Talk:Indian removal

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 30 August 2018 and 13 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): JackaryMcT.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:25, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

ethnic cleansing

Why is it, that in this article it is carefully avoided to name the Indian Removal what it was, an ethnic cleansing.

If one needs an article that names it ethnic cleansing, here is one: https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/events/indian-killer-andrew-jacksons-indian-removal-act-display-first-time/Jochum (talk) 16:51, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps you missed the Changing perspective of policy section. It mentions ethnic cleansing, albeit briefly, saying that "paternalism", ethnic cleansing, and even genocide have been ascribed by historians past and present to the motivation behind the Removals."

The infobox is prominently entitled "Genocide of indigenous peoples" and has a link to the ethnic cleansing article. It's unnecessary to use the epithet "ethnic cleansing" for every instance of "Indian removal". Besides, the article is not about ethnic cleansing, it's about the Indian removals. Carlstak (talk) 21:56, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

As the Indian Removal was ethnic cleansing, full filling the definition of ethnic cleansing as it is defined today, it should be at least mentioned once in the intro, everything else is hiding it behind nice other words. It would also not be wrong to talk about genocide in the intro. The changing perspective does not either define that the removal was ethnic cleansing or genocide, just that some historians talk about it.Jochum (talk) 01:36, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

You are welcome to do some bold editing, with reliable sources, of course, but don't be surprised if you encounter some resistance from people who think "ethnic cleansing" is too strong a descriptor for the Indian removals. I agree that they were intended to cleanse the territories that whites coveted of their native inhabitants. My great grandfather was a Cherokee who was marched on the Trail of Tears and escaped. The rednecks think Andrew Jackson was a great man. Our ignorant president in the US thinks Andrew Jackson, who died on June 8, 1845, was a great man and "was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War." Thomas Jefferson was correct when he said that Andrew Jackson was a violent savage. Carlstak (talk) 04:21, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

not the place for you personal opinions - only the discussion of RS to improve articles 50.111.41.243 (talk) 22:24, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Globalize

The U.S. is not the only country in which Indian removal was a policy. You can find the same in colonial Brazil and colonial Spanish America. deisenbe (talk) 03:53, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Feel free to add sourced information to the article, adding a tag doesn't do much. oncamera 04:25, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Native-American (Misnomer: Indian)

Calling native-Americans as Indians is akin to saying the earth is flat and world revolves around earth! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rajsharm (talk • contribs) 15:12, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

However, the event in question is called the "Indian removal". The intro does properly refer to the affected people as Native Americans. —C.Fred (talk) 15:14, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Some Native Americans call themselves Indians. Here are works by historian Donald Fixico, of Shawnee, Sac and Fox, Muscogee, and Seminole descent:

American Indians in a Modern World (2008); Treaties with American Indians: An Encyclopedia of Rights, Conflicts and Sovereignty, 3 volumes, ed, (2007); Daily Life of Native Americans in the Twentieth Century (2006); The American Indian Mind in a Linear World: American Indian Studies and Traditional Knowledge (2003); The Urban Indian Experience in America (2000); The Invasion of Indian Country in the Twentieth Century: Tribal Natural Resources and American Capitalism (1998), 2nd ed., 2011; Rethinking American Indian History, ed. (1997); Urban Indians (1991); An Anthology of Western Great Lakes Indian History, ed. (1988); and Termination and Relocation: Federal Indian Policy, 1945-1960 (1986). Call for Change: The Medicine Way of American Indian History, Ethos and Reality (June 2013) and Indian Resilience and Rebuilding: Indigenous Nations in the Modern American West (October 2013). Carlstak (talk) 01:44, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Additions to the Creek section of the article

This article does a good job of outlining the basics of the Native American Diaspora but could use some more detail in the section on the Creek. I would like to add more detail to this section as there are many important events that happened after the initial diaspora. I want to mention things like the second Creek war where those that stayed behind rose up in opposition to settlers and the government. This uprising was not successful and resulted in a second diaspora situation. The uprising was used as justification for the government to step in more forcefully. The remaining creeks were placed in camps and slowly escorted west. I want to add all this information along with statistics regarding the number of people in each of the five detachments sent west as well as the number of deaths. I also want to add primary source descriptions of the conditions they faced. The source I will be the book Rivers of Sand: Creek Indian Emigration, Relocation, and Ethnic cleansing in the American South. Christopher D. Haveman holds a Ph.D. in History from Auburn University and specializes in the Creek Native American group. The source is peer-reviewed as it is from a university publisher. All together I plan to add 200 to 300 words. If anyone wants to comment on these changes please let me know on this talk page or mine. Tristan089786 (talk) 19:58, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Tristan089786. Hello. You can do this here or at any other article on Wikipedia: The Encyclopedia that Anyone Can Edit. Just be sure to use and insert citations to reliable, secondary sources (preferred) for any outright statements made to the narrative. It appears that your source mentioned above should qualify for that (include the isbn and page #s). Feel free to edit to your hearts content. Welcome to the project! Questions? Use this talk page and someone will answer you. Also, there's The Teahouse for a usually quick response. Regards, GenQuest ^"scribble" 23:50, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

