Indian Givers How the Indians of the Americas transformed the world This paper tries to explain Jack Weatherford's Indian Givers by examining the history of the Native American connection to many agricultural products would not have been produced without the knowledge that Indians gave. Weatherford further stipulates that it is through these advances in agriculture that the United States has remained a strong contender in the global market, that without the influences of the Native Americans on the early settlers those early immigrants to America would not have survived. Through his work, "Indian Givers: How Indians of the Americas Transformed the World", Weatherford brings an insight to a people that most individuals have been neglected to consider. The paper concludes that it is Weatherford's purpose to demonstrate that Native Americans have been a misrepresented and forgotten people when the history of North America is discussed. This book is complete with some facts, unfounded assumptions, explores Native American gifts to the World and gives that information credence which really happened yet was covered up and even lied about by Euro-centric historians who have never given the Indians credit for any great cultural achievement. From silver and money capitalism to piracy, slavery and the birth of corporations, the food revolution, agricultural technology, the culinary revolution, drugs, architecture and urban planning our debt to the indigenous peoples of America is tremendous. With indigenous populations mining the gold and silver made capitalism possible. Working in the mines and mints and in the plantations with the African slaves, they started the industrial revolution that then spread to Europe and on around the world. They supplied the cotton, rubber, dyes, and related chemicals that fed this new system of production. They domesticated and developed the hundreds of varieties of corn, potatoes, cassava, and peanuts that now feed much of the world. They discovered the curative powers of quinine, the anesthetizing ability of coca, and the potency of a thousand other drugs with made possible modern medicine and pharmacology. The drugs together with their improved agriculture made possible the population explosion of the last several centuries. They developed and refined a form of democracy that has been haphazardly and inadequately adopted in many parts of the world. They were the true colonizers of America who cut the trails through the jungles and deserts, made the roads, and built the cities upon which modern America is based.
The English took their land and disrupted their traditional systems of trade and agriculture. As a result, the power of native religious leaders was corrupted. The Indians we...
In the fourth chapter titled “Native Reactions to the invasion of America” in the book, “Beyond 1492: Encounters in Colonial North America, the author James Axtell shares with us an essay he wrote and shared at a conference at Vanderbilt University. Historical accounts are followed beginning at the arrival of explorers and settlers until the 1700’s with various Native tribes in North America. Axtell’s goal is to educate us on the multitude of ways Native Americas reacted during various periods of colonization, and the various methods that the Native Americans perished. Axtell also educates us in his essay on the ways that Native Americans tried to ultimately prevent their extinction at any cost.
The article, “Native Reactions to the invasion of America”, is written by a well-known historian, James Axtell to inform the readers about the tragedy that took place in the Native American history. All through the article, Axtell summarizes the life of the Native Americans after Columbus acquainted America to the world. Axtell launches his essay by pointing out how Christopher Columbus’s image changed in the eyes of the public over the past century. In 1892, Columbus’s work and admirations overshadowed the tears and sorrows of the Native Americans. However, in 1992, Columbus’s undeserved limelight shifted to the Native Americans when the society rediscovered the history’s unheard voices and became much more evident about the horrific tragedy of the Natives Indians.
The process of assimilation, as it regards to the Native Americans, into European American society took a dreaded and long nearly 300 years. Initially, when the European’s came to the hopeful and promising land of the “New World”, they had no desire or reason anything but minimal contact with the Indians. However, starting in the 1700s the European colonists population skyrocketed. The need for more resources became evident and the colonists knew they could attain these necessities by creating a relationship of mutual benefit with the Native tribes. The Indians, at first skeptical, however became growingly open to the colonists and the relationship they were looking to attain. Indian furs were traded for colonial goods and military alliances were formed.
Greed is a large part of the American culture whether we realize it as a society or not. Many countries around the world view the United States as a selfish country that does what it wants on a global scale, and does not share or allocate its predominate wealth. I am very thankful and proud to be a citizen of this country. Even though I would risk my life to protect our country and its freedom, there are aspects about our civilization that I wish could be different. Black Elk, “a holy man and a warrior of the Lakota Nation Indians,” was a member of the Oglala Sioux tribe during the most horrific period for Native Americans in the Western part of the United States. In excerpts from the novel of his life story Black Elk Speaks, he is able to relate the differences in the ways of life from his people and the white settlers. Although he lived in the late 1800s, he is able to make reference to issues that are relevant to us today. His observations display issues such as human bonds, ethics, economics, and politics. He describes how the excessive acquisitiveness of one society led to the cultural displacement of another.
