Land Ownership In Colonial England

In the essay “The Meaning of Property,” C.B. Macpherson states the argument for how property is “a concept of rights (15),” not a thing that can be claimed. The Native Americans loosely used this idea of property in their lives. Their land was a recognized right by the surrounding communities and ownership rights within a territory usually meant what one had made with their own hands. The European colonists had the notion that “Indians seemed to live like paupers in a landscape of great natural wealth (Cronon 50).” Since the Indians utilize many resources from the land, and not totally dependent on farming, Colonists used this to justify taking the their land. Europeans observed how the Indians did not make a permanent, exclusive mark on the land as a “token not of their chosen way of life but of their laziness (Cronon 50).” John Winthrop claimed that the Indians didn’t actually own any land since they failed to inclose any land,“fences and livestock were thus pivotal elements in the English rationale for taking Indian lands (Cronon Fields 66).” The European way of thinking also saw property as a means of wealth, power, and social status. European treatment of nature can be reflected upon their culture. The culture they came from focused on capitalism, so they saw the new lands as a means of profit. Native American culture differed since they collected from the land what they needed. They had respect for the land and even realized the danger of over fishing salmon in the rivers. The Indians would make sure to only catch enough fish to feed themselves and then stopped fishing to let the fish go back upstream to reproduce. European culture on the other hand, depleted the natural resources they found, which could be seen through the depleted beaver population due to the high demand and profitable fur

Within the nineteenth century, many Americans saw Native Americans as heathens that occupied land. These people saw the land as theirs because of how they fought to become independent. They also claimed that the Native Americans did not claim land or have a concept of property. Others understood that it was wrong to take the land forcefully. These people understood the land was not rightfully theirs for the taking. It is also perceived that all Americans disliked Native Americans. When in fact there were people who sympathized the natives. They wanted to live in peace and not war. Although, they still believed Indians were below them and had ideas of reserves. Looking at history,

Once the Europeans arrived they sought to take over land. However, much of the land was “owned” by Native Americans. The Native Americans lacked the power to fight for their land. The Native Americans were not as advanced as the European; this allowed the Europeans to easily conquer. The things that were important to the Europeans were not of importance to the Native Americans. Despite the Indians having no desire to be wealthy or live as

Before Europeans arrived in present-day America, the Native Americans were living on millions of acres of land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated. Many Native Americans were initially somewhat willing to share land with original settlers. However, when settlers began taking land that already belonged to the Natives,

Native Americans, English, Africans and other European settlers went through adversity in their plight in trying to establish their own identity in North American Colonial societies. Trade and land were two major components in the fight for power.

According to the English, Native Americans in early seventeenth century Virginia left an imprint on the New England earth. They traditionally settled near water and in small groups, and not in a larger population. They also made little benefit of their land, being never fertile. The English settlers were very taken at the fact they didn’t use the land to the best it could be used. They were tall, brown and proportionate appearance. Also the men were fewer than the women and children. The English felt the Indians had the right to use the land, but letting them have ownership of the land and having it all to themselves was not an accepted English view. The English view also had many limitations to what the natives really were like.

When English colonists first arrived in North America, they did not witness the great mounds of Cahokia and its culture, but they saw organized Native communities (69). However, the settlers ignored this culture. According to the document titled “Dismantling Tribes and Their Homelands”, the Anglo-Saxon protestant settlers were convinced of their superiority that they saw little or no value in Indian Civilization (448). They believed that Indians will be swallowed up by American society and tribes would soon cease to exist. They translated this prejudice into further action systematically. The result was a gradual disappearance of Native Americans through misery, forced migration and catastrophic diseases.

The settlers mistreated the kindness of the natives, their greed caused them to continuously push for more, including land mass. The colonists did not understand the connection the natives had with the land and environment, natives ‘’lived with nature’’, they seemed to understand their surroundings and the environment itself. They did not want to change it, they would remain in a certain area and then move, so that nature could rebuild itself and become new. They believed that people could live anywhere they want to, but no land was owned by specific people, the area which they occupied was meant to live in piece upon it. This is proven to be all opposite to the intentions of the settlers, for the Indians, the concept of owning landing was foreign, they could not comprehend that the colonists would begin to take up the land mass and fill it with more settlers, and that they were forever going to occupy and keep it.

