Desert Fathers Research Paper

Long ago, the middle of the North American continent was a treeless prairie covered by tall grasses and roaming buffalo. When European settlers came, they called this area the Great American Desert. Today, this "desert" is covered with fields of wheat, corn, and alfalfa made possible by center-pivot irrigation. My grandfather used to sell center-pivot systems and when my family drove to my grandparent's home in Nebraska, we would count how many "sprinklers" were watering each section of land. At the time, I didn't know that this water was being pumped from somethng called the Ogallala Aquifer, a huge underground water supply. Throughout the years, this aquifer has made the Great American Desert one of the best farming

Founded in 1891, the United States Industrial Indian School at Phoenix, later known as the Phoenix Indian School, was a coeducational, federal institution for American Indian primary and secondary students. The school temporarily operated out of the West End Hotel, but in April 1891 a 160-acre property was acquired with money from both the federal government and a group of Phoenix businessmen, and in June 1892 a main school building was completed. This Indian school was created for the purpose of indoctrinating the indian children into the American lifestyle and to eliminate all knowledge of their culture. It did this through the banning of any language that was not english, forcing them to adopt american values and american beliefs, and violating

The Yuma Tribe resides in what is currently modern day southwestern Arizona, specifically the city of Yuma, and parts of southeastern California. Yuma Indians lived in small settlements called rancherias that were located along the Colorado River. The climate is hot and barren with temperatures reaching over 100℉.

Throughout WWII, people of different countries were interned and imprisoned in camps all over the world. Japanese-Americans on the West Coast were taken out of their homes and placed in internment camps like Manzanar to detain them from communicating with Japan. Families were torn apart in these camps, leaving them scattered across the United States. The Japanese-Americans were deprived of the claim of habeas corpus, and soon they attempted to return to the life that they lived before the war. Even after Camp Manzanar was closed and World War II ended, Japanese-American families on the West Coast still experienced prejudice and unfairness in their new lives.

In his book, Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Marc Reisner’s main thesis is to show the inefficiency, greed, and inherent difficulty in the American West’s never-ending struggle to turn its unwelcoming desert into a lush garden. One of his main sub-points is that the West is not meant to support millions of people. It has a wide range of geographic challenges throughout the entire region. Its inconsistency and diversity is a primary cause of its water problems. For example, Reisner notes that the West consists of “plains so arid that they could barely support bunchgrass; deserts that were fiercely hot and fiercely cold; streams that flooded a few weeks each year and went dry the rest; forests with trees so large it might take days to bring one down; . . . hail followed by drought followed by hail;” (23).

The importance of religion and spiritualism is what held these families together through all they had to endure.

Living in the desert of Southeastern California affects how the Mojave tribe lived. First of all, the Mojave were located in Southeastern California Desert..The Mojave tribe were also found along the

The Anasazi, a tribe of Native American Indians who lived in Colorado, among other places, around the 13th century, were a civilization of mystery. The Anasazi traveled among parts of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. The inhabited the Four Corners and roamed the areas from approximately A.D. 200 to A.D. 1300. The tribe of Native American Indians moved from place to place quite often, leaving parts of their history scattered through what is commonly known as the Four Corners in North America. They were a culture that knew how to use their resources in the barren lands of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.

The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 is an important event in U.S. history having been the first complete victory for Native Americans against any European nation. One of the major conflicts between the Pueblo Indians and the Spanish colonists was their different religions. Many historians believe that the Pueblo Indians revolted against the Spanish in order to eliminate Catholicism because it was threatening their own beliefs. Many Spanish officials interpret the Pueblo Revolt as being unnecessary and guided by the devil. The continuing study of this historical event will allow current Pueblo villages to learn about their ancestors' history and the major role religion had on the revolt. Further consequences of the Pueblo Revolt was the Spanish setback

On January 11, 2005, Malcolm Gladwell a renowned bestselling author, wrote blink: The power of Thinking without Thinking. In this book, Gladwell’s intentions were to provide the reader a different perspective on quick decision making based solely on instinct and how the brain is much more complex whilst making these decisions. This is all shown through the title, blink which is decision making in just the blink of an eye. Throughout the book, the author uses a consistent writing style with a multitude of real life situations over time in order to prove his reasoning on how decisions based on instinct can a lot of times, be far superior than those that are analyzed.

Through the course of time, the human species has experience many changes on their environment. Humans have migrate to many places around the world that normally they are not suitable to live on. This event has made certain races of humans very suitable for particular environments. By the process of natural selection, each race of humans have dominant traits that increases their reproductive success. However, in this current time the world has become more connected. This has caused many changes in the environment, which is affecting in a negative way to certain demographics of people more than others. A huge example of this can be view on the native nation of Tohono O’odham and the changes during the decades of the area of Arizona.

The Mandan tribe were a semi-nomadic tribe that lived in the Northern Central America region of what is now the United States of America. They were hunters as well as farmers and used the land to their benefit. Many distinctive characteristics to the Mandan tribe include their clothing and social organization. The Mandan tribe were a prominent group of people that had many unique attributes applied to their lifestyle, beliefs, and overall society. First and foremost, the Mandan tribe lived in the American Great Plains, which is nowadays states of Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

The American territory was sprawling across the Mississippi River and into new Native American territory. The Great Plains and far West were occupied by both Indians and Hispanics whose custom and way of live were distinct in language religion and kinship and governance. The white settlers and hunters were a threat to the resources in which they used for survival.

Traditional religions in ancient Mali were polytheistic, they did not believe in one single supreme being, and the believed in animism. They believed that all plants, animals and objects had spirits. “Spirits of the land” were also a big part of the ancient civilization’s beliefs and they were taught to ensure the success of their crops. They had no sacred texts to support their beliefs but they thought that the spiritual world and the physical world were connected.

A religious family in the story Why I am a Pagan by Zitkala-sa, talks about how this little girl was taught certain things that her family has always gone by. What she was taught, she now holds close to her life dearly, while also relying on it every moment of the day. Her life shows us a different view on cultural identity, how she was taught something important not only to her, but in everyone else’s as well. By showing her what the kind of men in her life mean the most to her. She says something about her religion, how it reflects her past, present, and future, along with what she stands for. She says, “I was taught long years ago by kind missionaries to read the holy book, these godly men taught me also the folly of our old beliefs.” (Zitkala-sa 2) In her culture, and