The Last Of The Mohicans

Europeans had different ideologies than indigenous peoples when it came to land in terms of who could own the land. As a result of European entitlement, they assumed that the land was available to be taken. The process of removing indigenous people from their land began, and the settlers were justifying it by suggesting that is was not necessarily “stealing” land, but rather it was “saving” the land from being misused by the savages that lived there previously (Sahlins 19). Mindsets such as these finalized the traumatic process of Native American invisibility as they were forced out of their land and their homes.

There are many reasons that the Europeans and the Native Americans didn’t get along. In the works that I have examined and read throughout this module, the relationship amongst these two groups had not been a good one from the beginning. The main reason for conflict between the Europeans and the Native Americans, it seems, was the Europeans greed and desire for land and power.

The Europeans had became greedy and selfish. They had become reliant on the native Americans to do everything for them. They had made them do necessary tasks that they could have done themselves, but chose not too. They had made them carry them when they didn’t want to walk, feed them, fan them,carry their hammocks,etc. They had become conceited, thinking they were too “royal” to do anything for themselves. They had made the Native Americans slaves and servants to their every bidding no matter the circumstance. They had become puppets to the Europeans and they controlled the Natives and forced them to do whatever they wanted. They had made the Natives lose their dignity and sink so low by making them complete their every request. The Natives had been worn down and degraded to be known as nothing to the Europeans but servants and people who they could call to do something for them. Countless Natives had died because of what the Europeans had brought to them

One extreme change for the Indians was the arrival of Anglo-Europeans. Native peoples’ lives were changed at the blink of an eye while new ideas, practices and beliefs were shown to them. The arrival of the Europeans changed the way the Indians viewed their world and manipulated their resources. This new change could be viewed as positive as well as negative, for while some tribes entered into trade relations with the Anglos, others were used as slave labor and all were subject to disease brought on by the European newcomers. However, despite all the advantages and disadvantages, no other introduction changed the lives of the Indians more than firearms and horses. West outlines one of the most important evolutions for Native life and how it represented a new way to harness resources and gain power. In just a few chapters, we are able to see the great advancements the Indians made in hunting and trade due to these new technologies and how they allowed the Cheyennes to rise to a new purpose as the Called Out People.

When the first colonists landed in the territories of the new world, they encountered a people and a culture that no European before them had ever seen. As the first of the settlers attempted to survive in a truly foreign part of the world, their written accounts would soon become popular with those curious of this “new” world, and those who already lived and survived in this seemingly inhospitable environment, Native American Indian. Through these personal accounts, the Native Indian soon became cemented in the American narrative, playing an important role in much of the literature of the era. As one would expect though, the representation of the Native Americans and their relationship with European Americans varies in the written works of the people of the time, with the defining difference in these works being the motives behind the writing. These differences and similarities can be seen in two similar works from two rather different authors, John Smith, and Mary Rowlandson.

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.

The Seven Years’ War, also known as the French and Indian War in the colonies, was the beginning of outward conflict between the British and French over North American colonies. Most Europeans viewed the Indians as a means to get something they wanted; they were pawns during this struggle in North America. During the 18th century, there were many alliances and discord among the Indians and the Europeans. The demise of many alliances was the lack of trust and suspicions of betrayal. The Europeans were a dominating force in the French and Indian War affecting aspects of territory, trade, and government in North America.

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.

American history frequently centers on the issues of ethnic diversity and resource allocation. In the contemporary, we begin to see the experiences of the Native inhabitants of the Americas in contrast to European settlers and colonizers, is a prime example of this process in motion. When European settlers first arrived to the New World in the 15th century, firstly the Spanish, they brought with them a material cultural based upon an economic standard of resource exploitation, which in a sense was hostile to most of the Native peoples of the Americas. For instance, as Blackhawk notes that, Europeans built permanent settlements consisting of immovable structures, whereas many of the Great Basin peoples were semi-migratory in nature. Additionally, as Europeans claimed possession over the land, its resources, and began a process of territorial delimitation, Native peoples whose lives

The possesion of land has proved to greatly amplify and draw out several different stereotypes and conflicts between societies in the world 's history. From Many different accounts all over the world today there has always been a dispute over land. However other disputes shadow in that of the colonial New England settlers and the Native Americans, both virtually revolving their lives around this concept of land distribution. For the settlers it meant wealth and prosperity, for the natives it meant staying alive. William Cronon 's book, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, illustrates the differences between these two separate societies and describes what life was like during the period of exploration and settlement in the New World. There are several other facts or opinions that one could take away from this passage, but the three main points are differences in the Colonist and Native conceptions of property, as well as how cultural stereotypes and eventual conflict emerged from mutual understanding of the land and use of property by each group.

Beginning hundreds of years ago, Native Americans experienced an invasion. Perpetrated first by European explorers, then conquerors, and, finally, colonists, the first people to inhabit the Americas experienced a devastation of their land, culture, and dignity from people who hungered for their land and resources. Despite these tribulations, the Native American identity could never truly be destroyed. The novels Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown explore this truth by recounting the oppression of Native Americans and illustrating the incoming of the white man through the indigenous

It is also this depressing lost of Native Americans’ culture that has motivated them to never stop trying to return home. However, in the memory of the speaker’s dad, these Native Americans were just “swollen bellies of salmon coming back to a river that wasn’t there” (CR 123). Salmon have the nature of returning back to the place, where they were born in, to reproduce. Comparing the Native Americans to salmon, the author identifies the importance of their land to their nature. That is, losing the land is the same as losing their reproduction. Therefore, taking the land away for the modern developments, the western culture has ultimately become the nightmare for the Native Americans.

Between 1790 and 1920 it was a tough time for the Indians. During that period Native Americans were forced to convert to the European-American Culture. Their whole life changed, the way of living, religion, and especially their children’s future. It was wrong of Americans to convert natives into a different society that they saw fit and not letting them express their own culture and treating them as an unworthy society.

From the conflict in non-physical it leads to the conflict in physical aspect. To the Native Americans, land is something that they have to respect. On the contrast, the European considered land as a tool to enrich them. As a result, tribes lost massive amounts of land to the U. S. Government, for which they were often neither paid nor compensated. “By 1820, they had lost claim to over half of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Most Native Americans and some whites thought that the government's relations with Native Americans were marked by dishonesty, corruption, and deception. By 1838, almost all native villages in Michigan had been abandoned.”

today. The reader gets a taste of what the Native American culture is like, and this is often a very foreign subject. On page seven of Reservation Blues, the quote “Thomas thought about all the dreams that were murdered here, and the bones buried quickly just inches below the surface, all waiting to break through the foundations of those government houses built by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.” makes it obvious how the Natives are treated by the government. The government abuses them and cheats them and there is nothing that the Natives can do. The government begins to get into a situation where they appear to be messing with the Natives natural rights, and this is connected to racism. The quote “White people owned everything: food, houses, clothes, children. Television constantly reminded Thomas of all he never owned.” on page seventy makes the reader realize how much easier life is for white people. It is much more difficult for a Native to be successful than it is for a white person. Society is racist and not fair to the Natives. Once the Natives form their band and create their own success and this relates to identity