The United States And America

Between 1492-1776, although many people moved to the “New World”, North America lost population due to the amount of Indians dying from war and diseases and the inability of colonists to replace them. John Murrin states, “losers far outnumbered winners” in “ a tragedy of such huge proportions that no one’s imagination can easily encompass it all.” This thought of a decreasing population broadens one’s perspective of history from that of an excluded American tale full of positivity to that of a more unbiased, all-encompassing analysis. The Indians and slaves have recently been noted as a more crucial part of history than previously accredited with.

In 2007, the Jamestown settlement celebrated its 400th anniversary. The governing body of Virginia, the Virginia General Assembly, held a session there, a parade was held, and even Dick Cheney and Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom attended a ceremony honoring the historic site where English settlers would first find a permanent home in the future United States (Lessig and Payne, 2007). Looking backward, it seemed almost inevitable that the settling of Jamestown was the beginning of the United States as it’s known today.

American history is in a process of continuous change when it comes to ideas, infrastructure, and of course, land. While many argue against the idea of the detrimental effects environmental destruction, numerous events in history have known to show otherwise such as in the Columbian Exchange, the Industrial Revolution, and Westward migration.

Upon the European’s discovery and colonization of the Americas an irreversible transformation was triggered. The extreme differences in the cultures of the Europeans and Native Americans would prove to be fatal to the way of life that existed before European colonization.

The Enlightened Archaeologist – an article authored by Jeffrey Hantman and Gary Dunham chronicles Thomas Jefferson’s investigation of the Indian burial mound located on the South Fork of the Rivanna River in the 18th century. The site excavated by Jefferson, however, is no longer visible, most likely due to dissipation by inevitable natural occurrences (I.E. excessive rainfall, flooding rivers, etc.) or human activity such as farming. The “Father of American Archaeology” correctly predicts the latter in his book, Notes on the State of Virginia, in which he states, mounds “…put under cultivation are much reduced in their height, and spread in width, by the plough, and will probably disappear in time” (1787). Fortunately for Archaeologists of the late 20th century (1988) an Indian burial mound identical to that of the one Jefferson described in his book was uncovered just 14 miles from the South Fork of the Rivanna River.

The ^American Spirit United States History as Seen by Contemporaries Ninth Edition Volume I: To 1877 Houghton Mifflin Company Boston New YorkContents 1 2 Preface xxi New World Beginnings, 33,000 B.C.-A.D.1769 1 A. The Native Americans 1 1. Visualizing the New World (1505, 1509) 1 2. Juan Gines de Sepulveda Belittles the Indians (1547) 3 3.

“Here, at last, we begin to appreciate the enormity of the calamity, for the disintegration of native America was a loss not just to those societies but to the human enterprise as a whole. . . . The Americas were a boundless sea of novel ideas, dreams, stories, philosophies, religions, moralities, discoveries, and all the other products of the mind”(137).

Additionally, because of America’s “errand,” there was a cultural and physical transformation of the natural terrain. Land clearing, creation of railroads, cultivating of monocultures, and centralized capital all increased to promote the America’s economic prosperity. They did not want the land to go to waste.

Within the nineteenth century, many Americans saw Native Americans as heathens that occupied land. These people saw the land as theirs because of how they fought to become independent. They also claimed that the Native Americans did not claim land or have a concept of property. Others understood that it was wrong to take the land forcefully. These people understood the land was not rightfully theirs for the taking. It is also perceived that all Americans disliked Native Americans. When in fact there were people who sympathized the natives. They wanted to live in peace and not war. Although, they still believed Indians were below them and had ideas of reserves. Looking at history,

Imagine waking up one day to the sunlight squeezing through a fifty story building into your New York apartment. Now, imagine waking up to the uncertainty of where your next meal will come from. These two distinct scenarios represent modern day American and historic America inhabited by Native American Indians. Bob Haozous plays on these two scenarios in an art installation that portrays two sides of American history. The left is depicted through three hunter-gatherers with tools and performing cultural rituals. The right side is depicted through tall buildings and symbols that represent American culture. This paper will analyze the social histories, national histories, and religious histories present in Haozous’ “The Cultural Crossroads of the Americas” in order to evaluate its effectiveness in conveying a past-present dialectic.

Throughout history there have been ebbs and flows identified within all facets of human history, and the Native American mound-builders were no different. The mound-building peoples of the Eastern United States (U.S.) along with the Aztec’s, Mayan and the Inca were revolutionary economists, farmers and communal architects. Before the Europeans came in contact with the mound-building tribes in the 1500’s, a thriving nation was had developed into an economic powerhouse and maintain its position of power and commerce for a few hundred years. We would be remiss to not preserve the archeological remnants of the Adena, Hopewellian and later the Mississippians. Each of the many built mounds holds unique facts and details to how the nation thrived and developed over several centuries.

Unsurprisingly, many historic cultures have not been accurately studied in modernity. Due to personal biases, incomplete data, or a multitude of other issues, incorrect perceptions about these collapsed societies remain. However, modern studies are beginning to reveal the inaccuracies of those enduring, false notions. It is valuable to compare misunderstandings to the historic reality in addition to discovering why the past happened as it did. Although newer, more factual information will not erase long-taught misconceptions about collapsed societies like Jamestown, El Dorado, or the Norse Greenlanders, it provides the chance to better understand historic events in an effort to help guide decisions that could affect the near and distant future.

The later half of the 1800’s brought some of most cataclysmic times in America’s history. The eastern half of America was in a great war that sparked the beginning of a rebellious overtaking of the entire country. The American Civil War was a major past time that has always underlined the late 1800’s with much death and ultimately the defeat of the South by the North. During this time, the western part of America was still inhabited by many native Indian tribes that had lived in peace for many of years. After the civil war, expansion westward became the principal goal in the eyes of the “white man”. The expansion caused a new civil war within America, this time involving the East battling the West.

When looking at the history between the United States and Latin America, you see many interactions between them, all that aided the relationship that they have today. Despite that the United States and Latin America are in the same part of the world, the beliefs in which they govern may differ. This difference has often been seen playing a major role in the disputes that have occurred in past. The United States and Latin America have faced many social, economical and governing barriers in forming a strong and positive relationship in the early twentieth century, this is due to the differences that the two had between cultures and the constant demand for power. However, the two countries have found ways to meet in the middle of their cultural differences, to form an equally fair relationship.

Since the day when the fleet of Columbus sailed into the waters of the New World, America has been another name for opportunity, and the people of the United States have taken their tone from the incessant expansion which has not only been open but has even been forced upon them. (100)