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Seems like we pretty much got the Gilded Age figured out at this

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point right top hat millionaires corruption scandal more top hats but

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being about a boon Gilded Age in a nutshell I'm sorry to burst your bubble [Gilded Age checklist appears]

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there SH bumpers but there was more going on after reconstruction than just

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the invention of the champagne fountain sure everybody in the Gilded Age was [A champagne fountain appears]

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looking for a little slice of opportunity but not all the new

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opportunities found in northeastern factories were fed by the last the West

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trouble was that Western land territory and Natural Resources actually belonged [River and Private Property sign appears]

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to other people and they weren't too pleased about being asked of course to

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hand it all over and clear out if we're talking about the American Indians well

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US policy toward the natives had always been awful even back in the colonial

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days the bad news is that while the US had always treated American Indians like

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pests to be eliminated it all got a lot worse during the gilded ages period of

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rapid westward expansion well during the Gilded Age US policy toward natives [Man capturing woman]

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turns downright schizophrenic lots of different factions had lots of different

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ideas and they didn't mind arguing about them some groups argued for policies

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that were supposedly humanitarian for these people the humane way to deal with

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the tribes was to assimilate them into white culture these groups went by the

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slogan kill the Indian and save the man we didn't make this up these groups [Group of indian people and Richard Pratt appears]

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wanted an extreme makeover of the worst possible time they didn't really care

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about the fact that completely erasing somebody's culture is a lot like killing

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the person that they are just imagine if aliens just over the country and told us [Alien spacecraft flys towards Earth]

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we could keep living here as long as we acted like them [Alien pointing gun at people]

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of course while the assimilation strategy was culturally insensitive at

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best there were significantly worse strategies out there like oh say they

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kill them all strategy while the US Army had plenty of American Indian massacres

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on their hand some white volunteer groups even took it upon themselves the

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massacre native children inspired by the charming phrase nits become life uncle [Native child and gun points towards her]

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thinking the Pineda's didn't fight back there were plenty of Indian Wars

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rebellion and minor skirmishes but in the end well they just couldn't stand

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out to the superior technology and power and resources of the u.s. machines like

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bows and arrows don't do much against bullets so American Indians attempted [Rifle fires at bow and arrow]

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violent resistance basically totally failed well except for the Battle of

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Little Bighorn in which General Custer and most of his men were annihilated by

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the Lakota Cheyenne and Arapaho trot now this event was also called Custer's last

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stand for all those out there who taught the term refer to the last custard on [Custard and gelati stand]

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the block not case

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