Double Edge Sword essays

Double Edge Sword essays After the civil war, we had thousands upon thousands of people looking for the "American Dream", and Horace Greeley, who stated the famous words "Go west young man", helped to start the great migration westward. There was plenty of cheap land west of the Mississippi, and gold was foud in the West, just waiting for those who could get there. The migration ultimately interfered with the Native Americans, which changed their way of life forever. Many poor souls tried to make it in the west at raising cattle, farming, and mining, but failed. Ther was also those who made it big with new inventions, hard work and lots of luck. The Native Americans were living on a valuable asset called land, and the government was looking to expand their territoty to the west. However, the U.S. had to do something with the Native Americans, so they strated to create reservation in hope to avoid land wars between the Native Americans and the new settlers. Tribes were congregated on small reservations; each tribes had their own culture and this caused friction among each other. Not to mention, there was already conflicts going on with their government caregivers. Futhermore, there were church-run boarding schools, which took the children away from theirr parents, so they could learnn the White man's way of life and that only added to their stress. Ultimately, many of the Native Americans died due to battles, disease, and the mistreatment on the reservations. For example, the Sand Creek massacre where 450 peaceful Indains were slaughtered. For those who survived, their lives changed forever. In the name of progress, we took their land and shattered their culture by trying to bring them into American's way of life. The farmers, who migrated westward, found themsevles in a strange land it was nothing that they were used to. The land was flat, dry praisie grass, and for the most part treeless. They had to learn how to biuld sod homes, and use buf...