Critical Thinking Assignment:
Paternalism and Perceptions of Fairness in Light of Game Theory
How does being on the side with a power advantage in a zero-sum game affect the “framing” of
judgments of fairness in the “Trail of Tears,” the Battle of Little Bighorn, and the Dawes Allotment Act of
1887? How does paternalism (seeing the ultimate losers of a game as children) enter into the framing?
In answering this question, apply the explanation of judgments of fairness, the explication of the causes
of ethnic conflict, and the definition of a zero-sum game, all shown in the three paragraphs below.
Would the framing of judgments of fairness be different in a non-zero sum game (in which all
participants gain from cooperation and total wealth is increased)?
If we examine the Causes of Ethnic Conflict and Stratification, three elements are evident: (1)
conflict over scarce resources, (2) power protecting privilege and (3) ideological legitimation.
Lets start with conflict over scarce resources: There is never enough to go around when sources
of wealth are land-based. In particular, there is always of a scarcity land itself, wildlife, crops,
natural resources such as oil and gold, and even strategic advantage that comes with control over
territory. Significantly, none of these resources are infinitely expandable, hence competition for
them is often a zero-sum game. For every winner there is also a loser. Accordingly, there will
be conflict between groups for dominance and control of these scarce resources. (Chris Girard,
lecture 25)
Zero-sum game: “A situation in which one participant's gains result only from another participant's equivalent
losses. The net change in total wealth among participants is zero; the wealth is just shifted from one to another.”
(http://www.investopedia.com/terms/z/zero-sumgame.asp )
It is a commonplace that the fairness of an action depends in large part on the signs of its
outcomes for the agent and for the individuals affected by it. The cardinal rule of fair behavior is
surely that one person should not achieve a gain by simply imposing an equivalent loss on
another. . . . [Yet] judgments of fairness are also susceptible to framing effects, in which form
appears to overwhelm substance. (p. 731) (Daniel Kahneman, Jack L. Knetsch, Richard Thaler.
“Fairness as a constraint on profit seeking: Entitlements in the market.” American Economic
Review, 76 (1986), pp. 728–741
The Trail of Tears
Early in the 19th century, while the rapidly-growing United States expanded into the lower South, white
settlers faced what they considered an obstacle. This area was home to the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw,
Chicasaw and Seminole nations [known as the “Five Civilized Tribes”]. These Indian nations, in the view
of the settlers and many other white Americans, were standing in the way of progress.
(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html )
. . . [The land of the “Five Civilized Tribes.” . . . . was valuable. . . . Many . . . whites yearned to make their fortunes by
growing cotton, and they did not care how “civilized” their native neighbors were: They wanted that land and they
would do almost anything to get it. They stole livestock; burned and looted houses and towns, and squatted on land
that did not belong to them. (http://www.history.com/topics/trail-of-tears )
In 1828 Georgia passed a law pronouncing all laws of the Cherokee Nation to be null and void after June
1, 1830, forcing the issue of states' rights with the federal government. Because the state no longer
recognized the rights of the Cherokees, tribal meetings had to be held just across the state line at Red
Clay, Tennessee. . . . When gold was discovered on Cherokee land in northern Georgia in 1829, efforts to
dislodge the Cherokees from their lands were intensified. (http://www.nationaltota.org/the-story/ )
In 1830, just a year after taking office, [President Andrew] Jackson pushed a new piece of legislation
called the "Indian Removal Act" through both houses of Congress. It gave the president power to
negotiate removal treaties with Indian tribes living east of the Mississippi. Under these treaties, the
Indians were to give up their lands east of the Mississippi in exchange for lands to the west. Those
wishing to remain in the east would become citizens of their home state. This act affected not only the
southeastern nations, but many others further north. The removal was supposed to be voluntary and
peaceful, and it was that way for the tribes that agreed to the conditions. But the southeastern nations
resisted, and Jackson forced them to leave. . . . Jackson's attitude toward Native Americans was
paternalistic and patronizing -- he described them as children in need of guidance and believed the
removal policy was beneficial to the Indians. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html )
The Cherokees in 1828. . . had . . . many European-style customs, including the wearing of
gowns by Cherokee women. They built roads, schools and churches, had a system of
representational government and were farmers and cattle ranchers. A Cherokee alphabet, the
"Talking Leaves" was created by Sequoyah.
(http://www.aboutnorthgeorgia.com/ang/Cherokee_Trail_of_Tears )
In 1832, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Cherokee on
the . . . issue in Worcester v. Georgia. In this case Chief Justice John
Marshall ruled that the Cherokee Nation was sovereign, making the
removal laws invalid. The Cherokee would have to agree to removal
in a treaty. The treaty then would have to be
ratified by the Senate.
