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Impacts of colonization on native americans
Impacts of colonization on native americans
Impacts of colonization on native americans
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Following the arrival of the Europeans in North America, the cultural, social, and institutional landscape that had previously existed for hundreds of years, shifted dramatically. Both Native, and Non-Native peoples alike, were forced to adapt their ways of existence to ensure their survival. All inhabitants faced a formidable, and often times abbreviated life. However, the struggle of survival in the new world was not proportionate. Native Americans endured countless injustices in addition to the diseases, climate challenges, and shifting alliances, that the Europeans faced. The ways that countless amounts of native societies were able to survive, develop, and shape the future of North America, while being consistently removed from their lands, …show more content…
speaks volumes about the grit of the indigenous people of that time. Although all life was difficult in the New World, the challenges faced by Indigenous people are vastly greater than those of the Europeans. Of the many Native Polities that existed, few exemplify the sophistication, relentlessness, and ability to adapt for survival as well as the Comanche do.
As Pekka Hämäläinen puts it in his book, The Comanche Empire, “the Comanche invasion was far more than a military conquest. As they made a place for themselves in the southern plains, Comanches forged a series of alliances with the adjacent Indian and European powers, rearranging the political and commercial geography of the entire lower midcontinent” (Hämäläinen 1). As impressive as the Comanche Empire was, they were certainly not immune to the difficulties that countless indigenous peoples were facing across the new world. “After the first devastating outbreak of smallpox in 1780-81, the Comanches were hit by repeated waves of disease. Smallpox Erupted into major epidemics in 1799, 1808, 1839, 1848, and 1851, and a potent cholera virus washed over Comancheria in 1849” (Hämäläinen 179). With disease prevalent, and rival polities constantly challenging for power, the Comanche were not only able to survive, they became the central power of the southern …show more content…
planes. Not all Native polities were as strong and influential as the Comanche however, indigenous peoples faced disease, loss of land, and complete eradication of societies.
Among these well known hardships, was the loss of culture and tradition. As the New World continued to develop, the presence of European guns, alcohol, and culture, slowly began to whittle away at individuals within Native Society. “And so you see what has happened to us. We were fools to take all these things that weakened us. We did not need them then, but we believe we need them now. We turned our back on the old ways” (Tenskwatawa 1). War, disease, loss of land, are terrible atrocities to endure. But unlike these, the feeling of losing touch with one’s own history and tradition, is a helpless and somber experience. To watch as the ‘pillars’ of one’s society begin to weaken, takes a toll on the will of a human being in distinctive way, as compared to the violence that is usually thought of. “Indian country is more about the people than the land itself” (1/19). Watching the people within your country, begin to neglect the deeply rooted traditions, stories, and values that give your society its identity, is something that only the Native Americans experienced as the New World continued to take shape. This is quintessential disconnect between the challenges the Europeans and Native Americans endured. The Native Americans had no home to sail back to, no safety net to fall back on as life as they knew it
continued to stray further from what it was before. And as the never-ending expansion of Non-Native peoples continued, Native groups, societies, nations, and polities were all searching for the scarce luxury of a place to call home. Like a lot of the issues facing Native Americans in the New World, there were some problems that occurred purely because of the shock that the landscape faced when foreigners arrived. The latter part of the previous paragraph sheds some light on the cause and effect of having highly populated regions which, prior to contact with Non-Natives, already dealt with instances of overpopulation, as well as fluid and contested borders. Author of Cahokia: Ancient America’s Great City on the Mississippi Timothy R. Pauketat writes, “It appears that at some time during the fourteenth century, eight hundred or so villagers living in the fifty large lodges of this agricultural settlement had been attacked by a longtime enemy, quite possible a large group of Siouan-speaking warriors” (Pauketat 165). Realistically there was simply not enough land post contact to completely coexist before tensions inevitably began to arise, whether it be Native Americans fighting other Native Americans, Non-Natives fighting Natives, or Non-Natives fighting Non-Natives. The conflicts and repercussions of trying to obtain land were not monopolized by just Native Americans. A vast majority of Indigenous and Non-Indigenous peoples living the New World would have seen, and felt the growing tension all around them. Sometimes the truth of our past isn’t as convenient as labeling something good or bad. Life in the new world was hard, and often dangerous for people whether you were Native American or European. However, this is not justification for the instances of forceful colonization, removal, and persecution of Native Americans littered throughout North American history. The New World was undoubtedly created through a process of mutual discovery, but the challenges Europeans faced while colonizing it pale in comparison to the injustices Native Americans of all societies faced as they adjusted and somehow managed to excel in the changing landscape of post European contact North America. The Comanche withstood waves of deadly diseases, and political conflict while simultaneously remaining the dominant power in the southern planes. Native societies endured massive cultural changes as the magnitude of European influence gradually proceeded to grow. As well as cultural changes, Natives underwent relocation, often times by disease, exhaustion of reliable food sources, advancing European colonial growth, and violent forced removal. Though it is important to recognize the burdens felt by all people trying to find their way in the New World, it is equally important to understand the sustained oppression of Indigenous peoples throughout the New World, and beyond.
