Native American Worldviews and Connection to Land
Native American relationships with land extend far beyond physical geography, embedded in language, traditions, and spiritual practices stretching back thousands of years. Unlike European concepts of individual ownership, many tribes view land as a living ecosystem that includes water, sky, plants, animals, natural forces, and celestial bodies, with humans as integral participants rather than separate owners.
The Potawatomi describe land as “emingoyak” (“that which has been given to us”), encompassing all life-sustaining elements provided freely. As botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer explains, land represents “identity, the connection to our ancestors, the home of our nonhuman kinfolk, our pharmacy, our library, the source of all that sustained us.” The relationship is reciprocal—land cares for people, and people must care for the land.
Coast Salish salmon ceremonies exemplify this reciprocity. Annual salmon runs represent sacred agreements where salmon offer themselves as food, but humans must maintain clean rivers and return salmon bones to water through ceremonial practices.
Native languages reflect these intimate environmental relationships. Lushootseed words often mimic natural sounds, while Ojibwe temporal concepts connect directly to natural phenomena—”onaabani-giizis” describes March as “the hard crust on the snow moon.”
Pre-Columbian North America and European Impact
Contrary to European narratives of “untamed wilderness,” North America was extensively inhabited and managed for millennia. Archaeological evidence confirms human presence dating back 23,000 years. Before European contact, sophisticated trade networks connected diverse regions, evidenced by sites like the Hopewell Earthworks in Ohio, where goods from across the continent were exchanged.
Native peoples developed specialized environmental management techniques: the Zuni created moisture-trapping agricultural grids for desert farming, while tribes across the continent used controlled burning to promote plant growth and prevent larger wildfires.
European colonization brought devastating changes: epidemic diseases, invasive species, and colonial systems designed to dominate Indigenous populations. As colonial populations grew, pressure intensified to remove Native peoples from their lands through forced displacement onto reservations.
The Treaty Era (Mid-18th to Mid-19th Century)
Between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries, the United States entered into nearly 400 treaties with Indian nations. Most tribes were coerced into signing, while others signed without fully understanding implications. Treaties fundamentally altered tribal boundaries and facilitated westward expansion.
The 1626 Manhattan sale illustrates fundamental cultural misunderstandings. While the Dutch understood land ownership as permanent, the Lenape likely viewed the transaction as leasing rather than permanent sale—a pattern of misunderstanding that would repeat throughout the Treaty Era.
The first treaty, the Treaty with the Delawares (1778), promised Lenape sovereignty in exchange for safe passage during the Revolution. Despite Lenape compliance, the U.S. failed to honor commitments, establishing a pattern that Lakota leader Red Cloud later summarized: “They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it.”
Removal and the Trail of Tears
As territorial ambitions grew, treaties shifted from peacekeeping to explicit land acquisition. Andrew Jackson’s 1814 military campaigns against the Creek Nation, culminating in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, resulted in Creek massacres and forced cession of over 20 million acres. This violence demonstrated to many tribes that military resistance against American forces was futile, leading many to sign treaties surrendering most of their land in hopes of retaining some portion.
In 1830, after Jackson’s election as president, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, granting sweeping government authority to exchange Native lands east of the Mississippi River for western territories. The act provided legal framework and federal funding for forced removal when tribes refused to relocate voluntarily. Though officially presented as “voluntary” exchanges, these treaties typically involved extensive bribery, threats, and coercion.
The Cherokee Nation’s experience exemplifies the systematic nature of removal. The Cherokee had developed a sophisticated governmental system, including a written constitution, a newspaper (the Cherokee Phoenix), and successful legal challenges that reached the Supreme Court. In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Cherokee sovereignty, but President Jackson reportedly declared, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”
The Treaty of New Echota (1835) demonstrates removal coercion tactics. Jackson signed this agreement with support from Major Ridge and a small faction representing fewer than 500 Cherokee out of approximately 17,000 tribal members. The treaty exchanged 7 million acres of Cherokee homeland for $5 million and territory in present-day Oklahoma. The vast majority of Cherokee, led by Principal Chief John Ross, denounced the treaty as fraudulent and refused to recognize its legitimacy.
Cherokee resistance persisted until 1838, when federal troops and Georgia militia forces began systematic roundups. Soldiers forced Cherokee families from their homes at bayonet point, allowing them to take only what they could carry. Many were held in overcrowded stockades for months before the westward journey began.
The removal occurred in multiple detachments during 1838-1839. Early groups, forced to travel during summer heat and later ones during harsh winter conditions, faced inadequate supplies, contaminated water, and disease outbreaks. The 1,000-mile journey took approximately four to six months, depending on weather and route conditions. Cherokee oral history preserves accounts of elders and children dying along roadsides, families separated permanently, and sacred sites abandoned forever.
