How Did Europeans Culture Change American Culture

Contact with the Native American population changed those Europeans who settled in the Americas. Europeans who came used the numerous natives as labor workers to build their powerful empires like the Spaniards. They also used the populations to provide food and shelter, and even

The Spanish conquistadors’ motives greatly affected the people living in the new world. These motives influenced the Native Americans in all different ways some ways better or bigger than others. Three of the biggest motives that effected the Native Americans were gold, Christianity, and glory.

The native populations suffered incredibly by the Europeans colonization, because of the purposeful mistreatment they put on them. For instance, a Spanish reporter for the government, wrote to his king in 1516 about the behavior his expedition put on the natives. He stated how the native populations had to ender limbs being cut off, and being eaten alive by dogs (Document 1). This is purposeful mistreatment because hearing the natives cry in agony, and watch in terror as their friends and family die in front of them, was not necessary. This could have been easily avoided if the Spanish weren’t so brutal. Secondly, Father Bartolomé de Las Casas, who was an energetic activist who aimed to protect the natives by writing a book in 1542. His book said that the native populations were kidnapped, abused and later killed. If the Spanish did not kill them directly, the natives would end up killing themselves because the brutal treatment was not worth living (Document 8). The consequences of this include a native population decrease, and suicidal tendencies on the natives. This

Despite their goodness, they were tortured and slaughtered by the Spaniards for no justifiable reason. For example in Document F, William H. Powell documented in 1853 how the Spaniards stormed into a native village with a full size artillery. The Spaniards brought crucifixes and cannons to intimidate the natives enough to force them to convert to Catholicism. As stated in Document A, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, and when he sailed that ocean and landed in the New World he found the native people.

The arrival of Europeans in the New World had a strong negative impact on the native population. The natives were horribly treated by the Europeans. Bartolome de las Casas wrote that the Spanish were unnecessarily violent to the Natives, which is impressive considering Bartolome himself lived in the New World. He was not accusing from the outside, but was a first person witness (Doc 2). Many Natives were also killed off just by the diseases Europeans brought with them. Diseases such as smallpox infected and killed a large percentage of the Native population (Doc

The first Europeans arrived in North America in the fifteenth century CE. Native cultures included the Olmec, the Maya, the Aztecs, the Incas, the Mound Builders of the Mississippi region, and the Anasazi of the American Southwest. The first metropolis in Mesoamerica, was the city of Teotihuacan, capital of an early state about thirty miles northeast of Mexico City that arose around the third century B.C.E. and flourished for nearly a millennium until it collapsed under mysterious circumstances. Among the groups moving into the Valley of Mexico after the fall of Teotihuacan were the Mexica. Folk legend held that their original homeland was the island in the lake called Aztlan, from that is why today they are known as the Aztecs. The Aztecs were excellent warriors. They set out to bring the entire region under their domination. For the remainder of the fifteenth century, the Aztecs took control over much of which is known as modern Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and as far south as the Guatemalan border. The Chimor kingdom was eventually succeeded in the late fifteenth century by an invading force from the mountains far to the south. The Inka were a small community in the area of Cuzco, a city located at an altitude of ten thousand feet in the mountains of southern Peru. In the 1440s, under the leadership of their powerful ruler Pachakuti, the Inka launched a campaign of conquest that eventually brought the entire region under their authority. Under his

One civilization was called Tenochtitlan. The Spanish were complete awe of this civilization. Native Americans contributed in a huge by helping guide to as where go when looking for other civilizations. Natives also traded Europeans. They provided different foods, metal tools, and different types of weapons in exchange for beads or broken shards of glass. The Columbian Exchange impacted Native Americans greatly. It brought plants, animals, food and slaves. But when the Europeans came to the Americas they inadvertently introduced a variety of diseases. These enclosed sorts of communicable disease, measles, cholera, typhus, and pox. All the exchanges between the Native Americans and the Europeans, disease had the foremost impact. Native Americans had little or no immunity to any of these foreign diseases. The path into the Americas had been through arctic regions. The cold acted as a "filter" preventing some diseases from entering. Throughout their thousands of years of isolation, the

The Relationship Between Native Americans and European Explorers The hardships and cruelty that the Mesoamerican tribes went through after first contact with the European explorers is truly appalling. The Native Americans were rapidly conquered by the European explorers soon after their arrival in the Americas. Large naval cities such as Spain and Portugal had become curious about the new world soon after Christopher Columbus discovered them in 1492, which is when the atrocities began. After coming into contact with European Explorers, Native Americans had to suffer through hardships such as attacks on their religion, unjust and brutal conquest, and inferiority to the European’s advanced technologies. Religious persecution was one of the hardships that Indigenous Americans had to go through.

Immigrants have shaped American culture and identity by bringing their own home culture from other parts of the world. Furthermore, another kind of immigrants brought a different kind of beliefs in America. The way immigrants shaped Americans identity in America is by changing the way how people think of others because of their culture, race, and beliefs. The way it shaped America with cultures is because the variety of cultures that are a mix in America.

As the Europeans began settling in the Americas, thus began “the exchange of plant and animal species that have ultimately been a widespread benefit to the peoples throughout the globe” (Document 3). The Europeans brought many elements of their own culture, including their native plants and animals. They then introduced these things to the natives of the Americas and also adopted the natives culture into their own. The Europeans introduced different types of skills and jobs. In turn, “the Indian natives have successfully learned all the Spanish trades” (Document 1).

The stories regarding the Native Americans and European settlers all commence somewhat similar: the Natives welcome and help sustain the Europeans in the start. They become an instrumental piece to the European survival in the Americas. The relationship starts to change, however, as settlers grow independent. In some instances, when there is only personal gain to be acquired, the relationship becomes a simple trade relationship. In other instances, relationships between the Native Americans and Europeans evolve into a drastic feud driven by European imperialistic ideas to impose political, religious and cultural law on the Natives.

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.

Before the Spanish ship that changed it all, which arrived in the “New World” in 1492, there was a vast population of native people who had lived on this land for centuries prior. That ship, skippered by Christopher Columbus, raised arguably one of the most influential turning points in Native American and European history. It sparked the fire of cultural diffusion in the New World which profoundly impacted the Native American peoples and the European settlers.

As the result of the invader of European on the physical aspect, the relationship between the natives and the invaders was clear: conquest, enslavement, the expropriation of all the wealth and resources of the land. However the Native Americans were also affected on the non-physical aspect. As the traditional base of existence changed due to the Colonists’ victory, the local Native communities had to adapt certain aspects of their culture in order to survive.

The arrival of Europeans in America greatly disrupted the life of the Natives. The natives had their own culture in America with their own special beliefs. When Europeans arrived they tried to alter the way Native Americans lived their lives to resemble their way of living. The Natives did not respect this because they had previously built a lifestyle in America that they wish not to be transformed. The two cultures had different opinions about government, religion, land, and society. Due to the many differences between the Native and European people, it was unfeasible that there would be no conflicts between them.