The Native Americans started becoming less and less powerful towards the Europeans, there population was small to begin with and with the epidemics diseases and the land and food shortages, they were almost wiped out of there population. The surviving Natives either converted to Christianity and joined puritan communities, to alcoholism, would sell most of there land to the Europeans and drove others to war. The Native Americans was in much struggle not just against the European empires but also between the new European immigrants. The Europeans had quickly established there dominance, displacing natives until they had created societies that were dominated entirely by the Europeans. As the Natives did not know about 'nations' the Europeans had came from a world where 'Formal institution and military power of a nation or empire governed the relationship between societies'.
Even with the concessions that the government made to the Native people, the fact is that they have been put through hell and they were initially and continue to be targeted for extinction in one way or another. The intended death and destruction of a people just because they are of a certain origin or ethnic background does fall under the definition of genocide. The fact is that most of white America is in denial of this term “genocide” and the idea that this continues to haunt the Native Americans of today. Is it a question of being too proud to admit that the whites could actually be this cruel and wrong and make such a mistake? I don’t think that the white man will ever own up to this
Things got much worse when the colonists struck back, but they attacked the wrong Indians, the Susquehanaugs, which caused a large amount of Indian raids to start. Berkeley tried his best to calm things down between the Indians and the colonists, but Bacon would not have any of it. He wanted total control over the attacks on the Indians. He wanted to be able to do pretty much whatever he wanted without any control from anyone else. When he didn’t get it, he rebelled and took off on his own.
As citizens of the United States began to settle the lands west of the Mississippi River, they encountered a group with whom they had had much experience when settling the East Coast: the American Indians. Particularly early on, the generalized response by settlers was antagonistic and cruel, and although this did not disappear it gradually was joined by another class of settlers, the reformers. They sought to “civilize” the Native Americans and subjugate them to their power structure. In reality, the actions of the reformers, and of the Federal government which aided them in their efforts, did irreparable harm to the western Native American population and often treated them cruelly as well. This is not to say that many of the reformers did
Man was becoming increasingly curious about what rests beyond their borders. These men lived in what was called the “civilized world”. They wore “proper clothing”, clothing that most of the Native Americans had never seen. They lived in homes, went to schools, and worshiped a “civilized God”. They had horses, which were extinct in America until the Spanish settlers surfaced.
(doc. 1) From Amerigo’s point of view this was strange because he had a catholic background and knew nothing different than his catholic beliefs. Aside from basic religious traditions, some cultural differences were such the antithesis of the other that the Europeans were disturbed. For example, the Caribe people were cannibals. They would travel to near-by islands, abduct women and girls, and eat the men.
Textbooks and the Native Americans Within the confines of textbooks, it's easy to take the commonly straightforward dialogue as truth. However, it's crucial to be aware that these texts come from scholars who have simply been influenced by other scholars and their own personal accounts and understanding. This becomes even more visible as we look at texts from different time periods and see the change in accepted information, as well as how this information is presented. In the case of the Native American social structure, through the eyes of European explorers, we see many drastic changes in presentation, and with good reason. “No one knows how many people lived in the Americas in the centuries before Columbus.
(Berkhofer, p.23) The current stereotypes we hold of the Native Americans stem from the first encounters of Europeans with the indigenous people. These indigenous people were the first humans of a different race and ethnicity the European had encountered. As Berkhofer explains, “early English adventurers into Virginia spoke of Indians, savages, and infidels in one breadth at the same time as they carefully studied the various alliances and specific characteristics of the tribes
Red Power Movement The Red Power Movement was a major turning point for the lives of many Native Americans living in American. The movement was bought upon to have self determination and have their own identity, which is different from the American identity. In order to have the self-determination they need and have their own distinctive identity they had started the Wounded knee. Even though American has the civil right movements and hopes to have create equality among different groups of people, the civil right movement could not believe that Indian had not been integrated in the the bottom levels of American society. Whenever Indians had tried to clarify their position, their arguments would be pushed away and not to be heard.
The Native Americans seemed weird to the Europeans, as did their customs. At first, the Natives were in awe of the guns, horses, and unheard of things, but they did not know that the Europeans were not there to make friends. The Europeans had brought diseases that would wipe out thousands of Natives. At first glance people think that this is just a bad thing, but this disease had delayed overpopulation and removed extreme conflict. The Europeans introduced Natives to new things, such as firearms, metals, foods, and horses which became a large part of Native American culture.