Manifest Destiny, God Given Rights, and The Trail of Tears...

Trail Of Tears - 21 Minutes

Most people in the United States tend to believe we’re ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to the rights of our citizens. We criticize and publicly admonish other countries when they violate the civil rights of their people, but we often turn a blind eye when the abuses are carried out right here on our own soil. There’s no shortage of oppressed groups here in the US, the list is seemingly endless of groups of people who have been attacked by the government, media, and most notably, law enforcement agencies.

One group that’s often overlooked in these discussions is the oppression of the Native American population. Since the very first days of our republic, Native Americans have been pushed aside quite literally to make way for wealthy white land owners. We stripped them of land that they lived on for centuries, in order to create new settlements and expand our territories. In the century's since that time, things haven’t got any better.

On May 28, 1830 the US Congress passed the Indian Removal Act which forced Native Americans from their homeland’s in the eastern and southern United States to the western part of the country. It’s this piece of legislation that led to the infamous Trail of Tears where Native Americans were forced to migrate to the west, and thousands died along the way of exposure, disease, and malnutrition.

The reason the government did this is because gold was discovered on native land in 1829, and the government wanted to get their hands on that gold. Now fast forward almost 200 years, and we still see similar scenarios playing out with Native Americans and their land rights with the Dakota Access Pipeline Project. When the Standing Rock Sioux attempted to halt the unnecessary construction of the pipeline through their sacred land, they were met by federal agents who did everything in their power to push protesting Native Americans off the site, therefore off their own lands.

The land rights of the Standing Rock Sioux were completely ignored so that the oil company Energy Transfer Partners LP, could strike black gold on their property. This is almost an everyday occurrence in the relationship between the federal government and Native Americans. Native Americans have consistently been treated like second class citizens by the federal government, and whatever they believe they own, has always been considered there for the taking by the US Government.

After all, shame on them for being on our land before we got here.
This sentiment is more widespread than you might think.

Everyone should really take the time to watch this video - a little perspective goes a long way...

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