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By the 1880’s the Native American population in the United States was in utter despair. The government showed no concern for the unalienable rights that they naturally held. Treaties were broken and most Native Americans were forced onto and contained on reservations, which the government found no use for, therefore it was handed down the mistreated native population. The government’s ignorance and complete and total distention towards the Native Americans caused major unrest within the western Indian population. The population’s own sustainable development was stagnant and if anything, largely decreasing. Starvation was setting in along the tribes also with an unethical corruption scheme in the Department of Indian Affairs, which was the government’s wing to displace, control, and manage the Native Americans. With most conditions in disarray, it provided an environment that incubated an Indian movement to regain some of there dignity, land, and rights. A last revitalization movement soon followed with a new religion to justify its practice. Wovoka, a Paiute Indian, started the Ghost Dance Religion in 1889. On New Years day in 1889, Wovoka was very ill resting in his bed. He was experiencing something that could not be explained by his knowledge at that time, a solar eclipse. He was said to lose consciousness and traveled to heaven for a visit with god. God gave him a message, that the white man would be no more and that all-dead Indians would come back to earth and live a joyous life. Old ancestors would return and enjoy the fruit of what the earth now had to offer without the polluting white men.
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