Colonial Americas without the Indians

22,000 years ago the first people set foot in the Americas, and it is not until 1492 that the “first people” make their way as well. The Europeans walked in and saw the Natives as the wildlife of the region and considered themselves the founders, and the Native Americans were heavily influenced and conflicted with the tidal wave of European colonization. Following the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492, colonization of Native American territory began. Afterwards, life for Native Americans became rather harsh, and genocide is an accurate term to describe this event. Their population dropped and displaced severely over the next couple centuries for various reasons such as conflict, disease, and relocation. Native Americans were treated as foreigners on their own homefront, and those that were spared from enslavement and death were forced to relocate. All in all, Europeans had a devastating impact on Native Americans from the moment they arrived.

Army and the forceful action used to confine the natives, the construction on Indian land, and the massive slaughter of the buffalo which the Indians relied on in every aspect of life. The mistreatment of the Native Americans has been going on for hundreds of years, way before the Gold Rush began. The American government has taken land that they are unable to return to this day. They have deprived the plains Indians of their culture and freedom. Immigration from other countries was at its peak, but America still wasn’t able to call people, that had resided in the United States for many years, citizens. Even the Native American’s, that had lived on the continent before it was even discovered, were denied citizenship unless they were Anglo-Saxon Protestant. To this day, many look at the Indians as a joke; The Seminoles as “The Tribe that Purchased A Billion Dollar Business.” Children are being taught about friendship between the American Settlers and the Natives, they are being lied to. The upcoming generations won’t understand the horrors of unnecessary warfare against innocent people, and they will only know to take what they want, even if it isn’t rightfully theirs. America as a nation has to be stopped from draping curtains over the defeat of the plains Indians: their wiping out of an entire people, just as they did to the

Native Americans were very important to American history; they were the first people in America (Nash, 2010, p. 13). Native Americans have their own form of governing, vastly different language, religious beliefs, and dress and for some reason the Natives have been generally excluded from American success (Nash, 2010, pg. 14-15). This is especially true when we look at how America put into place the "Manifest destiny" the idea that the United States had the God-given right and duty to take

Throughout history, Native Americans have been victimized by Americans and the American Government. Native Americans were here long before the English settlers found and migrated to America. They tried to buy the land from Native Americans, and money was not important to them so they refused. Over time this costed a lot of Native American lives and most of their land was taken from them. Native Americans were immensely mistreated in the 1900’s by white Americans and are still being wronged by deceiving history in textbooks and other learning aid.

Having a tumultuous background, the Native American history in itself should be respected, but there seems to be a nuisance doing so. In the 1830’s, after removal policy failed to prevail, “not only did individual Indians remain, but native communities also struggled over the next century and a half to carve out a place for themselves in the South"(Perdue 3). Native American’s were challenged to find a place in the idealistic society, but their ritualistic culture was not fit for the United States. Further on, they dealt with poverty, discrimination, and violence against their community.

In the 16th and 17th century, the Americas was being explored by Spain, Britain, and other countries. Many of these countries set up colonies in the Americas where Native Americans were living. Europeans moved into colonization of the Americas and brought changes to the land and its people. Europeans traded, hunted to warfare and personal property. As Europeans established their colonies, their societies also became segmented and divided along religious and racial lines. Most people in the societies were not free. They labored long hours as servants or slaves to produce wealth for others. As more Europeans came to settle the land in the Americas, their presence had a tremendous effect on the native peoples who were living in the Americas. The Native peoples’ life in the Americas provided lots for the Europeans to use. They traded cattle, chickens, horses, pigs, sheep, sugarcane, and wheat, for chocolate, pineapple, potatoes, pumpkins/squash, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and tobacco. The diets of the Natives and Europeans widened as different food types was being traded. The Natives were very open to the Europeans as they came into their land and communicated with the Natives. Over time, the landscape changed as more European communities increased. The Europeans held on to their idea of land ownership while the Natives idea of the land was for the person that need it. Also, the Europeans hoped to change the Natives to Christianity but also trick them into being slaves for the

Just like this century actually runs longer thematically than just 1800 to 1900, the story of the Indians extends backward before the first shots of the Civil War were fired and stretches forward past Reconstruction. Throughout this elongated era, different tribes had different experiences. Some, like the nations of the Iroquois, started their travails with warfare of white Americans as far back as choosing between the French and British during the French and Indian War. Others, like the Seminole, had fought many independent wars against America (or Spain or Britain) in their homelands long before they faced the Civil War. Still others, like the Cherokee, had attempted to assimilate into white culture, were forced off their lands, thought they were “safe” on guaranteed reservation lands, and then were forced again to participate when the Civil War bled westward into Indian Territory. The concepts of racism and “whiteness” that flowed like a river through themes of religion, progress, immigration, territory, slavery, and Reconstruction during the “long nineteenth century” also affected Native Americans; the “war of a thousand deserts” fought by the native tribes of the Southwest was both a unique experience and a shared experience as almost every tribe fought their own wars against whites and sometimes against other tribes

Since the beginning of time, conquering other societies has been a common occurrence. Almost every battle that has taken place has been documented. When stories of past battles are retold, only one side of the tale gets told, the victor’s side. In history, the ones who have been defeated never get to present their perspective of the tragic quarrels. Most never even lived to tell the stories, but the ones who do survive are not thought of as important accounts in history. The Native Americans suffered tyranny far a plethora of years, and still do. When learning about the indigenous people of America, it is taught through the “white man’s” prospective, never through the eyes of the sufferers. By not telling both sides of the story, the facts get skewed, skewed enough to have lies become the truth. So what is the real story behind Native American oppression?

