Would it be considered fair or lawful to violate treaties out of greed for something you do not own? Throughout history, indigenous peoples have encountered an assortment of challenges. In America, our native population has steadily declined due to colonization and the catastrophic circumstances that these people endured. So many different Native American tribes have had unfair policies placed upon them. Mount Rushmore, a place that brings American nationalism to some, also holds a deep feeling of disgust for others. The Black Hills home of Mount Rushmore was considered an important part of the lives of Sioux people as it was their land that they were legally granted the rights to in 1868. Over time, the Sioux had the rights to their land stolen…show more content… The textbook states “the old race concept focused on the classification of phenotypes, whereas the new race concept classifies genotypes”(Anthropology, n.d.). The segregation by race that the Lakota faced would be based on phenotype or the physical characteristics of the Lakota people. In comparison to the European settlers, the native Lakota would have and still have darker skin “Most anthropologists estimate these populations migrated from the Old World perhaps 10,000–15,000 years ago, which means they have had far less time to experience the selective pressures associated with local solar radiation levels anywhere on the continent.” (Anthropology, n.d.). The differences in skin tone allowed European settlers to treat Native American people as less than and start imposing all of these rules on their land. The presence of gold also made it easy to throw all treaties and agreements out of the…show more content… In the United States, western Indians were forced into reservations and according to Aaron Huey “the military issued orders forbidding western Indians from leaving reservations. All western Indians at that point in time were now prisoners of war.” Many of these Native American people still live in these reservations to this day. Here they face extremely high rates of diseases like cancer and tuberculosis with extremely high rates of mortality due to all of these underlying issues, with the life expectancy of men being in their mid to late 40’s. Indigenous people all around the world have lost land due to others wanting the resources present in their land, which is a reason why some of these Native American people choose to stay in reservations. In the case of the Sioux, their land was full of gold, inspiring settlers to come in search of it. According to the United Nations, “Indigenous peoples continue to face serious human rights abuses on a day-to-day basis.” This is something that a lot of Indigenous people face. So many Indigenous people are still fighting for what was taken from them no matter how long ago that was “Examples of violence and brutality have been heard from every corner of the world, most often perpetrated against Indigenous persons who are defending their rights and their lands, territories and communities”(United