Cherokee losses were staggering: approximately 4,000 people—nearly one-quarter of the nation—died during removal and the first year in Indian Territory. Similar forced relocations affected other southeastern tribes. The Choctaw were the first to be removed (1831-1833), followed by the Creek (1836), Chickasaw (1837), and Seminole (1832-1842, after prolonged military resistance). Overall, during the 1830s, approximately 100,000 Native Americans were forced from their ancestral homelands, with an estimated 15,000 deaths during these relocations.
The Trail of Tears represents the systematic implementation of federal removal policy, transforming the theoretical “voluntary exchange” of the Removal Act into what many scholars now recognize as ethnic cleansing. It demonstrated the ultimate failure of Cherokee strategies of legal resistance, constitutional government, and cultural adaptation as protection against federal determination to acquire Native lands.
From Reservations to Contemporary Resistance
As westward expansion continued, the U.S. government began re-encountering eastern tribes they had displaced alongside western tribes already residing in those territories. Rather than continuing treaty negotiations, the government adopted reservations—specific land portions allocated to tribes, often requiring forced relocation. In 1851, Congress passed the Appropriation Bill for Indian Affairs, funding an expanded reservation system and initiating the Reservation Era (1850-1887).
Over thirty years, most Native Americans were either forcibly relocated or saw territories dramatically reduced. In 1871, Congress officially eliminated Native nations’ rights to enter into treaties through an unceremonious amendment to an appropriations act, passed without tribal input. This marked the official end of the Treaty Era. While the nearly 400 existing treaties technically remained intact, enforcement became significantly more difficult.
The Lakota experience illustrates reservation system failures. In 1868, the Lakota-Sioux signed a treaty establishing the Great Sioux Reservation on 60 million acres. However, after discovering gold and other natural resources, the U.S. government systematically seized most territory through subsequent agreements and congressional acts. By the Reservation Era’s end, only about 20 percent of the original reservation remained under tribal control.
Reservation conditions proved devastating for the Lakota. Drought combined with unsuitable allotments made farming nearly impossible. Buffalo near-extinction and prohibitions against hunting on reservation land made traditional lifestyles unsustainable, forcing dependence on inadequate government rations. Cultural suppression compounded these hardships—Lakota were forced to adopt Western clothing, send children to boarding schools, and abandon traditional spiritual practices in favor of Christianity.
By 1890, tensions reached a breaking point following conflicts and the murder of Chief Sitting Bull. U.S. forces surrounded a Miniconjou Lakota camp near Wounded Knee Creek. After an accidental gunshot, the military massacred over 300 Lakota men, women, and children—the final major “battle” of the Indian Wars.
Eighty-three years later, in 1973, 200 Indigenous protesters staged an armed occupation of Wounded Knee, holding the site for 71 days. Members of the American Indian Movement led the protest, fighting for U.S. government compliance with treaty obligations. Federal authorities fired over half a million rounds at tribal members, killing two Native men. Beyond the violence, protesters conducted ceremonial dances, songs, and prayers while gaining significant national attention for their cause.
Many scholars identify the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation as the catalyst for nationwide Native treaty rights recognition efforts. The hundreds of historical treaties remain legally binding regardless of enforcement levels, and Native nations increasingly use them to fight for and achieve legal victories regarding land return and sovereignty rights.
Contemporary resistance continues across multiple fronts. Recent land reclamation successes include the Onondaga Nation’s 2022 recovery of 1,000 acres of forest, including headwaters feeding into sacred Onondaga Lake, and the Báxoje (Iowa Tribe) regaining one-third of originally taken lands for conversion into a tribal national park. As land returns to Native stewardship, wildlife populations are being restored and habitats revived across regions from Montana to Virginia.
The continuity of resistance is evident in contemporary activism: Wounded Knee occupiers from 1973 joined Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016, demonstrating connections between historical and modern struggles. As Iowa tribal vice chairman Lance Foster stated, “We’ve been here for a thousand years now, and unlike other people who can buy and sell land and move away, we can never move away. This is our land forever.”
Native Americans possess thousands of years of land stewardship experience, with responsibility and knowledge passed through generations. Contemporary Native leaders and activists continue pressing the federal government to honor treaty promises, with momentum building as new generations join ongoing struggles for recognition, sovereignty, and environmental justice. The fight for treaty recognition and tribal sovereignty remains active today, encompassing legal challenges, land reclamation efforts, cultural preservation, and environmental protection initiatives.