There are many lies traditionally taught to American children about Indians according to Loewen. Textbooks present Native Americans through white eyes. They take not the important from Native history but the unusual. Going back in time to how people got to the Americas, a land bridge called “Beringia” was exposed when the ocean levels were brought down so the people arrived on foot. They were obviously vaguely Neanderthalian, since they did not know they reached a new continent. Those who cultivated the land were peaceful, but those who hunted were very war like. When the Europeans came they introduced technology to the Indians, but slavery also began with the Natives being one of the colony’s first exports. Native American ideas helped us figure out democracy. But textbooks leave out many contributions the Native Americans brought to the modern world. Textbooks consider the Native’s warfare very savage. Later the Dutch bought Manhattan for a very good price of $24; it is not like they paid the wrong tribe, because textbooks should include that. Also Jefferson bought Louisiana from France which doubled the size of the US. The Natives were nomadic so they could move away into their own little state that was taken away from them anyways later on. Although anti-Indian racism has eased, we still portray them as savages who roamed the past

During the sixteenth century European pilgrims migrated across the Atlantic Ocean to settle in North America. North America had just been introduced to the Western Civilization. The America’s were home to the indigenous people, that were made up of several tribes that were called Indians by the early settlers. Together the Indians and settlers began to thrive. Growth and development in the new world was made possible by the abundant amount of natural resources.

The Indians siding with the English during the American Revolutionary war cannot be overlooked. The Indians beard a heavy burden from colonist because they sided with the English. It would not be startling to believe this fueled the initiative to remove Cherokee Nation west of the Mississippi River. In retrospect, the Cherokee wanted to be seen as its own state so they could handle their own affairs and be self-governed while still being under the protection of the United States. In the early 1800’s the Cherokee Nation had an extremely hard time to acculturate with the citizens of the United States. They had agreements and

Their history is all but erased, their lives destroyed in the pursuit of material wealth (resource extraction). Superficial statues and hollow tributes now stand where vibrant human communities once lived for millennia. The US Government, unrecognized by vast portions of Native Americans, hence illegitimate in their eyes, ruthlessly imposed treaties, laws, cultural mandates and regulations on a population who never asked for such measures. There was resistance, but it was stamped out. Thus, the bloody history of European settlement is never far from the minds of indigenous people living in the US.

Although for the most part they didn’t have to be a labor force to Americans like blacks did, they did experience genocide. According to one article, “the reduction of the North American Indian population from an estimated 12 million in 1500 to barely 237,000 in 1900 represents a vast genocide..., the most sustained on record.” This genocide is mostly from disease. One article says, “The most hideous enemy of native Americans was not the white man and his weaponry, concludes Alfred Crosby, ‘but the invisible killers which those men brought in their blood and breath.’ It is thought that between 75 to 90 percent of all Indian deaths resulted from these killers.” Even though most of the Indians were killed due to disease, a lot of them were killed because of other reasons. Unlike the blacks who were killed in slavery because they made a mistake, many Indians were killed for no reason, sometimes just because the colonists wanted a war of some kind. An article states, “had urged war without mercy, even against children. ‘Nits make lice,’ he was fond of saying. The ensuing orgy of violence in the course of a surprise attack on a large Indian encampment left between 70 and 250 Indians dead, the majority women and children.” Along with this, many Indians did indeed get forced into the tragedy of slavery, just like blacks. During King Philip’s War, one article says, “Casualties among the Indians were even higher, with many

Education is a beneficial tool because knowledge of different subject areas can create opportunities for children. Schools additionally teach students where they belong in a stratified, limiting society in indirect ways. Throughout my history courses, I learned that explorers and settlers enculturated the savage Indians. Textbooks emphasized how whites built their wonderful communities after ridding the land of Native-American influence. I now know this story is not accurate. In Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, Chicano Studies professor Rodolfo Acuña (2015) notes that Western thinkers “disrespect or slight” Indian history because “it challenges the legitimacy of [Western] conquest” (p. 1). Since most history textbooks

Since the very first contact, the Native Americans have been treated as subordinates, being mistreated, shamed, embarrassed, and oppressed by white settlers. After the Revolutionary War in the late 1700’s, matters only got worse for the Native Americans. Population was skyrocketing due to a great deal of immigration of white settlers in the early to mid 1800’s, and there wasn’t enough space for everyone. With this came expansion, and to reach the goals they had set out for it, the Native Americans had to go. A prime example of this is shown in Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” where in chapter seven he talks about the forced removal of Native Americans from their lands, carelessness and failure by the American government to protect, and multiple slaughters carried out by the American military on the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, Choctaw, Sac and Fox, and the Seminole tribes. Closely related is “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee,” written by Dee Brown, his writings from chapter thirteen focus on the Nez Perces tribe that resided in Oregon, and their attempt at a journey in Canada, and other western Indian tribes’ affairs. To go along with Zinn and Brown, is Alan Brinkley’s “American History,” which posed an unbiased view of what modern day textbooks are informing students across the nation about what happened to the Native Americans. An article titled “The North American Indian Holocaust,” written by