In European religion they believed in Christianity and in only one god who was responsible for everything. European’s viewed the religions of both Native American and Africans as savage and crud. They disregarded their beliefs and believed that their religion was the only right one and anyone else who believed in anything else was wrong. The Naive Americans and Africans didn’t understand why the Europeans were doing what they were doing and why they were so disrespectful to their gods and religion. With Native Americans and Western Africans land ownership was won through wars or chosen in the belief that their gods had given them the land that they were living on.
As for the Spanish, they had a very patriarchy type society; men dominated the legal system, religion, and house. Women’s life was especially changed because of the way the Spanish viewed women in Europe, to the way women were viewed to the natives living in the Americas. In Women in the Crucible of Conquest, Powers discusses how and why women suffered diminution of power in America. The difference between the two cultures was vast. Women in the Americas, who had once seen power and almost equality to men, were now going to lose respect in religious, legal, and cultural ways that they never saw coming.
This led to conflicts and therefore partially led to the destruction of the Native American way of life. The white Americans quickly claimed land and would move the Plains Indians around as they saw fit, usually affected by where gold had recently been discovered. This culminated in putting the Native Americans on reservations. In many of the agreements and treaties signed over land the settlers would claim never to go back on their promises “as long as grass grew” and “the mountains stood”. Breaking the promises would have shown the Native Americans that the settlers thought little of their intelligence, and also would instil a lack of trust in the settlers, as now every apparently solemn vow to not attack certain areas or to treat the Plains Indians better etc.
Their altruistic behavior was seen by the settlers as foolish and saw the natives as unworthy to inhabit it. In the book, The Wealth of Nations, written by Scottish philosopher Adam Smith in 1776, he introduces the concept of a free market economy and its benefits. This promotes the idea of competition, which Smith says fosters innovation and the advancement in society. Essentially, the settlers felt that without economy as a driving force in the lives of the Native American’s, they would be continuously living in an endless age of basic technology. Another reason for the oppression of the Native Americans is due to religious views.
Racism "Racism breeds racism in reverse." These words so candidly written by Mary Crow Dog, a Lakota Sioux, describe the reverse effect indian boarding schools had upon their pupils. These old Indian boarding schools were intended to push Native Americans into accepting a new way of life as a white man. In lieu of attempting to live peacefully along side the Natives, the white settlers felt they had to force the Indian population to become "civilized". The word civilized, as defined by Websters, means to have an advanced or humane culture, society, etc.. White men did not see the Indian culture as advanced or humane and therefore began forcing white man's way of life upon the Native American Tribes.
In colonial times, the earliest interactions between the Native Americans and the European settlers lead to different relationships between the two groups. But more often than not, the relationship wound up being negative, especially for the Native Americans. Two areas with negative relationships were the American southwest, controlled by the Spanish, and the Chesapeake Bay area, controlled by the English. In the southwest, as the settlers came into contact with the Native Americans, they became convinced that their every aspect was superior to the Native Americans. The main reason the Spaniards even bothered to interact with the Native Americans was to achieve their main goal in America, to find gold and other valuables.
This caused friction between the Indians and the English. Native Americans started slavery in America. They captured people of other tribes and enslaved them. They were willing to share their land with the English but the English wanted it for themselves which drove the Indians away and created much less land for them. They did trade with both the English and French.
In England, during the Elizabethan era, there were also superstitions that they believed in, a handful of them actually still evident in our modern world. Not only were these believed by the common folk, they were also held true by even the nobility, up to the monarchy. Here are some of them: 1. It was believed that when you open your mouth to sneeze, you give the devil a chance to enter your body and bring about spiritual harm. Saying "bless you" allegedly stops the devils from entering since they thought that no demon could stay in a place that a Christian has blessed.
Conflict theorists would argue that this was a selfish act due to a power struggle. The Europeans were the dominant group who were power hungry and wanted more land; they did not consider the needs of the aboriginals and how these resources were needed for survival. In order to achieve their goal, the Europeans acted in a way that relates to the second principle of conflict theory. They created residential schools with the objective of applying their social values and culture to the aboriginal children by removing their existing culture that had a negative effect on them. The government attempted to have a dominant race and remove any diversity.
American expansion caused more harm than good. This extension of land caused sectionalism and tensions between the North and South, economic depression, and the removal of Indians. Although America gained another coast and a magnificent mass of land, the events that took place to achieve these