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Christopher Columbus acted as a *vocab friend to the Native Americans when he really just enslaved and killed them; that sparking the start of a genocide. Columbus and the rest of the Europeans stumbling upon the Americas in 1492 was just a start of the events the caused this holocaust, also known as the 500 year war, and the longest holocaust in history. Young Americans today are taught that the Native Americans and European colonist were *vocab friendly, while ?he enslaved and caused much harm to the culture, including nearly killing it off (Stannard). Public Schools teach students that Christopher Columbus did a good thing and find our land, just like Hitler used propaganda to brainwash naive citizens into thinking what he did was a respectable …show more content…
action*vocab thing. Overall, this is considered the most overwhelming and largest holocaust recorded in history of mankind caused by the enslavement and homicide of Native Americans and colonization of Europeans who just wanted to steal their land from them. Understanding the actions that led up to, the consequences that took place during the Native American Genocide in which their land was taken. and the long term effects on the Natives, helps people work out future alliances. Columbus wanted to find a direct route from Europe to Asia, while he accidently came across the Americas. Before the European colonization the Natives are thought to of got here by a land bridge during the ice age; this was prehistoric period and they were descendants of the mongolian people (Guenter). Thanks to Native Americans we now have corn- which is actually a man made plant, they cannot survive without the help,they also grew potatoes, yams, pumpkins and Lima beans (Stefan). The Natives have been in the Americas for centuries before the Europeans could sail.The Natives were very curious; Columbus and the Native Americans would trade objects such as spears for glass beads. Columbus them a sword and they would grab the foible part of the sword, there ignorance of plain objects made Columbus feel superior to them, thinking he could easily enslave them; and their extraordinary health and strong build would make great slaves (Robert). As he did take action to his words and forced a few Indians upon his ship to help navigate and inform him about what was in those areas of the Indies. Columbus decided to bring back Natives and enslaving them, he assumed they were savage and uncivilized. Upon all of the hateful thoughts, there was also the killings, such as when the government killed of 15,000 buffaloes so the Native Americans would have a huge food shortage. Illnesses were a massive cause of Native American Death, the Army gave them blankets infected with smallpox, other diseases were, measles, typhus, whooping cough, and scarlet fever were deadly to the Natives (Stannard). The Spanish would use infants to make dog food, which is comparable to Hitler and the Nazi’s using newborns as shooting targets by throwing them into the air and shooting them.
Also, Spanish cut the arms or hands off of Natives who tried escaping, while Nazi’s would shoot any prisoner who tried rebelling or escaping. Indians were forced onto reserved territory and to get there they had to walk thousands of miles, also referred to as the trail of tears, comparable to when the Jews had to walk to different camps, known as the death march (Tinker).
George Washington thought the most optimal way to solve the “Indian problem” was to civilize them by forcing them into Christianity and basic skills like reading and writing. The colonist eventually, after forcing them off their own land, wanted a peace treaty, while the Natives rejected, causing more of a dispute that will last even longer (History.com Staff).
Today Approximately one third of true Native Americans are residents of reserves today.There are types of “Indian land, one being allotted lands, which is parts of reservations broken up during the allotment period of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; another being restricted status, kind of like private land owned by a Native American; and finally state Indian reservations, which are held by a state specifically Native Americans. The largest reservation is in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, called the Navajo Nation with a population of 300,500
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(Gerald). A majority of the modern Native Americans live in poverty and do not have well paying jobs.
Most Natives live in rural and big cities due to the hopelessness of Indian reservations. This could be a factor that shows racial discrimination is still a problem of today. To qualify as a Native American you must get a CIB, or simply a Certification of Indian Blood, you must have one-fourth Indian in your genes. After so many tragic wars, and violence and enslavement they killed off generations of Native Americans, caused over land. The genocide was sort of a stop and start in waves, it was done mostly by biological warfare, starvation, disease, and enslaving them. Most of the harm done by U.S is masked by faux stories and denial, they would blame the Natives for being too violent or ill. In 1890, the U.S government signed a treaty to put an end to the genocide, but of course that did not stop racial profiling. Today, public schools tend to cover up what really happen, or at least cover up the gruesome details of what the government and people did to a culture. This is also the largest genocide recorded reaching a death toll of 95,000,000 to 114,000,000 within 500 years
(Stannard).