The author starts the chapter by briefly introducing the source in which this chapter is based. He makes the introduction about the essay he wrote for the conference given in at Vanderbilt University. This essay is based about the events and problems both Native Americans and Europeans had to encounter and lived since the discovery of America.
Talking Back to Civilization , edited by Frederick E. Hoxie, is a compilation of excerpts from speeches, articles, and texts written by various American Indian authors and scholars from the 1890s to the 1920s. As a whole, the pieces provide a rough testimony of the American Indian during a period when conflict over land and resources, cultural stereotypes, and national policies caused tensions between Native American Indians and Euro-American reformers. This paper will attempt to sum up the plight of the American Indian during this period in American history.
Through Laws, treaties and proclamations it becomes clear of the transfer of power between Native Americas and colonizing powers within the US and Canada. One significant treaty was Treaty NO. 9 in which Native Americans gave up their aboriginal title and land for money, hunting right, entrance into the christian school system and a Canadian flag presented to the Chief. The treaties described define the cascading effect of how western powers came into control of land at which Native Americans resided in. Specifically converging on the using Native Americans “elites” to influence other Native Americans into adopting western cultural beliefs, overshadowing the diverse Native American cultural practices. The overshadowing and belittling of Native American culture is not only expressed through the several treaties presented to Native Americans across history but also through real life accounts of Native American children adopted into the western school system. This sections places into the prospective the monopolization of Native American land and
In his essay, “The Indians’ Old World,” Neal Salisbury examined a recent shift in the telling of Native American history in North America. Until recently, much of American history, as it pertains to Native Americans; either focused on the decimation of their societies or excluded them completely from the discussion (Salisbury 25). Salisbury also contends that American history did not simply begin with the arrival of Europeans. This event was an episode of a long path towards America’s development (Salisbury 25). In pre-colonial America, Native Americans were not primitive savages, rather a developing people that possessed extraordinary skill in agriculture, hunting, and building and exhibited elaborate cultural and religious structures.
Native American’s place in United States history is not as simple as the story of innocent peace loving people forced off their lands by racist white Americans in a never-ending quest to quench their thirst for more land. Accordingly, attempts to simplify the indigenous experience to nothing more than victims of white aggression during the colonial period, and beyond, does an injustice to Native American history. As a result, historians hoping to shed light on the true history of native people during this period have brought new perceptive to the role Indians played in their own history. Consequently, the theme of power and whom controlled it over the course of Native American/European contact is being presented in new ways. Examining the evolving
In the 1880’s, it was thought that common stewardship of land was one of the biggest obstacles to cultural assimilation for the Native Americans. This sentiment lead to the creation
The circumstances the Native American people endured clarify their current issues. American Indians have poor education and a high percent are unemployed when equated to “U.S. all races” (Spector, 2009, p. 205). Many American Indians still live on reservations and work as a
In Thomas King’s novel, The Inconvenient Indian, the story of North America’s history is discussed from his original viewpoint and perspective. In his first chapter, “Forgetting Columbus,” he voices his opinion about how he feel towards the way white people have told America’s history and portraying it as an adventurous tale of triumph, strength and freedom. King hunts down the evidence needed to reveal more facts on the controversial relationship between the whites and natives and how it has affected the culture of Americans. Mainly untangling the confusion between the idea of Native Americans being savages and whites constantly reigning in glory. He exposes the truth about how Native Americans were treated and how their actual stories were
Josephy, Alvin M. The Indian Heritage of America. New York, 1968. Pp. 53, 116. _________. Through Indian Eyes. New York, 1995, Pp. 330-332, 383.
American colonialism (Wendell Berry describes American’s self-indulgence in this way) perceives something it wants behind something that is nearly perfect in form, and while perfect in form, it is viewed as an obstacle. American colonialism, thus, destroys it in pursuit of what it craves, and uses it to promote its self and autonomous value. With no regard for creation, American colonialism converts “productive farm, forest, and grazing lands into strip mines” and rips apart the cohesive and organized tribal nations that stand in way of industry and economy, gold and precious metal