...Essay on Native American Environmental Issues by David R. Lewis This essay is taken from Native America in the Twentieth Century: An Encyclopedia, edited by Mary B. Davis and published in 1994 by Garland Publishers of New York. The encyclopedia includes additional essays on mining, natural resource management, hunting and fishing rights, and economic development. It's a highly recommended resource. Reprinted without permission for educational purposes. Traditionally Native Americans have had an immediate and reciprocal relationship with their natural environments. At contact, they lived in relatively small groups close to the earth. They defined themselves by the land and sacred places, and recognized a unity in their physical and spiritual universe. Their cosmologies connected them with all animate and inanimate beings. Indians moved in a sentient world, managing its bounty and diversity carefully lest they upset the spirit "bosses," who balanced and endowed that world. They acknowledged the power of Mother Earth and the mutual obligation between hunter and hunted as coequals. Indians celebrated the earth's annual rebirth and offered thanks for her first fruits. They ritually addressed and prepared the animals they killed, the agricultural fields they tended, and the vegetal and mineral materials they processed. They used song and ritual speech to modify their world, while physically transforming that landscape with fire and water, brawn and brain. They did not passively...
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...Native Americans (including Alaskan natives) consist of 5.2 million people making them only 1% of the whole United States population. There are over 566 recognized tribes and 324 federally-recognized Native American reservations. The largest tribes are Navajo, Cherokee, Choctaw, Sioux, Chippewa, Apache, Blackfeet, Iroquois, and Pueblo. Although Native Americans live all throughout the United States, they mostly populate California, Oklahoma, Arizona, Texas, New York, New Mexico, Washington, North Carolina, Florida, and Michigan (US Bureau of the Census). To be considered a Native American depends on who you ask because the rules for each tribe varies. Some tribes use the method known as the blood quantum which defines membership by the degree...
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...Jamestown, but by the end of the first winter only 40 survived. The English came to America in 1607 to be the first permanent English settlement in the New World. They settled in a place that they soon called Jamestown, Virginia and the joint stock company called The Virginia Company, helped pay for the settlement. All of the first settlers were men and by then end of the first six months, 80 percent of them died. Early Jamestown was a colony of English settlers in America that lasted from the years 1607-1611. Something that puzzles historians is how many colonists died in Early Jamestown. Many colonists in Early Jamestown died because of environmental issues, their relationships with Native Americans and their lack of settler skills. The first reason why so many settlers in Early Jamestown died was because of the environmental issues. Brackish water was the only water made available to the settlers in Jamestown. Brackish water contains salt and is not sanitary to drink. You could drink and drink this water but never get hydrated from it. Diseases and bad health resulted...
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...logged and grazed. At the same time, the area’s natural beauty attracted tourists and outdoor adventurists. The use of the west side of the San Francisco Peaks for skiing began in 1937, when the Civil Conservation Corps built a road and a small lodge at the base of the Anazani Peak. In 1978 the US Forest Service approved a major expansion into what today is known as the Arizona Snowbowl, with thirty-two trails and four lifts that can accommodate up to 180,000 skiers (Nabokov, pg 140). In 2002 the US Forest Service accepted a proposal from the Snowbowl to expand the resort and to use reclaimed water for snowmaking. The proposal received approval in 2005 from the Southwest Regional Forest Office. Following the approval, a group of Native American tribes sued the government challenging the Forest Service’s approval of the expansion under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”), and the National Historic Preservation Act (“NHPA”). The first challenge was denied in Arizona Federal Court. The group appealed the decision...
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...The main reasons that contributed to the high death rate were, environmental problems, relations with the Native Americans, and their own skills. Of the many reasons that the settlers three of them stand out, the first one was environmental problems. First, Jamestown’s position on the saltwater freshwater transition played a big role in the many deaths. Settlers drank water and took baths in the water. They also dumped their waste in water. Little did they know that the waste stayed in their water, “ … where filth introduced into the river tended to fester rather than flush away (Blatnon).” Secondly, The 1607-1612 drought 1609-1610 ‘starving time’ affected the colonists greatly because their crops and the forest animals struggled to survive. Lastly, precipitation spikes greatly influenced the lives of the Jamestown colonists. Precipitation affected whether their crops grew. If...
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...Recently, PharmaCARE launched a new initiative; We CARE about YOUR world®. This action pledged its commitment to the environment through recycling, packaging changes, and other green initiatives. However, the company’s lobbying efforts and Political Action Committee (PAC) have successfully defeated environmental laws and regulations. They now maintain a large manufacturing facility in the African nation of Colberia. In Colberia, the company benefits from the free information on alternative methods of healing. PharmaCare repays the natives by offering the Colberians jobs that pay $1 a day. The duties consist of harvesting plants by walking five miles into and out of the jungle carrying baskets that can weigh up to fifty pounds. After working a long hard day for $1, these same workers return to their primitive huts with no electricity or running water. Being poor is the way of life for most of the population of Colberia; however PharmaCARE’s executives are Americans. They live in a luxury compound, complete with a swimming pool, a tennis court, and a golf course. They live the American lifestyle in a third world country while the extensive activities destroy the habitat and endanger the native species. PharmaCare seems to have...