Many consider Columbus a Hero, others believe he was selfish and self centered. Myint author of “Christopher Columbus: Hero or Villain?” and Ransby author of “Columbus and the Making of Historical Myth.”, are faced with the same dilemma. From a young age children are taught about Columbus and his greatness, but the books fail to document the atrocities committed in the process. Most of the books use biased language; little evidence and vague language is used to hail Columbus as a great hero. Myint provides a more objective stance, while Ransby condemns Columbus entirely. However, both suggest to consider Columbus a hero is a mistake.
The American Indians were promised change with the American Indian policy, but as time went on no change was seen. “Indian reform” was easy to promise, but it was not an easy promise to keep as many white people were threatened by Indians being given these rights. The Indian people wanted freedom and it was not being given to them. Arthur C. Parker even went as far as to indict the government for its actions. He brought the charges of: robbing a race of men of their intellectual life, of social organization, of native freedom, of economic independence, of moral standards and racial ideals, of his good name, and of definite civic status (Hoxie 97). These are essentially what the American peoples did to the natives, their whole lives and way of life was taken away,
From the removal of Native Americans in Georgia to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, the crime of greed affected millions. Condemned men, women and children suffered cruelty, starvation and being raped and beaten in a brutal way. Although dissimilar by geography and time, the pain and torment experienced by the Native Americans in a route that became known as, "The Trail of Tears", unite them with their Jewish brothers. Prejudice, race, politics, and powers are strong similarities and differences between the Holocaust and the Trail of Tears.
The controversy of whether or not Christopher Columbus should continue to be acknowledged by a federal holiday proves that his legacy has not escaped the scrutiny of history. Arguments born of both sides of the controversy stem from issues such as genocide, racism, multiculturalism, geographical land rights, and the superiority of certain cultures over others. In The Christopher Columbus Controversy: Western Civilization vs. Primitivism, Michael Berliner, Ph.D. declares that recognition of Columbus Day is well-deserved, claiming that Western civilization is superior to all other cultures and Columbus personifies this truth. On the contrary, Jack Weatherford's Examining the Reputation of Christopher Columbus equates Columbus' so-called discovery with brutal genocide and the destruction of ancient sophisticated civilizations. These articles demonstrate two extreme points of view in a manner that makes clear each authors' goals, leading the reader to consider issues of author bias, motivation, and information validity.
First, Columbus was a cruel man who enslaved, raped, and murdered the natives of the countries he sailed to. According to an article by John Margolis entitled "Goodbye Columbus", Columbus "oversaw the killings of some (Indians) and ordered the enslavement of others." Margolis goes on to say that Columbus did not prevent his crewmen from raping the innocent natives, and even that he himself raped an Indian women after beating her "with a piece of rope". If these actions do not constitute villainy, I don't know what does.
While discovering the New World he brought smallpox with them that wiped out most of the native people living there. Although, Columbus did never mean to do that intentionally, he did basically kill hundreds of people. In the article “Columbus Doesn’t Deserve a Holiday” the author says “Within 70 years of his arrival, of the hundreds of thousands of Arawak Indians on the Bahama Islands only hundreds remained.” Even with the small number of native’s left after the smallpox, Columbus brought them back and put them on sale. They started with 500 native’s, but 200 died on the way there. Not only did Columbus kill hundreds, he also destroyed a natural, peaceful place. He just took people out of there land and called it his. After reading this one might not believe Columbus is the hero we all think of.
For more than five centuries Americans have lifted Christopher Columbus to heights of greatness and god-like. We celebrate his life as though he was a man that had done us a great favor. In resent years Christopher Columbus has come under scrutiny, his life and works being questioned more than celebrated. There have be many great men and women that contributed to the building of our great nation but they do not receive anywhere as much recognition as Columbus. When a person begins to study the actual accounts of the "finding of the New World" they begin to wonder if Columbus should adored or hated for his actions. As a child I was taught that Columbus was a great man that had accomplished great things for the sake of humanity, but in reality his agenda was not to better humanity but to better himself. He found the Americas by mere chance and he did not even know of what he found. We give him credit for "finding" the Americas but history tells of the people, that he called Indians, already inhabiting the foreign land. So you decide whether or not Christopher Columbus should be revered a hero.