References

General Question on Article Topic

What is the actual scope of this article? For non-historians like myself (i.e., the typical reader you are trying to reach) “Indian removal” is a fairly broad title, and my mind jumps to the many Indian removals across North America over 3 centuries. The article's focus, however, appears to be primarily on the forced migration of eastern Native Americans during the first half of the 19th century. If this is correct, it would help if this was reflected in the title, or at a minimum defined a little clearer in the first paragraph. Maybe something as simple as “For this article, Indian removal refers to the forced migration in the 19th century whereby Native Americans were forced by the United States government...”.  Looking for feedback on this.Howbeit (talk) 14:08, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Initially I suggest reading Wikipedia policy/guideline on articles titles, article lead sections and if you feel it's appropriate consider moving (renaming) the page; being bold lies at the very core of Wikipedia. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 15:12, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

These are a number of articles that cover the different ways the government forced Native Americans off their homelands, including the 12 listed at Dawes Act#See also:

• Act for the Protection of the People of Indian Territory (Curtis Act), 1898
• Forced Fee Patenting Act (Burke Act), 1906
• Wheeler–Howard Act
• Nelson Act of 1889, Minnesota's version of the Dawes Act
• Americanization of Native Americans
• Aboriginal title in the United States
• Competency Commission
• Land run
• Diminishment
• Great Māhele
• Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations
• Checkerboarding (land)

Perhaps there should be an article that summarized all these articles so people can access them in a single go like you suggested.  oncamera  _{(talk page)} 19:31, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

@Howbeit: I noticed that too, especially since the focus seems to be a little muddied; not entirely clear if it's just the Southern US or other tribes as well. Fredlesaltique (talk) 05:06, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Creating a 'Genocide of indigenous peoples in the United States' article, or something similar, would greatly help in my opinion. There are a lot of articles that should be more clearly connected to each other and easily accessed. Personally I'd argue that the Native American Genocide category could use its own series template. TheFallenMoon (talk)

Genocide in the infobox

This shouldn't be in the infobox because most reliable historians don't call it genocide. Mention that it has been described as genocide is already in the lede. More text could be added describing the debate about whether or not its genocide in Changed Perspective section. Nettless (talk) 19:23, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

If it's in lead, it should be in the infobox. No need to hide it away.  oncamera  _{(talk page)} 20:11, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Many reliable historians actually do call it a genocide. Brusquedandelion (talk) 03:09, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

It shouldn't be in the infobox if it's disputed. The lede says it has been described as genocide because scholars disagree on it. The source for genocide is Lewy who actually rejects this label. That source also doesn't explicitly reference anyone calling Indian removal genocide because it's about whole history of American colonialism and Native Americans, so a better source is probably needed. Putting it in the infobox is ignoring how most historians characterize it. I think it can be mentioned in the infobox if it's clear that it's disputed. Nettless (talk) 20:33, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Saying things like "most historians" agree with your position or the position you're arguing here sounds like weasel words. People can learn more about what historians say it in the section on the page but no need to censor information that you disagree with.  oncamera  _{(talk page)} 21:19, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

How many times are we going to go through this again...what has happened, has happened. Wikipedia is not the place to change whatever happened in history towards your favor. I second Oncamera's comments. Ekuftle (talk) 19:42, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Ekuftle, I don't quite understand your comment when you say "again...what has happened, has happened. Wikipedia is not the place to change whatever happened in history towards your favor". What is this supposed to mean? I'm not changing wikipedia into my favor. I added sources already on this page. It's a reliably sourced fact that the genocide label is disputed and this should be represented clearly in the lede as it is in the Changed Perspective section. Stating it's genocide in the infobox whithout clarifying its disputed is changing "whatever happened in history towards your favor." Oncamera said it shouldn't be censored which I didn't and hiding that its disputed in the infobox would be censoring. You also blanket reverted all my other sourced edits, including grammar improvements, which Oncamera never actually objected to. Oncamera didn't explicitly say they even objected to saying it was disputed in the infobox, which is a good compromise and fair summary of reliable sources. Nettless (talk) 21:28, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

I have added "disputed" in the infobox since it's reliably sourced and otherwise the infobox contradicts the rest of the article. No one responded to my last comment from August nor did anyone specifically object to the addition of "disputed" to the infobox. Nettless (talk) 16:05, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

