On Wednesday, February 15th, I was able to have the opportunity to listen to Andrew Lipman. Andrew Lipman is the author of The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast. In the novel, he explained the life of Native Americans living in New England and on the coast of Long Island. During this time, most individuals relied on trading natural resources. In order for profit for the resources, the colonists and Native Americans used wampum. Wampum was used as a sacred gift in Native American culture as a peace offering, funerals and marriages. Colonialists had an advantage towards using wampum. They used beads as a commodity for furs. Native Americans relied on canoes for transportation. Canoes can hold up to fifty people.
Baskets are made of feathers and beads. A cool fact is, The weapons by the Pomo people included spears, stone ball clubs, knives and bows, and arrows. The sharp points of their weapons and their tools were fashioned from Obsidian. They used spears and basket traps for fishing. For large animals, they used bow and arrows. For smaller animals they used nets. Also, the spears were made out of arrowheads. The history and details of the Stone Age weapons made and used by Native Americans are included in the various articles in this section which provide an opportunity to study the differences between the tribes of Native Americans. The Pomo who lived along the coast made rafts of driftwood bound with plant fibers. The Clear Lake Pomo made raft-like boats from bundles of tule reeds bound together with grape
When the Europeans first migrated to America, they didn’t know much about the ancestral background of the different types of the Indian tribes that were settled in Virginia and along the East Coast. Many of the Indian tribes became hostile towards the colonist because the colonists were interfering with their way of life. This lead the natives to attempt to destroy the frontier settlements. Many forts in this area were erected to protect the settlers and their families. One the historical land...
The rock salt, is easily one of the most used and consumed mineral in the average everyday life. From seasoning food to helping a sore throat, salt is used without the thought of its effects on many wars, cultures, government, religions, and the economy. Author Mark Kurlansky, informs the reader of the history of salt by taking them through different cultures and time periods in the book Salt: A World History. He touches on different areas around the world and how they used salt for their own needs. From being one of the most wanted rocks in the world, to easily being purchased at the supermarket, salt has gone through a long and tiring journey.
This particular document highlights Richard Pratt’s ideas and attitudes towards Native Americans. Essentially Pratt believed that keeping Natives on reservations is not doing them any good when it comes to assimilating them into American culture, and the only way to properly do so is to fully submerge them. Due to the fact that Native Americans are only “theoretically” learning about American culture on their reservations and not “feel[ing] the touch of it day after day” they were not becoming “true Americans” and living up to their true
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.
Many years before the Louisiana purchase was thought of, this land was owned by several Native American tribes which included men and woman. “Evidence shows they had extensive cultural and economic exchange networks with tribes around them, reaching as far south as Mexico, Central American and the Caribbean. Material goods were traded, as being language, technology, and recreational practices” (The Louisiana Purchase). The Native Americans were good people who were very humble, but unfortunately “they were overwhelmed by the Europeans and disappeared as a distinct group before the 19th century” (The Louisiana Purchase).
Settlers in the Chesapeake region used force to take possession of Indian lands. The Chesapeake region of the colonies included Virginia, Maryland, the New Jerseys and Pennsylvania. In 1607, Jamestown (the first English colony in the New World) was founded by a group of settlers along the James River. And because the colony was near water, the Pilgrims had a great advantage. They created a society that was full of companies interested in profiting from the natural resources of the New World. They also turned to the local Powhatan Indians, who taught them the process of corn- and tobacco-growing. These staple-crops flourished throughout all five of these colonies. After the ship arrived, John Smith’s main concern was to “dig gold, refine gold, and load gold” but there was no g...
