Reservations

When one thinks of a concentration camp they usually think Germany and the Jewish concentration camps in World War II. However, many will be surprised to find out that the U.S. had very similar “camps” on our soil long before the Germans developed theirs. What’s even more disturbing is that our camps were actually looked at by the German’s when they developed theirs and were essentially based off of ours. These “reservations” as they were called by the government were by no means healthy or fun for the Native Americans that were forced to go there.

 **Navajos-The Long Walk ** One of the more well-known Native American concentration camps is Fort Sumner in New Mexico, which was home to some 9,000 Navajos in the early 1860’s. At this time, the Navajo were starting to move away from being hunters and farmers and started to become herders and raiders that were always on the go. To try to stop this, the U.S. military stepped in and forced almost 9,000 Navajos to walk the “Long Walk”, a 300 mile journey that provided the people with inadequate food and water and barely no place to escape. This included men, women and children and if they could not continue, they would be killed and left behind. Almost 2,000 people died just on the way there. Once on the reservation, they realized they were basically being held captive. There was still not enough food or water and the land was not good for farming either, which is supposed to be what they were brought there for. Men, women and children were so malnourished that they would eat whatever they could find and many of them died because of disease. There are even accounts that young boys would roll around in animal feces trying to look for undigested corn that they would heat up and eat. When crops actually grew, they were ruined with disease or drought which meant the crops here never did well. The U.S. Gov eventually decided to let the Navajo walk back to their native lands. However, they did not do this because they saw what they were doing or because they felt bad. They let them go because it cost the government about $1 million per year just to house them and they decided it was not worth all that money just to keep them captive.

**Cherokees- The Trail of Tears ** The Trail of Tears is similar to the Long Walk with the only difference being that the Cherokees were not forced to a concentration camp but to new land in the West. The reason for this movement was settlers were moving further into the Deep South, such as Georgia, and the government was pressured to have the natives moved for further expansion of the country. The Trail of Tears actually included five tribes: Choctaws, Muskogee or Creek Nation, Chickasaws, Cherokees, and the Seminoles. The Indian removal act was passed in 1830 which allowed for relocation of all natives in the Southeastern states and the Ohio River drainage to Oklahoma. This treaty forced the natives to give up their land in return for land in the West and also some compensation, which was barely ever paid. Some people agreed to the terms and signed it while other boycotted the movement and stayed behind. Whether they left at once or stayed, all of the natives were eventually pushed out of their ancient homelands. Those that decided to stay were worse off. They were eventually forced to leave, sometimes placed in concentration camps or in chains and often all of their possessions were taken from them. Some tribes, such as the Creek Nation, did not leave so peacefully and small wars broke out over the course of two years. Again, the trek to the West was not easy on the people. Many died from starvation or disease while others simply couldn’t continue on with the long journey. In all, about 17,000 Native Americans were forced into Oklahoma with only about 2,000 of them going peacefully and hundreds of them dying along the way or killed for not leaving peacefully.



Citations: James, Angela. "The Trail of Tears." //Trail of Tears: 1830-1858//. United States of America Chronology, 3 Mar. 2004. Web. 20 Apr. 2012. [].

Oswalt, Wendell H. //This Land Was Theirs, A Study Of Native North Americans//. 9th ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, USA, 2008. Print