The Cultural And Racial Unity Of All Indigenous People

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.

After the people of Mexico freed themselves from Spanish control, they faced difficulties trying to officially establish themselves as a country. Despite their independence, Mexico had to also live with the aftermath of Spanish colonialism. Part of the aftermath included socio-political issues amongst the Mexican people. In an effort to establish themselves as a nation, they first had to free themselves from a Spanish ideology, for Mexico truly was not free after their independence. The socio-political predicaments contribute to the evolution of modern day Mexico.

Beginning in the sixteenth century, Europeans made the voyage to a “new world” in order to achieve dreams of opportunity and riches. In this other world the Europeans came upon another people, which naturally led to a cultural exchange between different groups of people. Although we commonly refer to European and Indian relations as being between just two very different groups of people, it is important to recognize this is not entirely true. Although the settlers of the new world are singularly referred to as Europeans, each group of people came from a different nation and with different motives and expectations of the new world. Similarly, the Indians were neither a united group nor necessarily friendly with each other. Due to the

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.

During the sixteenth century European pilgrims migrated across the Atlantic Ocean to settle in North America. North America had just been introduced to the Western Civilization. The America’s were home to the indigenous people, that were made up of several tribes that were called Indians by the early settlers. Together the Indians and settlers began to thrive. Growth and development in the new world was made possible by the abundant amount of natural resources.

II. Thesis Statement: Mexico is an interesting country, with many different and people and customs, as well as major problems.

No written history means much of Native American history is unknown, causing misconceptions and stereotypes about Native Americans to exist. Royal also discusses the name of this group that people label today as “Native Americans.” He questions, “ ‘America’ was a name formed in the wake of another Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci. It is difficult to see how being named after an Italian is less Eurocentric than being named after an East Native American” (Royal 46). The discussion about their name shows Europe’s influence on the Americas; it also shows that Native Americans yearn for their own identity without Europe’s input.

The migration of European settlers and culture to North America is an often examined area. One aspect of this, however, is worthy of deeper analysis. The conquest of North America by Europeans and American settlers from the 16th to 19th centuries had a profound effect on the indigenous political landscape by defining a new relationship dynamic between natives and settlers, by upsetting existing native political, economic and military structures, and by establishing a paradigm where the indigenous peoples felt they had to resist the European and American incursions. The engaging and brilliant works of Andres Rensendez and Steve Inskeep, entitled respectively “A Land So Strange” and “Jacksonland”, provide excellent insights and aide to this analysis.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed west and found himself on the shores of a new world. His mission was to secure new land for Spain. Other European countries heard of his findings, they too crossed the ocean in hopes of securing new opportunities in this newly discovered land such as fur trading and gold mining. Little did they know that a community of indigenous people had already settled in this land thousands of years before. The Europeans decided to negotiate with the natives in order to set up their own communities in the land but the Native Americans held beliefs about society and religion that were far different from their European peers. Europeans thought the Indians to be “Noble Savages, gentle and friendly, but uncivilized, brutal, and barbaric” (citation). They could not see past their own

"the justification of expansion and the subsequent exclusion of "foreign" Mexicans from the way the national community was imagined." (Oboler, 43).

In the Shadow of the Mexican Revolution by Hector Aquilar Camin and Lorenzo Meyer tells a chronological story of contemporary Mexico from the fall of Porfirio Diaz in 1910 to the July elections in 1989. The time period that Camin and Meyer portray in Mexico is one of corruption, civil war, and failure. While Mexico would undergo an era described as the “Mexican Miracle” where the Mexican country would begin to see a positive output in the country, it would be short-lived and Mexico would continue to fall behind as other countries progressed. While In the Shadow of the Mexican Revolution is comprised of facts throughout history, one cannot help but feel a sense of sympathy for Mexico. While their corruption, political, and economical,

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.

The Black Legend and White Legend: Relationship Between the Spanish and Indians in the New World

The prevailing attitude of white supremacy was the justification Americans used to “rescue the wilderness from backwardness, indolence, and disorder”(De Leon 65). Mexico in its earliest days was primarily Indian, but the infusion of both Spanish and black blood made it harder to define Mexicans. White Anglo-Americans believed “their contrast to ‘white’ and salient kindred to ‘black’ and ‘red’ made Mexicans subject to treatment commensurate with the odious connotations whites attached to colors, races, and cultures dissimilar to their own” (De Leon 6).