From a European stand point, altering the lives of the Native Americans was a perfectly justifiable action. They were uncivilized, and thus must be welcoming of their attempts to convert them to a more advanced manner of living. At the same time, however, they must have notions of owning land, of claiming sections of the Earth as their own, of trade and association of certain objects with high value. This, however, was a paradoxical viewpoint. The main problem that resulted from the intermixing of European and Native American populations was a misunderstanding of what each culture maintained as important within their lives. To the natives, mourning wars, gods who were part of the Earth itself, sacrifices, and any other number of various traditions were natural to who they were. The Europeans, in contrast, valued war as a means of gaining territory, not people; they often were monotheistic, with odd customs all their own, such as self-torture or confession. The differences between the two cultures could have been overcome, perhaps, if there had been some attempt to understand one another’s values. However, as evidenced, Europeans did not attempt to understand without an ultimate aspiration to change. One of the defining aspects that shaped Native American life after exposure to the Europeans was the disease they brought along with them. In The Jesuit Relations, as well as in other readings, the fathers explained this illness as a sort of cleansing designed by God. They
Trigger found that the Native Americans’ reaction to the Europeans is mostly affected by rational points. The Indian “...beliefs should never be underestimated, in the long run a rationalist and materialist analysis of cultural interaction seems to explain far more about what happened to native people following European
In the 17th century, the Native Americans had been living peacefully in their own little world, until suddenly, the British come upon this land. Little did the British know, tribes of natives already lived there. The countenance of the Native Americans did not go over very well. There was tension between the English and the Native Americans. For example, they fought over the land of the “New World”. As expected, the Natives were fearful and angry when foreigners showed up and proposed new religious beliefs. The British and the Native Americans’ relationship changed due to those coming over for religious freedom and economic prosperity.
Europeans lived a much more modern way of life than the primitive lifestyle of Native Americans. Europeans referred to themselves as “civilized” and regarded Native Americans as “savage,” “heathen,” or “barbarian.” Their interaction provoked by multiple differences led to misunderstanding and sometimes conflict. These two cultures, having been isolated from one another, exhibited an extensive variation in their ideals. Europeans and Native Americans maintained contradictory social, economic, and spiritual practices.
When thinking about relevant theories to the Native American conflict, there are a few that can be applied in a few different ways to help explain the various aspects of this conflict. Three of the theories discussed in this course – primordialist theory, social construction theory, and psychological theories - contain aspects that are applicable to this Native American conflict, while other theories do a poor job of explaining the conflict. On the other hand, one theory from this course – instrumentalism – is not useful in explaining the conflict.
Much of European criticism of Native American was based on differences in religion, land use, and gender relations. Most Europeans reasoned that Indians needed to be converted to the “true religion” of Christianity (Give Me Liberty, 11). In fact, Verrazano concluded that the Indians had “no religion or laws” (Voices of Freedom, 10). The Europeans did not understand the Indians’ use of the land and thus justified overtaking it, reasoning that they did not truly “use” it. Some Europeans criticized gender relations, claiming that women lacked freedom due to their work in the fields (Give me Liberty, 12-13). Others, like Verrazano, criticized the Indians for having “absolute freedom” in which they did not abide to any laws due to ignorance (Voices of Freedom, 10). Regardless of
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
Throughout the course of history there have been numerous accounts regarding Native American and European interaction. From first contact to Indian removal, the interaction was somewhat of a roller coaster ride, leading from times of peace to mini wars and rebellions staged by the Native American tribes. The first part of this essay will briefly discuss the pre-Columbian Indian civilizations in North America and provide simple awareness of their cultures, while the second part of this essay will explore all major Native American contact leading up to, and through, the American Revolution while emphasizing the impact of Spanish, French, and English explorers and colonies on Native American culture and vice versa. The third, and final, part of this essay will explore Native American interaction after the American Revolution with emphasis on westward expansion and the Jacksonian Era leading into Indian removal. Furthermore, this essay will attempt to provide insight into aspects of Native American/European interaction that are often ignored such as: gender relations between European men and Native American women, slavery and captivity of native peoples, trade between Native Americans and European colonists, and the effects of religion on Native American tribes.
For years, the Native Americans lived a very solitary life with their own unique way of living, that was until the European’s showed up with their very complex way of living. Harmony with nature was a very important aspect of Native American culture. The Native people embraced nature with no intention to modify it unlike the Europeans. They simply cared more about nature and what it had to offer. The spiritual connection between the land and these Natives were distinctive from the Europeans also due to the fact that to the settlers, land meant wealth. As a European, if you owned any land you were considered a wealthy upper class human being. As a Native, no one owned the land and anyone could benefit from the land.
Long ago on the great plains, the buffalo roamed and the Native Americans lived amongst each other. They were able to move freely across the lands until the white men came and concentrated them into certain areas. Today there are more than five-hundred different tribes with different beliefs and history. Native Americans still face problems about the horrific history they went through and today 's discrimination. The removal of American Indian tribes is one of the most tragic events in American history. There are many treaties that have been signed by American representatives and people of Indian tribes that guaranteed peace and the values of the Indian territories. The treaties were to assure that fur trade would continue without interruption. The American people wanting Indian land has led to violent conflict between the two. Succeeding treaties usually forced the tribes to give up their land to the United States government. There were laws made for Native American Displacement that didn’t benefit the Native Americans, these laws still have long lasting effects on them today, and there was a huge number of Native Americans killed for many reasons.
Native Americans have been affected by disease and health concerns throughout their history, but a major turning point in Native American disease presence was with the arrival of Europeans. During this period European settlers brought many different technologies and lifestyles with them, but one of the most harmful
For almost as long as European settlers have interacted with the native peoples of the Americas, they have had a notion: what many call ‘assimilation’. To Europeans, assimilation of native peoples meant for their culture, which they believed to be superior, to be accepted over time by the natives. And as they grew more and more European in language, religion, customs, organization, morals, and behavior, they would slowly shed off all of their old culture which the European culture would be replacing. The Europeans believed this process was for the best for the natives and that they would be happier living ‘civilized’ lives as opposed to practicing their own traditions.
To better understand the conflict between the Europeans and the Native Americans, one must closely examine the state of Europe’s economy at the time. Europe struggled with difficult conditions. This included poverty, violence and diseases like typhus, smallpox, influenza and measles. There were widespread famines which caused the prices of products to vary and made life very difficult in Europe. Street crimes and violence were prevalent in cities: “Other eruption of bizarre torture, murder, and ritual cannibalism were not uncommon”.2 Europeans
Native Americans have had a long history of resistance to the social and cultural assimilation into white culture. By employing various creative strategies, Native Americans have attempted to cope with the changes stemming from the European colonial movement into the Americas. There are fundamental differences in world views and cultural and social orders between Indians and Europeans, which contributed to conservatism in Native American cultures. In this paper, two aspects of such cultural and institutional differences of Native American societies will be examined: holistic Native American beliefs versus dualistic world views and harmony versus domination. These two aspects are important in terms of explaining changes (or lack thereof) in
When Europeans first set foot upon the shores of what is now the United States they brought with them a social structure which was fundamentally based around their concept and understanding of Western European Christianity. That the indigenous peoples might already have a thriving civilization, including religious beliefs and practices, that closely paralleled the beliefs and practices of European civilization, was a concept not considered by these early explorers and settlers. This European lack of cultural understanding created tensions, between Native Americans and Europeans, and later between Native Americans and Euro-Americans, that eventually erupted into open warfare and resulted in great bloodshed between cultures. For the Lakota
“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.