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D ISPLACINGNDIGENOUS PEOPLES 145 between them. They were locked off in small areas called ‘reservations’, which often was land with which they had no earlier connection. They did not give in without a fight. The US army Anthropology crushed a series of rebellions from 1865 to 1890, and in Canada It is significant that it there were armed revolts by the Metis (people of native European was at this time (from descent) between 1869 and 1885. But after that they gave up. the 1840s) that the subject of ‘anthropology’ (which had been In 1854, the President of the USA received a letter from a developed in France) was introduced in North native leader, Chief Seattle. The president had asked the America, out of a chief to sign a treaty giving a large part of the land they lived on to the American government. The Chief replied: curiosity to study the ‘How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the differences between native ‘primitive’ land? The idea is strange to us. If you do not own the communities and the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can one buy them? Every part of the earth is sacred to ‘civilised’ communities my people. Every shining pine-needle, every sandy shore, of Europe. Some anthropologists argued every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and every that just as there were humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees no ‘primitive’ people to be found in Europe, the carries the memories of the red man… American natives too So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word would ‘die out’. that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us. The Great Chief sends word that he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably. He will be our father and we will be his children. So we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us. The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father…’ The Gold Rush, and the Growth of Industries There was always the hope that there was gold in North America. In the 1840s, traces of gold were found in the USA, in A native lodge, 1862. California. This led to the ‘Gold Rush’, when thousands of eager Archaeologists moved this from the mountains and placed it in Europeans hurried to America in the hope of making a quick a museum in Wyoming. fortune. This led to the building of railway lines across the continent, for which thousands of Chinese workers were recruited. The USA’s railway was completed by 1870, that of Reprint 2026-27