Native Americans Before The Westward Movement

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Before the westward movement, the concept of race was essentially black and white. Literally. No one thought of what was in between, what was gray. It wasn’t til people began moving towards the west when other races started to add to the equation more adequately. As the packet says, “The diversity of the West put a strain on the simpler varieties of racism.” no one knew where the other races would go, and who was better than who. It was always the “superior white and the inferior black” but the west changed that. “ Were Indians better than blacks? Were Mexicans essentially Indians? Did their European heritage count for anything? Were the Japanese different from the Chinese? ”, each and every question went through the minds of the west. Indians,

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