Some more specific examples of how their lives were transformed include the Native’s new dependence to the Europeans for items such as rifles, kettles, tobacco, and many other goods, the European’s desire to convert the Natives, and the way that Native American warfare was transformed forever. Due to the European’s strong desire to obtain animal pelts and other goods, they were more than willing to trade rifles and commonplace kettles to the Natives in return for their help in acquiring these pelts. These goods that the Natives received transformed their life, but not entirely for the better. Prior to this engagement, they were an autonomous society that lived from the land. With the introduction of European goods, there was more and more dependency on these goods which, in the end, led to events such as King Philip’s War and the deterioration of the Native American way of life. An example of this dependency can be seen from Chomina during their time as Iroquois prisoners. He tells Laforgue, “It is you Normans, not the Iroquois, who have destroyed me, you with your greed, you who do not share what you have, who offer presents of muskets and cloth and knives to make us greedy as you are. And I have become as you, greedy for things. And that is why I am here and why we will die together” (BR, 165). These gifts of guns as well as the English and French seeking
Like other eastern American Indians, powhatans also created wampum out of white and purple shell beads. Wampum beads were traded as a kind of currency. But they were more important as art material. The designs on their belts often tell a story or represent a person’s family. Pocantahs is the most famous American Indian woman ever.
When the colony was established, there were nigh thirty-thousand Native Americans that surrounded the colony on all sides. Luckily for the colony, the Native Americans decided not to wipe them off immediately, but instead decided to slowly pick them off. After an encounter between Powhatan and John Smith, the soon was a treaty between John Smith and the Native American tribe. The agreement between John and Powhatan was that John would give the Natives a grindstone, some cannons, jewels, and trinkets. In exchange, the Native Americans would not attack the colony and instead give them food and water. After some time of peace and prosperity, John was attacked by someone or a group of people in the colony. This attack forced John back to England for some time and within this time, the treaty was all but voided by the Indians. The Indians attacked the colony and neglected any kind of trade for supplies for the colony. If John Smith had not been attacked, perhaps the colony would not have been forced through the Starving Time. The Native Americans were crucial to the colony’s survival when England could not help the colony (Nightmare in
For the Bay Game I was assigned the role of waterman 2 in the Potomac watershed. The Potomac watershed is located to the left of the chesapeake bay and is considered to be in four states: West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C. There are over five-million people that live within the Potomac watershed. Waterman are men and women who make most of their money by fishing, crabbing, and oystering on the Chesapeake Bay. Most watermen on the Chesapeake Bay do not work for a company and are independent fishermen. They have their own boat and they use their own equipment, and they sell whatever they catch(fish, crab, eel) to different seafood outlets/warehouses. Most watermen start their day early(at sunrise) and depending on the catch, they may have to travel several miles to the fishing or harvesting grounds. In the summer their main catch is crab, and in the spring, fall, and winter they fish for a variety of different fishes, eels and oysters. Throughout the year the watermen fish in all kinds of weather. If the waterman do not work, whether it be from sickness or injury, th...
During a series of wars known as the “French-Indian Wars”, many tribes pledged allegiance to either the French or the British in exchange for later protection and trade. Tribes such as the Wampanoag, team up with the British settlers in the Plymouth colony as they “formed a military pact that would simultaneously ensure European safety from harsh winters and hostile Indians, and provide the Wampanoag security from enemy tribes, already partnering up with other European settlers” (Rodgers). But even with these alliances, many tribes were still the pawns of their European partners. With war now dominating Indian life, and as a result “Indians became more dependent on European allies for goods and provisions” (First Peoples). Since they were at war, they were no longer in their villages manning the fields, they now relied more than ever on the help from Europeans.
5. Kellert, S.R. and E.O. Wilson, editors. 1993 The Biophilia Hypothesis. Island Press, Washington, DC
We were preparing for our trip to Salton Sea area. Our final destination was Salvation Mountain and Slab City. But abandoned cities by salton sea and dead sea itself certainly draw our attention to stop and investigate the area. We decided to avoid a freeway and get to the area through Joshua Tree National Park. We cut across Joshua Tree National park left Mojave desert and came out in Colorado desert right by Salton Sea. As soon as we reached the area i noticed a strange and unpleasant smell. The area had post apocalyptic look with the surrounding structures standing in ruins. The sea was the dull blue of a cataract, surrounded by small volcanoes, bubbling mud pots, and ragged, blank mountains used for bombing practice by the Navy and the Marines . It was hard to imagine that once upon the time this area was known to be a paradise , "a germ in a desert ". What happened here ? why this area that was once flourishing with tourists, new constructions, yacht clubs
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.