Japanese American and Native American Timeline

By nathanwillana

  • 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land

  • Indian Removal Act of 1830 started, which gave the federal government the power to exchange Native owned land for land in the west (in Oklahoma)

  • Non-Native Americans (including Samuel Worcester) were accused for violating a statue that said they couldn't live within the limits of the Cherokee without a license

  • The Trail of Tears starts

  • The Choctaw became the first tribe to get it's land taken away

    they had to go on foot and thousands of people died on the way

  • The Samuel Worcester problem went to court and it was called Worcester v Georgia

  • Cherokee and the Creeks got their land taken

    The government drove the people away and 3,500 of the Creeks died on their way to Oklahoma and many of the Cherokee protested

  • Indian Appropriations Act of 1851

    Formally created reservations to “protect” indigenous people and Native people were not allowed to leave without permission.

  • U.S Navy Sails into Harbor of Tokyo with 4 Warships. Commodore Perry's goal was to force Japan into trade relations with the United States

  • Senator While Perry's "gunboat diplomacy" resulted in a US-Japanese trade relationship and also caused ending of Tokugawa shogunate

  • The Japanese began emigrating to Hawai'i and the US in the following decades

  • The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in response to the rising anti-Chinese sentiment

  • The Dawes Act of 1887

    This allowed the government to divide reservations into small plots of land for individual Indians, the rest was sold

  • Hawai'i became a US territory

  • San Fransisco School Board ruled in favor of Chinese and Japanese segregation in California schools

  • The Gentlemen's Agreement was made so that the US would not make any immigration policy that excluded Japanese immigrants, if Japan agreed to issue fewer passports for day laborers who wished to emigrate to the US

  • The US supreme court extended the 1790 Naturalization act to exclude Japanese immigrants

  • California passed the Alien Land Law which prohibited Japanese nationals from owing property

  • Natives in WWII

    There was approximately 10,000 Native American men volunteered for duty in World War I.

  • Japanese farms become large economic force on West Coast-- worth $67 million, 10% of California crops

    this was a concern for policymakers, who thought these successful farms were taking jobs away from more deserving white workers

  • National Origins act

  • Total amount of Japanese owned land shrunk from 74,769 acres in 1920 to 41,898 acres in 1925

  • Japan (an axis power) launched a surprise attack on the US Naval base at Pearl Harbor, and declared war on the US

  • The Start of Code Talking in WWII

    Philip Johnston (non native but grew up on a reservation) created a code out of Navajo languages

  • Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized the removal of all people deemed a possible threat to national security

  • The National Origins Act remained in place until 1952

  • Navajo Code Declassified