Native Americans During The 19th Century

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.

During the end of the nineteenth century, the United States had formed policies which reduced land allotted to Native Americans. By enforcing these laws as well as Anglo-American ideals, the United States compromised indigenous people’s culture and ability to thrive in its society.

Imagine a person bought something that the person valued. The person was the owner of the product and took good care of it.Then, all of a sudden, a stranger comes and takes that product and declares it “discovered”. Now since the stranger “discovered” it, the product now has to be shared among them. This is similar to what happened to Native Americans in North America. Native Americans owned and lived in North America for several thousand years. Then, all of a sudden, European explorers came to North America and claimed the land “discovered”. Europeans started moving into the land and later, started sharing the land. Encounters between Europeans and Native Americans in the colonial era led to the exchange of diseases with Native Americans,

Knowing some of the issues that Native Americans and the U.S. Government faced back in the 1800’s, believe it or not, there is still some that arise today, along with a lot of other issues that Native Americans have within themselves.

In early 19th century America, there was a shared feeling of exceptionalism, often leading to egocentrism and prejudice towards foreigners. This egocentrism and prejudice belief system has been passed down, and ignorance towards reforming these beliefs is evident throughout history. Many Americans believe that the colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth were the first settlements in America, thus that the Europeans who traveled across the Atlantic were the first to inhabit the New World. In fact, St. Augustine was a Spanish settlement in Florida established in 1565, 42 years prior to the Jamestown settlement and 55 years prior to the Plymouth settlement. Historical accounts of the American nation tend to neglect this information, resulting in American citizens believing that people of Spanish and Mexican descent do not belong, when in reality, they settled America first. Furthermore, American history tends to neglect mentioning the resistance which Anglo-Americans met as they expanded westward into lands which Native Americans and Mexicans lived in. Accordingly, people of Mexican descent occupied present-day Texas when Anglo-Americans first arrived. Through brutal, immoral, and unjust conquering, Texas became a state separate from Mexico, disregarding the Tejanos of Mexican descent and forcing them to migrate elsewhere.

There were three important people that had very different views on how to reconstruct the Union. Reconstruction was, according to The Americans by McDougal Littell, “the period during which the United States began to rebuild after the Civil War” (Page 376). It started in 1865 and ended in 1877. The views on how Reconstruction should happen were very different for each of these people: Abraham Lincoln, the Radical Republicans, and Andrew Johnson.

Distorted perspectives of european settlers led them to view Native Americans as “uncivilized savages.”As the Renaissance reached its ending term Europeans saw their religion (Christianity) as an advanced culture. When Europeans arrived to the “New World” in 1493 settlers discovered the native inhabitants were bizarre to the new settlers. Further in time Settlers observed their culture and viewed their religion as evil and thought of the Natives God as the “Devil in disguise.” As a consequence of their perspective of their religion Settlers thought of them as animals, non-human and branded the term savages to Native Americans. Since Europeans viewed their religion as advanced setters thought of the idea of emerging Native Americans into the white man culture and wanted to “civilize” the Native Americans. Native Americans didn’t like the idea of being rooted to the culture of the Europeans, so Europeans thought of the solution of moving the Native Americans west so the native could preserve their culture. Furthermore igniting the reaction of removal of Natives Americans, conversion of culture and the war between the Europeans and Native

Religious motives of the ‘Old Land’ of Europe’s exploration can be traced back to the days of the Crusades down to the 11th and 15th century, where the European Christians tried to invade and claim the city of Jerusalem from its Muslim control. The struggle between the Islamic rule and the European Christians planted the ideology of ‘Reconquista’ in the latter’s religion. It influenced the Christian religion with an air of religious intolerance. With the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, European Catholic’s interests in colonizing newer lands and declare global dominance earned a new momentum. And strong Catholic nations of Spain and Portugal were the

In the 16th century Spaniards Herman Cortes and Christopher Columbus set out on endeavoring journeys in search of new worlds. Christopher Columbus encountered, in the Caribbean islands, a group of extremely simplistic Native Americans. Herman Cortes however encountered a much more advanced Native American group in Meso America; we formally know this area to be Mexico. In my essay I will be comparing and contrasting several aspects between both of these Native American Civilizations including sophistication, technology, housing, weapons, religion and their reaction to the Spaniards. Letters written by Columbus and Cortes will be used to make these comparisons.

A long time ago, in a land far, far away...there were a group of European immigrants looking for a better life. It was between the late 1700’s and early 1800’s when they first heard about a place called America, a land like no other. So, these immigrants decided to embark on a journey to this new land, because of their desire for freedom and happiness. They were chasing what we now call the American Dream. And guess what? These immigrants so happen to be related to me.

