The Long Journey to Equality

Introduction

Native Americans, African Americans, and women are three groups that have historically

been disadvantaged in America. Native Americans occupied the Americas before the arrival of

Columbus. As more explorers arrived to colonize the land, the natives reacted in different ways.

By the 19

century, the population of Natives had significantly reduced, and their removal from

ancestral lands limited their territory. On their part, African Americans have suffered from the

legacy of slavery. Educated women in the period 1500-1800 got a chance to pursue math and

science, but their fortunes shifted between the 1850s and 1870s (Blakemore, 2017). When

science started to professionalize, women were regarded as a threat as they could not be

professionals. Native Americans, African Americans, have historically used the power to

organize, litigate, and aggressive means to champion equality.

Native Americans

Among Native Americans, the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn, pitting them against federal

troops, marked an important part of resisting the confiscation of their land. The discovery of gold

on Native Americans’ territory led to efforts to relocate natives from the said lands

(HISTORY.COM

). However, the affected tribes resisted to leading to a conflict in which the

federal army was defeated. Some have contended that the US government has sought to do away

with the native’s culture through assimilation. For instance, the first Boarding school in the

natives’ territory was set up in 1879. This system has been blamed for killing the “Indian” by

assimilating the native children into the American culture.

Another confrontation, the Wounded Knee Massacre, took place in 1890, where 150

Native Americans were surrounded by the US armed forces who demanded a surrender of th