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The effects of colonialism on indigenous people
Effect of colonization on indigenous culture
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The year of 1142 marked the formation of the Haudenosaunee; A year when the group of alliances was exempt of all the tangible social, political and economic legacies that historical globalization would later impose on their collective identity. Centuries before Europeans arrived, the area now called upper New York State was occupied by five First Nation tribes comprised of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. Prior to the proposal of creating a Confederacy, these nations had their own separate territories, and they were often at war with each other. The Great Law of Peace was a political piece of constitution that shaped the basis of the Haudenosaunee society, and was enhanced by the longhouse symbol, which described their political …show more content…
alliance, and its spirit of unity. The Haudenosaunee use the metaphor of the longhouse to describe their political alliance, and its spirit of togetherness also applies to social and cultural life, mirroring the use of the Great Law of Peace was both a political and cultural document.The confederation brought peace between the five nations and their success as a collective group led to the inclusion of the Tuscarora tribe in 1722.
The Europeans called them the Iroquois Confederacy, since they had successfully woven together sophisticated concepts of culture, spirituality, government, and land - something that they fataized for centuries. However, the Haudenosaunee way of life was changed forever through historical globalization as imperialistic endeavors by the French, British, and Dutch, slowly began to unravel the vast progression the confederacy made economically, politically and socially. Due to the economic impairment, loss of culture through assimilation, and displacement along with territorial loss, it has become evident that imperialism/colonization improved the lives of the Haudenosaunee to no …show more content…
extent. The colonizations by the Europeans, particularly the Dutch and the French, embodied a false sense of economic and political security in the Haudenosaunee and evoked them to facilitate European expansion by engaging in quarrels with other Indigenous nations to gain wealth, in the form acquiring and trading beaver furs. When the French successfully established trade relationships with the Algonquin, it spread rapidly as the Indigenous were very willing and competitive to offer beaver furs for European machinery, since it provided them with significant advantages in intertribal combat. Soon, the Haudenosaunee found themselves at a major disadvantage. In July, 1609, a massive war division consisting of the Huron, Montagnais, and Algonquin raided their settlements on the shore of Lake Champlain, killing several Mohawk war chiefs in the process. To sustain their settlements and identity, the Iroquois engaged in fur trade with the Dutch at Fort Orange along the Hudson river. The Iroquois nation realized that European trade was essential to strengthen their military powers. As a result, the Iroquois, and many other nations developed new worldviews to expand and invade throughout the Great Lakes region to gain wealth by the means of hunting beavers. This sudden, mass pursuit for beaver furs resulted in the Beaver Wars - 70 years of violent intertribal warfare of great devastation for control of the European fur trade. The Iroquois, due to their strong military threshold, and unrestricted trade deals with the Dutch which made them more armed than the French, became very successful at adopting an European lifestyle and quickly diminished all the beaver populations in the Great Lakes region through the brutal destruction of neighboring native villages/settlements. They soon became the head of the fur empire, and sought to claim more beaver furs by expanding westwards, indirectly spreading European identity and power. At first, the Iroquois aggression was successful at eliminating competition and taking some control of the fur empire. As the beaver population moved west and the Europeans grew in numbers, the Iroquois began to lose their successful position throughout the 17th century. They were unsuccessful moving westward and driving out the competition as the beaver population grew more and more scarce in their proximity. Europeans and other tribes began to fight back against their threat. The French burned four of the five major nation villages of the Iroquois, making enemies too with the British who were allied with the Iroquois. By the late 17th century, the fighting became more about the European nations fighting against one another, using Native American tribes as their pawns – especially with the British replacing the Dutch as the other major European regional presence. At the end of this conflict, the European nations were undisturbed but left the Iroquois and the Algonquin with burnt villages. After these events, the Iroquois confederacy lost their trust and respect towards their British alliances. In the end, the British battled with the Iroquois, completely destroying their villages and surrounding areas, leaving the Iroquois devastated. Through an ethnocentric perspective, the European settlers moved to Canada with the inherent notion that their culture and customs were superior in regards to the indigenous people. After treaties were signed by Haudenosaunee leaders, the colonies began to impose policies and practices that restricted the indigenous people from affirming their culture and way of life. Furthermore, the spread of diseases brought by