Narrative Frameworks and Erasure: Early U.S. – Indian Policy The invasion of New England in the early 17th century by European settlers saw a delicate balance struck between Native Americans and New English settlers. The settlers depended on Native Americans for their survival, and in turn Native Americans sought to investigate and contain the new element in their territory. In time, settlers seeking to expand westward used violence and brought disease that decimated native populations. European settlers claimed the land it as their God-given right, and declared themselves the first civilized people to occupy the land. The invocation of divine will is an example of one of the many ways in which Europeans sought to change the story about their relationship with Native Americans during America’s early history.
Suicide affects 1 in 13 Canadians. These estimates are likely to be low because many suicides are not reported and a death is only certified as a suicide by medical and legal authorities when the victim’s intent is clearly proven. This is a huge problem that costs our health system over 3 billion dollars a year. Suicide rates differ between males and females. Females attempt suicide twice as often as males, they account for 75% of the attempted suicides.
They were a more isolated human, so when the Europeans came and took over there immune systems were not at all prepared to face and fight back al;l the diseases that came there way. The European diseases were communicable and that therefore caused these illnesses to move faster and to cause death tolls to rise even faster than ever before. In some cases Indians were infected severely before even coming into direct association with the Europeans. The one disease that really got the Indians by the neck was smallpox. This disease killed tens of thousands of Indians in the New World.
A startling 293 murders were reported in 2010 in Los Angeles and 32 murders for Long Beach and yet it is even more shocking to know there are far more forcible rapes that occur in both of these areas. I would think that population size, diversity and other environmental factors have something to do with the differences in these numbers. The murder rate seems to have decreased while forcible rape increased in both cities, with an additional 630 incidents in Los Angeles and an additional 102 incidents in Long Beach. On the other hand, for the past several years, crime rates have dropped continually. The Los Angeles Police Department reported in 2008 that
Sailors inadvertently introduced these diseases in 1492, including smallpox, measles, mumps, whooping cough, influenza, chicken pox, and typhus, to the Americas. People who lived in Africa had developed some immunities to these diseases because they had long existed among Europeans and have been exposed to them. However, the Native Americans had no such immunities due to their isolation. Adults and children alike were stricken by several epidemics of the listed viruses, which caused a massive decrease in populations throughout the Americas. In Mexico and Peru, many millions of people died.
The truth is, the Indian population existing today in El Salvador is barely at one percent of the countries population and of that population, most of them live their lives invisible. In the mid-twentieth-century the Indian population was closer to twenty percent or about 80,000 people. The population has dropped dramatically since then because of political repression after the peasant (Indian) uprising that took place in 1932. This revolt killed many Indians as well as people who were seen as Indian because of the color of their skin, the language they spoke, or the clothes they wore. After this horrific event, many Indians saw the racially motivated repression and chose to avoid distinctive Indian clothing or Indian customs, they started to become invisible.
In 1900, the death rate was 19, however, in 2007, it stood at 10. N.L Tranter argues it in 1996 that over 75% of the decline in the death rate from 1850-1970 was because of a decline in the number of people dying from infectious diseases. These diseases include diphtheria, influenza, scarlet fever, measles, smallpox, diarrhoea, typhoid and tuberculosis. Most of the decline of deaths caused by these diseases was among the younger generation, which was because these diseases were most common within the young. However, the infectious diseases had been replaced in the 1950s by ‘diseases of affluence’ which were illnesses such as heart disease and cancers, which were the main cause of death.
Whether we believe it or not, our youth is killing themselves and the leading way is by guns. There is an estimation of 41,149 suicidal deaths each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Suicidal deaths with firearms are ranked higher in comparison to homicides, which are ranked 2:1. So many of these suicides could be prevented by households leaving their guns outside of the house or tucked away in hard to reach places. In states where gun control is not monitored as much, rates of suicide were higher; for example, Wyoming reported that in the 63% of households that contained guns, the suicidal rates were higher than in those houses that did not contain guns.
These numbers can only show the significance of violence on Indian reservations. There are many reasons for such a high crime rate on Indian reservations. One of the main reasons is for the high rate of alcoholism and abuse. With 12 percent of the deaths among American Indians and Alaska Natives being alcohol related. Native American youth are far more likely to experiment with alcohol.
Many lives were lost in external conflicts as well as internal civil wars. Small pox and lead poisoning in the aqueducts further decimated the population. " To worsen matters, plague from China spread through the empire." (Sherman & Salisbury, 153) Just as in China, the disease caused intense suffering and depleted the already dwindling Roman population. " Medical knowledge was helpless in the face of pandemics like the mid-third-century plague, and Roman families could no longer populate the empire."