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Give Me Liberty By Eric Foner Summary

Decent Essays

In this excerpt from Eric Foner’s Give Me Liberty!, he discusses the significance of religion in the lives of Native Americans, as well as the social relations of Native Americans and the freedom and liberty they attempted to acquire. As mentioned in the previous discussion, certain tribes in North America were diverse. Although, they shared a common ideal and that was religion. Despite what most of us may think, their religion was not quite different to those of Europeans. Moreover, owning property was also something Native Americans believe as being a “common resource, not an economic commodity,” whereas in the United States, the only people that owned land and property were white males. Like every society, social status played a major role in determining one’s reputation. For instance, kindness and trade were valued tremendously. In addition, the Native Americans valued attributes like generosity …show more content…

Women’s lives were different compared to other countries because women were open to do such tasks, premarital sex, marriage, and divorce. Men, on the other hand, contributed in communities by hunting and played a sort of role model of what a successful leader is like. Society wasn’t really a patriarch yet because women contributed in religious ceremonies as tribal leaders. Because of these different ideals and beliefs, the Europeans perceived the Native Americans as “noble savages,” as opposed to their first encounter describing them as “beautiful of stature and build.” However, as time went on, so did the Europeans desire for conquest, which resulted in the conquering of their lands. The Native Americans were then forced to do labor and like many endured throughout history, they were mistreated. The arrival of the Europeans started the promotion of a patriarchal society, having women do housework and men taking authority ultimately taking some freedom away from the Native

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