Summary: After Reconstruction is complete, the United States Union and Confederacy struggles to figure out who is “included” in the government, most notably with Native and African Americans.
Timestamp 4:52: As the Union and Confederacy move West, new states are established, which includes Wyoming, the Dakotas, Utah, Kansas, and Oklahoma. The new territories are organized extremely quickly, and the concept of the people should have a say in the society is not honored for the Native Americans who reside in those new states. These tribes are at war with the United states government, while the United States is simultaneously involved in the Civil War.
Timestamp 7:38: Many Native American groups, including the Cheyenne, Dakota, Lakota and Camanche were all at war with the United States. In 1851 the Lakota’s and the Dakota’s forfeited millions of acres of their land in exchange for a strip of land by the Minnesota River. This exchange is a treaty of sorts, which entitled Native Americans to food and supplies as the land they exchanged for couldn’t support them. As this is during the Civil War, and the United states is strapped, they couldn’t provide the food promised and they essentially abdicated the treaty. When this occurred, young Lakota men took it upon themselves to reclaim their lands, which led to the American Indian wars of 1862.
Timestamp 14:22: During this time, Easterners begin to look at the Dakotas as savage territory. This creates a bloodlust of sorts against the Dakota’s, which leads to the death of around 300 Dakota’s. Abraham Lincoln then reopens all cases against the Dakota’s, even though he doesn’t re-try them legally. He re-assessed the sentences of some, which for some results in the largest mass execution in history.
Timestamp 23:27: The US Government continues to dehumanize the Native Americans, specifically the Northerners. Eventually, this turns into a full blown war between the Apaches, Navajo’s and the United States Government. The United States takes the head of a tribe leader to a Phrenologist, who says the Phrenology of the specific Native American proves they are monsters. This makes it acceptable to put them on a Reservation, which is basically an internment camp. Northerners essentially give the impression that “they must have deserved” the actions that were being done onto them.
Timestamp 32:43: The 14th Amendment does NOT include Indians who are not taxed. This is important because they are currently fighting for their rights to be citizens, therefore, be taxed. During this time, Sherman makes an agreement with Railroad companies, in which there is an unspoken agreement to protect the lands where their railroads are located. This makes moving of Native Americans to the South and North of the Boseman Trail, which is why there are a lot of Reservations in the Dakotas and Oklahoma.
Timestamp 39:27: The Treaty of Medicine lodge that was negotiated in 1867, is made to help Native Americans with Food, clothing, medical care and education to assist them in transitioning to functional Citizens. As indigenous people are not represented in congress, they lose their voice through the exclusion of rights by the 14th amendment.
Timestamp 48:28: The Women's suffrage movement is ignited by the 14th amendment, which is started by the reformation of women's clothing. They want to change the clothing because the constriction and length of the clothing limits their ability to participate in society. A landmark vote was obtained in 1869 Wyoming gives women the right to vote, in part to promote moving to the new territory and also in hopes that they would vote out polygamy.
Timestamp 53:31: Women who are upset in not being included in the 14th Amendment are hopeful that they will be included in the 15th amendment which protects voting rights. They are not, but it is pointed out that the 14th amendment also doesn’t specify MEN. This promotes women to attempt to register to vote, and the most important of the women is Virgina Minor. This causes her to Sue the state. Simultaneously, Susan B Anthony successfully registers and votes, and is taken to court for it. During court, she is sent to courts where cannot defend her crime as she is a woman, and therefore fined which she refuses to pay. She proceeds to give speeches in her home state saying that the country is a sexist, racist oligarchy rather than a Republic. It is also noted in these speeches that she falls in line with the rich should govern the poor, the educated should govern the un educated, and things of that nature of certain voices shouldn’t count.
