When the Europeans arrived in North America, many changes came into the lives of indigenous peoples. These changes included things such as new weapons and horses, which made hunting easier, but Europeans also killed indigenous people, treated them as though they were less than human, and took their lands. These immoral things happened because of European desire for riches and glory. Because of this, the European impact on Native Americans should be seen as a moral question.
Upon their arrival, Europeans saw indigenous people as heathens because of their religions and their difference in culture. The Europeans believed that it was their job to convert the indigenous peoples to Christianity. They decided that the way to do this was to force them
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With the first wave of Spanish colonization of the New World, many indigenous peoples were killed and their lands were seized and their way of life was destroyed
(Tindall 26-27). When the Spanish showed up, they greatly overpowered indigenous peoples.
They had iron, seafaring vessels, firearms, explosives, and swords, with indigenous peoples had copper, dugout canoes, arrows, and tomahawks (Tindall 27). This is immoral because the indigenous peoples would have no chance against the Spanish, and killing the indigenous people was senseless since they couldn’t fight back well anyway. When indigenous people were threatened by people in a village Columbus left behind, they attacked, killing ten people, only to lead to a retaliation that decimated their numbers (Tindall 21).
As you can see, many immoral acts were committed against the indigenous peoples of the New
World, from taking their lands to killing them, and even not seeing them as actual people. When talking about this situation in history, it should be spoken about as a moral question because we don’t want those same things to happen again. Thinking about the morality or immorality surrounding these events will help keep people from committing these acts again in the
The college board’s decision to shift to a consensus perspective more accurately reflects the era of 1491- 1607, because both Europe and North America were homes to complex and diverse societies with their own distinctive cultures. Therefore, each group adopted and improved aspects of each other’s culture, skills and interacted from the beginning. Even though they both had unique and individual ideas and beliefs about gods, they still shared some similarities. Misunderstandings and differences between the Europeans and Native Americans resulted in years of interaction. Each continent was diverse, different and unique on it’s own.
“Aggressive whites sometimes shot peaceful Indians on sight, just to make sure they would give no trouble. (Chapter 26)” Whites often killed native Americans to prove a point that they had the power. Although there were conflicts that emerged with
In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in the islands of the Bahamas. This discovery had many implications; however, this landing greatly affected many generations of Native Americans. Christopher Columbus and the Spanish conquistadors were moral in their actions and beliefs, through their dedication to faith, their patriotism, and their perspectives toward the Native Americans. This morality was evident in the equality, which the explorers endowed to the natives. By treating them as humans, the conquistadors exhibited a genuine interest in native society, leading to a bond between the two groups.
European trade had a damaging effect on Indians’ war and diplomacy. The integration of new European goods created many changes in the way Indians fought, including the use of newly introduced weaponry: firearms. These new goods created a dependence on the Europeans for more supplies and ultimately lead to Beaver wars. The presence of disease that was brought over from Europe into Indian country also changed the way Indians fought in their Mourning wars. European settlement and trade caused a devastating change in the way the Indians’ took part in wars, affecting their mourning war practices through disease, new goods creating deadlier wars amongst Indians, along with a dependence on the Europeans to replenish their goods, which lead to Beaver wars.
The development of agriculture and the rise of industrialization generated new cultures and innovations in the new world. Native people in early America developed cultural distinct , men were in charge of the fishing, hunting, jobs that were more exposed to violence, and the women stayed closed to the village, farming, and child bearing. The way of life possessed by natives Americans did not compel them to conquer and transform new land. As opposed to European colonizers, Native Americans subscribed to a more “animistic” understanding of nature. In which they believed that plants and animals are not commodities, they are something to be respected rather than used.
Historians differ on what they think about the net result of the European arrival in the New World. Considering that the Columbian Exchange, which refers to “exchange of plants, animals, people, disease, and culture between Afro-Eurasia and the Americas after Columbus sailed to the Americas in 1492,” led to possibly tens of millions of deaths on the side of the American Indians, but also enabled agricultural and technological trade (Henretta et al. 42), I cannot help but reflect on whether the effects should be addressed as a historical or a moral question. The impact that European contact had on the indigenous populations of North America should be understood as a moral question because first, treating it as a historical question is difficult due to lack of reliable historical evidence; second, the meaning of compelling historical claims is contestable as the academic historian perspective tends to view the American Indian oral history as invalid; and finally, what happened to the native Indians is morally repulsive and must be discussed as such. The consequences of European contact should be answered as a moral question because historically, it is hard to be historically objective in the absence of valid and dependable historical evidence.
In the 16th Century, Spain became one of the European forces to reckon with. To expand even further globally, Spanish conquistadors were sent abroad to discover lands, riches, and North America and its civilizations. When the Spanish and Native American groups met one another, they judged each other, as they were both unfamiliar with the people that stood before them. The Native American and Spanish views and opinions of one another are more similar than different because when meeting and getting to know each other, neither the Spaniards nor the Native Americans saw the other group of people as human. Both groups of people thought of one another as barbaric monsters and were confused and amazed by each other’s cultures.
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.
When the Europeans began colonizing the New World, they had a problematic relationship with the Native Americans. The Europeans sought to control a land that the Natives inhabited all their lives. They came and decided to take whatever they wanted regardless of how it affected the Native Americans. They legislated several laws, such as the Indian Removal Act, to establish their authority. The Indian Removal Act had a negative impact on the Native Americans because they were driven away from their ancestral homes, forced to adopt a different lifestyle, and their journey westwards caused the deaths of many Native Americans.
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.
They are often labeled as uncivilized barbarians, which is a solely false accusation against them. This paper aims to address the similarities between Native American beliefs and the beliefs of other cultures based on The Iroquois Creation Story in order to defeat the stereotype that Natives are regularly defined by. Native Americans are commonly considered uncivilized, savage, and barbarian. Nevertheless, in reality the Natives are not characterized by any of those negative traits, but rather they inhabit positive characteristics such as being wise, polite, tolerant, civilized, harmonious with nature, etc. They have had a prodigious impact on the Puritans
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. Beginning in the late 1400’s, many different European explorers started to look for new trade routes in the Eastern Hemisphere in order to gain economic and religious power.
In Life Among the Piutes, sarah winnemucca hopkins describes what happens when soldiers came to their reservation based off what white settlers tell the government. The most shocking instance of this happened when Winnemucca encountered a group of soldier who told her the white settlers accused the natives of stealing cattle, “the soldiers rode up to their [meaning the Piute’s] encampment and fired into it, and killed almost all the people that were there… after the soldiers had killed but all bur some little children and babies… the soldiers took them too… and set the camp on fire and threw them into the flames to see them burned alive”(78). This is an abhorrent act that is unthinkable in a functioning society. The natives had done nothing but want to hold some shred of land from the settlers who had taken everything from them and are exterminated like vermin. This was something that stayed hidden from many white settlers because of its barbarism and by exposing it Winnemucca truly educates the reader, past and present, on how natives are
By converting them, Europeans hoped to gain their support and obedience towards European colonial rule. With the help of missionaries and by using force large number of natives were converted to Christianity, but majority refused to leave their spiritual traditions and
The colonization that took place during times in history have often been oppressive, and bloody. The slaughter of the Native American’s and