The majority of us Americans know some basic things about how our nation came to be. We came from our mother country, Europe, and took over the native’s land. However, did the Native Americans have a fighting chance against the English? From the time when the Europeans first met the Native Americans, to the time after the American Revolution, the Native Americans had to endure inhumane pain and suffering. According to my resources, the original population of Native Americans was over 10 million during the 15th century. Surely over millions of people should be able to defend themselves from outside invaders. However, that wasn’t possible for them. By 1900, only 300,000 of the population remain. Around the time the Natives encountered the Europeans, they suffered from diseases and bloodshed. Later on they were forced by the Spaniards to convert a new religion, Christianity. The outbreak of diseases ravages through the Native population. Due to geographic regions and limitation, the Natives never from such a strong illness such as smallpox, measles and the black plague. Some of the European colonies gave the Natives diseased infested animals and clothing. The English and the Natives did cooperate with each due to it being in the best of their interests. Their mutual trust would later erode due to the English going back to their old habits and started to steal from the Natives. In 1540, the Tiwa tribe offered hospitality and peace with the Spaniards. During the harsh winter, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado demanded and threaten the Tiwa tribe from clothing, including the clothing on their backs. The Tiwa tribe fled and killed the Spaniard’s horses. The Spaniards would have their revenge in the Tiguex War which lasted from 1540 to 154... ... middle of paper ... ...The Natives did have a chance didn’t have a chance to defend their lands. Their chances of keeping their heritage become slimmer and slimmer within each decade. When the English and the Spanish first arrive, the Native that were there at time could hold the outsiders off for a limited amount of time. The tribes weren’t completely united. If all of the tribes acted as one single force, the Natives would had a better chance. The many Native rebellions show that they had the motivation ,and at some points of time, to take back their land. The Native Americans also learned to use guns and had great strategic plans. However, by the time they were somewhat united, the enemy was either equal in manpower or completely overshadowed the Natives forces. Due to the forced moves, the deadly illness, and lack of unity, the Natives didn’t have a good chance of defending their land.
The introduction nearly killed the entire population. Diseases like the smallpox, measles, chickenpox, influenza, and many others have helped to the extinction of almost half of the languages known today. When Europeans settled in the Native American land, the quickly tried to acculturate them by taking their land, fighting them for land, and later using reservations to almost incarcerate them for the outside world because they did not want to live like the white man. Native Americans did not like the way they were treated. Every generation that passes, there will be fewer and fewer Native Americans around the Americas.
In 1680 the majority of the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico staged a revolt against the Spanish. On the whole the Tigua did not join the revolt. Some believe this is an indication that the Tigua were loyal to the cross and to Spain. This is not entirely accurate. As the southernmost pueblo, location probably had more to do with the fate of the Tigua then anything. The news of this revolt led by an Indian named Pope had...
Document 4 explains how the system was to work, “the Indians should work on the Christians’ building, mind the gold, till the fields, and produce food for the Christian’s.” This system benefited the Europeans immensely. On the other hand, many Native’s working were treated very poorly and faced brutal punishment and labor. The enslavement of Native people was another cause of the great decrease in population. The disappearance of Native people leads to the disappearance of their customs, beliefs, and way of life.
Beginning in the fifteenth century with the arrival of Columbus, natives of the Americas were infected with European diseases that proved to be deadly to the Indians. The population in northern Mexico suffered an immense decimation of 2,500,000 peoples to less than 320,000 by the end of the sixteenth century (Vargas, 30). The Spaniards’ cruel treatment of the natives aided this vast reduction in the Aztec and Mexican population, enabling the Spaniards to conquer the lands of the Aztecs and other native tribes. By the end of the sixteenth century, the Spaniards had expanded their conquests into the southwest region of what is now known as the United States of America.
“ [They] spent most of the conquest and colonial periods reacting and responding to the European strangers and invaders” (99). Both sides were different in many ways; Their communication, transportation, culture, and the way they survived differentiate the Europeans from the Native Americans. They both acted as wisely as they could when this encounters began after the discovery. “[Tribes] worked mightily and often cleverly to maximize their political sovereignty, cultural autonomy, territorial integrity, power of self identification, and physical nobility” (100). The Europeans were stronger, had better technology, better weapons, and had plenty of experience fighting people like the Native Americans. They could have easily conquer them , but they had a problem of resources, reinforcements and survival. Native American were many but they lacked the knowledge and experience of war and evolution. Europeans were technologically evolved and were experienced at fighting wars, but they ...
