Coming to Terms with Social Injustice Brought on by Government Part 2

In my last post I highlighted some primary source documents focused on government injustice towards the black population in the United States.  In this post I will focus on primary sources for teaching about injustice towards American Indians.

In a lesson that I teach on the president as enforcer of federal law I focus students on Andrew Jackson and the enforcement of the Indian Removal Act after gold was found on Cherokee land in Georgia.  The resulting Trail of Tears is an event that my 8th grade students learn about  in 7th grade.  I want them to learn that these events are not isolated.  In fact, a quick search of the Library of Congress' Historic American Newspapers Collection will yield numerous examples of interactions between American Indians and white Americans.

A good example I found comes from "The Princeton Union" from Princeton, Minnesota (November 28, 1901).  This article about residents who live near a lake petitioning their Senator to have the tribe to have Indians, who also live around the lake, removed from the land.  The reason: so they can develop the land around the lake for commercial purposes.  

This document drives my students to the idea that quite often, economics is somehow behind acts of injustice.  It also highlights that such acts are not isolated and have occurred throughout the United States.