Urban Waters

I never realized how much control whites had slowly gained over Native Americans in the Upper Mississippi Valley. According to the reading, after the founding of Fort Snelling, trader manipulation reached its highest level. By the 1820's, traders were essential to Sioux survival and the Dakotas had also become quite dependent.

During this time period, the Dakotas and the Sioux saw the lands ecologically drained, which eventually led the Dakotas to agriculture. The traders were quick to exploit the Native Americans in any way they could. During the 1820's traders rushed to monopolize and maximize the Sioux trade.While some government officials became close to the Native American tribes, and some even intermarried, it became a disadvantage for the Sioux and the Dakotas in the long run. What it ended up doing was giving the tribes the false idea that the government actually held an interest in their personal welfare.

While doing the readings I was intrigued by the situation between the whites (traders, military, and settlers) and the different bands of Indians. I had always known of conflicts between the two parties but have never read such detailed accounts of their history. It is hard to read about the conflicts between the Indians and the government because had the Indians realized the dilemma they were putting themselves in by selling their land they could have prevented or stalled the destruction of their culture and way of life. It is hard to believe that the Indians would accept "any" monetary amount for their home. By selling their lands they had jeopardized their way of life, increased conflicts with other tribes, and slowly at away at their culture. Just some thoughts on the reading for tomorrow!

I was not aware of the interdependency between the traders and the Dakota hunters. The growing dependency of tribes on the traders for presents significantly affected the culture of the Dakota. It seems that this emerging economy played a role in the tribes selling off their land to the government in future treaties, and changed their way of life. For example, in anticipation of the payments designated by the 1837 treaty for land in Wisconsin, many of the Mdewakantons did not go on their traditional winter hunts. Instead they remained at Fort Snelling waiting for the treaty to be ratified and payments to be made.
In addition, I didn’t realize that the fur traders received compensation in any of these treaties either. I had not considered the implications that a treaty had on their way of life. With the sale of the land, there was less area for hunters to collect furs to exchange with the fur traders. As a result their compensation included in the treaty.

I was amazed at the fact that the Dakota culture was ruined by the consumption of European good, especially whiskey. Once they tasted alcohol and used metal pots and pans the Dakotas made the conscious decision to kill more game than they could consume just so they could keep trading with the white man. Once an animal was completely gone from a certain area, they moved to other areas of the region and killed everything there. The game which fed them for hundreds of years was gone in a couple of decades. The Dakotas become so dependant on the white man that they could no longer help themselves. Newborns entered a world with riles and gun powdered and never learned the old Dakota culture, and it wasn’t before long until the entire Dakota culture was gone.

"The ecological rape of their lands", as the article states, puts into emotional verbage the extent of damage done to the land. The thing that surprised me the most was to learn how the Dakota and eventually Sioux lost some of their culture, of following the animals and using the land resourcefully to give into the offerings of the whites. Ckark relized that even though the Dakota hunter continued to think of himself as a free spirit, ecological changes were rappidly happening, "is that in which he ceases to be a hunter, from the extinction of game, and before he gets the means of living, from the produce of flocks and agriculture." Here, it is entailing that the Indians were in a sense naive when it came to their original beliefs of cultivating the land as they now were becoming more suseptiable to the white influence. Perhaps I am naive, but I always thought the Indains didn't sway from their cultural and spiritual beliefs, esecially since mother earth is held in such high regard.

I was very interested to learn that alcohol was a factor that lead to the decrease in the number of Indian tribes in the area. I was not aware that alchohol consumption was controlled by the chiefs of the tribes until fur traders began to hand out rewards of whiskey to young hunters,thereby creating conflict between the tribes. This rewards system definitely proved that a socioeconomical aspect existed and played a part in the relationship between the Indian and white populations. Before reading this, my idea about the relationship between white fur traders and Indian tribes was that it had a lot to do with land deal scheming and war conflict. I did not realize that there were economic,social, and political conflicts as well.

One of the most interesting things I read in the article was about the competition between the fur companies for Dakota pelts. The American Fur Company, the one that outlasted the rest, did so by securing trade routes all the way to New York and thus, foreign markets. Even more than that, they sent lobbyists to Washington to prevent laws that would limit numbers and type of game they could take, as well as where they could get it from. Pretty viscious capitalism for 1820, which surprised me, but probably shouldn't have.

