Who's fault was it?

            Native Americans and whites faced many struggles with each other in the United States from the beginning of the1860s. Treaties were made and broken, wars were fought, innocent people suffered and injustice took place all because of land. This all led to a terrible outcome known as the Wounded Knee Massacre. It has always been thought that Indians were responsible for the terrible events that took place on American Land. The truth is that both the Sioux and whites contributed to the ending of the story. Whites intended to help the "uncivilized" Native Americans the wrong way, not being compassionate and pushing assimilation to the limit and Indians were stubborn and incomprehensive to progress.

 
          Whites always seemed as if they wanted to help another culture; be peaceful and nice but it really wasn’t that way. We can see this in the Treaty of Traverse de Sioux made in July 23, 1851. It was made in exchange for money and goods. Indians gave away their land, but they never saw the money; whites broke the treaty. Another way in which whites made it seem as if they wanted to help was the Little Big Horn Battle in which General Custer and 261 men went to attack and drive out Indians for gold. This battle surprisingly was one of the few victories that Native Americans had therefore whites used the event to portray themselves as the good guys. They published in newspapers that Native Americans massacred Gen. Custer and his men. They didn’t mention the intentions that Gen. Custer had because they knew that Indians killed them to protect themselves. It was kill or die, they went for defense. If Whites really wanted to "help" as they said they should have showed them the benefits of being American and finding ways to agree. This was not how it happened; forcefully whites took Native American land and sold it.

          Indians were not angels either. They were stuck in the past, didn't want progress and couldn't accept American ways. We could see this portrayed on Sitting Bull, one of the greatest tribe leaders. He was one of the Indian chiefs that resisted the most. After he and General Sherman met at Cedar Creek valley in October 1876 he couldn't go anymore against whites and instead of moving to reservations he moved his tribe to Canada, were they were warmly welcomed. Sitting Bull was so stubborn that even in the harsh conditions of Canada he didn't let his people leave. They starved, got sick from cold, and many died. After a while his people rebelled against him and decided to give in and move to the Indian reservations. Still he stayed, it was not until his grandson died that he decided to move to the reservations and even there he resisted accepting food and hunting. 

          At reservations whites intended to assimilate Indians. These people had to convert to Christianity. They had to dress in the American way, change their hair and names, learn English and couldn't dance. Conflicts aroused in these reservations were Indians were pushed to the limit. Diseases broke and alcoholism followed by depression aroused. All the tension building up led to the Wounded Knee Massacre. In this event a tribe was completely wiped out by white soldiers after they took their weapons away and outnumbered them. About 150 Indians were killed including women and children. 

          I can’t tell whether what these people did to each other was good or bad, but it obviously was done the wrong way. They both used violence and it created chaos; more problems instead of benefits. It’s sad the outcome of the story because it could have been prevented. For this we record history, so mistakes like these won’t happen again.