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STUDENT
Native American Studies
Michelle Boyer
October 15th, 2015

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The Red, White, and More Red.
Freedom: It is a word that most of our familiar with. In fact, if you are an American it is

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Comment [2]: I like the title here. Quite
catchy.

practically expected you bleed red white and blue in gratitude of the freedom granted us by our

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“fore fathers.” However, while we may be identified arbitrarily as the “melting pot” of the world,

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there is no denying the blatant truth. The land we now claim as free was once ripped from the

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hands of the people who had been tending it for centuries. We, as Americans, live in a sovereign

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nation. However, throughout history there have been groups of people that we have taken this

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natural right away from. Among these includes the Native American population. Sovereignty is

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defined as the natural right for a people to chose how to self-govern (Law Dictionary). Native

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Americans have not always been allowed this right and that still may not have this right

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completely to this day. In my personal opinion, the power of the white man has been abused and

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defined we can argue that

used to oppress the Native American. The opinion that some peoples lives matter more than

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others is the catalytic notion that has propelled the white man for centuries to commit heinous

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crimes, yet, be able justify them in their own minds. Throughout history this abuse of authority

Michelle Nicole Boyer 10/22/15 8:06 PM
Comment [3]: Word choice. Did you mean
Catholic?

can be charted through the acts of the Pope and the Catholic Church. Not only the Pope, but
kings and explorers also, have all taken their belief that God is the divine power who grants
people sovereignty and twisted it to become an excuse for stealing, raping, and murdering entire
groups of people based on the sole fact that these people were not Christians (cite). To this day,
while the United States government recognizes Native American tribes as sovereign nations,
they still, are not completely free.

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Before the systematic killing of Native Americans through disease infested blankets and
other such gruesome tortures, Christians had the Crusades (cite). For centuries, Christians have

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been justifying the brutal torment and abuse of non-Christian peoples and entities (cite). In
regards to the Native Americans, this all leads back to the Pope and his Papal Bulls. Papal Bulls,
were issued orders or rules by the Pope and were to be abided by many Christian leaders all
throughout Europe, giving them the right to forcefully take land and women and children from
those who were non-Christian. Rather recently, Native American people protested Pope Francis
canonization of Junípero Serra, who “played a pivotal role in the enslavement, torture, and other
violent tactics perpetrated against Native peoples” (Jenkins). Still to this day we decide to brush
over the parts of history that make us cringe or possibly incriminate us, but we can live in
ignorance. The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) stated, “This canonization is
strongly opposed by California tribes because it validates the monstrous history of the Catholic

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Comment [4]: Good use of contemporary
issues
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Church during that time (Jenkins).
The Catholic Church is as guilty a culprit as any in the scandal of Manifest Destiny that
ruined the lives of so many Native Americans. When Columbus bounded across the ocean blue
in 1492, he came bearing a small piece of paper. This tiny little ground up mashed together
pieces of old trees somehow gave himself the right to take control of all the land (and the people)
he stepped on. The Pope believed that any Christian had the right and the duty to claim the unChristian lands across the globe and give them a chance with God by converting them and
creating them into “civilized towns” (cite). As you can imagine when Columbus stepped foot into
the Americas, which he so cleverly thought was India, he immediately deemed the people he saw
as uncivilized, even going as far as to calling them “savages” (cite). Because of this the Pope
granted him the right to take their land. They slowly started to push the Indians farther and

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... any
[3]

farther off their Native lands and into the West. This was known as the Indian Removal Act of
1830, signed by president Andrew Jackson. This act allowed for the forcible removal of any

