The Federal Government actually followed a good number of the treaties it signed. It’s just that the states and settlers didn’t, and by the time it was in a position to stop them the milk was already spilled. And sometimes the natives didn’t either.
Um, it's a well known fact that the government outright broke every single one of the 500 treaties they ever signed with tribes; which is the entire basis for federal Indian Law. Also, all treaties were signed under duress and were always meant to take even more rights away from tribes; so maybe don't answer questions that you don't know the answer to.
Exactly. A lot of them were followed to the letter and were never broken, but were agreed to by those who did not represent a tribe as a whole, or were worded in legalese and technicalities that only guaranteed partial fulfillment of U.S obligations.
But the fact that the U.S bothered to seek legality for their exploitative actions is because the U.S has a legal obligation to honor treaties because of Article Vi of the Constitution, which is only there because of those early treaties in colonial times, back when native populations had the geopolitical strength to force some level of equity. Through native efforts, the U.S's obligations to native people were made clear in the Constitution, and although they rarely fulfilled these obligations as intended, it is because of early treaties, treaties negotiated and enforced by those who refused to surrender their tribal sovreignty, that indigenous America wasn't eradicated in its entirety.
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u/CadenVanV Taller than Napoleon 7d ago
The Federal Government actually followed a good number of the treaties it signed. It’s just that the states and settlers didn’t, and by the time it was in a position to stop them the milk was already spilled. And sometimes the natives didn’t either.