A smaller group within a society that is different from the rest due to race, religion or political beliefs is known as a minority. They can be treated as a group that is distinguished from and/or less dominant than the majority. Groups of refugees can be thought of as not only rejects of their native country but also of the country they wish to inhabit. In focus, the Native Americans (originating from the United States) and First Nations (originating from Canada) have been in a constant battle to grasp their own identity, without any ramifications to their own community. Today and throughout history, cultural devastation has affected both aboriginal parties from the United States and Canada. People can consider these cultural minority groups “prisoners” in their own country just as many refugee factions feel. By having specified domains or reservations in both countries for both aborigines groups shows such similarities to the convention of refugee camps. Compare and contrast the cultural identity of the United States Native Americans and Canada’s First Nations minority groups. Throughout history, the relationship between the aboriginal group and country has continued to evolve because of numerous and various reasons. What are those reasons and in what ways has their identity evolved? Assuming that people are identified as Native Americans and First Nations—how did their identification evolve? (***** Answer and explain.****)
American Indian, Native American, First Nation, Eskimo, Inuit, and Native Alaskan are some of the terms that have been used as referents to indigenous Americans over the past 500 years. The action of labelling does have consequences as the generalized name “Indian” regularly has a negative connotation in which the continued use of this label frame the attitude of federal policy and chauvinism toward Aboriginal populations. Out of erroneous belief, Christopher Columbus pronounced that he had reached the shores of South Asia in which the word Indian came to be. The term America came to be as a significance to the Western Hemisphere continents when a German cartographer published a map naming them after Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci and soon after the word American fastened to Indian (American Indian) to differ the indigenous people from those located in South Asia. In the 1960s, many persons of influence in the United States and Canada rejected and formed the phrase American Indian considering it had racist undertones. The term Native American is as common and preferred as it is known as more considered and respectful in the US, while “Indian” is old-fashioned and perhaps shallow.
After confederation in 1867, the Dominion of Canada enlarged its lands by the succession of Numbered Treaties. The 614 First Nation bands covered by these treaties granted their territory in reciprocation to exemptions form Canadian taxes, open access to hunting, medical care, and the rights to reserved land. To be able to access these conditions, members had to be identified as “Status Indians” or “registered Indian”. The term First Nations dates form Canada’s 1876 Indian Act, in which First Nations is the most common and polite way to identify the natives. In focus, when people label this minority group the English word: “aboriginal”, it is not necessarily defined as the first inhabitants; but the root of the word “ab” is a Latin prefix word
Ledford 3 meaning “not”, therefore the term aboriginal can be translated to “not original” which can set the identification and recognition of the native faction even further back.
Both, the First Nations and Native Americans have underwent their own versions of mistreatments resulting in cultural genocides. Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. MacDonald enforced a policy that consisted of starving the First Nation natives to death resulting in western expansions for European settlers. This act of suffering and infliction is precedent of being known as a genocide according to the CPPCG. First Nation’s culture is also a victim of neglect which lead to an act of genocide by omission. Canada’s Department of Indian Affairs consciously overlooked and ignored the spread of tuberculosis in the native schools. Malnutrition was known to increase the risk of the disease and considering that the confinement that the First Nations people were constantly in, it was easy for the disease to spread more rapidly and aggressively. The death rates in the 1930s and 40s were in exuberance of 700 deaths per 100,000 first nation peoples. Moreover, in 1960, the term “Sixties Scoop” came to be when the forced removal of the First Nations children from their native families transpired. Thousands of indigenous children were taken from their homes, families, and cultures and were placed in foster homes, eventually leading to being adopted by white families. The victimized children lost their names, languages, connection to their cultural identity through the act of assimilation,
Ledford 4 resulting in the successful deed of yet another extermination.
In parallel to the First Nations, the Native Americans also endured acts of massacre genocides throughout history. In 1830, US President Andrew Jackson authorized and enforced a document known as The Indian Removal Act set to grant Indian tribes unsettled western prairie land in exchange for their South Eastern territories. Some norther tribes peacefully resettle in western lands whereas the Five Civilized Tribes of around 100,000 peoples based in the Southeast of the United States were forced to march westward under US military coercion. The forced expedition was projected to take around eighty consecutive days, however due to the inclement dangerous winter weather, the journey took twice as long resulting in almost 1,500 dying from epidemics in the camps they were housed in and 1,600 dying during the trailed journey of what is now known as The Trail of Tears.
Today, these two cultures still face constant struggles of self worth and sufficiency. Time and time again, their governments continue to restrain and diminish their cultural identity. For example, the majority of American Indians and especially the ones located in remote areas are sufferers from of unemployment and poverty as high as some tribal communities reaching 70 percent. It is known that many of the poorest counties in the United States are located on Indian reservations. Because of such negative and unsound living conditions, the result is that these communities often suffer from high rates of alcoholism and substance abuse, violent crime, and health divergence compared to the rest of America. Such manifestations also are known to affect the youth of these exploited natives resulting in suicide being the second-leading cause of death
Ledford 5 for American Indian youth ages 15 to 25. Through the act of ignorance by outsiders and poor conditions of living, the past is repeating itself by modernization genocidal tendencies.
First Nations people in compared to the average Canadian have a steady higher mortality rate in all age groups. Moreover, First Nations girls and women suffer from a improperly higher mortality rate than First Nations and Canadian males. In reference to the Native American’s Trail of Tears, First Nations have their own version known as the Highway of Tears. Since 1969, violence against indigenous women has been enigmatic. At least 18 young women have either disappeared or been murdered on the 450 mile long Trans-Canada Highway known as the Highway of Tears and more than 1,000 missing and murdered indigenous women and girls have transpired in addition. In February of 2014, a 26 year old pregnant Inuit indigenous woman was found frozen and dumped onto a highway median in New Brunswick, Canada. She attended Saint Mary’s University and had been writing her thesis on missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada, ironically. Indigenous women of Canada are five times more likely to be victims of homicide than non indigenous women. Regardless of the astounding and devastating numbers of aboriginal women disappearing and/or being murdered, the Canadian government has been slow to respond to the phenomenon of female mortality; constituting even further that the government still restricts the First Nations’ Canadian identity, culture, and relevance.
According to recent study, in America there are around 566 federally recognized Native American and Alaskan Native tribes. Each one of these tribes is known to have their own cultural identity, language, history, and traditions. Throughout history and even in current events, natives have continued to struggle in fully grasping their heritage constant opposition from the United States government. The Dakota Access Pipeline represents another provocation to the Native American sovereignty. The Sioux tribe located in Standing Rock, North Dakota are victims are the government interfering with their current living conditions; with the threat of the pipeline contaminating their drinking water and damaging sacred burial sites, the pipeline is causing an uproar to the Native American community.