Native Americans During The 19th Century

These native peoples, first mislabeled as Indians by an explorer named Christopher Columbus, divided themselves into many different tribes, each with its own government, language, traditions and religions. Europeans, who slowly poured into the Indian's land, did not respect the Indians beliefs, interrupted their peaceful life and would do almost anything to get the land to them selves. The settlers also believed the land that both the Indians and the settlers lived on was theirs to themselves. They began to push the Native Americans off of their own land. Many of them fought back to keep their homes, some succeeded, some didn't.

During westward expansion, the Native Americans got kicked to the side. The settlers coming west often saw the Indians as a threat to them and their families. However, this was not the main reason the Indians were pushed aside. The settlers saw the Indians had fertile land and wanted it for themselves. The Indians were the opposite of what the settlers thought they were. The Indians often helped the people moving west across the plains; giving them food, supplies, and acting as guides. However, the U.S. Government did not see this side of the Indians, instead they forced the Indians onto reservations. During the time of the expansion of the United States to the present, the Native Americans went through many things so that the United States could expand; they were pushed onto reservations, and forced to give up their culture through the Ideas of Manifest Destiny and Social Darwinism.

Native Americans have been forced out of their culture over time, forced into assimilation, lost their rights, and have lost their land due to policies and laws by the whites that can’t bear the Native American way of life. There used to be many Native American tribes all throughout North America, and now these tribes are spread across the country and are blended into the rest of the population. The native ways have changed drastically in the last two centuries due to relocation programs, Indian boarding schools, and the way to classify which tribe each person belongs to. Native Americans have endured so much pain, which results from everything they have lost over time, and they have constantly paid the price for their ethnicity.

Native Americans never came in contact with diseases that developed in the Old World because they were separated from Asia, Africa, and Europe when ocean levels rose following the end of the last Ice Age. Diseases like smallpox, measles, pneumonia, influenza, and malaria were unknown to

It is estimated that 60% to 90% of Native American tribes had died from new diseases brought from the Columbian Exchange from the Europeans. Numerous diseases such as the infamous smallpox were introduced to the Native Americans and were degrading to the population as the Europeans grew a type of immunity from the diseases unlike the Native Americans. Conflict between the Spanish and the Native Americans brought war which encourages diseases to spread through hand to hand combat. Cultures and tribes were on the brink of extinction, as European expansionism and imperialism succeeded in claiming land that was formerly the Native Americans. The mass genocide and epidemic of various diseases towards the Native Americans reach to new heights due to the Columbian Exchange as Europeans militants strived for land and gold at the cost of the Native American’s

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.

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,

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.

Native Americans were affected negatively in the United States Western Expansion. The Americans stripped the Natives from their culture, land, and the buffalo. From all that Native Americans onced lived all over the West were now living on reservations. The Natives suffered at the Sand Creek massacre, which killed over 200 Native Americans. Also another battle that affected the Native Americans negatively was the Battle of Little Bighorn. The battle was over the Sioux’s right to Sioux land with Sitting Bull as the Sioux war chief and spiritual leader and George A. Cluster as the commander of U.S troops. It wasn’t just land that affected the Natives it was also their culture. Natives boys had their culture stripped away. There clothes,

Native Americans during 1785-1829 were affected by western expansion because of the removal of Native Americans from the land, white settlers attempting to assimilate Native Americans to their culture, and were involved in battles between the a Native Americans and white setters which led to the depleting number of Native Americans.

During America’s Gilded Age, a drastic change in the west transpired. While many Native Americans had already endured profound changes, their freedom was about to become nearly extinct. It was a time in which they called the Second Industrial Revolution. There was an ample amount of natural resources and a development in the market for manufactured goods. Railroad companies flourished and alas, Indian removal was imperative in obtaining land for laborers and miners (Foner, Give Me Liberty!, p.477). As Americans wanted to take their land, they also wanted to strip Native Americans of their culture. The federal government strived in trying to civilize them, so The Bureau of Indian Affairs created boarding schools all over the west in the 1870s. These schools were for Native American children of all ages. The goal was complete “assimilation” (Mabalon, 9/9/15). The children were forced to dress differently, they gained new names, and they were isolated from any cultural influence. It was as though they were forced to give up tradition. It caused them to start having hatred towards their culture and to be ashamed of themselves. Native Americans lost their values and their freedom almost completely. They were essentially being taught how to be white capitalists. (Mabalon, 9/9/15). It wasn’t until after a long, painful struggle and resistance that they finally gained citizenship for all in 1924. Even then, there was still a great way to go until the Native Americans were able to

The diseases the Europeans brought with them affected the indigenous negatively because it killed a large portion of the population in a painful way. The Natives had very little diseases before the Europeans invaded their land. Unlike people in the Old World, the Natives did not farm cattle or pigs and did not live near the animals they did have. They never had the opportunity to develop immunities to diseases that the cattle and Europeans carried when they came upon their shores. The diseases spread quickly and attacked the indigenous in gruesome ways. Smallpox caused sores to erupt on their skins that were so painful that an Aztec account states that “[the sick] could only lie on their beds like corpses” (Document 4). The pain would not

The problem of epidemics like smallpox, measles, and other European, Asian, and African diseases negatively affected the abilities of Native Americans to resist the invasions by Europeans. These sicknesses made native peoples too weak to resist. This pattern was no different in North, South, and Central America. As Europeans entered the lands, so did the diseases and they spread, causing the natives to become weak enough for the Europeans to easily invade.

Native Americans were the people of the land before English settlers claimed the United States as it is today. Throughout time they have been mistreated by white people and forced to be Americanized. Their culture has almost died with their people, and to this day their rights can be challenged as unjustified. Before the 1960’s, Native Americans were pretty much ignored by other groups of ethnicity, especially the whites. However, postwar of Vietnam sparked the American youth to protest politics, and Native Americans stood up for their civil rights as American people.

Native Americans have played an important role in the United States for over thousands of years. The Native Americans once lived on their land with little disturbance, having made their own meals and lived in a traditional culture up until Columbus had discovered their land. From their first arrival into the Native land, the Spanish mistreated and disrespected the Indians by trying to enforce their way of life and their beliefs upon them.