European settlers wiped out immense populations of the indigenous people, resulting in the genetic bottleneck of certain communities and the loss of genetic makeup from the initial population. Due to the dominance of the Europeans, the Iroquois Confederacy was eventually forcibly assimilated into the european culture. As they were assimilated, they lost their traditional ways of life and adopted the western way of working, eventually resulting in a homogenized culture. Their agricultural practices, including along with their native languages were all lost. Today, only 7% of the Iroquois population speak their native language. The nations also changed their clothing from previously deerskin to the western, cotton clothing. Another example of cultural loss would be, once the bonds with the europeans became stable, the Dutch sent many jesuit missionaries into the 6 tribes starting with the Mohawk. This converted one-third of the population to Catholic. This resulted in the Iroquois changing their food habits and converting to “European” houses rather than the longhouses. These negative effect were further reinforced with residential schools in which they were not allowed to practice their tradition and were forcefully assimilated into the “western” ways. Another such example would include the introduction of the diseases within the tribes. As mentioned before, it lowered the iroquois's population decreased drastically as they did not have immunity to the diseases that the European settlers had brought. The colonization of the British lead to significant demographic alterations to the Haudenosaunee, particularly as in nations relinquishing their positions and contributions from the Iroquois Confederacy and mass migrations due to sudden overtake of traditional land by the new sea of American settlers. When the Thirteen Colonies sought independence from the British, the Iroquois found themselves in a deadlock, accustomed to believing that their superior and long-lasting ally, the British, was only one unified group of people and had no desire to engulf themselves in another civil conflict. However, their intentions for neutrality could not maintain, as tensions increased from both the British and their Thirteen Colonies. In the end, the American Revolution erupted right into the territory of the Haudenosaunee. The subsequent formation of the United States created a new international boundary line with Canada that artificially divided the traditional lands of the confederacy. Unable to agree on a unified course of action, the Confederacy split. Each tribe had to decide for itself, and eventually, the Oneida and the Tuscarora sided with the American colonists, and the Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga and Cayuga continued their alliance with the British. The tribes who sided with the British suffered the most due to the success of the Thirteen Colonies’ independence. The American invasion of their homeland drove many of the Iroquois into southern Ontario where they have remained to this day on government funded reserves. This marked a major split among the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. As a result, the confederacy’s bonds that were painstakingly woven together were undone and everything that the six nations collectively accomplished was lost, particularly the strong, unifying power of security. In the United States, much of the Iroquois homeland was surrendered to New York land in a series of treaties following the Revolutionary War. Despite this, most Seneca, Tuscarora, and Onondaga avoided removal during the 1830s and have remained in New York. There are also sizeable groups of Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga, and Caughnawaga still in the state. Most of the Oneida, however, relocated in 1838 to a reservation near Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Cayuga sold their New York lands in 1807 and moved west to join the Mingo relatives (Seneca of Sandusky) in Ohio. In 1831 this combined group ceded their Ohio reserve to the United States and relocated to the Indian Territory. A few New York Seneca moved to Kansas at this time but, after the Civil War, joined the others in northeast Oklahoma to become the modern Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma. Ultimately, both sides suffered from the ravages of the partition and rebellion, as many villages were destroyed, leaving the nations scattered across the continent. The war left their confederacy and culture shattered, and their lands and villages devastated and destroyed. To conclude, the Iroquois people have suffered many years of injustice which sprouted from European colonization in New York State.
In terms of the economic impact, the Iroquois were forced to adapt to European economic systems in which they became dependant on and resorted to extreme measures such as war in order to sustain their wealth. Moreover, they suffered from a lack of agency that prevented them from opposing policies or influential actors - such as missionaries - that aimed to assimilate their culture. Lastly, their land was heavily altered and many iroquois people were displaced to accommodate the imperialistic European land claims. Many of the problems that the Iroquois people face today are reminiscent of the atrocities from the past, seeing that there are many controversial issues concerning the poor conditions of reserves that the Iroquois people are living on, and the manifestation of the difficulties involved in practicing or studying the culture and traditions of the Iroquois. All in all, the lives of the Iroquois improved to no extent with all the detrimental legacies and effects of European
colonization/imperialism.
