Rights for African Americans and Native Americans

During Expo class, this freewrite question was asked to us: “How does the decision of the Dred Scott v Sandford case parallel that of the decision of Elk v Wilkins?” When looking at both court cases, there are clear parallels between them. The most obvious is that two minorities in the United States, African Americans and Native Americans, were declared not citizens of the United States and denied any rights the Constitution grants white citizens of the United States. Elk was denied the right to vote because it was ruled that his allegiance was to his tribe, not the United States, despite being born in the US. He was denied the Constitutional right to vote just because he was Native American. When Dred Scott went to court to claim he was free from slavery because the Louisiana territory at the time, where his slave owners moved him, was mostly considered “free”, it was ruled that African Americans will never have the rights stated in the Constitution because it was not meant for them. Those rights include the right to vote. Because both men were minorities, that was the only evidence needed to deny them rights that all those in the United States should have.

Personally, I find this extremely disturbing because all the judge had to do was look at the color of their skin and automatically have his ruling. This makes me recognize how much minorities were marginalized just because their skin wasn’t the same color as the rest of society’s. Not only that, but citizenship and Constitutional rights should have been extended to African Americans and Native Americans far sooner than what history shows. The Native Americans were the first to cultivate the land we now call the United States, and African Americans were forced into slavery, doing labor the ‘superior’ white man didn’t want to do. However, these instances of white supremacy in American history proves that people like that who have to dehumanize others to gain power are the inferior ones.