Helen Hunt Jackson (primary source)

For a primary source on Native Americans, I read an expert of a book by Helen Hunt Jackson. Ms. Jackson goes into detail to describe the conditions in which Native Americans live, and why this aspect of their life is yet to change. When discussing the progression of the Americans feeling towards the Native Americans, Ms. Jackson brings the readers attention to a document written by nine men who were appointed by President Grant to inspect the Native American reservations. The "nine men, representing the influence and philanthropy of six leading states" tell in their reports the devastating truth of the conditions in which the Native Americans live. The majority of Americans asked why their country's Natives didn't continue to preform their farming rituals and produce the crops which they excelled at so distinctively. The nine men who visited the reservation learned although this statement seems cohesive, Americans should really ask themselves, "why should the Indian be expected to plant corn... when experience has taught him that the product of his labor will be seized by the white man tomorrow?". The philanthropists who visited the reservations realized, after spending time with the natives, that their entire lives has merely been a cycle, a cycle of building, growing, living, and then having it all taken away from them. When you beat a dog so many times, what should make it want to get up in the morning? In this primary document, I was able to read a first hand account of those who visited the Native American reservations and established an understanding of why Native Americans preform the inaction they began to preform.

Helen Hunt Jackson " Indians and Whites," Annals of American History. <http://america.eb.com/america/article?articleId=386231>[Accessed February 3, 2010].