Native American Culture Summary

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Recommended: Long-term effects of colonialism on Native Americans

Raj Chandra Mrs.Reynolds AP U.S. History-5 September 19, 2016 Colonization: The Destruction Of An Advanced Society Salisbury, Neal. The Indians’ Old World: Native Americans and the Coming of Europeans. N.p.: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1996. Print. Source: The William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Series, Volume 53, No.3 As we continue to learn more about Native American societies, we are presented with new and profound questions that challenge what we know about their societies and culture before the colonial period. For hundreds of years, Native Americans have been portrayed as savages versus civilized Europeans, but we now begin to challenge the validity of these ideas. Neil Salisbury, a professor of history at …show more content…

Providing a profound perspective on Native American life, the article contains extremely specific facts, naming specific peoples and their characteristics many people have no knowledge about. Salisbury’s argument in the essay is well thought out and conveyed across the overwhelming amounts of evidence, but in turn loses focus in some areas and draws long on certain topics rather than keeping his explanations concise and well focused. The article also lacks explanation on Native American religion and gender relations; two very important aspects of Native American culture need to fully understand their society. Although this may be true, the article makes excellent connections to how Europeans were not the start of American history, elaborating on examples of Europeans adopting Indian culture and even building peaceful relations with the Indians. Presented with all this evidence revealing how advanced Indian societies were, it brings one to ponder on what would America look like today if Europeans had never interfered with the natives or never found America? One can only speculate as to whether Indian tribes may have grown into nations with great cities and reaching the level of technology the Eurasian continent possessed. Could Europeans and Native Americans lived in harmony if European ideas and beliefs were accepting of the natives, building a society in harmony as they did in the early stages of colonization but eventually dissipated? The article raises these questions, challenging historians to understand more about Indian life pre-Columbian era as well as the changes in their culture after first contact, rather than ignorance of the subject. Salisbury surfaces factual information that is parallel to textbooks,

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