Native American Settlers Essay

Before Europeans came over to the Americas, the Natives lived together as an union and had peaceful lives. Native Americans hunted animals seasonally but eventually turned to commercial hunting when they began trading more with the Europeans. They had so much different goods that the Natives have not seen before including scissors, guns, alcohol, European red paint, and other metal based items. That forced competition to arise between tribes so they could purchases the goods. There was less agriculture planting since they spent a majority of their time hunting animals and purchased their food from the Europeans. It looked like the Natives found a new trading country to work with but becoming friends was not what the English to do. They wanted to colonize their land and push the Natives away in any possibly way they could. Past experiences  has marginalized Natives today because of the mental struggles and trauma they deal with, the fight for their rights, and the loss of culture today.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Europeans started to make their way to the new world, they discovered a society that was strikingly different to their own. In the late 1800’s, the rare Native Americans that were left in the United States were practically extinguished. Many diverse things contributed to their near-extinction, some were considered intentional and some unintentional. Some tribes made the decision to go willingly, and some decided to fight to their death but in the end, it was confirmed that Native Americans and settlers could not live together in amity, and the Native Americans were the ones at harm. The integration of European colonization ultimately led to the demise of the various Native American

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed west and found himself on the shores of a new world. His mission was to secure new land for Spain. Other European countries heard of his findings, they too crossed the ocean in hopes of securing new opportunities in this newly discovered land such as fur trading and gold mining. Little did they know that a community of indigenous people had already settled in this land thousands of years before. The Europeans decided to negotiate with the natives in order to set up their own communities in the land but the Native Americans held beliefs about society and religion that were far different from their European peers. Europeans thought the Indians to be “Noble Savages, gentle and friendly, but uncivilized, brutal, and barbaric” (citation). They could not see past their own

Spain, England, and France led the colonization of the Americas having distinct missions, and using different approach. By the mid 1960’s, all these great nations were in a race to establish American colonies. Like in every expedition, the primary purposes were to gain wealth and riches, which was the main reasoning behind all of the colonization’s. On their way to building these settlements, the colonials encountered the Native Americans and had to deal with them in very different ways.

The first interaction that took place in the New World, occurred between a group of European settlers and Native Indians, who inhabited the borders of the United States. Indian tribes, who resided in the North, lacked the skills and literacy Europeans had obtained, such as craftsman’s ship of tools, weapons, and wheeled vehicles. However, their simplistic lives allowed them to master skills, which would become important and useful to new settlements, such as farming, hunting, developing structures, and engage in far-reaching networks of trade. Europeans viewed the Natives one of two ways, “they were regarded either as noble savages, gentle, friendly, and superior in some ways to Europeans, or as uncivilized and brutal savages.” (Give Me Liberty

One thing that I have noticed concerning a good portion of history regarding the settlement and discovery of the United States is that, a majority of the time, it appears to be rewritten in favor of those who would later be known as “Americans.” As stated in the excerpt, most of the greater population of America would respond with “Jamestown” when asked what the first settlement in the New World was. Plenty of Americans would totally ignore the fact that multiple other countries―not including the already-present Native Americans―had already settled various areas within the so-called New World. However, not only are lies being spread about the first colonies in America but about the circumstances under which the first Thanksgiving occurred, as well. The Native Americans, most-notably Squanto (whose backstory, furthermore, is substantially altered), turned to the Pilgrims in means of helping, not necessarily out of the good of their hearts, but because their own tribes were already diminished due to diseases brought over by the Europeans. Even then, the Native Americans had been celebrating the season of autumn for a considerable amount of time before the Pilgrims even struck land in Massachusetts (which, according to sources, was by total “accident”). At that point in time, the land was practically already set up for usage, due to the Native Americans’ previous farming and dwelling. If the tribes that had lived there did not die in extreme numbers, the Pilgrims would have had no room to set up their own colony. The readied land was virtually handed over to them on a silver platter. All in all, the history regarding not only the first Thanksgiving but the settlement of the United States as a whole is being extremely whitewashed, for lack of a better

The Native American believe the early settlers to be harmless and capable of easily manipulated. As was the case when the English’s settlers established a Jamestown settlement in the Chesapeake Bay. The Native Americans saw the European’s explorers as “physically weak, sexually