The United States has had a long relationship with the Haudenosaunee people. When Europeans invaded North America, beginning in the end of the 15th century, they found a land already inhabited by a large group of people, who they called Indians. Although their subsequent relationship was plagued by disease, wars and fights for domination, there was, inevitably, some exchange of goods, like crops, and ideas between the two peoples. Most notably, even the “Founding Fathers” of the U.S. were influenced by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s ideas about democracy and government. One aspect of the relationship, however, is rarely mentioned: the impact that Haudenosaunee women had on early feminists in the U.S. The two groups of women interacted very closely during the 19th century, and prominent feminist voices in the U.S., like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Lucretia Mott, were heavily influenced by the native women’s many freedoms.
Document 4 explains how the system was to work, “the Indians should work on the Christians’ building, mind the gold, till the fields, and produce food for the Christian’s.” This system benefited the Europeans immensely. On the other hand, many Native’s working were treated very poorly and faced brutal punishment and labor. The enslavement of Native people was another cause of the great decrease in population. The disappearance of Native people leads to the disappearance of their customs, beliefs, and way of life.
As the relationship grew between the French and Iroquois, Jesuit missionaries would be allowed within their camps thus picking up European lifestyle. The Iroquois would exploit the French’s need for more fur to gain more in trade rather than just trade with English colonists. However, because of the relationship the French had with the Huron, the Iroquois would eventually side with the English, thus resulting in the French and Indian War. With the help of the Iroquois the British would later help defeat and drive out the French from their colonies by
It has long been taught that the first constitution and the idea of a representative government first came into existence with the creation of the United States’ constitution. However, six hundred years prior to that creation, a group of native tribes came together and forged the America’s true first constitution. Through this creation, a powerful nation, known as the Haudenosaunee, or known to Europeans as the Iroquois Nation, became an important part in the shaping of the Americas. The creation of this constitution would serve as a model for the need and creation of the United States’ own constitution. By examining the “why” it was created, the principles held within
The literary analysis essay for A Separate Peace entitled Chapter 7: After the Fall notes that Gene’s brawl with Cliff Quackenbush occurs for two reasons: the first reason being that Gene was fighting to defend Finny, and the second reason being that Quackenbush is the antithesis of Finny. Cliff Quackenbush calls Gene a “maimed son-of-a-bitch”, since Gene holds a position on the team that is usually reserved for physically disabled students, and Gene reacts by hitting him in the face (Knowles, 79). At first, Gene remarks that he didn’t know why he reacted this way, then he says, “it was almost as though I were maimed. Then the realization that there was someone who was flashed over me”, referring to Finny (Knowles, 79). Quackenbush is “the adult world of punitive authority personified”, his voice mature, his convictions militaristic (Chapter, 76). Quackenbush reminds Gene of the adult world and all of the things that Finny and Devon protected him from, such as war.
Colonists believed in “private property” (Cronon page 1179) and individual ownership of possessions. On the other hand, the Indians had a nomadic lifestyle that included “move[ing] from habitat to habitat” (Cronon page 911), and not taking ownership of the land they resided in, and instead living as guests of the area they happened to habituate at the time. On the contrary, after European settlement, according to Cronon: “Indians were living in fixed locations on a more permanent basis. Earlier subsistence practices which had depended on seasonal dispersal were gradually being abandoned, with important social and ecological effects” (Cronon pages 1739-1740). Cronon states that the Indians adapted to the changes brought upon by the colonists and adopted the lifestyle of owning and settling in a specific portion of land. This major change in the Indians’ lifestyle also had consequences with the environment. Permanently settling into the densely populated forts aided the “spread of infectious diseases” (Cronon page 1740). Similarly the dense population also affected nearby “hunting and planting areas” (Cronon page 1741), which the Indians used as their source of food and resources once they were pushed into the heavily populated areas. The overpopulation of the Indians in specific areas also had a huge contribution to the depletion of that area 's resources. This was also a direct fault of the
1.Iroquois Confederacy— confederation of five indigenous North American peoples, or nations, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca; founded c.1570.