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“Native Indians” living east of the Mississippi River (cite). This entire time, the United States had
been making treaties with the Indians, allowing them to be somewhat independent but the
moment their presence threatens the prospect of expanding and making more money, the “claws
come out” if you will, and we learn who is really in power.
The Marshall Trilogy is a set of another three court case rulings in the Supreme Court
that diminished the rights of Native Americans. Some, were however, for the better. The first
court case in 1823 was Johnson v M’Intosh. This case discussed events related to the Doctrine of
Discovery and issues of land rights in the hands of Native Americans.
The Court was asked to settle the dispute between the two men and sided with
M’Intosh. The Court went on to say that the Indians did not own land outright, but
that they had rights to occupy lands and only the discovering nation (U.S.) could
settle those land rights. Indians could not sell lands to individuals and states do
not have legal standing to settle aboriginal land claims. (Last name, page#)
So even while they lived on the land and claimed it as their own they were not allowed to treat it
as such.
The next case was Cherokee Nation v Georgia in 1831. This case discusses the rights of
the Cherokees to follow their own laws and not that of the foreign lands of Georgia. “The Court
denied the injunction and went on to say that the Cherokees were not a foreign nation, but they
were a “domestic dependent nation” (Last name, page#). They considered their relationship as

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three lines, it becomes a block quote.
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like that of a parent to a child. The Cherokee needed “guidance” and the United States would be

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date)

the ones to give it to them. This led to the “doctrine of federal trust responsibility (cite). They

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believed that in exchange for taking that and the federal government would supply the tribes with
protection and compensate them for their troubles. This also led to the tribes being given back
small amounts of land but being told the only way they could live their is if they farmed, and
used the land for the U.S.’s benefit. The last of the three was Worcester v Georgia. In this case,
Georgia wanted to convict a man who at the time had been on Indian land and the U.S.

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court case…

government found that only the federal government and the Native Nation has jurisdiction over

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these things. [Needs further elaboration. How does this affect tribal sovereignty? How do all of

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these cases affect tribal sovereignty?].

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In conclusion sovereignty is essentially freedom in my opinion. The United States has

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denied that freedom from Native Americans ever since we first crossed paths. We have covered

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up and plastered over a lot of the cracks and they are starting to reveal themselves. It is evident in

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all the protests and ted talks and art and media that Native American people have a story that is

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yet to be told. I think it is about time we listened.

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Works Cited
"What Is SOVEREIGNTY?" The Law Dictionary. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2015.

"Native Americans Protest The Pope's Canonization Of A Man Who Abused Their People."
ThinkProgress RSS. N.p., 23 Sept. 2015. Web. 16 Oct. 2015.

"Marshall Trilogy (1823-1832)." Federal Indian Law For Alaska Tribes. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2015.

A Legislative History of the Clean Water Act of 1977: A Continuation of the Legislative History of the
Federal Water Pollution Control Act, Together with a Section-by-section Index. Washington: U.S. Govt.
Print. Off., 1978. Print.

AIS160A1_Sovereignty, Nation Building, Adaptive Capacity_23Sep2015 “Power Point”
Kopowski Lecture, October 5th, 2015
Greenwald, Emily. Reconfiguring the Reservation: The Nez Perces, Jicarilla Apaches, and the
Dawes Act. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico, 2002. Print.

Michelle Nicole Boyer 10/22/15 9:12 PM
Comment [9]: Needs work.

STUDENT,
There are several parts of this essay that I really enjoyed. I think in some areas you stray from
“academic” dialogue and instead end up using more of an expository, or perhaps theatrical, voice
during the essay. Even though this structure is not entirely “acceptable” in academic writing, I
actually think it works and that for this particular assignment it makes the essay more interesting.
There are a few areas where more in-text citations were needed, or where there were minor
grammar errors, or structural problems –but these are all things that can be worked on.
I think the piece that is missing from this essay has to do with how tribal sovereignty was
affected by the policies that you mention. You do a lot of summary and extemporary
commentary instead. I like the extemporizing. But I would have liked to see some more instances
where you said “X happened” and then because of it “Y happened to tribal sovereignty.” This
was the goal of the paper, and I am not sure that you successfully completed this goal. The essay
itself is also short (3.5 instead of a full 4 pages) even after I turned one of your quotes into a
block quote (to get it a bit longer than it originally was).
You did lose some points for the aforementioned issues. But, to be quite honest, I did bump your
grade up a bit because I liked some of the extemporary style that you used in this essay. I also
liked that you brought in the contemporary issue of making Junipero Serra a saint.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
80/100