The radical changes as disease, war, trade or new religions in New England and Virginia during the 17th century affect the long-term relationship of Native Americans to settlers because the Europeans started to take advantage of the natives and their resources. They mistreated the Indians, and they wanted their land to settle in even though it wasn’t rightfully theirs to take in the first place. The settlers brought diseases such as smallpox and the measles. The Indians were scared and wondering why they were suddenly getting sick and dying. They had absolutely no idea that it was the settlers that was bringing these unfamiliar and incurable diseases. When they found out, they blamed it on them and got angry. The Indians were also cheated and

The people in Europe considered the Native Americans to be uncivilized savages. The Europeans felt obligated to take the Native Americans back to Europe to “civilize” them, but they didn’t realize that the Native Americans already had a perfectly fine community of their own

In the Spanish, French, and European colonization of North and South America, it either benefited or ravaged tribal societies and their peoples. Through the 16th-19th centuries, the Native Americans populations declined in the following ways: epidemic diseases brought from Europe; violence and warfare. During the prospect of exploration, Thomas Jefferson viewed American Indians as people with the possibly of “Enlightenment” and from a political standpoint either they were enemies of war or allies in peace. While the United States had set a precedent to explore new lands in its short history, native peoples’ who had inherited lands through generations of migration, tribe exploration, and hunting and gathering were now in jeopardy forcefully or ceding their lands through new American policies. As stated by Thomas Jefferson, “The Indian tribes residing within the limits of the United States, have, for a considerable time, been growing more and more uneasy at the constant diminution of the territory they occupy, although effected by their own voluntary sales” [Present in the Past, 79].

Ever since the European settlements began in the America’s in the early 1500’s, indigenous tribes have endured continuous hardships in order to coexist with white settlements and still maintain a sense of self and native cultural identity. Many of the hardships experienced by the Native American Indians were the results of empty promises made by European settlers who used foreign laws, religion, and language barriers to oppress those Indians who were willing to conform. Later, and further into the development of the United States, foreign laws and languages were used as a premise to manipulate the Native Americans into giving up their promised lands so big businesses could harvest their resources. Because the Native Americans were a

The history of Euro American aggression in Native affairs is a long, imposing and not one to be proud of. It is not just the Pilgrims which arrived on the shores of American in 1620, or subsequent and ever growing throngs of European immigrants to the shore of what would become the United States of America. With the invasion of Europeans into the new world came the European practice of settler colonialism. “European expansion took three forms: networks, the establishment of ongoing systems of long-range interaction, usually for trade; empire, the control of other peoples, usually through conquest; and settlement, the reproduction of one’s own society through long-range migration.” (Belich, James. Replenishing the Earth, p.21) All three of these processes have been used by Europeans to colonize and control North America. In the early 1600s Europeans arrived on the shores of what is now the United States with the intent of colonizing the land. From the 17th through the 21st centuries, the population of Native Americans declined because of epidemic diseases brought from Europe, violence, and warfare. The native people, out of the necessity to survive as a people, became creative when responding to the Europeans. Through the centuries of abuse and slaughter, the indigenous people of North America forged new and inventive ways of preserving and differentiating, the people and the cultures.

The development of the European colonies from the beginning in 1607 to the end of the American Revolution when the Constitution was ratified in 1789 had many effects on the Native American Indians. (pg.58, 283) This period of time for the Indians was a time of rapid change and oppression. To better understand what the Indians experienced when the European colonists or settlers arrived there are key events that need to be explained. I believe that these key events where the most important and created the most conflict. The events that I will be discussing are; Jamestown, the colonists and Algonquian wars, smallpox, the Beaver wars, economic change, the industrious revolution, the Walking purchase, the Indian Awakening, losing French support, Pontiac’s rebellion, the Declaration of Independence, Indians fighting in the Revolution, and finally the Treaty of Greenville. I believe that these events highlight what cause and effect the European settlers had on the Native Americans.

     This report will examine the interaction and effects of the European culture clashing with the Native American culture when these new people [Europeans] came to a land and decided to take what they thought was theirs. Discussed will be who these people were and are, their way of life, and how they lived then and now. This paper will explain the “religious bigotry, cultural bias, and materialistic view” (Perdue and Porter 7) the Europeans had that conflicted with the naturalistic and simple view these people called The Cherokee had.

Native Americans are the original inhabitants of the West, and have played an important role in Western history and continue to do so in today’s society. Their role has changed many times over, both good and not so good, and most of the time it was not in their favor. The Indians were descendants of ancient hunters that migrated from Asia to America thousands of years ago, and the differences between the Natives and Europeans are monumental. From the Natives lack of individual ownership of land to their religious belief that human beings shared a kinship with all other living things, one can see that the clash between these two cultures was inevitable. But, nonetheless, Native Americans had an enormous impact on the history of America.