Tag Archives: reservations

Reservation Food

2 Replies
Sioux Women Receiving Rations, courtesy Denver Public Library, Colorado Historical Society, and Denver Art Museum

Sioux Women Receiving Rations, courtesy Denver Public Library, Colorado Historical Society, and Denver Art Museum

Native Americans ate what was on hand in the regions where they lived. (See last post.) Once they were forced onto reservations, their freedom to secure food was severely reined in. The government began to issue rations, partly in recognition that much of  reservation land was too poor to support the people who lived on it. Food was also a powerful weapon to hold over Indian heads; if they wanted to eat, they needed to comply with the new rules and ways of life the government wanted to introduce.

Rations typically included flour, tea, coffee, salt, beans, and other staples, as well as dry goods like blankets. Beef replaced buffalo as a meat source, and Native Americans learned to cook new foods which were drastically different and of inferior nutritive value to their traditional foods. Poor nutrition inevitably led to poorer health and a worsened quality of life. These forced changes undoubtedly left many psychological scars on the adults who saw their entire way of life change.

Modoc Men Slaughtering Cattle (includes Indian Agent Col D.B. Dyre) around 1870-80, courtesy Library of Congress

Modoc Men Slaughtering Cattle (includes Indian Agent Col D.B. Dyre) around 1870-80, courtesy Library of Congress

_________________________________________________________

Homeless and Hungry

Leave a reply
Last Buffalo Killed in N. Dakota (Jan 1907) courtesy Library of Congress Fred Hulstrand and F.A. Pazandak Photograph Collections

Last Buffalo Killed in N. Dakota (Jan 1907) courtesy Library of Congress Fred Hulstrand and F.A. Pazandak Photograph Collections

Patients at Canton Asylum certainly didn’t thrive, but most Native Americans were not doing well anywhere else, either. Even the most basic underpinnings of life, like food, had been taken from them and distorted. This led to nutritional deficiencies and diseases that had never affected them before encountering the white man’s culture.

Native American diets were varied, nutritious, and plentiful until they lost control over their food. Depending upon the part of the country they inhabited, tribes ate liberally of the “Three Sisters” (beans, corn, and squash), wild rice, nuts, berries, fish, and game of all sorts. Besides hunting and gathering food from the surrounding area, many tribes cultivated crops, as well.

When Indians were forced to live on reservations, they lost their homes, their cultures, and their independence. Along with that, the quality of their food immediately deteriorated. Often, tribes became dependent on government rations, which were a far cry from the unrefined foods they had previously eaten. Sugar, flour, and poor quality meat were the new staples, and  Native American health immediately suffered.