Victoria Brown
Africana Studies 215
September 28, 2011
Journey to America
Native Americans are the only people indigenous to the Americas. There are approximately two million Native Americas living today in the United States. The cause of this drastic decline of this group of people is common knowledge. Most people know that Native Americas were slaughtered and exposed to deadly diseases by the Europeans. After Christopher Columbus, stumbled upon this land, Europeans came in droves. This was a land of freedom, and a chance for people live whatever way they desired. People journeyed across the Atlantic to escape various problems. The Pilgrims and the Quakers came to the Americas to have religious freedom. Others traveled to get rich
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The next step was an examination by a doctor to ensure they didn’t have any incurable diseases. Immigrants were also screen for mental diseases. After being approved by the doctor, they were interviewed by legal inspectors. Interpreters assisted to acquire 29 pieces of vital information including name, age, and planned destination. This whole process took an average of five hours, and an average of 20,000 people passed through Ellis Island monthly.
Ten of millions of Africans were brought to America via the transatlantic slave trade. Millions died on the voyage due to harsh conditions of the slave ships. Those who survived the cruel journey were auctions where they would be separated from love ones forever. Some slaves were brought to the Caribbean or South America to seasoning camps. Seasoning is the process of breaking down slaves. Throughout slave trade millions of slaves died from seasoning. Seasoning was done to prepare the slave for the workload, and to break down the slave mentally. Seasoned slaves were less likely to try to escape. The slaves that bypassed the seasoning process were immediately put on a platform to be sold. The slaves had to endure being poked, prodded, and forced to open their mouth for inspection. What’s even worse is that most of the time the slaves were completely naked throughout this process. They didn’t speak the language and had no idea what was happening to them.
The United States is truly a melting pot of numerous cultures.
The Native American’s were the first known settlers in North America, ten thousand years before Columbus came to the continent. Their origins completely unclear, anthropologists believe there were three to five million Native Americans in North America in the year 1492 (Hoxie and Iverson, 1997). As early as the Revolutionary War in 1775, European settlers started taking note of the Native Americans. Unfortunately, the Native American population plunged significantly in the first decades after their first contact with Europeans. Native Americans were now unprotected and exposed to deadly diseases like smallpox, influenza, and measles which did not previously exist in their society (North American Natives, 2016).
The history of the Americas is a debatable topic, many sources are unsure of what has exactly occurred. The sources that were read all show opposing viewpoints; the Europeans had mistreated the Native Americans, the Europeans were unaware of their actions, and the Native Americans were capable to fight off the Europeans. Although all sources provide key points, the third source shows evidence and strong points that prove to be a reasonable argument. Though the history is uncertain, what is known about the Americas is that the Europeans had rediscovered the Americas, which the Native Americans had been harboring and living off of the land before the Europeans even found the land. This had caused a conflict between both groups leading to the end of the Native Americans and Europeans taking over the Americas.
Native American’s greeted the new colonists in a friendly, welcoming manner from the start. The new colonists considered this a sign of weakness, stating how easy it would be to dominate the native people. When Columbus arrived, there were 12-15 million Native Americans in the Americas, in 1890 there was under 250,000, with 98% of the population gone. With the belief in Manifest Destiny, the colonists forced the Native American’s off their own land, farther and farther from where they originated from, and eventually onto reservations, removing them from their way of life and their culture. During the transition from their homeland to reservations, many of the Native American’s died due to disease, cold, hunger, and the hardships of travel. Along with the annexation, the colonists demanded assimilation.
Culture wasn’t the only thing that the Europeans brought over to the Americas. Along with their customs and rules, came the diseases that the Native American’s have never been exposed to. The Europeans brought many communicable diseases such as small pox and measles which were transmitted to the Native Americans through trade goods or someone infected with them. This quickly annihilated most of the Native American population.
Native Americans have been forced out of their culture over time, forced into assimilation, lost their rights, and have lost their land due to policies and laws by the whites that can’t bear the Native American way of life. There used to be many Native American tribes all throughout North America, and now these tribes are spread across the country and are blended into the rest of the population. The native ways have changed drastically in the last two centuries due to relocation programs, Indian boarding schools, and the way to classify which tribe each person belongs to. Native Americans have endured so much pain, which results from everything they have lost over time, and they have constantly paid the price for their ethnicity.
Native Americans lived on the North American continent centuries before the arrival of Europeans. These native groups developed and preserved cultural traditions. Many European explorers traveled to the New World around the 1500s in search for God, gold, and glory. This brought them into contact with the Native Americans, and led to a complete change in their lifestyle. Europeans brought the Natives diseases, forced them to relocate, and altered their cultures. All in all, the Europeans left a devastating impact on the Native Americans.
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 history of the United States with regards to its native population is inaccurate and assumes that the history of this country began when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock (Richter, pp. 4-5). With regards to the native people’s
Since the arrival of the Europeans in 1492 the Native American has systematically been dehumanized, decivilized and redefined into terms that typify a subordinate or minority role, restricted life opportunities persist today as a result.
In the Americas, European settlers and conquistadors brought disease that devastated Native American communities. They also forced many Native Americans off their land to build settlements. Many native cultures were almost completely destroyed because of Europeans coming to America.
In 1492, the Spanish and English discovered America and the both searched for new areas to take claim so they can settle and make new colonies for the new world up until around 1790. The Spanish were the first successful country to establish wealth and gain from the new world and it was because of their interest in using these colonies for mostly for trade. Although the Spanish and English had an increasingly large grasp over the new world, Africans, other European countries, and Native Americans could not stop fighting so they could band together to fight the higher powers, meanwhile America was trying to become it's own nation, Even though all of the less powerful cultures wanted freedom (Dutch, Native Americans, Germans, Scot-Irish, Africans, Scots, and French) all except the Africans got it because it was a lot harder to figure out who was really a slave if you were white but a lot easier if it was only Black. Even though the odds were not in their favor, The less powerful ethnic groups could not join together and fight the Anglo-Americans , Spanish, and English mostly because of the majority of people were Protestant, cultural pluralism, and of course, Anglo conformity. Native Americans didn’t have much to worry about besides the the struggles of their everyday life up until 1492 when Christopher Columbus arrived. Most people think of Native Americans to be one or very few groups of people, but in reality it was a lot more complex that that. Natives had differences
The process to get through was very long. After waiting for very long hours some were turned away. Nearly 15 million immigrants went through Ellis Island between the years of 1892 and 1954.After buying a ticket for the boat to America passengers would load on the boat and prepare
Native Americans have played an important role in the United States for over thousands of years. The Native Americans once lived on their land with little disturbance, having made their own meals and lived in a traditional culture up until Columbus had discovered their land. From their first arrival into the Native land, the Spanish mistreated and disrespected the Indians by trying to enforce their way of life and their beliefs upon them.
The seasoning process, as applied to the treatment of plantation slaves, was designed to ensure not only that the slaves would become totally dependent upon the dictates of their owners but also to destroy the cultural links which the slaves had with their former homelands. In the West African kingdoms which provided one of the major source of slaves at the height of the triangle trade, slavery was part of the indigenous culture; however, the motivation behind African domestic slavery was for the main part political, and intricately bound up with the way in which the capture of those from neighbouring tribes would allocate bargaining power to the captors; it was not necessary to impose a process
Native Americans are one of the fastest growing minority groups in the U.S. There is a myth that Native Americans are disappearing as a people; this is not true. Native Americans are a resilient people and hold strongly to their heritage. It is true that a great deal of Native American cultures, even entire tribes, have been lost. However, despite the hardships and oppression they have suffered they have remained as a people.