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Colonization impact on native american tribes
Conflict between native tribes and white settlers
Colonization impact on native american tribes
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How could land be someone's property? The Native Americans believed that there was no such thing as land property. On the other hand, the Europeans claimed land ownership all over the world. The attitudes towards ownership of land differ tremendously. The Europeans believed that a one person had the right to own land, while the Indians had communal property.
The Indians believed that the land was for harvesting and hunting, therefore they didn't have to own the land to be able to use it and share it with the other members of their tribes. Although the Europeans believed the Indians to be savages, the Indians were very civilized people. According to Give Me Liberty by Eric Foner, the Indians had roads, cities, trade networks, and other structures that indicated that they had complex societies. However complex their societies might have been, they firmly believed that the land could not be something that is owned by man. They had many policies on owning the right to use the land for hunting or harvesting. The harvests and the meat of the kills were for all the members of the tribes. Many believe that this communal or shared ownership of the land was the foundation of the economic life amongst the Indian tribes. "Few if any Indian societies were familiar with the idea of a fenced-off piece of land belonging forever to a single individual or family."1
The Europeans had no apprehension of the Indian's attitude towards property. The Europeans believed that the Indians were nomads and could not have settled communities, which also meant that the Indians were incapable of correctly using the land.thought that by claiming the land they were making the land better. They believed that by claiming the land they would be doing a better job m...
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...scovery of the America in Europe.
Although the Indians were more peaceful and probably more diplomatic people, they lost the war and with that they lost their land. The Indians had a society where no one went hungry; there
wasn't any poverty within the Indian tribes. There could have been hierarchies within the different tribes, but with harvest and hunt being common resources everyone was fed. On the other hand the Europeans came to the Americas strictly to make money. They established trading posts, made large monopolizing companies, and took the land away from the Indians. The Indians did not allow the Europeans, who later become the Americans, take the land without a fight. There were many battles and even a war for the land. Although the Indians fought for their land, their communal property was eradicated by the Europeans and the Americans fenced land owners.
To many of the English colonists, any land that was granted to them in a charter by the English Crown was theirs’, with no consideration for the natives that had already owned the land. This belittlement of Indians caused great problems for the English later on, for the natives did not care about what the Crown granted the colonists for it was not theirs’ to grant in the first place. The theory of European superiority over the Native Americans caused for any differences in the way the cultures interacted, as well as amazing social unrest between the two cultures.
The land of the Native Indians had been encroached upon by American settlers. By the
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).
They further saw the Indians as lazy people since they would not settle down at a place and develop the land they inhabited, there by missing out on profit opportunities and life improvement. On the other way round, the setllers cherished the natural resources because of the market value it possessed and not because of it immediate need. This made the settlers depict the Indians as poor and incompetent to maximize the transformation of these natural resources into economic gains and wealth.
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).
The Indians thought of land very differently to the white man. The land was sacred, there was no ownership, and it was created by the great spirit. They could not sell their land to others, whereas the white people could fence off the land which belonged to them, and sell it freely to whoever they wanted. The Europeans didn't think that the Indians were using the land properly, so in their eyes, they were doing a good favour to the earth. To the Indians, the land was more valuable than the money that the white man had brought with him, even though it didn't belong to them.
“ [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 ...
American Indians shaped their critique of modern America through their exposure to and experience with “civilized,” non-Indian American people. Because these Euro-Americans considered traditional Indian lifestyle savage, they sought to assimilate the Indians into their civilized culture. With the increase in industrialization, transportation systems, and the desire for valuable resources (such as coal, gold, etc.) on Indian-occupied land, modern Americans had an excuse for “the advancement of the human race” (9). Euro-Americans moved Indians onto reservations, controlled their education and practice of religion, depleted their land, and erased many of their freedoms. The national result of this “conquest of Indian communities” was a steady decrease of Indian populations and drastic increase in non-Indian populations during the nineteenth century (9). It is natural that many American Indians felt fearful that their culture and people were slowly vanishing. Modern America to American Indians meant the destruction of their cultural pride and demise of their way of life.
There was no definite property line in the early New England colony, causing animals roaming freely to become an issue between the two societies. The Indians were ultimately unprepared for the European’s livestock to wonder into their property without any boundaries. The animals would not only walk into their land but eat their resources and grass along the way. Destruction that the livestock caused to the Native American’s land led to a distinct boundary line between them and the Europeans, creating further tension rather than assimilation. Cattle were trapped into Indian hunting traps, causing both a problem to the Indians hunting rituals as well as the Europeans livestock supply. These issues among land division ultimately led to the acceleration of land expansion by the colonists during the 1660’s and early 1670’s. Before King Phillip’s War, Plymouth officials approached the Indians at least twenty-three times to purchase land. The author argues that previous mutual consideration for both the society’s needs was diminished at this point and the selling of the land would eliminate the Indian’s independence. Whenever livestock was involved, the colonists ignored Indian’s property rights
Overall, There were so many differences between Native Americans cultures And the Europeans. Some of the examples are, the ideas of the lands owner, religion, and the gender. Their differences are more than the similarities. The impact of their cultures it still remains in today’s society. The cultural differences and the religions differences led to a bloody was that remains for 500 hundreds
The Europeans and the Indians had very contrasting ideas of personal wealth and ownership. The Europeans believed that only the rich should own land, and strongly followed the practice that when you passed away, the land stays in the family to keep the family honor and pride alive. In European society, what one owned decided one's identity, political standpoint, wealth, and even independence. The Indians believed that property was part of a tribe, not a personal possession to own. One of their beliefs was that the land was sacred, and each family should have a piece of the whole. As a general rule, the Indians followed their belief that states that everything on the earth is given to all, and each person deserves their own share. In 1657, a French Jesuit said that, "Their kindness, humanity and courtesy not only makes them liberal with what they ha...
The two groups were just too different. The Indians didn't build permanent structures, so they were seen as uncivilized. The English and Indians had very different ideas about land ownership. In Massachusetts Bay, a century earlier, John Winthrop and the pilgrims didn't consider the land owned by the Indians because they didn't make improvements. The English considered it a sign of civility to domesticate animals, while the Indians were nomads who considered animals communal property until they were killed in a hunt. Europeans saw nature as a commodity, the Indians did not. Europeans considered a land sale to be a permanent exchange of property, the Indians considered that same land still open for use by
Many tribes had reigning governments and tribal counsels as a way of life. With westward expansion brought changes. Many Americans were killing their livestock, the food they ate, and Americans were settling more and more on the Indian lands. In time, Indians began to fight back and take what had been theirs. Once this happened, the Americans decided to make the Indians like Americans, so we took their land and tried to make them Americans.
Many Native groups, because they were nomadic, didn't see land as belonging to one person. The idea that someone could come in, claim a piece of land and ban them f...
The American Indians Between 1609 To 1865. Native Americans or American Indians, once occupied the entire region of the United States. They were composed of many different groups, who spoke hundreds of languages and dialects. The Indians from the Southwest used to live in large, terraced communities and their way of sustain was from the agriculture where they planted squash, pumpkins, beans and corn crops. Trades between neighboring tribes were common, this brought in additional goods and also some raw materials such as gems, cooper.