Native Americans: The Plague Of Manifest Destiny

Native Americans were seen as warlike savages that often fought with their European counterparts; however, the reality of Native Americans was that they lived a simplistic life and had a scare population within their tribes. Native Americans were viewed as warlike savages—namely, they invaded Europeans settlements in which were built on Native Americans land—however this is a stereotypical view and not the actual truth. Manifest Destiny led to these beliefs because of the Americans concept of expanding westward. According to a source, there was a plague that had killed 90% of Native Americans before Christopher Columbus arrived to North America. Native Americans populations already faced a drastic decline, with the Europeans diseases and expansion

In Lewis Henry’s claims he illuminated the caveman like ways of Native Americans whereby they had no plans to industrialize the lands. Native Americans were pushed farther and farther west because of their beliefs in preserving the land and working with nature. Henry’s chart shows how underdeveloped and out-of-date Native Americans were which proves that they had no threat to Americans, but only had to defend themselves in order to keep their homes and land. Lewis Henry hoped to demonstrate that Native Americans should not be feared by migrants and that they were no threat to Americans. Gertrude Käsebier illustrated how down to earth Native Americans were by symbolizing the lizard on the Native Americans shoulder and the simplistic clothes that they were wearing. This picture exemplifies that Native Americans cared about their land and the lives of animals, therefore they would not cause destruction or harm to the land or others unless they were forced to do so. Lewis Henry and Gertrud Käsebier tried to indicate that the Native Americans were friendly people that would cause no harm to the environment unlike the Americans that industrialized the United States. Since, Native Americans lived such a simplistic lifestyle it could be an effect of their minuscule

There were very few Native Americans and they were being killed off because they were living on land that supposedly needed to be built on. In Touring Indian Country it describes the fear of Native Americans that many had when traveling west, but was not actually the case because there were very few tribes with a meager population. The Touring Indian Country exemplifies people’s fear of Native Americans and the lengths people took to destroy or stay away from Native Americans. The Native Americans population was dwindling because of the diseases that were spread by the Europeans, and because of the advanced technology of Europeans in which gave them guns instead of bows and arrows. The Indian Removal Act also supports this idea because it removed around 50,000 Native Americans (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and others from their home) to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma). The government forced them to walk all the way to their relocation which caused countless deaths. There was the Sand Creek Massacre where militia from Colorado killed, raided, and plundered the Native American village. The dwindling population of Native Americans was caused by the bias against Native Americans in which led to their