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Columbus inadvertently landed in the new world. Although, Europeans deemed it as nobody's land, it was the homeland of existing indigenous residents.
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After the first European contact, the native population plummeted by an estimation of 80% from 50 million in 1492 to 8 million in 1650. This was due to old world diseases and the conditions that colonization imposed on indigenous populations.
Some scholars call this the first large-scale act of genocide in the modern era. -
The French and Indian War begins, pitting the two groups against English settlements in the North.
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The treaty is signed in Georgia protecting Cherokee Native Americans in the US and sectioning off their land.
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President James signs the declaration of war against Britian. This started the war between US forces and the British, French, and Native Americans over independence and territory expansion.
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President Andrew Jackson signs the act which gives plots of land west of Mississippi river to Native American tribes in exchange for land that is taken from them.
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President Martin Van Burren enlisted General Winfield Scott along with 7000 troops to march Cherokee Indians over 1,200 miles at gunpoint. More than 5,000 Indians died as a result of the journey.
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Congress passes the Indian Appropriations Act which created the Indian reservation system. This meant Native Americans weren't allowed to leave the reservations without permission.
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The first students attend the school in Penn. The country's first off-reservation boarding school. The school was created to assimilate Native American students.
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President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizen Act also known as the Snyder Act. Some viewed this as a movement to force Native Americans to assimilate to American society.
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Utah repealed a law that denied Native Americans living on reservations the right to vote.
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Native Americans were prevented from voting with poll taxes, literacy test, and intimidation. These same tactics were used on African Americans.
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The supreme court of New Mexico struck down a challenge that claimed Navajos living on a reservation in the state should not have been allowed to vote.
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The Voting Rights Act helped to strengthen the voting rights that the native people had won in every state.
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The act is signed by President Lyndon Johnson granting Native American tribes many of the benefits included in the Bill of Rights.
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The Supreme Court eliminated the justice departments authority to block changes to voting laws in states with histories of discrimination.
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It was found that at least 23 states in the US had enacted newly restrictive statewide voter laws.