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An extremely controversial document, the Indian Removal Act was signed by President Andrew Jackson with the intention of pressuring tens of thousands of Indigenous people to pick up their lives in the southeast and move their tribes westward. In exchange for lands and large sums of money, numerous chiefs agreed to sign the legislation and relocate their tribes in areas that would one day become Oklahoma.
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After the installation of the Indian Removal Act, Indigenous tribes in the southeast portion of the United States were forced to move westward. Often referred to as a "death march," Indigenous people were forced to march hundreds of miles in large groups. As a result, numerous communicable diseases, as well as starvation, spread through camps, killing hundreds.
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Congress passes the Indian Appropriations Act, creating the Indian reservation system. Native Americans aren’t allowed to leave their reservations without permission.
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In the spring of 1879, Carlisle Indian Industrial School opened its doors to 84 Lakota Native youth arriving from South Dakota. In the next two decades, nearly 81 additional boarding schools would open up across the nation. The intention of such schools was to "civilize" Indigenous peoples and assimilate them into white American society.
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The Dawes Act of 1887 was a U.S. law that authorized the federal government to break up tribal land, allotting individual plots to Native Americans in an effort to assimilate them into American culture. The goal was to end communal land ownership, promote individual farming, and ultimately dissolve tribal sovereignty.
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The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred on December 29, 1890, when the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry massacred hundreds of unarmed Lakota men, women, and children at Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. It is considered the last major armed conflict between the U.S. government and the Plains Indians.
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The Act offered citizenship and the right to vote within the United States to all Indigenous people. However, some chose not to become full-fledged citizens, but rather remain members of their own tribe.
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The Indian Relocation Act of 1956 was a United States law intended to create a "a program of vocational training" for American Indians in the United States. The act has been characterized as an attempt to encourage American Indians to leave Indian reservations and their traditional ancestral lands, to assimilate them into the general population in urban areas, and to weaken community and tribal ties.
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The American Indian Movement is a grassroots movement initially centered in urban areas in order to address systemic issues of poverty, discrimination, and police brutality against Indigenous Americans. AIM soon widened its focus to issues Indigenous groups have faced due to settler colonialism in the Americas, including treaty rights, high rates of unemployment, the lack of American Indian subjects in education, and the preservation of Indigenous cultures.
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A group of San Francisco Bay-area Indigenous Americans, calling themselves “Indians of All Tribes,” journey to Alcatraz Island, declaring their intention to use the island for an Indigenous school, cultural center and museum. Referencing Europeans' colonization of North America, they claim Alcatraz is theirs “by right of discovery.” On June 11, 1971 armed federal marshals descend on the island and remove the last of its Indigenous residents.
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Members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, to protest corruption within the tribal government and the U.S. government's failure to uphold treaty obligations. The occupation involved confrontations with U.S. Marshals and FBI agents, resulting in the deaths of two Indigenous Americans. The event, held at the historic site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, garnered international attention and increased awareness of Indigenous rights and issues.