I Am On The Lookout For A Place At Camp

My hand swung to my side, feeling the sharp stone puncture layers of skin and muscle. Wailing in agony as blood spurted out of the wound, I run towards nearby shelter. The shrill screams of dying men rip through the air, accompanied by the sounds of arrows whizzing through the air and the Indians whoop when they hit a target. Dizzy from pain and hunger, I lay in a more comfortable position, just hoping to survive this wretched attack. ”Why did I ever come here?” the thought pounded through my head. “Oh yeah, I remember why. Land. Money.” That irritating know-it-all voice answered. I hear feet pounding around me and realize that the Indians have gone inside the town. One enters the door and maliciously grins when he sees me. He runs toward me and my eyes widen with shock as the spear plunges down, and becomes closer and closer….

When Europeans encountered the Native Americans, the encounter was fraught with difficulties for both sides, for the Native Americans more so than the Europeans. Europeans conquered the Native Americans, forced them into labor, and spread diseases which the Native Americans had no resistance to. In addition to this the Europeans considered themselves superior to the Native Americans. Despite this, the Europeans and Native Americans, both had things the other wanted and so they often engaged in trade with each other. However, the Native Americans thought that, despite not having the luxuries the Europeans had, they were better off than the Europeans. This sentiment is exemplified in “Your People Live Only Upon Cod” by French priest Chrestian LeClerq who was traveling with the Micmac Indians. It is a documented response by an unknown Micmac leader to European, particularly French, claims of superiority. In analyzing this document, we will find that the cultures of the French and the Micmac were vastly different. We will also discover what the Micmac and the French thought of each other.

The expedition of Lewis and Clark was a landmarking event in American history, but its significance goes beyond just the land they discovered.The Lewis and Clark Expedition was put forward so the two would be able to see and map out western America in search of new trade routes and passages. Lewis and Clark would have doubtfully survived had it not been with the aid of the Indians they met on their travels. Upon their controversial meetings with several Indian groups, Lewis and Clark were not respectful to the Americans they met on their journey. The controversial messages behind the peace metals, the reference to the Indians as “children”, and the physical

Within the two passages, two Native American writers, N.S. Momaday and D. Brown, deliver two contrasting views on the Native American landscape and experience. Momaday’s awestruck diction and peaceful imagery revel in the seclusion of a scenario which promotes creation. On the other hand, Brown’s forlorn diction and passive tone mourn the lifeless landscape and loss of people forcibly detached from their land. While Momaday writes to explain the admirable beauty of Rainy Mountain, Brown writes to mourn the loss of life stripped in the barren landscape.

The long history between Native American and Europeans are a strained and bloody one. For the time of Columbus’s subsequent visits to the new world, native culture has

The Lewis and Clark expedition was amongst one of the first major American expeditions. This expedition helped the United States advance in science, land as well as gaining many valuable resources. The Lewis and Clark expedition is also an amazing American story. Lewis and Clark went through extraordinary situations to expedite Americas growth and science. They accomplished this expedition with strenuous encounters with the Native Americans.The importance of the Lewis and Clark expedition is derived by the challenges they faced, the encounters they had with Western Indians, and the knowledge gained about the Louisiana territory.

Europeans tore through America in the 1700s and destroyed the lives of Native Americans, and yet their culture remained principled with a high level of respect and honor. This is shown in a meeting that was held by the six nations of the Iroquois, where Chief Red Jacket gave a speech on the Native Americans view on missionary stations that the Europeans wanted to set up. Red Jacket explained their past with the first settlers, “We gave them corn and meat; they gave us poison in return” (1). These first Europeans set the tone for how these new colonist treated the natives. They took what they wanted and left a trail of death and destruction in their path. However, the natives acted in return with upstanding respect and treated these missionaries

On May 14, 1804 in the eastern city of Saint Louis, William Clark and Merry-weather Lewis set of on the westward adventure that would change America as we know it today. Their journey began on the Mississippi River, those rapids would propel Lewis and Clark into the "Corps of Discovery". Across the vast land that these men would soon travel lived the many native-american tribes. The Native people hunted freely across their western lands, lived their life as one with the ground they so carefully treaded on. Soon, the great American adventurers and the native people would meet, but one brought with them the foreshadowing of a new era. An era when American life would be greatly improved with new natural resources and plentiful free land, but only at the cost of ruining the native american people of their way of life. The Lewis and Clark Expedition expanded the knowledge and lifestyle of America but began the elimination of the original American natives way of life and culture.

