Native American Colonialization

When the Europeans arrived in the Americas they were looking for riches, spices, and new trade routes to India. When they found this new world and the Native Americans that lived there, they deliberately mistreated them. Looked at as obstructions, the Natives were driven from their land and homes and pushed west. Europeans that encountered the Native Americans had different ideas about them depending on their political and religious beliefs but none were positive. Those ideas ranged from pity for them as non-Christians to be converted (Doc. A2) and treated as children to a lower status of human to be taken advantage of for profits. The Natives were forced to mine precious metals, and farm sugar cane and tobacco. They were not viewed or treated as equal persons. They were considered part of the wild land to be conquered, enslaved, killed, and beaten into cooperation.

American settler colonialism is no different than the colonialism in South Africa, Australia and Algeria because the similarities between them: indigenous populations were depleted, indigenous resistances arose, and colonizing culture religion becomes the dominant culture. Indigenous population was depleted in two way: through human involvement and also by biological diseases. Biological diseases killed the vast majority of Indians in the 16 century.

Colonization was detrimental to not only the physical bodies of the Native Americans, but to their minds as well. The shift in indigenous education was a destructive one; Western education completely overtook the indigenous education that had thrived for generations. Instead of allowing education to benefit both indigenous and European peoples, it was used as a tool to destroy indigenous culture. When the settlers from Europe and Spain first came to the Americas, “indigenous men and women articulated their petitions for more educational spaces” (Díaz 60). The attempt to share educational spaces was continuously rejected by the settlers in an attempt to spur assimilation instead of cooperation.

America, land of the free, home of the brave, unless you’re not white. The United States of America was built on immigrants, but the more proper term would be imperialists. It is widely known that Native Americans were here first, but they barely acknowledge it. Instead children are taught about Christopher Columbus, the pilgrims, and the founding fathers. Colonists felt the need to kill, annex, and annihilate an entire culture to capitalize off of “undiscovered” lands. As a result, Native American culture is almost extinct, the impact that colonists had on Native Americans were catastrophic; natives were forced to change their way of life and culture to adjust to new conquerors brought by Columbus, when westerners kept pushing west, battles and massacres ensued and Natives were forced to assimilate into American culture. Native Americans are still ignored and are pushed to the back burner. We claim that we are progressive, but the Dakota Pipeline Project seems to contradict that statement. Today, we still aren’t progressing and it shows when we still have a holiday celebrating Christopher Columbus “discovering” the new world.

The colonisation of North America by the Europeans became one of the most crucial points for the native North Americans. The differing experiences of contact between both cultures had overwhelmingly disastrous impacts on the normal way of life. From such contact arose the issue of land disputes, in turn resulting in massacres and frontier wars which could have otherwise been unnecessary. The factors stated above provide a suitable stimulus for a discussion in regards to the varying encounters of the Indigenous North Americans.

It isn't unheard for powerful empires to obliterate obstacles in the path of expansion. Mankind is never satiated with their appetite for expansion and growth, never satisfied with what they currently possess, always wanting what the people next door have. This has led to the demise of many extraordinary leaders, armies and nations like the Romans, Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte. But still, pioneers have and probably will always push forward to foreign lands, disregarding everything currently inhabiting it. Co-existing with another race or group of people has proven difficult time and time again to last for long without clashing. For these reasons, I am not the slightest bit surprised the United States expanded Westward on the large semi-barren frontier, even though Native Americans had lived there

Native Americans during 1785-1829 were affected by western expansion because of the removal of Native Americans from the land, white settlers attempting to assimilate Native Americans to their culture, and were involved in battles between the a Native Americans and white setters which led to the depleting number of Native Americans.

From the time during North American colonialism to the modern era, American Indians have responded to and countered U.S. policies, philosophies, and agreements in hopes of sustaining and preserving their sovereignty and relationships to the land. As a result, the U.S. government employed many different approaches in dealing with American Indians in hopes of assimilation and diminishment of Native American culture from the mid-19th century to early-20th century. Consequently, as the U.S. government policies of assimilation directed towards American Indians evolved from 1850 to 1930, so did the Indian response. Native American responses to early aggressive U.S. polices, as in the violations of the Treaty of Fort Laramie and the Confederate Home Guard, resulted in violent resistive responses from American Indians for the ossification of their relationship to land. As U.S. detribalization policies later shifted to a more diplomatic approach for improved westernized assimilation, like the Dawes Allotment Act and use of boarding schools, American Indian’s response metamorphosed from resistance to adaptation for the preservation and survival of their native identities and culture.

