Lasting Effects of European Colonization on Native American Indians.

The shock of large-scale European colonization disrupted Native American life on a vast scale, creating unprecedented demographic and cultural transformations.

Since the arrival of the Europeans in 1492 the Native American has systematically been dehumanized, decivilized and redefined into terms that typify a subordinate or minority role, restricted life opportunities persist today as a result.

American history frequently centers on the issues of ethnic diversity and resource allocation. In the contemporary, we begin to see the experiences of the Native inhabitants of the Americas in contrast to European settlers and colonizers, is a prime example of this process in motion. When European settlers first arrived to the New World in the 15th century, firstly the Spanish, they brought with them a material cultural based upon an economic standard of resource exploitation, which in a sense was hostile to most of the Native peoples of the Americas. For instance, as Blackhawk notes that, Europeans built permanent settlements consisting of immovable structures, whereas many of the Great Basin peoples were semi-migratory in nature. Additionally, as Europeans claimed possession over the land, its resources, and began a process of territorial delimitation, Native peoples whose lives

The arrival of Europeans marked a major change on Native society and it's spirituality. Native Americans have been fighting to

The Native Americans began to be stripped of their customs and even forbidden to speak their native languages (All About history.org 2002). Children were taken from their tribes and sent to schools to civilize them forcing the children to abandon their heritage. Eventually U.S. government forced the Native Americans to live on ‘reservations’ were the majority of Native Americans still reside today. Thousands of Native Americans suffered with this relocation there was five tribes total “Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole and a few others (Bryan, 2007). Theses Native Americans were promised the Indian Land where they would be free from any settlers and able to live free on Indian land. Many consider these Native Americans are as very resilient people.

The article “Times Are Altered with Us Indians” explained what the Native Americans had to go through once they’ve encountered Europeans who thought they were the first to discover North America, not the Native Americans. The Native Americans had to adapt to a new lifestyle and they had to witness people around them and maybe themselves becoming infected by a variety of unknown diseases that were brought by Europeans and Africans. After they lost the war against the Europeans, they sacrificed things, such as land in order to achieve peace and their beliefs.

When the Europeans came to America, they brought along with them diseases which resulted in the number one cause of death to the Native Americans. The diseases “included smallpox, measles, and respiratory illness” (Raoark 45). The Native Americans were not immune to these diseases either. They were non-existent before the Europeans entered the land. This shows how largely the epidemics of the Europeans affected the Native Americans. Almost 100 years later, in 1570, the population had “fallen 90 percent from what it was when Columbus arrived” (Roark 45). Also, the boarding schools for the Native American children changed them into people that they were not. They came back not knowing their own language, but the language Europeans had taught them. They had lost their own cultural identity which led some to commit suicide. They had felt a loss of self-worth due to the way they had been treated there. The children in the boarding schools would be “immersed in a 24 hour bath of assimilation” (The Espresso Stalinist 1). Some American Indian women were also being forced to sign papers they did not understand that had to do with sterilization, causing them not to

Native American tribal communities are one of the most disadvantaged and socially vulnerable groups in the United States. Widespread poverty, alcoholism and lack of services are common throughout Native American tribal lands, leading to high social vulnerability on many levels. In addition, tribes and their indigenous traditions may be particularly vulnerable to damage caused by environmental change, as “tribal cultural practices and religious beliefs are rooted in the

Native Americans before contact with Europeans were set in their ways and were fairly advanced people. There is evidence to suggest that people, such as the Anasazi were living in large city like areas but had to disperse due to long droughts and disease spreading among them. The dispersed people formed various tribes and continued to live relativity simple lives in areas that were so culturally diverse it is mind boggling, especially in the California area. There were around “40,000 Californians, who spoke 50 different languages belonging to at least six language families.”(text, 13) But after the Europeans come tribes are wiped out or forced to integrate with one another due to sickness or war depopulating the tribes, causing a less

Upon arriving in the land that later became the United States of America, primarily Christian settlers were appalled by the apparent heathenism exhibited by the Native Americans. The fear of the unknown created the idea that the Native Americans’ lack of Christian values contributed to their savagery. In order to assimilate the Native Americans to the white Christian standard, tribal sovereignty was undermined by several federal policies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; primarily the banning of several dances and ceremonies, the allocation of land to the male heads of house that were held in trust by the government, and the seizure and removal of the children on reservations to be placed in militaristic boarding schools.

The birth of America was rather dark than golden. At an early age, kids are taught in school about the great hero, Christopher Columbus, who claimed to have discovered this country. People have been deceived by false information given through textbooks and online sources, but under a thin layer of American history is the tragedy of Native Americans, who lived on this land hundreds of years before the “discovery”. The arrival of the settlers were the main turning points of change in lifestyle for the Native Americans, affecting the daily lives and traditions of the Native Americans in the past and today.

Their history is all but erased, their lives destroyed in the pursuit of material wealth (resource extraction). Superficial statues and hollow tributes now stand where vibrant human communities once lived for millennia. The US Government, unrecognized by vast portions of Native Americans, hence illegitimate in their eyes, ruthlessly imposed treaties, laws, cultural mandates and regulations on a population who never asked for such measures. There was resistance, but it was stamped out. Thus, the bloody history of European settlement is never far from the minds of indigenous people living in the US.

For the Native Americans, the original location of their tribes is the center of the universe and is considered a sacred place. According to the Native American perspective, imagination creates the world, and thus memory of their land is a part of their culture. Tribal history is built upon the stories told about the land. Hence the Native American Removal in the 1830s paved the way for the emergence of an identity crisis in the twentieth century.The government passed the Native American Removal Act in 1830 under the administration of Andrew Jackson. The act “authorized the removal of Native American tribes to a large, unorganized, ‘permanent’ Native American territory west of the Mississippi River” (Hirschfelder 34). The popular phase of the removal is the Cherokees’ Trail of Tears during the winter of 1838-39 (34). Even though this this movement guaranteed a great territorial acquisition for the White Americans, it bruised the mind and soul of every Native American and ingrained a subconscious sense of loss regarding their culture, traditions and spiritual power. A tribe can only reach the peak of its spiritual potential if they are located on the land that their people originated from, and thus the farther they move from their center or location that their indigenous location, the more their spirituality fades and like Native American

In the 19th century, U.S. citizens wanted Native Americans to be a part of mainstream culture, creating a dramatic, dark, and sad part of this proud nation’s past. Many methods were used to assimilate Native Americans; while some were more intense than others, they were all immoral. For example, the ways in which they were assimilated were fatal at times. Also, when the Native American population of the 19th century is compared to the population today, there is a large difference in numbers. Indeed, this is a dark part of history, and it is sad to look back on. Over all, the forced assimilation of the Native Americans into European culture caused disadvantages to their well-being, cultural diversity, and American reputation.

The history of the Native Americans and the white colonist that would become the United States of America have always been a disaster for the Native Americans. The land greed of the whites had driven the tribes of the East west, and destroyed the culture of the Midwestern Plains tribes. Near constant war with the Native American finally appeared to come to a peaceful solution. The Native Americans resisted the American way of life because they did not understand it, education was the key to civilizing the Native Americans. The government’s broken promises and the cruelty of the white settlers were symptoms of the greater Indian problem. The Indians refused to stop being Indians, despite the efforts of Washington and missionaries to teach