RACIAL PROBLEMS IN U.S.A.

The United States Declaration of Independence says that all men are created equal, but it didn’t actually mean that all people are treated equally and given equal opportunities.

When Columbus landed on America, in 1492, he called the friendly natives Indians as he thought he was in the East Indies. Then. the first European settlers called them Redskins because they used to cover their faces and hands with red earth. Now we call them (more correctly) Native Americans.

There were many tribes (over 500) who reflected great diversity of geographic location, language and behaviours. The main tribes were: Mohawk (Iroquois), Mohican (Mohegan and/or Mahican), Creek, Cherokee,

Southwest: Navajo (Dineh, Navaho), Zuni, Hopi, Yavapai,  Apache, 

Plains: Kiowa, Pawnee (Pani, Pana, Panana, Panamaha, Panimaha), Comanche, Sioux,

Great Lakes: Miami (Maumee, Twightwee), Huron (Wyandot), Ottawa, Ojibwa (Chippewa)

Northwest: Nez Perce, Flathead (Salish), Blackfoot (Siksika), Shoshone (Shoshoni), Kwakiutl

Between 1513 and 1542 they met the Spanish and were compelled to submit to the King of Spain and the Catholic Church.  From the 16th through the 19th centuries, the population of Native Americans declined in the following ways: epidemic diseases brought from Europe; violence and warfare, displacement from their lands; internal warfare, enslavement; and a high rate of intermarriage.

The Indians did not understand the invaders’ idea of owning land as they thought land could be used by everybody living on it. They were nomadic and followed animals, hunting particularly bison on which they depended for their food and clothing. When the Whites occupied their fertile land, they were forced to move West, but soon the invaders spread over the whole continent and hunted bison depriving the Indians of their source of food and clothing.

Today Native Americans make up less than one percent of the total U.S. population but represent half the languages and cultures in the nation.

From 1654 until 1865, slavery for life was legal within the boundaries of much of the present U.S.A. Most slaves were black and were held by whites, although some Native Americans and free blacks also held slaves; there were a small number of white slaves as well.

A ship landed in Virginia with some Africans in 1619, began the slave trade. The reasons which led to slavery system were economic and based on the exploitation of labour power, as the North based its economy on industry and trade while the South concentrated on agriculture and slaves were considered necessary for the huge plantations.

Blacks were considered subhuman creatures, between monkeys and men. In 1808 Congress outlawed the importation of slaves but the South States didn’t agree. South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia left the Union to form the Confederate States of America, with Jefferson Davis as President.

Fierce episodes as the execution of the abolitionist John Brown in Virginia aroused great indignation in the North and Civil war broke out. It lasted from 1861 to 1865. North won and Lincoln declared that all slaves should be free. On April l4th, 1865 he was shot.

Secret societies were organized in the South to maintain supremacy through terror. The Ku-Klux-Klan dates back to 1866. From 1890 to 1901 the southern States passed laws to stop Blacks from voting and sharing public services with the Whites. Blacks were forced not to enter certain public buildings or occupy the front seats of buses, to live in segregation, to take the humblest jobs, to have a system of separate education. Some important men who worked hard to change the situation:

John F. Kennedy, leader of an ambitious programme of social reform, shot in Dallas in 1963; his brother Robert, fighting for the same ideals and assassinated in Los Angeles in 1968; Martin Luther King, the leader of the non-violent campaign for civil rights and integration, murdered in Memphis in 1968; Malcolm X, leader of the Black Muslims and against integration, assassinated in Harlem, New York, in 1965.

The Voting Right Act was passed in 1965 and by 1967 Blacks can be elected to state offices and to U.S.A. House  of Representatives.

Per approfondire:

http://www.americanindians.com/

http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/geography/slave_census_1860.htm