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...IHS Affirmative Observation One: Inherency 2 Advantage One: Health 5 Advantage Two: Indigenous Economy 9 Observation Two: Solvency 14 Only federal action can solve the case- denying Indian health care furthers an ongoing policy of American Indian genocide 17 Inherency – Lack of Funding 18 Inherency – Lack of Funding 19 Inherency – Lack of Funding 20 Inherency – Lack of Funding 21 Health Impacts – Disease/Death 22 Health Impacts – Disease/Death 23 Health Impacts – Disease/Death 24 IMPACT: Mental Health and Suicide 25 IMPACT: Mental Health and Suicide 26 Extensions to Genocide/Racism Impact 27 Extensions to Genocide/Racism Impact 28 IMPACT: Moral Obligation/Human Rights 29 Solvency Extension - IHCIA/IHS Solves 30 Solvency Extension - IHCIA/IHS Solves 31 Solvency Extension - IHCIA/IHS Solves 32 Solvency Extension - IHCIA/IHS Solves 33 Solvency Extension - IHCIA/IHS Solves for cultural sensitive health 34 Solvency Extension – Congress Key 35 Solvency Extension – Federal Government Key 36 A2: I.H.S. is Racist 37 A2: Transportation 38 A2: “Structural/Distribution Barriers” 39 A2: No Qualified Professionals 40 A2: Bureaucrats 41 A2: IHS has arbitrary eligibility standards 42 A2: Blood Quantum 43 A2: Medicaid Solves 44 AT: Medicaid Solves 45 AT: Medicaid Solves 46 A2: IHS doesn’t use traditional medicine 47 Tribal...
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...author talks about the treatment of bodies, in particular Native bodies, and how colonial thought and theory regards Native people as inherently “rapable” and “violable,” a colonial conviction that stretches past the physical bodies of Natives, to Native independence and lands as well. She explains that patriarchy is the foundation by which power is established over Native women's bodies because hierarchal, patriarchal authority and control systems of society are seldom found within native societies. Europeans, on the other hand, have long depended on these methods to suppress and infuse fear into their people. Sexual violence, consequently, serves the colonizer as one way of assimilating Native women into Western society, which, therefore, increases Native vulnerability to gender violence. Sexual violence exists to such a degree, according to Smith, that the "phenomenon indicates the extent to which our communities have internalized self-hatred". Chapter 2, Boarding School Abuses and the Case for Reparations, give some examples for the above mentioned violence. Boarding school systems in the United States are described as a tool for genocide and rape/sexual dominance. This chapter focuses, as well, on the reparations for such wrongs, encompassed by her communication of "abuses from a reparations framework" that is essential for coalition-building and active sovereignty. She addresses the need for a Native American involvement in the global reparations movement, but also...
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...What is Environmental Justice? http://www.epa.gov/compliance/environmentaljustice/ Abstract- Among evidence of environmental injustice is the fact that three out of five African-Americans and Hispanics, and nearly half of all Native Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders live in communities with one or more uncontrolled toxic waste sites, incinerators or major landfills. A recent Greenpeace study found that minorities make up twice as large a population share in communities with these unwanted sites as in communities without them. In 1980 the average minority population near a landfill or hazardous waste facility was about 22%; in 1994 it was 36%. I. INTRODUCTION People of color in the United State and around the world are subjected to a disproportionately high level of environmental health risk in their neighborhoods and on their jobs. Minorities, who tend to be poorer and more disadvantaged that other residents, work in the dirtiest jobs where they are exposed to toxic chemicals and other hazards. More often than not they also live in urban ghettos, barrios, reservations and rural poverty pockets that have shockingly high pollution levels and are increasingly the site of unpopular industrial facilities, such as toxic waste dumps, landfills, smelters, refineries and incinerators. Environmental Justice combines civil rights with environmental protection to demand a safe, healthy, life-giving environment for everyone. II. ORIGIN In 1987 the Reverend Benjamis Chavis...
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...Weichao Xu Sciology 101 Chapter 7 Native American 1. Sociohistorical Perspective Early Encounters A. Place the pre-European colonization number of Native Americans become United States. a) Tribes changed their values, customs and beliefs. B. Debate about native American and European culture. a) Indigenous people to be savage. b) Incorrupt children of nature always engage in pleasurable activities. C. The stereotype of Native Americans is negative. 1. They obstruct Europeans from occupying the native americans’ land. 2. Cruel, treacherous, lying and dirty health. 3. Scalps, firearms and firewater. D. Outsiders frequently generalize about Native Americans. 1. The Native’s American language decrease from 300 to 175 . 2. English become the main language in home, school and work place. E. The relationship between Native Americans and whites. 1. Whits was the newcomers to Native Americans. a) Distrust b) Uneasy truces c) Violent hostilities F. The major issue whose way of life would prevail. 1. European a) Beatings, hangings , and imprisonment. b) The land would be developed further. 2. Native American Natural state, abounding with fish and wildlife. G. Forced relocation of Native American tribes to encourage westward expansion. ...