[From wikipedia] Richardson’s first book, The Greatest Nation of the Earth (1997), stemmed from her dissertation at Harvard University. Inspired by Eric Foner’s work on pre-Civil War Republican ideology, Richardson analyzed Republican economic policies during the war. She contended that their efforts to create an activist Federal Government during the Civil War marked a continuation of Republican free labor ideology. These policies, such as war bonds and greenbacks or the Land Grant College Act and the Homestead Act, revolutionized the role of the Federal Government in the U.S. economy. At the same time, these actions laid the groundwork for the Republican Party’s shift to Big Business after the Civil War.
In this 2001 book, Richardson "focused on the “Northern abandonment of Reconstruction.” Building on the earlier work of C. Vann Woodward, she argued that a more complete understanding of the period required appreciation of class, not only race. As Reconstruction continued into the 1870s and especially the 1880s, Republicans began to view African Americans in the South more from a class perspective and less from the perspective of race that had driven their earlier humanitarianism. In the midst of the labor struggles of the Gilded Age, Republicans came to compare “the demands of the ex-slaves for land, social services, and civil rights” to the demands of white laborers in the North. This ideological shift was the key to Republican abandonment of Reconstruction, as they chose the protection of their economic and business interests over their desire for racial equality." [From wikipedia]
In this 2007 book, "Richardson presented Reconstruction as a national event that impacted all Americans, not just those in the South. She incorporated the West into the discussion of Reconstruction as no predecessor had. Between 1865 and 1900, Americans re-imagined the role of the federal government, calling upon it to promote the well-being of its citizens. However, racism, sexism, and greed divided Americans, and the same people who increasingly benefited from government intervention—white, middle-class Americans—actively excluded African-Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, and organized laborers from the newfound bounties of their reconstructed nation." [from wikipedia]
In this book, published in 2010, Richardson "focused on the U.S. Army’s slaughter of Native Americans in South Dakota in 1890. She argued that party politics and opportunism led to Wounded Knee. After a bruising midterm election, President Benjamin Harrison needed to shore up his support. To do so, he turned to The Dakotas, where he replaced seasoned Indian agents with unqualified political allies, who incorrectly assumed that the Ghost Dance Movement presaged war. The Army responded by sending one third of its force in order to avoid spending cuts from Congress. After the event, Republicans tried to paint the massacre as a heroic battle to stifle the resurgent Democrats." [wikipedia]
In this 2014 book, Richardson "extended her study of the Republican Party into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book studied the entire life of the GOP, from its inception in the 1850s through the presidency of George W. Bush. The party’s founders united against the “slave power,” a small group of wealthy white men who controlled all three branches of government. These Republicans articulated a new vision of an America in which all hardworking men could rise. But after the Civil War, Republicans began to emulate what they originally opposed. They tied themselves to powerful bankers and industrialists, sacrificing the well-being of ordinary Americans. A similar process took place after World War II, when Republicans sought to dismantle successful New Deal policies and prop up the wealthy. However, in both cases, reformers within the party were able to return the GOP to its founding vision of equality of opportunity, first Theodore Roosevelt during the Progressive Era, and then Dwight D. Eisenhower, who enforced integration and maintained the New Deal. The Nixon and Reagan administrations have represented yet another fall from the GOP’s founding purpose. It's ironic, Richardson points out, that Republicans treated Barack Obama with an unprecedented level of disrespect, as Obama's rise from humble beginnings to the highest office in the nation embodied the vision of the original Republicans." [wikipedia]
In her most recent publication, Richardson argues "that America was founded with contradicting ideals, with the ideas of liberty, equality, and opportunity on one hand, and slavery and hierarchy on the other. United States victory in the American Civil War should have settled that tension forever, but at the same time that the Civil War was fought, Americans also started moving into the West. In the West, Americans found and expanded upon deep racial hierarchies, meaning that hierarchical values survived in American politics and culture despite the crushing defeat of the pro-slavery Confederacy. Those traditions--a rejection of democracy, an embrace of entrenched wealth, the marginalization of women and people of color--have found a home in modern conservative politics, leaving the tremendous promise of America unfulfilled." [wikipedia]