Not to echo too heavily those that have already made this point, but, I was also pretty largely ignorant of the relations between traders and American Indians during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. I suppose I had always imagined some sort of relationship between these two parties, but certainly had never read any documents focusing in on this issue specifically. I think this speaks largely to how American Indian literature is viewed, portrayed and interpreted as well. There has been a large tendency towards bias and lack of or misinformation within this subject by the United States Government, in my mind, especially the further back one chooses to look. Beyond that, there is the individual scope of the author or authors choose to tell their story. Also, I was quite appalled to read of the traders who were distributing alcohol to young American Indians against the wishes of their chiefs. I can see no other way of interpretation except the traders attempting to further drive a wedge between the young American Indians and their chiefs. Something I was also quite ignorant of was the death of many of the major chiefs at the same time as traders and their manipulative tactics became so rampant, and how this played a major role in the division of these young American Indians from their new chiefs. I guess the trend I see is the further purposeful aim of the white settlers to try to disrupt, change, manipulate and otherwise control the lives of the American Indians who previously occupied the lands which they longed to posses.

After reading the articles for this week, I did not realize how much I did not know about the relationship between the whites (especially the traders) and the Native Americans. I wasn’t surprised that the whites became friends and sometimes intermarried with the Native Americans, but I was surprised by how fast the Native Americans took to the whites. After the whites became friends with the Native Americans they took advantage of their friendships to get what the whites wanted. Trade became huge, and many of the bands became dependent on the traders. After some time many of the important Dakota leaders passed, and new leaders were chosen but they could over power the whites and the manipulation they had on the bands.

I learned that traders used alcohol to manipulate the Indians to hunt for them and it created problems within the tribes.

The relationship between the white people and the Indians was very interesting, however I think that everyone overlooked something that is not taught in most of the history books. That is the huge number of wars that took place between the different bands of Indians during this time. At a time when their culture was being slowly taken away by the white people (land, religion, traditional hunting in place of agriculture), the bands of Indians were destrying each other and making it harder for the Indians as a whole. If they would have worked together with each other instead of fought during this time, they probably could have gotten more for thier land (education dollars, weapons, food, money, erasing of trader debt, and more alcohol if that is what they wanted). It seems foolish to take stands against each other when a foriegn people is slowly taking over the land that was previously contestedly theirs.

There were two things that interested me the most about the readings for this week: the sheer impact of euroamericans culture on native americans and how much tribal warfare occurred as a result of this white influence.

Never did I know that the presence of alcohol, the introduction of metal pots and pans and the overall depletion of the ecological system drastically affected Native Americans way of life . Many of the disputes between tribes and white men were alcohol induced and unnecessary. By the end of the reading, few tribes maintained cultural continuity outside of white man's influence with their past traditions. Many tribes were reduced to states of starvation and were forced to increasingly depend on agriculture. Despite the depletion of the animal populations, many tribes continued to find success in hunting traders still had much to learn.

This exchange of alcohol and "gifts" between tribal members and white men in exchange for trading and hunting assistance evolved into a somewhat corrupt economic society. Many ethical merchants did not survive among the native americans by the late 1820s.

The article was very interesting and informative. Indian history has been documented throughout American history. To understand that Indians were the original founders of this land in my opinion is a very important fact in American history. Nevertheless American history has made claims that this land was founded by others. I found it interesting the fight between Indian tribes over land, food, and other resources. These problems did not arise until the white traders con the Indians into buying there alcohol, weapons etc. This method was used to turn Indians against each other and created a system of oppression. In time the Indians would lose their cultural identities and everything they stood for.

I never realized that as the white population gained control of the region that the Native Americans became so dependent on them. I think that in the end when the white settlers basically established a more firm control of the region; the Native Americans could feel nothing but betrayal. Up until this time period there from a Natives standpoint they felt nothing but mutualism and a sharing of resources, even if the white men were a bit more greedy. This set the stage for a complete surprise when we took their land and ultimately their livelihood, and forced them to move out basically.That is what I found rather interesting.

I found it very interesting the role that gift-giving played in developing and maintaining relationships. I feel that Indians were respectful to their word and lived, for the most part, peacefully with other tribes around them by respecting boundaries. It seems that the white settlers and traders took advantage of the Indians' strict obedience to boundaries and kinship ties. It seems all too naive of the Indians to base kinship ties on gift-giving because they were accepting gifts from a euroamerican people that did not adhere to the same cultural practices and values.

I learnen more about how European settlers changed the socioeconomic landscape for indigenous peoples of America. In some cases Whites brought over technology and new thought, economy and products (whiskey), and that forever altered the nature of how tribes of native people interacted with each other.

I never how much trade relations there actually where between the white and Native culture. I did not know that there were also minscule efforts to hinder the natives from recieving booze. It also seems that white settlement also help push the settlement further west where there were more skin and furs from the less hunted lands.

I thought to myself that maybe this was part of the demise of the Native Population. A once thriving culture, became so depedent on european settlers, for modern supplies, like weapons, and utensils, and unfortuanatly liqour (whiskey) that they became weak. The sad part is that once the Natives became less important, they were pushed aside, year after year as teh city started to grow, til they had bounties on they heads. The economic structure and the effects there after make you think