nettless, This seems to be something you’re trying to call into dispute throughout Wikipedia. You’ve been corrected on other talk pages with very recent scholarly sources that DO call this genocide (Ex. here, see pages 8-11). However, you’re not adding those sources to these new pages, which seems strange to me if you want Wikipedia to reflect scholarly consensus. The other users here have told you that this has been discussed here before and consensus reached. Please Stop trying to call previous consensus into question across Wikipedia. Hobomok (talk) 15:40, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Also, the main point of evidence used here (an almost 20 year old op ed by Lewey from the History News Network) has some serious flaws regarding its evidence. The idea that “The Indians were not prepared to give up the nomadic life of the hunter for the sedentary life of the farmer. The new Americans, convinced of their cultural and racial superiority, were unwilling to grant the original inhabitants of the continent the vast preserve of land required by the Indians’ way of life” casts an air of inevitably to this colonial violence, which is not true. Perhaps most egregious, though, is the idea Lewey clings to that Native peoples weren’t farming, couldn’t farm, and wouldn’t begin to farm. This is false. See, for example: Jane Mt. Pleasant, “ The Paradox of Plows and Productivity: An Agronomic Comparison of Cereal Grain Production under Iroquois Hoe Culture and European Plow Culture in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries” (https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3098/ah.2011.85.4.460) (or most of Mt. Pleasant's work), Samson Occom’s journals (https://www.dartmouth.edu/library/digital/collections/manuscripts/occom-samson/index.html), or Joseph Johnson’s journals right before removal became national policy (https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/a4f23350-27ee-0133-d451-58d385a7bbd0). Occom, Johnson, and the Haudenosaunee were all farming Nations, both before colonization, and during and after removal. These are only three examples from two groups (Haudenosaunee Confederation and Mohegan). Others abound, but I think the point is clear: To say these peoples were not and wouldn't be farmers gets a lot wrong about the subject of the article Lewey's writing.

My whole point being, the source used here gets much wrong, and it doesn’t hold up to the peer reviewed nature of other sources. Hobomok (talk) 17:06, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm calling it into dispute because it is. There was never previous consensus on talk page to add the label genocide in the first place. It was added without any discussion in April. It was reverted here: 1 by an editor saying they should seek consensus to add this as you ironically have stated to me but it was reverted back multiple times under the argument it was sourced which is also the same argument I made for adding the label "disputed". There wasn't any consensus against adding disputed in August either. One editor (oncamera) didn't explicitly object to the addition, while another comment is striked, because the editor is banned, and then my last comment was completely ignored. Furthermore when "disputed" was removed the last time, it was by that presently banned editor. That was some great consensus against my position. Don't falsely pretend there is some sort of scholarly consensus on this aswell. Your clearly inserting your opinion. What's this so called recent scholarly consensus? I didn't add Lewey to the infobox. I added the book by genocide scholars Paul R. Bartrop and Steven L. Jacobs from 2014 to dispute the characterization. Are they not part of this apparent recent scholarly consensus? Whereas Stannard's book from 1992 is? Jeffrey Ostler, one of your preferred sources who calls the Indian Removals genocide, also notes however that there isn't consensus stating in his book Surviving Genocide: "A recent development in the American genocide debate centers on the question of whether ethnic cleansing is a more apt term than genocide. In Ethnic Cleansing: The Crime That Should Haunt America (2014), Gary Anderson surveys the entirety of U.S. history including its colonial antecedents and argues that the crime of ethnic cleansing best characterizes this history. Anderson also insists that genocide does not apply to any of the history since “policies of mass murder on a scale similar to events in central Europe, Cambodia, or Rwanda were never implemented.” Ostler also states in the book specifically regarding the removals that "Historians have begun to characterize Indian removal as ethnic cleansing." Ostler notes that an emerging scholarly consensus actually leans towards characterization of it now as ethnic cleansing and not genocide as is his position. Nettless (talk) 01:27, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm not going to discuss the history of diffs here. You came to the talk page and at least one other person has told you genocide belonged in the infobox as it was, because it was in the article. Now I'm disagreeing with you that disputed belongs in that infobox. As the other user said before, if it's in the article, it's in the infobox. If readers would like to know more, they can read the article. I'd assume your last comment was completely ignored because people have better things to do than engage in an argument on Wikipedia. I'm not arguing there's a consensus that centuries of colonial policy is genocide, although I'd say it's trending that way and most new work across multiple fields will argue that. What I'm saying here is that recent scholarship by Americanist historians (rather than Australian and Middle Eastern historians) uses the term genocide, especially in relation to multiple removals. I'm also arguing that the Lewey op-ed needs to go, because it's deeply flawed. You can selectively quote from Ostler's appendix as much as you want (wherein he outlines the history of the genocide debate so that he shows he is aware of it and able to make an argument in favor of using the term genocide), but removal is generally considered a genocidal act. As you point out where you quote Ostler further on another page, "Scholars are more inclined than they once were to gesture to particular actions, events, impulses, and effects as genocidal." Removals are considered a genocidal act. Bartrop and Jacobs discuss only Cherokee Removal, not the multiple removals that this page discusses and that Ostler argues convincingly are genocidal acts. The authors you cite as disagreeing argue that the whole of colonization of the Americas was not genocidal. Do we see the difference here? If you want to argue against the whole of U.S. and Canadian Indian policy as genocidal, seems like a strange way to spend your time, and the idea is antithetical to the way that [settler colonialism works, but OK, that argument belongs somewhere else. If you want to argue that removal was not and is not generally considered a genocidal act, then you're wrong, and you're using the wrong articles to make your point. --Hobomok (talk) 03:05, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

A note: Now I do understand why Nettless was obsessed with arguing about this section: they were a sockpuppet of a user who frequently has these arguments and pushes anti-Indigenous points.--Hobomok (talk) 20:17, 18 February 2023 (UTC)