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Effects of european colonization on native american indians
Impact of european settlement in america on native americans
Effects of european colonization on native american indians
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Changes in the Land by William Cronon depicts the changes in New England brought upon by the European settlers in the 1600s. What was once only occupied by Native Americans, New England’s resources were sustainably consumed by the indigenous people of the land. However, in Cronan’s perspective, the arrival of the settlers brought upon drastic and detrimental consequences that would go on to affect the ecology of New England today. An apparent theme brought up in Changes in the Land is adaptation. Cronan arrays the theme of adaptation by displaying how the natives had to adapt to a sporadically changing lifestyle that the colonists attempted to assimilate into the land and its people. An important change that the Native American culture underwent …show more content…
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
“Four centuries ago, the English didn’t discover a new world--they created one,” asserts Charles Mann in his article, America, Found and Lost. The article describes the arrival of Jamestown settlers from across the Atlantic Ocean in 1607. They arrived in Virginia to acquire land, gold, and silver. But the Europeans were also fixed on finding a path to Asia. At this time time, Powhatan ruled the empire of Tsenacomoco. He had tripled the size of the city over three decades, and the population was at 14,000 people. The English brought with them a whole host of species that dramatically altered the landscape of the Chesapeake Region. Some were intentional, like tobacco. Others, such as honeybees, worms, and disease had an unintended but profound impact on the environment, changing its indigenous people forever.
It had previously been the policy of the American government to remove and relocate Indians further and further west as the American population grew, but there was only so much...
Cronon, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. New York: Hill and Wang, 1983. Print.
While both the people of the New England region and of the Chesapeake region descended from the same English origin, by 1700 both regions had traveled in two diverse directions. Since both of these groups were beset with issues that were unique to their regions and due to their exposure to different circumstances, each was forced to rethink and reconstruct their societies. As a result, the differences in the motivation, geography, and government in the New England and Chesapeake regions caused great divergence in the development of each.
When the Europeans first migrated to America, they didn’t know much about the ancestral background of the different types of the Indian tribes that were settled in Virginia and along the East Coast. Many of the Indian tribes became hostile towards the colonist because the colonists were interfering with their way of life. This lead the natives to attempt to destroy the frontier settlements. Many forts in this area were erected to protect the settlers and their families. One the historical land...
The English took their land and disrupted their traditional systems of trade and agriculture. As a result, the power of native religious leaders was corrupted. The Indians we...
Lefler, Hugh T., and William S. Powell. Colonial North America. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973.
Cronon raises the question of the belief or disbelief of the Indian’s rights to the land. The Europeans believed the way Indians used the land was unacceptable seeing as how the Indians wasted the natural resources the land had. However, Indians didn’t waste the natural resources and wealth of the land but instead used it differently, which the Europeans failed to see. The political and economical life of the Indians needed to be known to grasp the use of the land, “Personal good could be replaced, and their accumulation made little sense for ecological reasons of mobility,” (Cronon, 62).
The characteristics that came to shape the life in New England were the rocky, barren soil, the extreme climate and the rich waters. Although there was farming in New England , colonists looked to other means of survival. They looked to the rich waters for fishing and trade. The coastline of New England was very fertile with sealife. So, fishing became a way of commerce and trade providing a steady economy to New England. Because of the rocky soil and extreme climate, the colonists were forced to plant many different crops on a small pa...
The main focus of Breen's essay the focus is on the fact that colonists in Virginia were driven and motivated to come to the New World, predominantly for monetary reasons. Virginia's soil was found to be unusually well suited for growing tobacco, which is why it drove such a variety of people to migrate there. The colonists, though said to be religious, were extremely individualistic, selfish, as well as primarily drawn in by the economic opportunity in Virginia. These attitudes and ideals are what consequently resulted in numerous military defeats and massacres. They avoided their military obligations, thus naming them the vulnerable “poorly defended white settlements.” These settlements were very easy for the Indians to take advantage of, as Breen writes.
In a lively account filled that is with personal accounts and the voices of people that were in the past left out of the historical armament, Ronald Takaki proffers us a new perspective of America’s envisioned past. Mr. Takaki confronts and disputes the Anglo-centric historical point of view. This dispute and confrontation is started in the within the seventeenth-century arrival of the colonists from England as witnessed by the Powhatan Indians of Virginia and the Wamapanoag Indians from the Massachusetts area. From there, Mr. Takaki turns our attention to several different cultures and how they had been affected by North America. The English colonists had brought the African people with force to the Atlantic coasts of America. The Irish women that sought to facilitate their need to work in factory settings and maids for our towns. The Chinese who migrated with ideas of a golden mountain and the Japanese who came and labored in the cane fields of Hawaii and on the farms of California. The Jewish people that fled from shtetls of Russia and created new urban communities here. The Latinos who crossed the border had come in search of the mythic and fabulous life El Norte.
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.
Surviving anywhere south of New England was a major challenge for the colonists in the seventeenth century in part due to the overwhelming majority of men in society combined with a high death rate. Just to continue a family was a daunting challenge, and in many cases, this venture proved unsuccessful. Population consistency was sustained only through the immigration of people from England until the later portion of the seventeenth century when the population began to rise on its own. The New England colonies, however, were polar opposites in every sense. Be...
Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford, The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles by John Smith, and The Tempest by William Shakespeare, seem to have one thing in common in that they all touch upon the aspect of life in the new world. While The Tempest alludes to the new world and focuses on an imaginary concept of a Utopian society, The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles and Of Plymouth Plantation offer first hand accounts of life in the new world. John Smith tells us about life on the new land and his experiences with natives while William Bradford emphasizes the difficulties and hardships that the people had to endure in building a colony.
Taylor, Alan American Colonies: The Settling of North America, New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2001. pg. 1685-1730