How the West Was Won

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How the West Was Won Table of contents???pg.1 (History) How the West was ?won?????pg.2 (History) Harmony Lost???pg.3 The Long Walk???pgs.4-7 Bibliography???pg.8 How the West was ?won?? For hundreds of years the early stories of the United States have been summed up by the expression, ?How the West was won.? The classic cowboy and Indian films have always portrayed the white settlers moving across America?s plains and mountains to be innocent at heart in their journeys to search for gold or save souls. The Indian was always a fierce, tomahawk-wielding warrior. Was Hollywood accurate in depicting this story? How might history look from a different point of view? From the view of the native inhabitants of this land, the story is much different. When the Europeans arrived the Indians ?were forced to cope with the introduction into their environment of the most rapacious predator they had ever faced: white European invaders,? states the book The Native Americans-AN Illustrated History. Harmony Lost Upon arrival in this new land Europeans were met with kindness and courtesy from the natives. One account states: ?Without the aid of the Powhatans, the British settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English colony in the New World, would not have lasted through it?s first terrible winter of 1607-08. Similarly, the pilgrim colony at Plymouth Massachusetts, might have failed except for help from the Wampanoags.? And the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1874 would not have been successful had it not been for the Shoshone woman Sacagawea. She was their ?token of peace? when they came face-to-face with the Indians. The Europeans however, were greedy. And because of the way they us... ... middle of paper ... ...the ground- he will strive to gain his freedom, and though he fails, he will lift his head and look up to the shy which is his home- and we want to return to our mountains and plains, where we used to plant corn, wheat and beans.? --Written by a Navajo in 1865 In the end the imprisonment of the Indians had its desired effect. Another treaty was signed in eighteen-sixty-eight. This treaty granted the Navajo three and a half million acres of land, which included their old home area. During the imprisonment of the Navajo people they had lost about twenty-five percent of their population. They were no longer considered a threat and began their long journey home to rebuild their lives.

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