Christopher Columbus unintentionally discovered America, when he landed in the Caribbean Islands. He had left Spain in search of Asia and India. When he and his crew arrived at what now is Haiti for his second voyage, they demanded food, gold, and anything else they wanted from the Indians, even sex with their women. Columbus punished those who committed offenses against him. Rape and enslavement had been brought upon the natives. When the natives of the land, known as the Arawaks, tried to fight back, it led to a massacre of their people in which by Columbus? order, meant crossbows, small cannons, lances, and swords to destroy them. Even wild hunting dogs were released to rip up the Arawaks, whom by the end of the day were dead or ready to ship to Spain as slaves. None of this was ever taught to students.
Today, most of the Navajo code talkers have been forgotten. Those who’s memories still linger are honored highly. The Navajo are the largest Indian tribe in the United States and live on the largest reservation, which covers over three states on 17 million acres. The states include Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and a small part of Colorado. The Navajo are continuing to grow and keep their culture, nation and tradition alive.
Under President Jackson, who supported the removal of the Indians, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which would transfer Indians to reservations, by agreement or by force they. When the Cherokees were supported when they took the issue to the Supreme Court. However, Jackson insisted removal. After the defeat of the Cherokees, the Seminoles decided to fight for their land, and succeeded in maintaining it. The others tribes, however, were eventually forced to leave their native lands as well. The most renowned of these removals was that of the Cherokees, referred to as the "Trail of Tears." Many Indians died when the United States army took the Cherokees to Oklahoma.
In the 30 years after the Civil War, although government policy towards Native Americans intended to shift from forced separation to integration into American society, attempts to "Americanize" Indians only hastened the death of their culture and presence in the America. The intent in the policy, after the end of aggression, was to integrate Native Americans into American society. Many attempts at this were made, ranging from offering citizenship to granting lands to Indians. All of these attempts were in vain, however, because the result of this policies is much the same as would be the result of continued agression.
With the discovery of the New World came a whole lot of new problems. Native American Indians lived in peace and harmony until European explorers interrupted that bliss with the quest for money and power. The European explorers brought with them more people. These people and their descendants starting pushing the natives out of their homes, out of their land, far before the 1800s. However, in the 1800s, the driving force behind the removal of the natives intensified. Thousands of indians during this time were moved along the trail known as Nunna dual Tsung, meaning “The Trail Where They Cried” (“Cherokee Trail of Tears”). The Trail of Tears was not only unjust and unconstitutional, but it also left many indians sick, heartbroken, and dead.
From the beginning of the 20th Century, there were nearly 250,000 Native Americans in the United States who accounted for approximately 0.3 percent of the population. This population was mostly residing in reservations where they executed a restricted extent of self-government. Native Americans have experienced numerous challenges related to land use and inconsistent public policies. Actually, during the 19th Century, Native Americans were dispossessed of a huge section of their land through forced removal westwards, through a series of treaties that were largely dishonored, and through military defeat by the United States in its expansion of control over the American West (Boxer par,1). Moreover, Native Americans have experienced
Through Manifest Destiny and the land from the Louisiana Purchase Americans were able to travel further than they had ever before. However, most of the land was already inhabited either by other countries or Native Americans. By expanding and continuing to push American society across the country there were huge losses to the native tribes. As more and more Americans began to move westward native people were killed and/or removed from their land and placed in reservations. As of 2010 22% of the US’s 5.2 million Native Americans live in reservations in which poverty levels are exponentially higher than the rest of the country. In many of the reservations adequate health care may not be available directly and as result health issues are much more prevalent. (Native American Aid) It is because of the rise of Manifest Destiny that Native Americans still live in reservations possible hundreds of miles from where their original tribe may have once existed. Even though a lot of pain arose from the expansion of Americans and Manifest Destiny a lot of great did as
The conquest of the New World was not worth the cost. The colonists took advantage over the innocent Native Americans. To go along with Lincoln’s quote, the colonists who were slave owners didn’t deserve freedom. The settlers captured and confined many slaves. Spain, as a whole had many advantages in the conquest of the New World. But the damages inflicted upon the Native population was almost unrepairable.