Wow.
- The United States of America is only 229 years old.
- The U.S. was negotiating treaties (and breaking most) with tribes to expand territory into the later half of the nineteenth century, which was roughly about 150 years ago.
- And it is not about what "you" did. It is about the European and American legacy of prior generations, in which current generations have to face:
Both Native Americans and Europeans belonged to nations, but they differed on definition. Tribes such as the Creek, the Iroquois, and the Cherokee were nations. They owned territory and made peace treaties with each other just like Europeans did between their nations. What these tribes did not have were borders upon a map, which was understood by Europeans as defining a nation. And according to the contemporary understanding of the laws of international diplomacy, Native Americans had no claims against growing European colonies.
Shortly after the colonies gained independence (229 years ago), the dominant group established the United States of America upon former indigenous nations. When the Constitution of the United States was ratified in 1788, the Framers intentionally excluded Native Americans. Article I, Section 2 reads, "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States...excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons." The Three-Fifths Compromise at least recognized African slaves as being a part of the new nation in some fashion thereby placing them within the culture. "Indians" were simply excluded. Thus, between 1830–1868, the efforts to remove Indians away from expanding American territories eventually became a systematic function that evolved into reservations.
The establishment of reservations prior to the Civil War organized the numerous recognized tribes into a sort of separated cultural sovereignty. The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, following the War, altered Article I and reads, "Representatives shall be apportioned...according to their respective numbers, counting whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed." The fact that African Americans existed within the dominant groups conscious and within the mainstream culture mattered greatly in determining equal citizen status. The Three-Fifths Compromise ceased to exist. However, not addressed, was the continued exclusion of "Indians" from any representation in government. But the reservations at least served to spare Native Americans from total genocide while providing a haven where resisting government attempts to force assimilation translated to preserving their distinct tribal cultures.
Now we have modern history. With the Reorganization Act of 1934, the U.S. government acknowledged that American Indian reservations should self-govern and that government agencies needed to reduce their paternalistic role. The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, which came out of the Civil Right's Marches, extended the Bill of Rights towards individual Native Americans in order to ensure civil rights and liberty. In 1975, the Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act reversed the separatist intent of the Reorganization Act by increasing aid to reservation schools while at the same time increasing tribal control.
So, this is not 400 years ago. This has been an ensuring issue in which the U.S. government has constantly tried to make amends by at least recognizing that "we" as a collective society created this. Current generations have the same responsibility as the ones of the 1970s, the 1960s, the 1930s, etc.