In the 1830's the Plains Indians were sent to the Great American Deserts in the west because the white men did not think they deserved the land. Afterwards, they were able to live peacefully, and to follow their traditions and customs, but when the white men found out the land they were on were still good for agricultural, or even for railroad land they took it back. Thus, the white man movement westward quickly begun. This prospect to expand westward caused the government to become thoroughly involved in the lives of the Plains Indians. These intrusions by the white men had caused spoilage of the Plains Indians buffalo hunting styles, damaged their social and cultural lives, and hurt their overall lives. The lives of the Plains Indians in the second half of the nineteenth century were greatly affected by the technological development and government actions.
The Iroquois tribe was part of an alliance with five other tribes throughout New York that banded together against enemies, talked about land, and traded with each other. These peaceful people operated in a democracy, one of the first seen in the early world. Much is known about these tribes due to the missionaries which were sent out in the 1600’s. The Jesuits, an order of the Catholic Church devoted to teaching, spent the time to move out into the unknown world, live with these people, and teach them the ways of Catholicism. In doing this, they documented everything they saw and provided accurate accounts of the building of these structures.
The Algonquians on the other hand had tried to take over the Iroquoian territory. The Iroquois had fought and won a battle with the Algonquians for the territory they had lost for 20 years. Other than these two main groups, the Iroquois people were well rounded. All of the many families in a clan, many clans in a tribe, and many tribes make what is known as the one Iroquois Confederacy. Some of the famous people who were a big part of the Iroquoian culture were Deganawida and Hiawatha. Deganawida along with Hiawatha were the two founders of the Iroquoian Confederacy. They both organized a few of the Native American tribes and made it into a political and cultural confederacy. Another famous Iroquoian person is Dina A. John, who was a resident of the Onondaga tribe and survived the Van Shaik Expedition. She had also served in the War of 1812 and became an artist and entrepreneur in New York. These famous people are representing for what the Iroquois Confederacy has become. Contrary to what many historians believed, based on the narratives of this essay one would unequivocally conclude that indeed Native-Americans were never impoverish nor culturally
During the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Europeans started to come over to the new world, they discovered a society of Indians that was strikingly different to their own. To understand how different, one must first compare and contrast some of the very important differences between them, such as how the Europeans considered the Indians to be extremely primitive and basic, while, considering themselves civilized. The Europeans considered that they were model societies, and they thought that the Indians society and culture should be changed to be very similar to their own.
They were warlike and went out on expeditions to places in New Brunswick, Massachusetts, parts of Maine, and the north shore of Lake Huron. Excursions have been documented all the way to Ohio-Mississippi valley. “’The character of all these [Iroquois] Nations is warlike and cruel,’ wrote Jesuit missionary Paul Le Jeune in 1657.” (Richter, 528) They had different purposes for war than Europeans did. Thus, since the Europeans did not understand the similarities and differences, they were called savage. The Iroquois did not wage war all the time though. The Hudson Bay Company and the Northwestern Fur Company employed Iroquois as canoe men; they were also employed by private enterprises connected with the fur trade or exploration. The Iroquois employed by the Hudson Bay Company “are reputed to have been the most expert in the country, and many stories are told of their skill and spirit of adventure.” (Chamberlain, 460) They also hunted beaver for corporations, sometimes with their families with them. Iroquois were employed as “canoe men, guides, carriers, and voyagers in the service of the Hudson Bay Company.” (Chamberlain, 460) Some of the Iroquois went as far as the Rocky Mountains, where they stayed and brought their culture with them. As time passed though, they mixed cultures until one could hardly tell they were part Iroquois. They did bring dug-outs, the crossbow, and teaching of the Jesuit fathers to
Native Americans had inherited the land now called America and eventually their lives were destroyed due to European Colonization. When the Europeans arrived and settled, they changed the Native American way of life for the worst. These changes were caused by a number of factors including disease, loss of land, attempts to export religion, and laws, which violated Native American culture.
The continent of North America is 200 million years old. Since that period, many diverse groups of people have developed and flourished on this continent. Over time, these groups have diversified and become very distinctive in their traits. Perhaps one of the most interesting groups of people was the Iroquois, which included the fascinating tribe of the Mohawk. The Mohawk tribe is incredibly unique in many ways.
Project, Harvard. The State of the Native Nations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. 221-222.