Pages one to sixty- nine in Indian From The Inside: Native American Philosophy and Cultural Renewal by Dennis McPherson and J. Douglas Rabb, provides the beginning of an in-depth analysis of Native American cultural philosophy. It also states the ways in which western perspective has played a role in our understanding of Native American culture and similarities between Western culture and Native American culture. The section of reading can be divided into three lenses. The first section focus is on the theoretical understanding of self in respect to the space around us. The second section provides a historical background into the relationship between Native Americans and British colonial power. The last section focus is on the affiliation of otherworldliness that exist between
War is always destructive and devastating for those involved leaving behind a trail of death and barren landscape leading to heartbreak and shattered lives. War has its subjugators and its defeated. One enjoys complete freedom and rights while the other has neither freedom nor rights. Defeated and broken is where the Eastern Woodland Indians found themselves after both the Seven Years' war and the American Revolution. The Europeans in their campaigns to garner control of the land used the native peoples to gain control and ultimately stripped the rightful owners of their land and freedoms. The remainder of this short paper will explore the losses experienced by the Eastern Woodland Indians during these wars and will answer the question of which war was more momentous in the loss experienced.
The Native Americans For at least fifteen thousand years before the arrival of Christopher Columbus and Thomas Hariot, Native Americans had occupied the vastness of North America undisturbed by outside invaders (Shi 2015 pg. 9). Throughout the years leading up to Columbus’s voyage to the “New World” (the Americas) and Hariot’s journey across the sea, the Indians had encountered and adapted to many diverse continents; due to global warming, climatic and environmental diversity throughout the lands (2015). Making the Native Americans culture, religion, and use of tools and technology very strange to that of Columbus’s and Hariot’s more advanced culture and economy, when they first came into contact with the Native Americans. To start with,
Native American’s place in United States history is not as simple as the story of innocent peace loving people forced off their lands by racist white Americans in a never-ending quest to quench their thirst for more land. Accordingly, attempts to simplify the indigenous experience to nothing more than victims of white aggression during the colonial period, and beyond, does an injustice to Native American history. As a result, historians hoping to shed light on the true history of native people during this period have brought new perceptive to the role Indians played in their own history. Consequently, the theme of power and whom controlled it over the course of Native American/European contact is being presented in new ways. Examining the evolving
As children, students are taught from textbooks that portray Native Americans and other indigenous groups as small, uncivilized, mostly nomadic groups with ways of life that never changed or disfigured the land. Charles Mann’s account of Indian settlements’ histories and archaeological findings tell us otherwise. Mann often states in his book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus that the indigenous groups of North and South America were far more advanced and populous than students are taught. He focuses on many different cultural groups and their innovations and histories that ultimately led to either their demise or modern day inhabitants.
The article, “Native Reactions to the invasion of America”, is written by a well-known historian, James Axtell to inform the readers about the tragedy that took place in the Native American history. All through the article, Axtell summarizes the life of the Native Americans after Columbus acquainted America to the world. Axtell launches his essay by pointing out how Christopher Columbus’s image changed in the eyes of the public over the past century. In 1892, Columbus’s work and admirations overshadowed the tears and sorrows of the Native Americans. However, in 1992, Columbus’s undeserved limelight shifted to the Native Americans when the society rediscovered the history’s unheard voices and became much more evident about the horrific tragedy of the Natives Indians.
The author starts the chapter by briefly introducing the source in which this chapter is based. He makes the introduction about the essay he wrote for the conference given in at Vanderbilt University. This essay is based about the events and problems both Native Americans and Europeans had to encounter and lived since the discovery of America.
In his essay, “The Indians’ Old World,” Neal Salisbury examined a recent shift in the telling of Native American history in North America. Until recently, much of American history, as it pertains to Native Americans; either focused on the decimation of their societies or excluded them completely from the discussion (Salisbury 25). Salisbury also contends that American history did not simply begin with the arrival of Europeans. This event was an episode of a long path towards America’s development (Salisbury 25). In pre-colonial America, Native Americans were not primitive savages, rather a developing people that possessed extraordinary skill in agriculture, hunting, and building and exhibited elaborate cultural and religious structures.