Shanice Britton is a young Native American writer who grew up inside the Round Valley Indian Reservation in a small town where she knew everyone. Britton grew up learning about Native American traditions and customs. She was taught from a young age that she should always respect adults, support that tribal leaders, and have pride in her culture by keeping alive the traditions of her ancestors. Therefore, it was a little bit of a shock when she moved to Davis, California to attend the University of California. In an article that Britton wrote for Scholastic Choices, Britton recounts a comical and illustrative incident shortly after she moved there: “I was eating in a cafeteria with some other high school students, and this one girl asks me: ‘Do you live in a teepee?’” (Britton & Bianchi 2015). This anecdote is a perfect representation of some of the misconceptions or, simply, widespread lack of knowledge of the Native American population when it comes to people who are not part of that community. There are many aspects of Native American life that are not understood correctly by the general

Growing up I always heard the saying "all good things must come to an end," but I never thought about it that deeply. Sure, everything has an end, like a book or a movie series or even a day. Everything has and always will have an end to them whether we want, need or anticipate it. While I was aware of this I had never had something that affected me enough to make me sad that it was coming to an end until this summer.

greeted by cheering natives. Later, a native stole one of their boats, so Cook and some

The Spanish are difficult to persuade because they believe in the Manifest Destiny. Yet by using both of these devices he evoked pity by describing the indians being left with nothing, but also fear by threatening to continue the violent raids. Chief Tecumseh hopes to show that if the Spanish continue to take away the land of the natives, they will come together and the strength of the red men will overcome the strength of the white men. While Chief Tecumseh’s speech uses pathos and causal relationship, Chief Seattle’s excerpt, “Letter to President Pierce” uses connotations as well as pathos to bring awareness to President Pierce. He brings awareness by pointing out the flaws of the spanish settlers. He addresses the white men by stating, “Continue to contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste” (P.5 L.1-2). Not only does he emphasize the loss of native americans through his excerpt, but also brings attention to the loss of the Spanish if they continue to act

Thomas King’s The Inconvenient Indian tells the story of Indigenous people in Canada and the United States, it challenges the narrative on how Indigenous history is taught and explains why Indigenous people continue to feel frustrated. King’s seeks to educate the reader as he provides a detailed accounts of the horrific massacres Indigenous people endured, yet he simultaneously inserts humorous moments which balances out the depressing content and enhances his story. The books highlights the neglect and assimilation that Indigenous were subjected to and how their survival was seen as an inconvenience to western culture. King directs his message at a Euro-centric audience to offer an accurate explanation of Indigenous culture and

“My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain...There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory.,” Chief Seattle Speech of 1854. The culture of the Native American people has been deteriorating ever since the Europeans arrived in the Americas. The impactful and immense loss of lifestyle that they faced is one that can never be recovered, what the United States has given them are generations of trauma and blatant suffering. However, the U.S. did not stop there, a multitude of cultures have been broken to help keep America pure. For instance, one of the most significant cultures that have been dismantled by the U.S. other than the Natives and their music were the languages and music of the African slaves. The apparent likeness of these two cultures in the ways in which their deconstruction impacted them is in more of an abundance, such as the dominating influence of the Christian religion and the gravely vital role of maintaining what little heritage they could through language. In contrast to this, the two groups had an opposing difference pertaining to how the Natives and slaves tried to compensate the immense loss of their culture through the generations.

It is also this depressing lost of Native Americans’ culture that has motivated them to never stop trying to return home. However, in the memory of the speaker’s dad, these Native Americans were just “swollen bellies of salmon coming back to a river that wasn’t there” (CR 123). Salmon have the nature of returning back to the place, where they were born in, to reproduce. Comparing the Native Americans to salmon, the author identifies the importance of their land to their nature. That is, losing the land is the same as losing their reproduction. Therefore, taking the land away for the modern developments, the western culture has ultimately become the nightmare for the Native Americans.