American Mosaic: Multicultural Readings in Context

The whole idea of manifest destiny and why Americans feel they have divine right to control whomever and whatever may be appalling to some. In the reading “American Mosaic”, the history of Native Americans and their relations with European Americans is depicted. The reading opens with a stanza of a poem created by James Welch titled, “Plea to Those Who Matter”. The irony of the poem identifies ways in which American Indians were forced to leave their traditional values and customs to be substituted with the European American way of life. The setting takes place in the ninetinth century on the eastern fronts of what today is known as, America. The reading provides imagery of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 in which the natives were forced from their lands through federal power and placed east of the Mississippi River to a designated “Indian Territory”. Acts like this, the Trail of Tears, and the Dawes Act of 1887 expose certain characteristics of the European settlers, which ultimately generated various stereotypes of the American people. It is hard to understand how the Europeans believed it was okay to settle over sea onto another persons’ land, act friendly towards them, kill them off with diseases they had not been immune to, and seize their land. Under the theory that Native Americans are savages that need to be “americanized”, the Europeans took children starting from the ages five through sixteen away from their homes and families and ripped them from all customs and traditions they had once knew. Those beliefs and values were soon subsitituted with “the American Way” or “the Christian Way”. The young native children were brainwashed and deprived from living life how their mothers and fathers did. This method of “americanization” lasted up until the late 1860s. Even so, Native Americans were not granted citizenship until 1924. Today many will say the Native American culture is “forever lost”. The native children were brainwashed. All they learned was the American religion, the American style of clothing, learning, eating, and the American way of living. Therefore, all the teachings they passed on to their children, were what they learned as a child. So many people of native american decent know close to nothing about their heritage and have little culture values behind their beliefs because they were brainwashed and taken away before they had even taken their first breath.