What Happened?

A CHRONICLE OF THE RESERVATION SYSTEM - Many Native Americans resisted the imposition of the reservation system, sparking a series of conflicts known as the Indian Wars. Through a series of bloody massacres and victories in battle, the US Army ultimately succeeded in relocating most Indian tribes onto the reservations. For most Native Americans, life on the reservation was difficult. Although tribes were allowed to form their own tribal councils and courts, and thus retain their traditional governing structures, Indians on the reservations suffered from poverty, malnutrition, and very low standards of living and rates of economic development.

Government officials who oversaw Indian affairs were replaced with Christian clergy in order to convert Indians to Christianity. This policy led to violent resistance on the part of many Native American tribes and was ultimately abandoned leaving Native Americans with tradition vs assimilation; which ended the reservation system by authorizing the federal confiscation and redistribution of tribal lands. The aim of the act was to destroy tribal governing councils and assimilate Native Americans into mainstream US society by replacing their communal traditions with a culture centered on the individual. To this end, tribal lands were parceled out into individual allotments, and only those Indians who accepted the individual plots were allowed to become US citizens.

In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt encouraged the passage of the US Indian Reorganization Act, which instituted a “New Deal” for Native Americans, authorizing them to reorganize and form their own tribal governments. The act ended the land allotments created by Dawes Act and thereby resurrected the reservation system, which remains in place today. While this was a step in the right direction, it came at a great price. Historical trauma is described as collective emotional and psychological damage throughout a person's lifetime and across multiple generations. The American Indian have higher rates of substance and alcohol abuse deaths than the general population as a by-product of reservation gentrification.

Heart to Help

The Mission of Rolling Revival Relief is to advocate to proactively minimize the short falls that Native Americans and people of color face in trying to achieve a quality of life that every human being is entitled to. 

Many Native Americans and advocates of Native American rights point out that the U.S. federal government's claim to recognize the "sovereignty" of Native American peoples falls short, -- Native Americans faced racism and prejudice for hundreds of years, and this increased after the American Civil war... Native Americans, like African Americans, were subjected to the Jim Crow Laws which institutionalized economic, educational, and social disadvantages for Native Americans, and other people of color. 

We have joined the Poor People's Campaign because most of our families, tribes, and communities number among those suffering most in this country. We are demanding what is rightfully ours - the right to have a decent life in our own communities.   

Native American struggles amid poverty  to maintain life on the reservation or in larger society having resulted in a variety of health issues, some related to nutrition and health practices - beyond disturbingly high mortality rates, Native Americans also suffer a significantly lower health status and disproportionate access to nutrition and emergency services that would combat this disparity. Many tribes struggle, as they are often located on reservations isolated from the main economic centers of the country. The estimated 2.1 million Native Americans are the most impoverished of all ethnic groups. Join us in this mission to end adversity for Native Peoples and people of color.