Richard Deloria Indians

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The relationship between Indians and Americans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century could be described as a battle for dominance between coexistence and cultural independence. Deloria expresses what it means to be an “Indian” during these early and late centuries, the origins of certain expectations for Indians, and their attempts to redefine their place in society through five essays: violence, representation, athletics, technology, and music.
From the very first interaction between Americans and natives, Indians were always viewed as an obstacle or a race to be conquered and forced to adapt. In Deloria’s essay on violence, it’s revealed that there was a common fear of outbreaks, uprisings, and rebellions from Indians (Deloria, …show more content…
Embraced by Richard Henry Pratt, football allowed there to be a method for getting Native Americans to mentally develop a desire to become “manly”, or essentially more “white” without direct realization (Deloria, 124). Football also evoked a sense of manliness that eventually became a focus at Carlisle, an Indian boarding school created to assimilate Indians into American society (Deloria, 125). Athletics meant opportunity for most Indians in terms of travel or education, and the transformation of interpretations and understandings of racial differences (Deloria, 131). The era of opportunity through athletics ended abruptly for Indians with the arrival of the Great Depression and World War II, as the expectation shifted and meshed into obscurity (Deloria, 131).
Onto technology, this era brought a large amount of land loss for Indians. Their struggle for independence became apparent once it was realized they never had money they were entitled to and were often scammed by reservation agents, farmers, ranchers, and even storekeepers for cheap land (Deloria, 150). The Indians eventually became fascinated with the idea of owning automobiles after witnessing others that possessed them (Deloria, 151). Owning automobiles gave them a sense of independence since they could evade supervision and assisted them in taking possession of the landscape (Deloria,
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