Prior to the fall of 1940, Native Americans had never faced any significant effects of a military draft prior or during a U.S war. This was because before 1924, not all Native Americans were citizens of the United States. During the years of the first World War, it is estimated that as much as half of the Native American population in the U.S were not citizens (Bernstein, 22). Even so, many Native Americans still saw action during this conflict which later help influence the passing of the Citizenship Act that granted “blanket” citizenship to all Indians born in the United States (Bernstein, 22). This act played a huge role at the start of the 1940’s when the United States started militarizing large amounts of their citizens. After the passing
The Spanish and English were also very different because of the timing of the interaction with the indigenous people. The Spanish had come to the Americas in 1492. This was one of the first main interactions between non native people for the Indians. The Spanish believed that if the Natives were not Catholic then the Natives were to be tortured or killed. In result of this treatment of the Indians the population had dropped from about three million to roughly sixty thousand. This had then lead to a difference in the interaction of the Indians with the English. The English had come to the Americas in 1607 about one hundred years after the Spanish. This changed the interaction because since it was years later there was not as many Indians to interact with the English. The English had not felt threatened by the Indians and thus treated them poorly. The English had also brought in diseases such as bubonic plague, chicken pox, pneumonic plague, cholera, diphtheria, influenza, measles, scarlet fever, smallpox, typhus, tuberculosis, and whooping
Considering historical evidence, the notion: Native –Americans was not the first inhabitant of America is a complete false. For centuries, history kept accurate and vivid accounts of the first set of people who domiciled the western hemisphere. Judging by those records, below are the first set of Native-American people who inhabited America before the arrival of another human race; the Iroquois: The Iroquois of Native Americans was one of the tribes that lived in America before other people came. Based on historical evidence, it is believed that the Native Americans came from Asia way back during the Ice Age through a land bridge of the Bering Strait. When the Europeans first set foot in America, there were about 10 million Native Americans
America was expanding at such a rapid pace that those who were in America before us had no time to anticipate what was happening. This change in lifestyle affected not only Americans, but everyone who lived in the land. Changing traditions, the get rich quick idea and other things were the leading causes of westward expansion. But whatever happened to those who were caught in the middle, those who were here before us? One of those many who roamed the land before Americans decided that they owned it were the Native Americans.
In the past, many things have influenced me of how the Native Americans had to survive. For instance, some types of material that helped me realize just what the Native Americans had to endure in order to survive were history classes, books, the Internet, movies, television shows, and this article. In Black Elk’s article, the account of Custer’s Last Stand only reinsured my views. Black Elk explains some of the suffering and how the Native Americans had to search for a new location constantly. Black Elk also shows that the military drove the Native Americans out of their homelands, and how badly the Native Americans were treated.
The Native Americans were given some laws of protection, however, by this point many Spaniards looked at Native Americans as vile human beings and mistreated them as a social normalcy. Many native Americans died from overwork, and harsh living conditions given to them by the Spaniards. Native Americans introduced the Spaniards and settlers to different types of crops. It is the reason Spaniards had them harvest their farms, to make sure their crops flourished. Spaniards didn’t know how to care for the crops like the Native Americans so they forced them to under violence and deaths. The reason Spaniards were able to defeat native tribes, and force them to work for their own personal greed was due to their using more advanced techniques like the gun Native Americans had already been weakened by being exposed to smallpox so having the guns only made the Spaniards more powerful and dominate over them. Native Americans tried to attacked greatly, but they were outnumbered by Spaniards and settlers. Though there was a point where Native Americans allied with Britain or France during the times of their wars, though the British and French troops turned on them and killed the Native Americans when they wars were done. This led to a huge shortage of Native Americans, and so workers had to be looked for elsewhere. They found in the African culture their new
Through all stages, a conflict existed between the Indigenous peoples and the United States. Under the illusion of forging a new democracy, free of hierarchies and European monarchies, the United States used the plantation labor of enslaved Africans and dispossessed massive numbers of Native peoples from their lands and cultures to conquer this land.15 Many Americans continue to experience the social, political, cultural and economic inequalities that remain in our Nation
Native Americans had inherited the land now called America and eventually their lives were destroyed due to European Colonization. When the Europeans arrived and settled, they changed the Native American way of life for the worst. These changes were caused by a number of factors including disease, loss of land, attempts to export religion, and laws, which violated Native American culture.
When the shape of America first started to grow from just land to the 13 colonies to the westward expansion of our country in less than a century, it sure feels like hopes and dreams came true. Though it might have seemed like an easier task, it took luck, labor, and intense warfare. The long process of American territorial expansion was justified by a mid-century ideology known as Manifest Destiny (pg 1). The one people we seem to forget about when we discuss the growing settlement of our country are the Native Americans. They had inhabited the country long before Columbus had discovered America, and still play an important part in today’s society. Manifest Destiny justified the displacement and domestication of Native Americans all while
Native Americans lived on the land that is now called America, but when white settlers started to take over the land, many lives of Native Americans were lost. Today, many people believe that the things that have been done and are being done right now, is an honor or an insult to the Natives. The choices that were made and being made were an insult to the Native Americans that live and used to live on this land, by being insulted by land policies, boardings schools and modern issues, all in which contain mistreatment of the Natives. The power that the settlers and the people who governed them had, overcame the power of the Natives so the settlers took advantage and changed the Natives way of life to the