The American flag, with its blue white, and red stripes, boldly emblazoned on it, and its stripes aglow-like coals set light along the middle, resonates with nationalism, unity, and liberty. It speaks America's ideals to Americans: liberty, equality, and justice.
To people of Native American descent, the American flag is different. A summary of the intertwined relationship between the American flag, Native American individuals, history, symbolism, and role played in activism and identity is as follows.
The American Flag and Native American History
But the American flag and the Native American communities themselves hold more than that simple context. For Native people, the flag holds within it a very bitter history of Native removal, colonization, and erasure of their cultures. European settlement and United States origins were much more likely to have been established on the backs of Native American sovereignty, lands, and ways of living.
A Symbol of Colonization and Expansion
As the settlers headed westward, the American flag ceased to represent a distant land but also its merciless price on the Native American land. It waved high from the grasp of soldiers who battled with the Native American nation in fierce fights like the Indian Wars and the relocation of the Native Americans. The Trail of Tears, where the tribes were forcibly moved out of their ancestral lands, serves as a reminder that the American flag now is a symbol of government policy that has caused so much pain for the Native people.
To the Native Americans, the flag represents the actions of the United States government to repress and displace them. It was a flag of colonization, a flag of loss and oppression—and for many, the very opposite of freedom and justice that it represents for others.
A Struggle for Sovereignty
The flag was also a representation of the initial historical struggle of the Native American people to be sovereign and recognized. With the expansion of the American state, the Native Americans were being pushed into treaties that stripped them of their lands and self-governance. The American flag in this sense represented the erosion of Native American sovereignty—a sign of the struggle for the protection of culture, language, and tradition as American supremacy expanded.
The American Flag in Native Activism
Although the American flag comes before the history of colonization with a painful past, the flag has also been used as a symbol of protest and activism by the Native Americans. The American flag has in the recent past belonged to the Native Americans as far as work is concerned, and that is one of how they used the flag as a symbol of protest and activism.
Protests and the American Indian Movement (AIM)
The American Indian Movement (AIM) was a radical voice for Native American rights in the 1960s and 1970s. United States flags were also employed by Native American demonstrators at mass demonstrations like the 1969 seizure of Alcatraz Island as a protest against their right to the land and struggle for acknowledgment. This against the US government was a rebellion that employed the very same flag to symbolize their oppression for centuries in an attempt to acquire Native sovereignty.
In the same way, when in 1973 AIM activists parachuted a United States flag behind their takeover of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, it was a symbol of protest, a show of force. For some, the demonstrations openly stigmatized the sweet-sour reality of the United States flag—it represented repression and also the search for justice and equality that continued.
While the American flag commands great respect from most Native American veterans because it represents honor, sacrifice, and service, the Native Americans bore a disproportionate share of the burden from the time of World War I to the recent past in the form of the Afghan and Iraqi wars. For them, the American flag represents the cause of their nation for which they fought and did not falter.
Native American veterans are also put on notice with American flags and tribal flags in memorials, military rituals, and functions as a mark of respect for heritage and service. The American flag to such veterans does not stand for government action but stands for the sacrifice that they have made on behalf of the country as a whole.
The Future of the American Flag in Native American Communities
As society has changed, the mindset of Native Americans towards the American flag also changes. Even though the past is irreversible and no one can return to the flag's history as a symbol of colonization and oppression, it's also the symbol of resistance, pride, and continuous struggle toward enlightenment. The future of the American flag for the Native people will be determined most probably in the continuing fight for social justice, healing, and maintaining Native culture.
In seeing the historically negative connotation of the flag, and its marking by Native American activism and pride, we are more attuned to its multiple meanings in Native America. The American flag can thus be a symbol of unity attuned to the rich experience of all Americans, even the historically marginalized.
Conclusion
The American flag is a very complex symbol, especially for Native American people. As a symbol of the unity, freedom, and patriotism of the people, it has also been a symbol of colonization, displacement, and war in the pursuit of sovereignty by the Native Americans. Despite its presence and even despite its presence, Native Americans have managed to appropriate the flag in their struggle to be heard and treated fairly. With this complex relationship now in place, we can now move forward toward an integrated and pluralistic future when the flag will be symbolized by the unities of all Americans, including Native Americans.
The American Flag and the Native American Communities