Monsters. Cannibals. Humans? Unlikely. These savages kill for sport. They’re mostly naked, with no sense of decency. They still used bows and arrows. And to top it off, they aren’t even Christian. The Indians may be uncivilized in the European’s eyes, but in all reality, they’ve built nations that are bigger and more advanced than what Europeans could have ever imagined.
These people that we broadly categorize as Native Americans descended from a small band of men and women who had crossed the Bering Strait land bridge between Alaska and Siberia about 12,000 years ago. The bridge closed about a thousand years after their arrival, effectively barring anyone else from joining them. As a result, they effectively closed themselves out from the rest of the world for thousands of years. This gave them the chance to thoroughly “explore the entire continent” and learn how to properly cultivate the land around them, and also grow their population to 10s of millions (Resendez 139).
The Old World had only bothered to look at the differences between themselves and the New World. These Indians were nomads who still hunt and trail their game from place to place. Instead of one God, they believed in many spirits who controlled the nature and land around them. The Native Americans had no actual written language
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On the contrary, they had managed to build great nations without the luxury of going to neighboring countries and comparing technologies and stealing ideas. By the time Europeans made contact, the Native Americans had built “a world unto itself” in the Americas (Resendez 139). They had tremendous trading networks, complex forms of government, accurate calendars, and had even established systems of mathematics. They were also agriculturally superior. Regarding development, these 2 worlds were more alike than they thought. Unfortunately, no observer bothered to really
Beginning in the sixteenth century, Europeans made the voyage to a “new world” in order to achieve dreams of opportunity and riches. In this other world the Europeans came upon another people, which naturally led to a cultural exchange between different groups of people. Although we commonly refer to European and Indian relations as being between just two very different groups of people, it is important to recognize this is not entirely true. Although the settlers of the new world are singularly referred to as Europeans, each group of people came from a different nation and with different motives and expectations of the new world. Similarly, the Indians were neither a united group nor necessarily friendly with each other. Due to the
Introduction: When the Europeans arrived to the Americas, they became confused as they saw the Native Americans. The Europeans noticed that the Native Americans had tools that were primitive to them, saw that the Natives’ architecture was bad based on their society, and that Natives had different spiritualities that them.
It is important to remember this was not a New World to the Indians. The Native Americans felt as if their whole world had been taken away by aliens of an alien culture. Not only did the Native Americans have to change for one group, but many different settlers coming to this new continent. Many European groups of different nationalities defined the New World through conflict from differences of opinions. European colonists of different nationalities interacted with the Native Indians in different ways.
Lurking in the deep woods of the Northern United States and Southern Canada lies a mysterious and fearsome Native American monster, the Wendigo. The Wendigo is by far one of the most mysterious and feared monsters in not only in the Algonquian folklore which it is attributed to, but also other indigenous populations all over the world. Although this creature goes by many names in the Native American Tribes, including Wechuge (Athapaskan Beaver), Windigo (Algonkian), Witiko (Sekani), Wittikow (Cree), Wintuc (Lenape), Wintiko (Objibwa), and others, it is represented in the folklore of many cultures. For the sake of simplicity, the
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.
The Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida, they inherited all of these lands from their ancestors who cultivated for generations. According to Elias Boudinot the natives considered themselves to be just as equal as the Whites, he states, “What is an Indian? Is he not formed of the same materials with yourself?” (Boudinot, 1826) The natives saw themselves to be no different from the Whites, in fact they cared for one another as a whole, they lived in kinships, where there was never an Indian left alone without a family. They followed a society based off of the concept of interdependence, they had in their mind that everything is dependent of something. The Indians were very advanced, and were able to prosper in their society, although the Whites believed otherwise, and believed that the natives were uncivilized.
Next the Europeans brought lots of technology. Without the Europeans bringing the technology, Native American’s would have
The Native American religion was very different from the Christian religion of the Europeans. The Native American’s didn’t pray to a god, they prayed to something in nature such as the sky or the sun. “O our Mother the Earth, O our Father the Sky” (Tewa Indian). The colonists thought that it was barbaric that the Native American’s didn’t believe in a God. The colonists thought that there was only one correct way to be religious and that the way that the Native American’s practiced religion was ‘the wrong way’.
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.
Europeans and Native Americans both retained religious beliefs. Though, Native Americans articulated their beliefs in a less structured way. Europeans were monotheistic. They attended churches led by and educated clergy. And, unlike Native Americans, interpreted written scriptures. In
Prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) the Americas were already a home to millions of natives that had already been there for thousands of years. The original natives of America before the arrival of Europeans were descendants of groups of hunters and fishers that crossed the Bering Strait between 15,000-60,000 years ago. Over time these natives developed their own techniques for farming, hunting and fishing. In addition, they had also developed their own religious beliefs, political structures, trading networks and hundreds of different languages. The natives, mostly lived on corn, squash, beans, and some fish, deer and turkey. They lived in 3 different kinds of societies. The three different kinds of societies were nomadic, semi-nomadic and
There were a large amount of Native Americans before the arrival of Europeans. Before reading 1491 by Charles C. Mann, I believed that there were only a small amount of people in the Americas. According to Henry F. Dobyns, the “Western Hemisphere held 90 to 112 million people”, which was more than the amount of people living in Europe.
The European settlers are far different from the Native Americans. They did not understand how someone could be entirely content with so little. The Europeans are all about trying to find the latest thing and truly believed that they are more important. The Native Americans would only use resources when needed. Such as building houses from poles found in the woods and bark off of trees. Instead of using more sturdy material as the Europeans did. Using nature to comply with needs, using hides of animals to stay warm with. If a stranger was to come they would be greeted warmly and be told to lie on a fur rug such as the natives did. These people may not have had much, but humanity was all that was needed. If someone was hungry, they would be fed. The Europeans on the other hand, were far more selfish and only cared about getting ahead.
Before Europeans ever ventured to North America, the land had been populated by Native American nations that had their own distinct cultures and social structures. Native Americans had trade routes and established complex relationships between tribes. They were not merely heathens waiting to be civilized by the Europeans. Yet, Europeans would use those justifications to lay claim on their land.
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).