(http://www.aboutnorthgeorgia.com/ang/Cherokee_Trail_of_Tears )
But Georgia officials simply ignored the decision, and President Jackson refused to enforce it. Jackson
was furious and personally affronted by the Marshall ruling, stating, "Mr. Marshall has made his
decision. Now let him enforce it!" (http://www.ushistory.org/us/24f.asp )
In the winter of 1831, under threat of invasion by the U.S. Army, the Choctaw became the first nation to be expelled
from its land altogether. They made the journey to Indian territory on foot (some “bound in chains and marched
double file,” one historian writes) and without any food, supplies or other help from the government. Thousands of
people died along the way. . . . In 1836, the federal government drove the Creeks from their land for the last time:
3,500 of the 15,000 Creeks who set out for Oklahoma did not survive the trip. (http://www.history.com/topics/trail-oftears )
By 1838, only about 2,000 Cherokees had left their Georgia homeland for Indian territory. President Martin Van Buren
sent General Winfield Scott and 7,000 soldiers to expedite the removal process. Scott and his troops forced the
Cherokee into stockades at bayonet point while whites looted their homes and belongings. Then, they marched the
Indians more than 1,200 miles to Indian territory. Whooping cough, typhus, dysentery, cholera and starvation were
epidemic along the way . . . (http://www.history.com/topics/trail-of-tears )
Painting by Robert Lindneux
In one of the saddest episodes of our brief history,
men, women, and children were taken from their
land, herded into makeshift forts with minimal
facilities and food, then forced to march a thousand
miles (Some made part of the trip by boat in equally
horrible conditions). . . . [In] the brutal winter of
1838-39 . . . About 4000 Cherokee died as a result
of the removal. The route they traversed and the
journey itself became known as "The Trail of Tears"
or, as a direct translation from Cherokee, "The Trail
Where They Cried" ("Nunna daul Tsuny").
Woolaroc Museum
(http://www.aboutnorthgeorgia.com/ang/Cherokee_Trail_of_Tears )
By 1837, the Jackson administration had removed 46,000 Native American people from their land east
of the Mississippi, and had secured treaties which led to the removal of a slightly larger number. Most
members of the five southeastern nations had been relocated west, opening 25 million acres of land to
white settlement and to slavery. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html)
The Battle of the Little Bighorn
Battle of the Little Bighorn, also called Custer’s Last Stand, (June 25, 1876) [took
place] . . . at the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory, U.S., between federal troops led by Lieut.
Col. George A. Custer and a band of Northern Plains (Dakota [Eastern Sioux] and Northern
Cheyenne) Indians; Custer and all his men were slain. . . . Although the Second Treaty of Fort
Laramie (1868), in effect, had guaranteed to Indians exclusive possession of the Dakota territory
west of the Missouri River, white miners in search of gold [found in the Black Hills in 1874] were
settling in lands sacred to the Dakota Indians. Unwilling to remove the settlers, unable to persuade
the Dakota to sell the territory, and feeling that the occasional Indian raid on a white settlement
effectively released them from the treaty, the U.S. government issued an order to the Indian
agencies that all the Indians return to the designated reservations by Jan. 31, 1876, or be deemed
hostile. The improbability of getting this message to the hunters, coupled with its rejection by many
of the Plains Indians, made confrontation inevitable.
(http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/343981/Battle-of-the-Little-Bighorn )
[Lieut. Colonel George A.] Custer and his 7th Calvary, [when]. . . dispatched to confront . . .
Indians fighting under the command of Sitting Bull (c.1831-90) at Little Bighorn, . . .were
outnumbered and quickly overwhelmed in what became known as Custer's Last Stand. . . .
Custer and some 200 men in his battalion were attacked by as many as 3,000 Native Americans;
within an hour, Custer and all of his soldiers were dead. . . . The Battle of the Little Bighorn, also
called Custer's Last Stand, marked the most decisive Native American victory and the worst U.S.
Army defeat in the long Plains Indian War. (http://www.history.com/topics/battle-of-the-littlebighorn )
From the Indian perspective, the aftermath of the Battle of the Little Bighorn had far-reaching
consequences. It was the beginning of the end of the Indian Wars, and has even been referred to
as "the Indians' last stand."[59] . . . .Within 48 hours after the battle, the large encampment on the
Little Bighorn broke up into smaller groups as the resources of grass for the horses and game
could not sustain a large congregation of people.[60]. . . The Great Sioux War ended on May 7
with [the] . . .defeat of a remaining band of Miniconjou Sioux.[60] . . . . As for the Black Hills
[where gold had been discovered], the Manypenny Commission structured an arrangement in
which the Sioux would cede the land to United States or the government would cease to supply
rations to the reservations. Threatened with starvation, the Indians ceded Paha Sapa to the
United States,[63] but the Sioux never accepted the legitimacy of the transaction. After lobbying
Congress to create a forum to decide their claim, and subsequent litigation spanning 40 years, the
United States Supreme Court in the 1980 decision United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians
acknowledged[note 4] the United States had taken the Black Hills without just compensation. The
Sioux refused the money offered, and continue to insist on their right to occupy the land.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn ).
