First
The 267,000 square miles east of Los Fresnos, Chihuahua, stretching 770 miles, both east to west and north to south, lies an area known in modern times as Texas, tejas, the Hasini Indian’s word for friendly. Its neighbor to the northwest, New Mexico, can throw another 121,600 square miles into the mix, an area on its own that is larger than New England, with the state of New York thrown in as well.
Humans are not native to this land of the southwest. Every race that came here arrived as visitors, invaders, wanderers, crossing a narrow land bridge from Asia.
They were hunters – hunting the sun – the sun that grows grass and browse – that feeds game. The hunter’s favorite place was Llano Estacando. There, the great ancient elephants thrived. Life was a hard, dangerous venture for these first, near-subhuman beings, killing the elephants, mastodons, ground sloths, huge beasts similar to buffalo, but outweighing them by a factor of four – all killed for food with spears tipped with stone, flint perhaps.
Over an unknown time, the animals vanished, as did those that pursued them with their crude spears. They were courageous beyond our limited comprehension of the full meaning of the word.
Then, perhaps on the same narrow spit of land that joined Asia to this new land, others came. Mongoloid skinned, to be called Indians when the fair-skinned Europeans came a few millenniums later. The Indians did not know themselves as Indians – they were the People.
The People shared at least one trait with their ‘smarter’ Europeans that invaded much later – they knew how to make war. War for sport or pleasure, but usually to defend their hunting grounds and their women. There was a place and station for all the People – all exce...
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We bounced along, the caliche road switch-backing down to the river plain, the mighty Rio Grande showing barely a trickle. I explained to the girls that the river dries up in drought years as cities, towns, and farms suck up all the water as it flows south through New Mexico, and between Texas, and Chihuahua. When the Rio Conchos comes out of Mexico at Presidio and flows into the Rio Grande flood plain, it presents a much more favorable presentation as a river.
Bona wanted to take a picture of the river she’d heard about all of her life. We piled out, got a Coors Lite, and stretched our legs. Alice and Sweetie sped by, not slowing or bothering about the dust they shared with us. The dust bowled toward us as we jumped back in the Acura.
“Sonofabitch bastard,” Bona yelled, pointing her public finger at the back of the disappearing Pathfinder. “Goddamn shithook.”
Cronon raises the question of the belief or disbelief of the Indian’s rights to the land. The Europeans believed the way Indians used the land was unacceptable seeing as how the Indians wasted the natural resources the land had. However, Indians didn’t waste the natural resources and wealth of the land but instead used it differently, which the Europeans failed to see. The political and economical life of the Indians needed to be known to grasp the use of the land, “Personal good could be replaced, and their accumulation made little sense for ecological reasons of mobility,” (Cronon, 62).
Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso 1880-1920 analyzes and discusses the Mexican immigrants to El Paso, Texas. The most western city of the vast state of Texas, a city in the edge of the Chihuahuan desert; a place too far away from many regions of the United States, but as Mario García explains a very important city during the development of the western United States. He begins explaining how El Paso’s proximity to different railroads coming from México and the United States converged there, which allowed El Paso to become an “instant city”, as mining, smelting, and ranching came to region. (García 2)
The French saw the Natives as uncivilized and felt it was their duty to improve the land in order to get the most out of it. Though Witgen does not note it as such, in An Infinity of Nations, this is our first experience of a gender roles between the two sides. Witgen often refers to the French as “the Father” and to the Indigenous tribes as “the children”. In efforts to create their empire, Witgen argues that the French felt as though they were the “Father giving birth to Native children, literally creating and suckling Indian nations into existance.” (WITGEN 230) While having this feeling of fatherhood, Witgen touches on the motherly traits of the French as well. “Native peoples need not disappear; they might be reborn as the children of the empire. Their French father would not only give them a new life, he would also nourish them as only a mother could,” Witgen notes. (WITGEN 112) With the sense of fatherhood and motherhood, the French felt as though they were responsible to impose their power on what should be the Native New
In Daniel Richter’s essay War and Culture, he uses a mix of primary sources and his own comprehension of history, to formulate a general understanding of the native experience. In our experience watching The Black Robe we were able to analyze history through a chain of sources. There are many similarities to analyze from these sources. Harmony and balance is the root of many aspects in Native culture including: dependency on Europeans, warfare style, rituals and customs, mourning, population maintenance, and ultimately adoption-torture.
Mexico, once home to ancient cultures like the Maya and Aztec which ruled vast territory expanding from present day South America all the way up north to present day western United States now reduced to roughly half its size. The cause of this dramatic loss of land was contributed to the expansion of the United States and secession of southern provinces, now Central America. The loss of land not only affected Mexico’s presence of power but also affected hundreds of thousands of native people. This was just the beginning of what would come to be known as the land struggle and the fight for land grants, something the United States government would not acknowledge nor recognize.
“ [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 ...
