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Columbian exchange and its importance
Native American relationships with colonists
Columbian exchange and its importance
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European Exploration and Colonization The European exploration and colonization resulted in commercial expansion of trade in agricultural products between Europe and America. In some time, colonization resulted in religious tolerance and representative government that have for several years encouraged similar developments in other countries. In addition, early European exploration led to redistribution of human populations as magnitude of people from Europe and Africa moved to America. Before the colonization and exploration period, the Native Americans had established a number of forms of social organization. One point of collision was seen in the differences the religious practices by the Native Americans and the Europeans. For instance, the native inhabitants of Savannah in Georgia were continuously urged to accept Christianity as a true faith and to apply the gospel of Jesus Christ in all that they did (Whitefield par 4). At one point the Native Americans were promised eternal life in Christianity, but at the other point they were warned of existing eternal death if they continued practicing their “earthen” religions. This was confused them more as the missioners argued to have been taken by the natives for granted (Whitfield par. 10). Christianity was not …show more content…
easily received by the natives. There a number of them who rejected who rejected the concept of hell torments to which differ to great with their understanding of life after death (Whitfield par. 17). The native of Savannah of Georgia were told that there was no way they could be delivered from their suffering unless they accepted Christianity (Whitfield par. 37). At some point the there were some natives who walked from one place to another dissuading others from believing on Christianity brought by the Europeans. Whitfield called these people “blind leaders of the blind” and cautioned that they would be given much punishment than others. Such people were threatened with wraths of plagues for “adding and subtracting” what is written in the Bible (Whitfield par. 45). At the initial stages, Native Americans neglected attending Christian Assemblies. According to them the European used double standards. They were more surprised of the teachings of the Europeans who in the actual sense enslaved Africans. On one hand, they were telling them that “All men are born free and equal,” but, on the other hand, they were importing innocent Africans for slavery (Wheatley 5). Even the preachers like Reverend Whitfield would continuously refer to the natives as “half Beast and half Devils.” However, he placed these words under the right context such that they natives could not feel offended. There was still a magnitude of Native Americans who accepted Christianity. These natives were from all sects and denominations. In fact, as Franklin (par 1) put it, Christianity as was preached by Whitfield resulted in change of behavior of the natives. Those who received Christianity were no longer thoughtless or indifferent about religion. Almost everywhere in towns hymns of Psalm were being heard. The Native Americans were told that God can never authorize any religion but Christianity.
In this way the religion practiced by the Native Americans was taken as contradictions to Christianity. The natives were informed that Christianity was designed to be an eternal rule of significance and a means from which they could use to return to God from their religions that had deviated (Eliot par. 3). Through sermons given by Whitfield, the minds of the natives were engaged in religion and making religion the subject of most of their discussions. They embraced all the opportunities to hear what was been taught on Christianity. The Christian revivals were attended by the young and old alike (Edwards par.
3). Another major point of cultural conflict was the concept of land. Prior to the coming Europeans, the Native American Indians fought fiercely among themselves over the hunting rights in their territories. The natives’ concept of land was totally different from the newly introduced legislation and the nature of European land ownership (Baldwin reading 5). Unlike the Europeans, the Native American Indians did not have concept of private property as was introduced by the Europeans. The idea introduced by the Europeans that individuals having exclusive right over land was entirely strange among the Native Americans. This indifference resulted to conflict between the natives and the British colonists. On one side, the French were united with the natives an issue that was seen as life threatening to the British colonies. In certain cases the colonies were urged join the course of war against the French and the natives less they die (Join or die 1). In conclusion, exploration and colonization in America resulted in interaction and collision of the Native American and European cultures. One of the collisions was observed in the different religions practiced by the two cultures. Prior to the coming of Europeans, the Native Americans had established ways of worship. Each ethnic community had different ways of worship. However, the idea of serving one God under Christianity was baffling to the natives. At certain point they rejected the worship and walked from one point to another convincing fellow native on the need to remain in their ways of worship. However, later on, with the hard preaching of Reverent Whitfield, most of the natives accepted Christianity. Another major point of conflict was on land. The natives for a long time did not privately own land, but with company of the Europeans, they were forced to do so. This resulted in to wars with the natives siding in one side with the French and the British colonies ganging up together on the other side.
In George E. Tinker’s book, American Indian Liberation: A Theology of Sovereignty, the atrocities endured by many of the first peoples, Native American tribes, come into full view. Tinker argues that the colonization of these groups had and continues to have lasting effects on their culture and thus their theology. There is a delicate balance to their culture and their spiritual selves within their tightly knit communities prior to contact from the first European explorers. In fact, their culture and spiritual aspects are so intertwined that it is conceptually impossible to separate the two, as so many Euro-American analysts attempted. Tinker points to the differences between the European and the Native American cultures and mind sets as ultimately
Cabeza de Vaca’s Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America shows that while Christians thought themselves superior to natives, both sides were diverse and could commit good, bad, or neutral behavior towards each other. Therefore, the Indians and the Christians were much more similar than different. This is apparent in de Vaca’s accounts of Indian to Indian behavior, Christian to Christian behavior, and Indian to Christian behavior (and vice-versa).