References
59. "The Custer Syndrome", Newsweek, Sep. 29, 1991; accessed 2012.08.30.
60. a b www.sonofthesouth.net/union-generals/custer/custers-last-stand.htm
61.Welch, James A & Steckler, Paul (1994), Killing Custer – The Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Fate of the
Plains Indians, New York: Penguin Books: p. 194.
62. Ambrose, Stephen E. Crazy Horse and Custer New York: Anchor Books, 1996, pp. 451-452
63. Welch, James A & Steckler, Paul (1994), Killing Custer – The Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Fate of the
Plains Indians, New York: Penguin Books: pp. 196–197.
Note 4: United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371 (1980)(holding Government's must pay just
compensation to the Sioux for taking the Black Hills including an award of interest). This case confirmed the court's
view that the government can treat Indian Reservations like private property and take them by eminent domain if
just compensation is paid. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn ).
Dawes Allotment Act of 1887
On February 8, 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Act. . . .The new policy focused specifically on breaking up
reservations by granting land allotments to individual Native Americans. Very sincere individuals reasoned that if a
person adopted white clothing and ways, and was responsible for his own farm, he would gradually drop his
Indian-ness and be assimilated into the population. It would then no longer be necessary for the government to
oversee Indian welfare in the paternalistic way it had been obligated to do, or provide meager annuities that
seemed to keep the Indian in a subservient and poverty-stricken position.
(http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=50 )
Under the act, heads of families received quarter-section parcels of 160 acres, while other individuals were
granted smaller tracts of up to 80 acres. (http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.law.015 ) The
remaining tribal lands were to be declared "surplus" and opened up for whites.
(http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0600/frameset_reset.html?http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0600/stories/0601
_0200.html )
The Dawes Act had a negative effect on American Indians, as it ended their communal holding
of property (with crop land often being privately owned by families or clans[26]) by which they
had ensured that everyone had a home and a place in the tribe. The act "was the culmination of
American attempts to destroy tribes and their governments and to open Indian lands to settlement
by non-Indians and to development by railroads."[27] Land owned by Indians decreased from 138
million acres (560,000 km2) in 1887 to 48 million acres (190,000 km2) in 1934.[3]
Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado was one of the most outspoken opponents of allotment. In
1881, he said that allotment was a policy "to despoil the Indians of their lands and to make them
vagabonds on the face of the earth." Teller also said,
"the real aim [of allotment] was "to get at the Indian lands and open them up to settlement. The
provisions for the apparent benefit of the Indians are but the pretext to get at his lands and
occupy them....If this were done in the name of Greed, it would be bad enough; but to do it in the
name of Humanity...is infinitely worse."[28]
. . . .The remainder of the land once allotted to appointed natives was declared surplus and sold
to non-native settlers as well as railroad and other large corporations; other sections were
converted into federal parks and military compounds.[29] The concern shifted from encouraging
private native landownership to satisfying the white settlers' demand for larger portions of land.
By dividing reservation lands into privately owned parcels, legislators hoped to complete the
assimilation process by forcing Indians to adopt individual households, and strengthen the
nuclear family and values of economic dependency strictly within this small household unit.[30]
Given the conditions on the Great Plains, the land granted to most allottees was not sufficient for
economic viability of farming. Division of land among heirs upon the allottees' deaths quickly
led to land fractionalization. Most allotment land, which could be sold after a statutory period of
25 years, was eventually sold to non-Native buyers at bargain prices. Additionally, land deemed
to be "surplus" beyond what was needed for allotment was opened to white settlers, though the
profits from the sales of these lands were often invested in programs meant to aid the American
Indians. Over the 47 years of the Act's life, Native Americans lost about 90 million acres
(360,000 km²) of treaty land, or about two-thirds of the 1887 land base. About 90,000 Native
Americans were made landless.[31] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Act )
. . . . of the remaining Indian-owned land, almost half was arid or semiarid desert.
(http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.law.015 )
[Perhaps many] proponents of the Dawes Act, including its primary legislative sponsor and namesake, Senator
Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, were motivated by a sincere interest in the well-being and future prosperity of
Native Americans. [These} "reformers" inside and outside the government viewed tribalism and traditional Indian
cultural practices as impediments. . . . [Ultimately] the allotment era that the act ushered in is today universally
viewed as one of the darkest chapters in the annals of federal-Indian relations. Individual landownership was and is
contrary to most traditional Native American beliefs and practices. Moreover, many Indians had no desire to
become sedentary farmers and were woefully unprepared and ill equipped to succeed in that occupation even if
they had wanted to. The value of the parcels of thousands of allottees was quickly dissipated or lost entirely . . . .
without accomplishing any of the "reforms" intended by the act's proponents. (Mark R. Scherer [University of
Nebraska at Omaha], Encyclopedia of the Great Plains,
http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.law.015 )