There were many different policies and attitudes of European Americans toward Native Americans in the age of Discovery. The responses of the various nations of Native Americans to the arrival of Europeans after 1492, and the manner in which they dealt with their presence, varied differently from one group to another. Responses to encounters between both groups depended on cultural characteristics, or on the economic and political circumstances which they found themselves in. Just as there was no universal Indian response to the encounter there were also many significant differences in the ways the Europeans and others approached the natives whose land they were intent on occupying. Europeans having arrived in the New World were there in search for the path to riches and the latter not caring who was going to be harmed or whose property was destroyed in the process for their own selfish greed.

Native Americans were the first inhabitants of what we today would call the United States, were they not? As hard as it may be to believe since they're called "Native Americans," it has actually been agreed upon that they were not. The first people to arrive in North America are believed to be sojourners from Asia. These bands crossed a land bridge in search of big game. Slowly, these people began to learn different techniques to survive in North America. They eventually gave up nomadism and instead began to set up habitations or stay within a certain area. These humans learned to farm and how to maintain cities. The Aztecs were a great example of this as they built the amazing city of Tenochtitlan in Central America.

Euro-Americans believed the Native Americans were savages and devil worshippers. They believed the land the Indians were on was for everybody to settle on and use for their own reasons. The land had no titles or deed stating who owned it or was using it. The Indians had their own way of reserving land among themselves. Europeans believed in paperwork stating ownership, the Indians didn’t have such paperwork. If the Indians were to have titles or deeds for the land, the Europeans would not recognize it as a legal document. Therefore making the paperwork null and void and the land free to use. The Europeans had plans to preserve the land and build on it. John Winthrop believed there was a natural and civil right to the land. Natural right meaning

Ever since Europeans began to colonize land in the New World, Native Americans have suffered immensely. Europeans colonized the entirety of both North and South America fairly easily. Most people attribute this to the fact that Native Americans were inferior to Europeans in the aspect that they were not as advanced militarily or diplomatically. For example, most Americans see Native Americans as inferior due to the fact that Europeans were able to take over all of the Native Americans land, which is a completely wrong way of thinking. European colonization and domination in North America is centered around diseases and the fact that Native Americans had never been exposed to certain diseases that Europeans brought over from the Old World. The

The early European believed that indian lacked genuine religion, or in fact worship the devil . Indians believed in natural healing, shamans, and herb healer but they were seen as “witch doctors,” their numerous ceremonies and rituals was viewed as worshiping “false gods” and christianny presented no obstacles to the commercial use of the land, and indeed in some way encouraged it that true religion was to progress civilization. “Be fruitful and multiply..” The Europeans invoked the indian’s distinctive pattern of land use and ideas about property to answer the raised awkward question by the British minister of the early stage of England’s colonization: “ By what right or warrant can we enter into the land of these “Savages”and take away their rightful inheritance from them, and plant ourselves in their place? Also the Indians gender division of labor and matrilineal family structures, Europeans saw the American Indians as weak men and mistreated women. They deemed their work leisure activities which was not “real” work because the indian women worked in the fields; referring to them of lacking freedom, and “weren’t much better than slaves.” Europeans consider indian men “unmanly” too weak to

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.

Europeans for the most part didn’t appreciate the land, they saw it as a means of monetization, profit and wealth. The native of Americans saw things different, they appreciated every single aspect of their land and wildlife. They were heavily criticized by their lifestyle, their native woman for being handworkers, and even called lazy for migrating every season and. Thus, the Indians only did it as a commodity not as a necessity. It was difficult for many European to grasp the condition in which native of Americans lived in, surrounded with great natural wealth and still lived the same way peasants did back in England. Perhaps, like the author suggested, the English did not know true riches when they saw them. Indians only seemed impoverished,