Reality In 'New People's And New Societies'

In the wake of Europe’s Age of Exploration, explorers roamed different parts of the ocean in search of a faster water route to Asia. Along the way, Europeans explorers discovered a whole new continent, America. Thinking that he was in India, Christopher Columbus, an Italian sailor, called the indigenous Native Americans he met “Indians,” a misnomer that is still used frequently even up to this day. Europeans soon shifted their attention away from the water route to Asia but toward the colonization of the New World. With a desire to have a new life different from that of the Old World, many Europeans landed on the shores of the new continent and settled in communities. However, almost all kinds of European colonization faced this

The Lakota, an Indian group of the Great Plains, established their community in the Black Hills in the late eighteenth century (9). This group is an example of an Indian community that got severely oppressed through imperialistic American actions and policy, as the Americans failed to recognize the Lakota’s sovereignty and ownership of the Black Hills. Jeffrey Ostler, author of The Lakotas and the Black Hills: The Struggle for Sacred Ground, shows that the Lakota exemplified the trends and subsequent challenges that Indians faced in America. These challenges included the plurality of groups, a shared colonial experience, dynamic change, external structural forces, and historical agency.

The Native Americans once thrived on the rich land of the Americas, and they built a long-lasting civilization with the help of nature, gods, and organized roles within the tribes. However, the thriving population plummeted after their encounter with diseases and forced labor brought upon them by the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadores. Although at first the conquistadores mistreatment of Native Americans seem shallow and unethical, their conquest of the Americas only partially reflects the claims of the English Black Legends..

“The Indian presence precipitated the formation of an American identity” (Axtell 992). Ostracized by numerous citizens of the United States today, this quote epitomizes Axtell’s beliefs of the Indians contributing to our society. Unfortunately, Native Americans’ roles in history are often categorized as insignificant or trivial, when in actuality the Indians contributed greatly to Colonial America, in ways the ordinary person would have never deliberated. James Axtell discusses these ways, as well as what Colonial America may have looked like without the Indians’ presence. Throughout his article, his thesis stands clear by his persistence of alteration the Native Americans had on our nation. James Axtell’s bias delightfully enhances his thesis, he provides a copious amount of evidence establishing how Native Americans contributed critically to the Colonial culture, and he considers America as exceptional – largely due to the Native Americans.

What is an American? This question cannot be answered by one word. There are so many different characteristics, qualities, and features that can be used to describe an American. Besides features, someone is only a real American if they take advantage of all of the many privileges that are given to them. Any person that is not grateful for the privileges that are given to them to me are not real Americans but this is only my opinion. Real Americans use their privileges to benefit themselves and everyone around them. In today's society there are certain things that are expected from American citizens, for instance being a responsible citizen.

The first settlements in America thrived by themselves before European contact. However, many things would change on that fateful day in 1492. The Spanish conquistadores superior military technology and tactics caused newly conquered Indians to become alienated in colonial societies due to ethnicity and religion. The social hierarchy caused Indians to stand in the lower classes and to continue to be under pressure from Catholic friars to convert. To Spaniards, the Indians were barbarians in need of a way to become civilized and the Spanish were more that willing to “help”.

Calloway employs lucid prose and captivating examples to remind us that neither Indians nor Colonists were a monolithic group... The result is a more nuanced appreciation for the complexity of cultural relationships in Colonial America... He surveys this complex story with imagination and insight and provides an essential starting point for all those interested in the interaction of Europeans and Indians in early American life." -- David R. Shi, Christian Science Monitor Although many Americans consider the establishment of the colonies as the birth of this country, in fact Early America already existed long before the arrival of the Europeans. From coast to coast, Native Americans had created enduring cultures, and the subsequent European

Many Treaties were made between Europeans and Indians tribes to ensure the peaceful land trade. In the second paragraph, the writers talk about the removal and the relocation of the Indians tribes on the period from 1828–1887. The authors explain how the immense cultural differences between the new comers and the indigenous people, have made the assimilation and the fusion unrealistic, especially after several bloody confrontations. The new generation supported the idea of the expansion of the land and the removal of Indians across the Mississippi. The Indian Removal Act was passed on 1830, flowed by massive Indian migration to the west. However, The European expansion continued to reach the west and the politics of removal came to a dead end, letting place to a period of “ALLOTMENT AND ASSIMILATION” which runs from 1887 to 1928 (8). According to the book, the central idea was to assimilate Indians by giving them a land and changing them to farmers. Indians had to choose between moving west or taking allotments, what can allow them to become citizens. However, many Indians were unable to work their land since the investment for seeds and equipment’s was very

The establishment of European Colonies in the New World brought forward the challenge of overcoming the diversity among the Indian society. Invading was a simpler task for European colonist compared to adapting into a new environment away from their Mother Country. A major clash of cultures, ideas, religions, and the people as well as a lack of compromise contributed to the decrease of the Indian population in the history of the United States. Through the relationship between the Northeastern Indians and the colonial American English colonies lays a strong misunderstanding of lifestyle, economical status, and social values versus settlement, commerce, and conquest.

In the first Chapter of Occupied America by Acuna we get an introduction and learn about the evolution of Mesoamerica and the people who lived there before other began to discover what was already there. In this chapter we also get to learn about the Native Americas who lived in the settled areas that were later conquered and colonized by the Spanish Conquistadors. Learning about these different tribes and cultures that coexisted with one another gives the reader a new perspective on the colonization showing the true ways in which this hurt the tribe and culture. One of the common misconceptions about the Native Americans and Indian tribes were that they were uneducated, improper savages that needed saving however when expressed in our history books they fail to mention

In Richter's “Facing East from Indian Country” he changed the stare of early American past around and services the reader to reflect stories of North America during the period of European foundation rather than of the European establishment of North America. Well familiar to historians and early Americans for his significant study of the Iroquois, Richter has now wrote what might prove to be the final work in the effort to reintegrate Indians into the history of North America. Reviewers can’t visualize any historian or student dismissing the role of Native people in the history of colonial and early America after reading this book and learning about its many lessons. For this reason Facing East will enjoy a long shelf-life as one of the best

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

Talking Back to Civilization , edited by Frederick E. Hoxie, is a compilation of excerpts from speeches, articles, and texts written by various American Indian authors and scholars from the 1890s to the 1920s. As a whole, the pieces provide a rough testimony of the American Indian during a period when conflict over land and resources, cultural stereotypes, and national policies caused tensions between Native American Indians and Euro-American reformers. This paper will attempt to sum up the plight of the American Indian during this period in American history.

Readers learn of General Carleton’s ferocity against the Indians and his great hunger for tribal land and the minerals found on it. This, together with the settling of

Calloway begins to tell his view of the European influence on the Indian natives. He shares,” Names on a map reveal patterns of movement and accommodations as well as patterns of conquest.” “ Such renamings were part of the process of dispossessing Indian peoples and redrawing the map of North America.” These excerpts from page 12 and 13 express the rapidness of the European influence changing and scraping the landscape. Upon Columbus voyage in 1492, where the story starts to pick up, he didn’t discover or expose a "New World" for Europeans; he really just connected two worlds. Native peoples numbering in the millions, with their own cultures, and religions, had occupied the