The Causes For The Decline Of Native Americans Throughout History

From David Jones’ point of view, it is important to note that these epidemics were just some of the causes of population decline during European contact. Poverty, environmental stress, massacres, dislocation, malnutrition, and destruction of traditional subsistence patterns also changed the composition of many Native American groups. Eventually, these changes caused substantial depopulation and cultural change. Jones agrees that disease carried a decisive role; however, he argues that it is not the key factor in their depopulation. “Many factors contributed to American Indian susceptibility to Old World diseases, including lack of childhood exposure, malnutrition, and the social chaos generated by European colonization” (Jones 34).

The Native American’s were the first known settlers in North America, ten thousand years before Columbus came to the continent. Their origins completely unclear, anthropologists believe there were three to five million Native Americans in North America in the year 1492 (Hoxie and Iverson, 1997). As early as the Revolutionary War in 1775, European settlers started taking note of the Native Americans. Unfortunately, the Native American population plunged significantly in the first decades after their first contact with Europeans. Native Americans were now unprotected and exposed to deadly diseases like smallpox, influenza, and measles which did not previously exist in their society (North American Natives, 2016).

Native American’s greeted the new colonists in a friendly, welcoming manner from the start. The new colonists considered this a sign of weakness, stating how easy it would be to dominate the native people. When Columbus arrived, there were 12-15 million Native Americans in the Americas, in 1890 there was under 250,000, with 98% of the population gone. With the belief in Manifest Destiny, the colonists forced the Native American’s off their own land, farther and farther from where they originated from, and eventually onto reservations, removing them from their way of life and their culture. During the transition from their homeland to reservations, many of the Native American’s died due to disease, cold, hunger, and the hardships of travel. Along with the annexation, the colonists demanded assimilation.

However, the Native Americans didn’t just use these resources they garnered solely for food - they used the resources in several aspects of their lives, specifically for health. The Native Americans were dependant on the use of plants and other resources found in nature to use for curatives. Historians often attest that these curatives were far superior to the ones that Europeans used, and thus the span of life for Native Americans was often longer than that of the European people (The People). However, upon Native American and European contact, the Europeans introduced new, foreign diseases that were deadly because the Native Americans had never been exposed to these diseases, and thus did not have natural immunities to them. This was the same for other infectious diseases introduced to the Europeans, namely syphilis. Although, the amount of Europeans affected by syphilis was not even near the amount of Native Americans killed by some of the European diseases brought over in the Columbian exchange. Bartolomé de Las Casas commented on the epidemic of European viruses that killed thousands of Native Americans: “Who of those in

The colonization of the Americas began in the year of 1492, when Christopher Columbus and his band of explorers arrived off the coast of the Bahamas. This new “discovery” for Europe would have drastic effects not only on the settlers themselves, but on the natives and their environment. It is without a doubt that the appearance of these explorers placed the Indians on a dangerous trajectory. Now, it is currently understood how the colonization of the American continent brought disease, war and ultimately death for many of the natives. Early exploration, conquest and settlement brought about new economies for the Europeans, new religious freedoms, and knowledge of the world and of exploration, producing great benefits for the colonists. Although the settlers did face risks and sometimes death during their conquest, they undoubtedly benefitted from this expansion. The Indians, however, were dealt a different hand. The culture that they had developed and the immense civilizations that had evolved were ultimately destroyed as the spread of epidemics, constant war, and brutal exploitation brought these prosperous and hospitable peoples to their knees.

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.

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

Since the arrival of the Europeans in 1492 the Native American has systematically been dehumanized, decivilized and redefined into terms that typify a subordinate or minority role, restricted life opportunities persist today as a result.

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..

Hundreds of thousands of natives during the Conquest period died from epidemics because of a lack of medical knowledge, not because colonists decided to use disease to kill natives. Native responses to disease, such as sweat lodges, worsened disease mortality rates. Spanish physicians first arrived in the New World during Columbus’ second voyage. However, inadequate opportunities for formal medical instruction and the lack of medical knowledge at the time meant that physicians were unable to help prevent the spread of disease in native communities. Although colonists benefited from epidemics, they did not intentionally spread disease to kill natives and destroy native

The American government and society has played a substantial role in the decline of both the Native American and Inupiat culture. They created inhumane boarding schools and oppressing laws that inhibited those of a different culture from being themselves and partook in the urbanization of cultured communities. The following practices need to be stopped and never forgotten so that such ethnocide doesn't happen again.

For more than 300 years, since the days of Christopher Columbus and the Spanish Government, an attempt of genocide of the Native American Indian has existed. From mass brutal murders and destruction by Spanish and American armies, to self-annihilation through suicide, homicide, and alcohol induced deaths brought about because of failed internal colonialism and white racial framing. Early Explores used Indigenous inhabitants upon first arriving to the America’s to survive the New World and once they adapted, internal colonialism began with attempts to convert the Indians to Christianity, repressing their values and way of life, forcing them into slavery, and nearly exterminating an entire culture from existence.

And death is something that ran rampant through the native population. The Indians were not able to combat these new afflictions because they were new to their systems. Small pox, whooping cough, chicken pox, scarlet fever, influenza and many more had long been around in Europe and the colonists had developed resistance to most of them. (Crosby, 198)

Since the Europeans set foot on North American soil in 1620,they have had a devastating effect on the native population. I will be discussing the long term effect of North American colonisation on the Native Americans, focusing on such issues as employment opportunities, the environment, culture and traditions, health, as well as social justice.

Germs have shaped human life in many dramatic ways. Around 9,000 B.C., humans became farmers. Because of close contact with farm animals, the number of human diseases exploded. Measles come from dogs, flu comes from pigs, anthrax from sheep, and tuberculosis from cows. People in tight knit farm communities spread these illnesses easily. Around 1347, the Black Death spread from Asia to Africa and Europe. Within five years it killed at least one third of all Europeans. In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in the new world. His crew and later arrivals brought diseases such as Small pox with them. Native Americans had no immunity, and between 50 and 90