Texas is included in the United States right now; however, it was once a part of Mexico. In 1821, Mexico was granted independence from Spain. Then Mexico was founded on a federal system of government, which also means some states were given lots of autonomy to control themselves; and Texas was once one of them. In order to improve Texas’ local development and population, Mexico’s government started a settlement program to encourage more and more people to come to Texas. One of the reasons why people liked to move to Texas was because the settlement program allowed foreigners to purchase their own land for a small price only if they have been living in Texas for at least ten years. Also, they had to regard Catholicism as their only religious
The conflicts between the Powhatan Empire and the English settlers in Axtell’s article can be said that the blame for the conflicts lands on both parties laps. When the two first met, they began as friends, offering goods to each other. It did not last long until the English customs, like discovery gives anyone right to it, posed a problem for the Indians because they never claimed land, they just moved around with the flow of the world around them. With this came contempt from the Native Americans toward the English. The Native Americans outnumbered the English but their arrows were no match for the English firepower, so they hide until they could even out the weapon power. The Powhatan’s knew they needed to manage the English from expanding while trading with them in order to obtain goods to fight. As the conflict ros...
Texas the second largest state in the nation has seen a boom in its population over the past decade, which presents both challenges and opportunities for state politicians, such as creating and modifying the state’s current water plan. Texas’ population growth was only second behind California with an increase of 4.3 million people between 2000 and 2010. (Tannahill) The increase in the state’s population growth rate is due to both a natural population increase, whereby live births exceed deaths, and immigration. Compared to the rest of the nation Texas has one of the lowest cost of living expenses in the nation, making it an affordable and attractive option for immigrants from all over the world. Although, most people would see the lower cost of living as a valuable resource, it also has a draw back. Texas which shares a border with Mexico has the largest Stretch of Border between the United States and Mexico. The United States and Mexico border is more 1,900 miles long, in which Texas has more than 1,254 miles...
In the wars between Native Americans and Europeans, there advanced technology such as muskets gave them a huge advantage. In order to protect themselves many tribes made alliance with certain European settlements. During a series of wars known as the “French-Indian Wars”, many tribes pledge 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 pawn 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. The result of the warring and increased dependence caused extreme hardships on Native Americans. “As war became endemic in eighteenth-century North America, Indian villages and countryside bore the brunt of the fighting” (first peoples) as crops were destroyed and tribes were forced to move from their land due to the destruction and constant violence. European imperialistic wars, had extremely negative effects on the communities and way of life once lived by Native
Reflecting on the colonization of North America is an uneasy topic for most Americans. The thought of war between the Indians and the early settlers creates an image of clashing cultures between the well-armed Europeans and the hand-crafted weaponry of the native Indians. We tend to have the perception that the early colonists came and quickly took away the land from the Indians but, in reality, the Europeans did not have this power. Though French explorers and English settlers had a different perception of land ownership than that of the Native Americans, the fate of the Europeans rested in the hands of the Indians. Either from self-preservation, civility or curiosity, various American Indian tribes assisted the early European colonies through the sharing of resources, by befriending them as allies and, ultimately, by accepting them as permanent neighbors.
...brief portion of the feelings that accompanied the loss of land for California, New Mexico and Texas. As shown some were passive while others were aggressive. All felt and dealt with similar yet different experiences once America took over half of Mexico’s territory in 1848, after twenty-one months of war between the two nations (Padilla, 14). Whether one was accommodating or resistant to Americans in Mexico’s prior lands, the Mexicanos and Tejanos all felt uprooted, scared and unsure of what the future would hold for them. But one commonality that Juan Bautista Vigil y Alarid, Cleofas M. Jaramillo, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, Eulalia Perez de Guillen Marine and Juan Nepumuceno Sequin all shared was that they told their stories and because of that the world will forever have the accounts of these people and their heritages told through their own histories.
In the 1800's, the Mexican territory was defined as encompassing the land west of Louisiana and north of Mexico, (Peterson). Like most of the other provinces in the west, this territory was not very populated. Through the 1820's, most people believed that the United States would buy eastern Texas from Mexico. Many thought that the portion of Texas had been part of the Louisiana Purchase and that the United States had 'given' it away to Spain in exchange for Florida in the 1819 Adams-Onis Treaty, (Hensen 45). The Texas settlers expected that the annexation would stimulate immigration and provide buyers for the land.
In this essay I will tell how the Aztec and Inca empires ended, and also I will compare the fall of both empires, using for a point of departure the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the land of Mexico. Wherever the Spanish went always the same thing happened, from my point of view. Innocent people were killed for no good reason, cities were massacred, civilizations were destroyed or forced to convert to Christianity. And so, I think now is the time to reevaluate the actions of the European explorers who subjugated the native American peoples and their civilizations. Undoubtedly the most glorified and heroically portrayed of these figures of the European conquest of the New World were the conquistadors, the Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru in the 16-th century. These men, under leaders such as Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizzaro nearly eliminated the Aztec and Inca peoples. Surely many of these soldiers were extremely cruel and intolerant of the native populations. But it is important to consider, with the push of both sides toward territorial expansion, how these groups (European and American) could remain isolated from each other. Furthermore, with meeting of these two imperialist cultures, it must be considered whether it would be possible for the two to peacefully coexist.
The First "Europeans" reached the Western Hemisphere in the late 15th century. Upon arrival they encountered a rich and diverse culture that had already been inhabited for thousands of years. The Europeans were completely unprepared for the people they stumbled upon. They couldn't understand cultures that were so different and exotic from their own. The discovery of the existence of anything beyond their previous experience could threaten the stability of their entire religious and social structure. Seeing the Indians as savages they made them over in their own image as quickly as possible. In doing so they overlooked the roots that attached the Indians to their fascinating past. The importance of this past is often overlooked. Most text or history books begin the story of the Americas from the first European settlement and disregard the 30,000 years of separate, preceding cultural development (Deetz 7).