Antigonquian Culture Essay

Native Americans flourished in North America, but over time white settlers came and started invading their territory. Native Americans were constantly being thrown and pushed off their land. Sorrowfully this continued as the Americans looked for new opportunities and land in the West. When the whites came to the west, it changed the Native American’s lives forever. The Native Americans had to adapt to the whites, which was difficult for them. Also, the extinction of buffalo affected them negatively and the domination of the whites disrupted their surroundings. The Westward Expansion impacted the Native Americans land and culture.

Historians who practice historiography agree that the writings from the beginning of what is now known as the United States of America can be translated various ways. In James H. Merrell’s “The Indians’ New World,” the initial encounters and relationships between various Native American tribes and Europeans and their African American slaves are explained; based on Merrell’s argument that after the arrival of Europeans to North America in 1492, not only would the Europeans’ lives drastically change, but a new world would be created for the Native Americans’ as their communities and lifestyles slowly intertwined for better or worse. Examples of these changes include: “deadly bacteria, material riches, and [invading] alien people.” (Merrell 53)

Millions of years ago, the Earth was divided into two the Old and New Worlds. This lasted for quite some time, so long that different evolutions began. For example, on one side of the Atlantic rattlesnakes developed, but on the other, vipers grew. The Columbian Exchange was the exchange of non-native plants, animals, and diseases brought to the Americas from Europe and vice versa. This all happened after 1492. On October 1492, Christopher Columbus and his crew docked in the Bahamas. As soon as they stepped foot off the ship, two worlds reunited with each other-with both positive and negative effects.(B, Johnson)

In the Columbian Exchange, diseases were brought from Europeans and the population of American Indians had declined by 80-90% during the first hundred

Among the many things spread and shared in the Columbian Exchange, the trading of diseases is perhaps the most significant. The natives of the Americas had never experienced the serious diseases that European explorers carried over to the New World. From smallpox to influenza and malaria to cholera, Native American populations were drastically decreased due to their poor immunity. Between the numerous amounts of European diseases, though, measles was the most remarkable in that its effects were both widespread and enduring.

Religious and spiritual misinterpretation occur frequently throughout the Jesuit documents. These misunderstandings are justified throughout these historical documents and provide a clear Native belief system to the subjective recordings of the Jesuits who detailed these connections.

European exploration of the West began in 1500 and continued to flourish for over three centuries. While colonizing this new land, Europeans first came into contact with the native peoples. European religious views, gender roles, and land ownership shaped their interactions with Native Americans. The English, for example, practiced Christianity, while the Native Americans possessed a more spiritual and animalistic religion. Native American societies were heavily reliant on women for not only household duties, but also agricultural responsibilities. English women, on the other hand, were seen as nothing more than caretakers. Concerning property, the English saw this new land as an unclaimed opportunity for economic gain and individual ownership.

Before Europeans even knew of the Americas there were Indians. The Indians had diverse cultures and conflicts with each other. There were hundreds of different groups of Indians. Most hated each other and killed each other. Some sought to get beyond murder and cannibalism. Deganawida was one such man. He sought for peace among Indians. He helped found the Iroquois confederacy through his desire for peace. He did this with the help of a Onandaga who was living among Mohawk Indians named Hiawatha. The Iroquois were also known as the Five Nations. It became known as the six nations after the Tuscarora joined in 1722. The Iroquois Confederacy was in New York closer to the Great Lakes. Deganawida and the Iroquois had an significant impact on tribal relations in

During the late 15th and early 16th centuries, eExplorers from Europe had made vast advancements on traveling methods and shipbuilding and had new methods to travel the world. Due to needs for faster trade routes or access to new markets, most powers, starting with Portugal, had started sending Explorers to find different ways to trade and navigate. This would eventually lead them to the New World where they would meet people of different culture. Explorers during this period have many positive and negative effects on the natives. Europeans indirectly killed off native with diseases, enslaved natives with cruel slave methods, and tried to completely erase the native cultures in place of the typical European cultures and religion. As the Europeans found native along the coasts of the New World, they found them easily malleable and able to be used, so they enslaved them and those who fought back were wiped out.

Throughout the late 1400’s and the 1500’s, the world experienced many changes due to the discoveries of new lands and peoples that had been never been visited before. The new-found lands of the Americas and exploration of Africa by the Europeans led to new colonies and discoveries in both areas. It also brought different societies and cultures together that had never before communicated, causing conflict in many of these places. While the Europeans treated both the Native Americans and West Africans as inferior people, the early effects they had on the Native Americans were much worse.

The European conquerors had built up an immunity to certain diseases that were common in Europe. Some of the diseases that decimated the Indian population included the following: smallpox, measles, influenza, typhus, and the bubonic plague. Centuries of living near livestock had basically inoculated the European settlers against these diseases. However the Indians were not used to such diseases, resulting in a dramatic decline in the Native American population. According to Diamond, smallpox was a major role in the domination of the Americas by the Europeans. It is estimated that approximately 95% of pre-Columbus Native Americans were killed by European diseases. Since the outbreak of the diseases spread because of the European colonization, it made conquering the Americas much easier. Health was definitely the most detrimental obstacle that the Native Americans had to face as a result of the European

French Exploration began about forty years after Columbus sailed to the new world. They hoped to find a passageway that would get them to the east to trade, through America, Along with spreading Christianity with the natives and claiming land. The French found that Furs were a large thing on the trade market. So fur trading became a huge part in French History in America.

n Lies My Teacher Told, James W. Loewen discusses how American students who enter college are less knowledgeable about their own history than any other subject. He claims that American history is the least liked and worst remembered subject in the American curriculum. High school students hate history and see it as “boring and irrelevant” (Loewen 2). Loewen argues that the uninteresting, Eurocentric treatment of history bores most elementary and high school students, who also find it irrelevant to their lives. To make learning more compelling, Loewen suggests that authors, publishers, and teachers should make history appealing and be engaging to the students. By presenting students with different viewpoints and stressing that history is

The Age of Exploration, starting from the 15th century and lasting until the beginning of the 17th century, was a period of time in which the Europeans explored the Americas and Africa while searching for a more efficient trade route with Asia. However, the Europeans did not just discover this lands, but also made use of them and the native population.The causes of the Age of Exploration were “God, Gold and Glory” which effects were the expansion of Christianity, importation of precious resources into Europe and colonization of new lands.

The Europeans who have long since been referred to as “explorers” were conquerors. Although conquering may not have been what the Europeans had in mind when they set off, they did take over new lands and people. They took lands that they did not own, and had no real right to take, essentially stealing them. They went as merchants, but decided to stay because they could make profits off the new land. Europeans wanted the glory of discovering and claiming a place not already claimed or known to the other European countries, not just for themselves, but for their country. Claiming and owning meant the most glory for the Europeans. They also thought that the Native peoples would be easy to convert to Christianity and would do as they were told.