Religion has always been an easy respite from the worries of daily life. Additionally, he has an intrinsic ability to help his followers make sense of things in times of despair. For Native Americans, religion has long been an integral part of their culture. The Longhouse Religion, the Drummer-Dreamer Faith (which strongly foreshadowed the development of the Ghost Dance movement), and the Indian Shaker Church are all religions deeply rooted in Native American culture. The white man, since his arrival in America, has always had extreme tensions with the Native Americans, often enacting laws in order to do what would make white society happy. As the United States government suppressed more and more of what Native Americans stood for, many of them turned to religion for freedom from the pain and suffering caused, in part, by man. white. The United States government, from its very founding, has been hostile toward Native Americans, forcing them to conform to their needs. One of the first examples of Indian manipulation by the United States government was the Indian Removal Act of 1830. During the presidency of Andrew Jackson, thousands of Native Americans were forced from their lands at the west of the Mississippi River. These Native Americans walked what would later be known as the Trail of Tears. It was so named because of the acute anguish that countless numbers of them endured during their stay. As they were forced farther and farther west, they found themselves cramped onto smaller, less fertile lands. The Sioux Treaty of 1868 (also known as the Treaty of Fort Laramie) established the Great Sioux Reservation. This treaty drew boundaries as to where Native Americans could and could not settle and attempt...... middle of paper ......ess, 2009. Meddaugh, JE American Indian Ghost Dance. Photograph. 1885. Photo lot 90-1, number 391. National Anthropological Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Members of the Potomac Corral of the Westerners. Great battles of the Western Indians. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1960. Mooney, James. The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Epidemic of 1890. Washington DC: United States Bureau of American Ethnology, 1896. Sandefur, Gary D. “Native American Reservations: The First Impoverished Areas?” Focus 12, no. 1 (1989): 37-41. Streissguth, Tom. Wounded Knee 1890: the end of the Plains Indian Wars. New York, NY: Facts on File, 1998. Thurman, Melbum D. “Wovoka.” American National Biography Online. Last edited February 2000. Accessed October 15, 2013. http://www.anb.org/articles/20/20-01149.html.Wovoka. “The Letter of the Messiah”. Transcription of the speech.