American Indians shaped their critique of modern America through their exposure to and experience with “civilized,” non-Indian American people. Because these Euro-Americans considered traditional Indian lifestyle savage, they sought to assimilate the Indians into their civilized culture. With the increase in industrialization, transportation systems, and the desire for valuable resources (such as coal, gold, etc.) on Indian-occupied land, modern Americans had an excuse for “the advancement of the human race” (9). Euro-Americans moved Indians onto reservations, controlled their education and practice of religion, depleted their land, and erased many of their freedoms. The national result of this “conquest of Indian communities” was a steady decrease of Indian populations and drastic increase in non-Indian populations during the nineteenth century (9). It is natural that many American Indians felt fearful that their culture and people were slowly vanishing. Modern America to American Indians meant the destruction of their cultural pride and demise of their way of life.
“Quantie’s weak body shuddered from a blast of cold wind. Still, the proud wife of the Cherokee chief John Ross wrapped a woolen blanket around her shoulders and grabbed the reins.” Leading the final group of Cherokee Indians from their home lands, Chief John Ross thought of an old story that was told by the chiefs before him, of a place where the earth and sky met in the west, this was the place where death awaits. He could not help but fear that this place of death was where his beloved people were being taken after years of persecution and injustice at the hands of white Americans, the proud Indian people were being forced to vacate their lands, leaving behind their homes, businesses and almost everything they owned while traveling to an unknown place and an uncertain future. The Cherokee Indians suffered terrible indignities, sickness and death while being removed to the Indian territories west of the Mississippi, even though they maintained their culture and traditions, rebuilt their numbers and improved their living conditions by developing their own government, economy and social structure, they were never able to return to their previous greatness or escape the injustices of the American people.
There are consistent patterns or themes regarding Native American world views and the differentiation of cultural elements and society. Native Americans retained control of institutional and cultural orders against the assimilation effort because all aspects of Native American societies are interrelated, guided by the broader cultural world views. Each cultural or institutional element is, in fact, overlapped with other elements, so change in one element inevitably affects the broader cultural and social complex. While adopting to a new environment and small changes was possible in the West, where social and cultural elements are separate from each other, Native Americans were faced with conflicts and a potential, large disruption of the existing social orders.
The Native Americans of the southeast live in a variety of environments. The environments range from the southern Appalachian Mountains, to the Mississippi River valley, to the Louisiana and Alabama swamps, and the Florida wetlands. These environments were bountiful with various species of plant and animal life, enabling the Native American peoples to flourish. “Most of the Native Americans adopted large-scale agriculture after 900 A.D, and some also developed large towns and highly centralized social and political structures.” In the first half of the 1600s Europeans encountered these native peoples. Both cultures encountered new plants, animals, and diseases. However, the Indians received more diseases compared to the few new diseases to the Europeans. The new diseases resulted in a massive loss of Native Americans, including the Southeast Indians which had never encountered the new diseases. Three of the main tribes in the southeast were the Cherokee and the Creek. They were part of a group of southeast tribes that were removed from their lands. These tribes later became known as “The Five Civilized Tribes because of their progress and achievements.”
Native Americans lived on the land that is now called America, but when white settlers started to take over the land, many lives of Native Americans were lost. Today, many people believe that the things that have been done and are being done right now, is an honor or an insult to the Natives. The choices that were made and being made were an insult to the Native Americans that live and used to live on this land, by being insulted by land policies, boardings schools and modern issues, all in which contain mistreatment of the Natives. The power that the settlers and the people who governed them had, overcame the power of the Natives so the settlers took advantage and changed the Natives way of life to the
The colonization of civilizations has changed the world’s history forever. From the French, Spaniard, and down to the English, have changed cultures, traditions, religions, and livelihoods of other societies. The Native Americans, for example, were one of the many civilizations that were conquered by the English. The result was their ways of life based on nature changed into the more “civilized” ways of the colonists of the English people. Many Native Americans have lost their old ways and were pulled into the new “civilized” ways. Today only a small amount of Native American nations or tribes exist in remote areas surviving following their traditions. In the book Ceremony, a story of a man named Tayo, did not know himself and the world around him but in the end found out and opened his eyes to the truth. However the Ceremony’s main message is related not only to one man but also to everything and everyone in the world. It is a book with the message that the realization of oneself will open the eyes to see what is truth and false which will consequently turn to freedom.
The environment has proven over time that it has the power to cause change in its inhabitants. Native Americans were not an exception to this common occurrence, as they had to adapt to the changes in the environment that surrounded them. The Europeans came to the “new world” and disrupted the original culture of the land. Native Americans were compelled to assimilate their own traditions and culture to one more fitting of their new surroundings. Their religion was a component that changed drastically into a decline that left it without any of the original rituals, beliefs, and traditions. Some of factors that contributed to this shift in religion are disease, the fur trade, the European tourists, the economy, the Christian missionaries, and