The Indigenous people of America are called Native Americans or often referred to as “Indians”. They make up about two percent of the population in the United States and some of them still live in reservations. They once lived freely in the wilderness without any sort of influence or exposure from the Europeans who later came in the year of 1492, and therefore their culture is very different from ours.. In the following essay we will discover some differences between the religious beliefs of the Native American Iroquois and Christianity to see if the culture and ways of living have an effect on the view of religion, but we will also get to know some similarities between them. I am going to be focusing on the Iroquois, which are the northeastern Native Americans who are historically important and powerful.
From 1670 to 1770, the New World was colonized by different racial groups from Europe who lived together heterogeneously which led the New World to become “modern” and uniquely “American”. In 1670, many Europeans, like the Dutch, French, Irish, Scottish, English and German colonists, came to the New World either to break away from European traditions or to fulfill their desire for adventure. Butler wrote that the colonists all lived heterogeneously and brought their own cultures and religions to the New World to create diversity, which helped contribute America to become “modern”.
Imperialistic Europe differed strongly from that of the United States. Europeans focused on Social Darwinism; politicians felt that conquering underdeveloped territories was the best thing for the human race. The United States did not have as strong of views on imperialism that were expressed by Europeans. The United States imperialism differed from Europeans by the lack of pressure to join the movement from neighboring countries, sheer size, and the economic importance of conquering other territories.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Europeans began their colonization and settling into America. France and Spain both began exploring the New World to find gold and to spread Catholicism. What differed between them were their priorities in colonization. During the 16th century Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther posted the Ninety Five Theses, accusing the Church of corruption. Because of that, he ended up dividing the Catholic Church, which led to the rise of Protestant Churches in Europe. Spain, as a representative of Orthodox Catholicism, wanted to spread Catholicism further. They then established colonies in America, to convert the Indians to Catholicism and to stop Protestantism. France had entered the New World in search
In 1608, a group of Christian separatists from the Church of England fled to the Netherlands and then to the "New World" in search of the freedom to practice their fundamentalist form of Christianity (dubbed Puritanism). The group of people known as the Native Americans (or American Indians) are the aboriginal inhabitants of the Northern and Southern American continents who are believed to have migrated across the Bering land bridge from Asia around 30,000 years ago. When these two societies collided, years of enforced ideology, oppression and guerrilla warfare were begun. The great barriers of religion, ethics and world-views are the three largest factors which lead to the culture clash between the Puritans and the Native Americans.
The European colonization of the Americas granted new opportunities to second born males who would have been soldiers or serving under the church or any who were less fortunate. It gave people a new start away from the monarchy and corruption that was prevalent through Europe. The French, English, Dutch and Spanish primarily colonized the "New World" for commercial and trading gains. None of these European nations conformed its entire enterprise to a religious endeavor or even came close to doing so. This brought astounding changes to both the "Old" and "New World" changing the course of history in ways we take for granted.
Noll, Mark A. The Old Religion in a New World: The History of North American Christianity. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002.
Some would say that Christopher Columbus was a devout Christian. He believed that "his was a mission that would put Christian civilization on the offensive after centuries of Muslim ascendancy" (Dor-Ner 45). Columbus' original mission was to find a western route to the Indies. But when that failed, his mission became clear: convert these new people to Christianity. Throughout this paper I will show the view of the natives by Columbus and Christendom and how these views changed over a span of fifty years.
For example Rithcer explains the perceived absurdity of Christian beliefs as having strengthened Indian’s aversion to assimilation. He goes on to show how social circumstances forced a rethink of political alliances and inter-community relations. War, for example is shown as having increased the number of Christian converts as natives sought solace in missionary camps. Throughout the text, Ritcher makes extensive use of Iroquois research to illustrate the evolution in tribal
Looking back into history, at around the 1500s to the 1600s, people were very much the same in the sense that many countries were looking to aggrandize their economy and appear the greatest. It was this pride and thinking that motivated many of the superpowers of the world’s past. Two such monarchies in the European continent included England and Spain, which had at the time, the best fleets the world has ever seen. Because both were often striving to be the best, they conflicted with one another. Although England and Spain had their differences, they both had a thirst to see new things and it was this hunger that led them both to discovering different parts of the “New World” and thus, colonizing the Americas.
...of worship but the Europeans saw it as devil worship. The Europeans never understood the Native American beliefs or understood how religious they actually were. Its like taking your grandparents who have been taught one religion their whole lives and trying to convert them to a different religion when they are 70 years old. The Europeans were just asking for trouble when they tried converting Native Americans to Christianity. Of coarse their were some Native Americans that did convert and believed in Christianity but most did not.
Upon the European’s discovery and colonization of the Americas an irreversible transformation was triggered. The extreme differences in the cultures of the Europeans and Native Americans would prove to be fatal to the way of life that existed before European colonization.
The European civilization at the time of the Renaissance helped promote exploration and colonization of the New World in approximately 1000 A.D. After the Vikings sailed from the British Isles to Greenland, they then moved on to go to Labrador, which is located in the Baffin Islands. From these new found lands they established a colony named Vinelands and sailed along North America. Even though the Vikings never came back to north America they were acknowledged for their accomplishments by other Europeans.