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...and multifaceted due to the various personalities, presenting issues, dynamics, and outside influences. In the field of social work, the family system will be the backbone of effective intervention as it is the primary agent of socialization that our society is built upon. The movie Grand Avenue depicts a multi-generational view of Native American families who are struggling to assimilate into American life while maintaining cultural beliefs and traditions. The families of Molly, Steven, and Anna will be explored looking at the different relationships and the stressors each family is faced with, their strengths, and their goals, that they want to accomplish in life. I will analyze Molly’s family first. Molly has three children; Justine, who is the oldest, Alice and Sheldon who is the youngest. They historically resided on a reservation in New Mexico with her husband Jack. Shortly after Jack passed away, Molly was asked to leave the reservation with her family. Molly returned to her hometown with her cousin Anna, who found Molly an old run down house for the family to rent on Grand Avenue. Grand Avenue is a very rough neighborhood with different races and personalities that in combination with each other result in increased gang activity and violence. It is evident that Molly loves her children, but she does not know how to express the love in a healthy manner. Molly is an alcoholic who struggles with her anger issues. Molly’s relationships with her children vary and it is evident...
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... Feral horse (mustang) herds roaming the Great American Plains are a well-known symbol of American history. Yet few are acquainted with their convoluted history and the socio-political and environmental conflicts they are involved in. The horses of today originated in North America but went extinct in prehistoric times due to unclear reasons. They disseminated to other continents and were reintroduced to North America by Columbus’ men. The period of the horses’ historical absence from North America has sparked debates as to their official status. Some horse advocates and environmentalists argue that feral horses are native to the continent and as such should be protected and given free space to roam. Their main arguments are that horses originated on and inhabited the continent long before humans started populating it, and that the feral horses of the Wild West are a national symbol of history and pride. Others, mainly farmers and agriculturalists, push for population control and limiting the mustangs’ area because they are an invasive non-native species that harms natural ecosystems and competes with livestock for resources. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is responsible for implementing policies concerning feral horses. Currently, following the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, the Bureau captures feral horses and gives them away for adoption. The main issue facing the Bureau is the legal and environmental status of feral horses as an indigenous or invasive...
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...Early Jamestown: Why Did So Many Colonists Die? Suppose you have to live in an infested, uncommon, and to you an inhabitable land. You come with 100 other men, some dressed in cloth, some dressed in rages. How would the relationship be between you, the environment, unknown aliens, and your “companions?” The spring of 1607, three English ships with a hundred passengers came across the Atlantic, through the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, and up the James River. Their intention was to create the first permanent English settlement in the “New World”, teach the ways of Jesus Christ to the Native peoples, find a trade route to China, and gather riches. Though only in the first few years of this “permanent” settlement, it started to parish. People...
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...The Native Americans were very worried that the United States would infringe upon their agreements and takeover their promised lands. According to Perdue and Green, various reasons accounted for Indian complaints, including the states that pushed for the intrusion of Indian lands and the defense against Indian retaliation to protect their homes. Georgia encourages their citizens to invade and inhabit the Native lands. This caused much controversy. These encouragements directly contravened the treaties that promised the rights to the land to the Natives (Perdue 24). One example of Indian-American conflict in Georgia was the infringement...
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...is dehumanizing and fails to acknowledge Native ontologies Shepard Krech III, PhD and Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Studies at Brown University, 1999, “The Ecological Indian: Myth and History”, W. W. Norton & Company, New York: London, acc. 2/15/13, p. 15-27 Even though an invention of Madison Avenue, the Crying Indian is an effective image and advocate because its assumptions are not new. From the moment they encountered the native people of North America and represented them in texts, prints, paintings, sculptures, performances—in all conceivable media—Europeans classified them in order to make them sensible. They made unfamiliar American Indians familiar by using customary taxonomic categories, but in the process often reduced them simplistically to one of two stereotypes or images, one noble and the other not. For a long time, the first has been known as the Noble Savage and the second as the Ignoble Savage. The Noble Savage, the first of the two stereotypes or images, has drawn persistently on benign and increasingly romantic associations; the Ignoble Savage, the second, on a menacing malignancy The first has emphasized the rationality, vigor, and morality of the nature-dwelling native; the second, the cannibalistic, bloodthirsty, inhuman aspects of savage life. Often elements from the two stereotypes have been combined in a single portrait.2 The label savage, which English-speaking people used for North American Indians (and their imagery) for centuries...
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