The European conquest for establishing North American colonies began with various motivations, each dependent on different, and/or merging necessities: economics, the desire to flee negative societal aspects, and the search for religious freedoms. Originally discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492 in search for a trade route to Cathay (China), North America remained uninhabited, excluding the Native American establishments. Following this discovery, Spain –along with other European nations such as France, England, Sweden and the Netherlands– soon began the expedition to the new land with vast expectations. Driven by economic, societal, and religious purposes, the New World developed into a diversely structured colonial establishment

The success of the Spaniards' colonization of the Americas was partly a result of the condition of the natives. Columbus referred to the natives as "timorous creatures" without any weapons, so " the men who remain there alone sufficient to destroy all that land". In addition to this, the Aztec belief in the return of Quetzalcoat also played a significant role in the submission of the natives to the Spaniards. As the Spaniards were coming from the sea with their ships, the natives believed that they were the agents of the God and thus they showed their respect. Columbus recounted that "they all believe that power and goodness are in the sky, and they believed very firmly that I, with these ships and crew, came from the sky; and in such opinion they recevied me at every place where I landed..." Another, yet not the last, factor in the success of the Spaniards was their use of Indian tribes such

On October 11, 1492, Genoese explorer Christopher Colombus, funded by the Spanish empire, made landfall on the coast of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Islands. Upon reaching the shore, Columbus and his men were immediately surrounded by the indigenous Taino people who accepted the newcomers onto their land. The natives marvelled at the simple, crude items which were “presented [to] them [including] red caps, and strings of beads to wear upon the neck, and many other trifles of small value, wherewith they were much delighted,” with the goods the Europeans exchanged with them. Europeans had come to the Western Hemisphere to reap the natural resources for the benefit of the Mother Country and to explore vast new lands for gold and silver reserves that might bring unparalleled wealth and power to their nation. Fueled by the desire to replicate previous successful Spanish conquests such as those led by Hernan Cortes in Mexico and Francisco Pizarro in South America, the Spanish sent explorers to the New World to continue their dominance of territorial expansion in the late 15th century. Standing in the path of this goal were the indigenous tribes that dominated the landscape. The forced conversion of thousands of natives to Christianity was justified by the Spanish in the same manner as their quest for new lands. The European "expansion of the faith was inextricably intertwined with military glory and economic profit”, and the Spanish pursued the spreading of the Christian faith in

Hernan Cortes’s first encounter narrative displays the cultural and spiritual roles of Spain, as well as the part Christianity played in creating a sense of belonging . Moreover, how the idea of cultural and spiritual superiority played in the colonization and conquering of The Aztecs. Cortes displays a Eurocentric outlook, “for they had left their native land so long ago and as I had only recently arrived from there, I would better know the things they should believe” (Cortes 58). With this idea that Europe is the nucleus of the world, Cortes has a cultural and religious duty to return the natives back to the fold. Cortes, having painted his view of the world creates a sense of belonging to him and all of Spain, in that, since all life originates in Europe then it’s theirs anyway. He goes about plundering by using Christianity as a moral justification for the colonization of the native population. Beginning by destroying “idols”(Cortes 58) and setting up “images”(Cortes 58)Cartes believes it’s simply what “they should believe”(Cortes 58) . This narrative of cultural and spiritual superiority is echoed in John Heckewelder’s retelling of the “Lenni Lenape”(Heckewelder 68) narrative wherein a group of Dutch missionaries visit the new world and are revered as God’s. Before they depart, they distribute gifts among the natives of “beads, axes, hoes, and stockings” (Heckewelder 70) only to return on their second voyage to see the natives wearing them as

One of the ways in which encounters between conquistadores like Columbus and the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas took shape was the process of assimilation. Assimilation involved attempts by the conquistadores to ‘civilise’ the indigenous populations through spreading European customs and faith. The process itself was based on perceived cultural and religious distinctions, which affected debates over the meaning of the ‘human’. The colonisers’ ignorance towards and dismissal of indigenous customs shows this. For example, Todorov’s interpretation of Columbus’s journals suggests a belief that they were “deprived of all cultural property”, having no religion or law, though Columbus goes on to contradict himself and describes “idolatrous” practices (Todorov, 1984, p.35). Similarly, Hall states that Europeans believed there was an “absence of government and civil society” when there were in fact “highly elaborated social structures” different from European structures (Hall, 1992, p.211). Even when they recognise Native Americans as having their own customs, European settlers often present them as being ‘lesser’ to European customs. Bartolome de las Casas defended indigenous peoples’ living practises as showing a capacity for human reasoning while simultaneously arguing the need to “Christianize them”; indigenous people have morals and rituals, but need to be trained into having European or Christian morals instead (Bogues, 2014, p.214). Fifteenth-century