When Europeans came to the American continent, contact with the Native Americans who were already living there was inevitable. In the colonization of early America, the various groups of European settlers: the Spanish, French, English, and Dutch each had unique experiences with, and therefore individual opinions of the Native Americans whom they interacted. Each of these nations also shared commonalties in their colonization processes and in how they viewed Native Americans. Furthermore, the Native Americans held differing opinions of each group of Europeans whom they encountered while some features of their relationships with Europeans were consistent despite the tribe or nation involved.

People have been living in the Americas for thousands of years. Only fairly recently, the past few hundred years, have foreigners begun to arrive and drastically disrupt the way of life of the aboriginal population. The situation has become so severe that a population that was one believed to be numbered in the millions, was at one point reduced to as few as 220,000 in 1910, and entire tribes have been either irretrievably warped or have disappeared altogether. While Native American Indians have almost completely recovered population-wise, they will never catch up to the rest of the world, and their culture can never fully recuperate. At the time the United States was settled by Europeans, it was abundantly populated by dozens of

There were initially two to ten million natives in the United States prior to European contact. Those numbers dwindled down drastically in the years that Europeans came and started colonizing. The Europeans came to explore the New World in search of land, spices, gold, God and glory. Among these colonists were the Spanish who colonized most of the southwest of the United States. Evidence of their settlements can still be seen today in the missions scattered across the land. These missions were started with the purpose of converting the Native Americans to Christianity. Try to put yourself into the shoes of the Native Americans, imagine living your entire life with a particular set of beliefs, based on what was handed down by your ancestors and culture. Then suddenly a group of foreigners would come and proclaim that your views are all wrong and that you must follow their beliefs for the salvation of your soul. This is exactly what the Spanish colonizers did to the Native Americans as they invaded their territory which is the reason why the relationship between the two parties were strained and rife with tension. The conversion of the Natives and the constant hostility by the Spanish conquerors subsequently led to the disintegration of native life and culture.

I believe that the colonials and early Americans did create a genocide of the Native Americans. Some of my belief comes from the statements that were made during that time period, such as those made by Theodore Roosevelt during a lecture in North Dakota in 1886, comparing the Native Americans to cowboys in the Dakotas and that, “I wouldn’t go as far to say that ‘every good Indian is a dead Indian,’ but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.” This seems to capture a good picture of the era. The fact that even when offered a higher reward for returning Native Americans alive as prisoners, rather that killing and scalping them, there would still be a much higher rate of bounty

Historically, relationships between European colonists and Native American were extremely complex and complicated. Due to the violent European colonization of America, Native Americans became susceptible to oppressions and extinction for over five hundred years (Poupart, 2003). European colonists’ central focus were directed towards acquiring maximum profits by exploiting Native American’s vast resources and utilizing their physical performance toward enslavement. This created devastation among Native American families, movement of various fatal diseases, and destruction of the traditional lifestyle of Native Americans (Starkey, 1998). The elimination of Native American culture came with strong opposition and resistance through civil organizations, religious movements, and conflict revolutions.

In the 16th and 17th century, the Americas was being explored by Spain, Britain, and other countries. Many of these countries set up colonies in the Americas where Native Americans were living. Europeans moved into colonization of the Americas and brought changes to the land and its people. Europeans traded, hunted to warfare and personal property. As Europeans established their colonies, their societies also became segmented and divided along religious and racial lines. Most people in the societies were not free. They labored long hours as servants or slaves to produce wealth for others. As more Europeans came to settle the land in the Americas, their presence had a tremendous effect on the native peoples who were living in the Americas. The Native peoples’ life in the Americas provided lots for the Europeans to use. They traded cattle, chickens, horses, pigs, sheep, sugarcane, and wheat, for chocolate, pineapple, potatoes, pumpkins/squash, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and tobacco. The diets of the Natives and Europeans widened as different food types was being traded. The Natives were very open to the Europeans as they came into their land and communicated with the Natives. Over time, the landscape changed as more European communities increased. The Europeans held on to their idea of land ownership while the Natives idea of the land was for the person that need it. Also, the Europeans hoped to change the Natives to Christianity but also trick them into being slaves for the

North America was a region in the world that was new to many especially the settlers who’d later live there. For thousands of years this region was unknown until men from other countries began traveling from sea to see this part of the world they never knew about. These people who came to what is now known as the United States of America sought to establish a new life. Before the English, Spanish and French colonies stepped foot on North America there were already Indian tribes who inhabited the land. Soon after reaching this land colonist began to settle in and began working and living. Each colony struck an alliance with the native tribes who lived near them. At the same time the colonists weren’t on good terms. The primary role of the Indians