of religion, and property.

References

Declaration of Colonial Rights: Resolutions of the First Continental Congress."

Constitution.org. http://www.constitution.org/bcp/colright.htm (Accessed February 20, 2008).

History of Missions." n.d. Berkley Graduate School of Journalism. http://journalism.berkeley.edu/projects/nm/julia/history.html (Accessed February 20, 2008).

Immigration: Native Amerian." 2003. American Memory form the Library of Congress. http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/immig/native_american2.html (Accessed February 20, 2008).

Indian Removal." N.d. PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html

Jefferson, Thomas. 1776. The Declaration of Independence. U.S. History.Org. http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/index.htm (Accessed February 20, 2008).

Ramenofsky, a.F., Wilbur, a.K., and Stone, a.C. 2003. Native American Disease

History: Past, Present and Future Directions. Archaeology of Epidemic and Infectious Diseases. 35 (2): 241-257.