The Pros And Cons Of Conquering Native Americans

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.

After the Civil War ended many people were in hope of finding land since population was increasing. Since the West was underdeveloped and uncivilized, many decided to expand the land. First the Louisiana Purchase increased the opportunity of expansion.Then industrialization and the Homestead Act also caused many companies encouraged to move West due to the low cost of land and that the transportation was provided through the railroads. In order to complete such goals, something had to be done with the Natives since it conflicted with their home area. Before the 1860’s the native americans were living in peace until the Colonists attacked. The Western Expansion of 1860-90 greatly affected the lives of Native Americans, due to the powerful role

“Then there was great destruction of American Indians by war, disease, and killing work, and the importation of [African Slaves] into Spanish America was begun in order to fill the void in the labor market,” (Columbus, Document 5). This quote explains that Native Americans were dying from diseases, wars, and killing work that Europeans had to start buying slaves from Africa just to do the work of the dead Native Americans. Moreover, Native Americans did get sick, but the diseases weren’t as bad as the ones in Europe. A drastic population decrease happened from diseases which resulted in a small amount of Native Americans left. For one reason, it was common for rodents to get on ships and getting to the new land, and rodents can carry diseases. Another reason is that Native Americans weren’t immune to these diseases and when the diseases came to the New World, their immune system and body's weren’t ready for it. Furthermore, Columbus wrote that wars had also started between them, these wars happened from land and other reasons. After Native Americans started to die, Europeans brought African slaves to replace the Native

Under influence of president Andrew Jackson, the congress was urged in 1830 to pass the Indian Removal Act, with the goal of relocated many Native Americans in the East territory, the west of Mississippi river.

America had a dream of Manifest Destiny (O’Sullivan). Which they believe that God had set aside the entire North America for United States(Textbook). “Which later started the Westward movement”. During the time Native Americans tribes and Mexico had already had been inhabiting the area(Textbook). They would not leave without a fight.

Before Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World, the Native Americans knew it as their home. Soon after Columbus reported back to let all of Europe know that he successfully found land, European settlers quickly followed. Every tribe was one of it 's kind, yet their cultures shared the importance of their religious practices, beliefs, and values . The Native Americans were generally very peaceful people, that is, until the Europeans invaded their land and forced them to fight back. Two very different worlds contrasted and clashed into eachother. Although, every tribe was unique in it 's own way, they were not as drastically different from each other as

Manifest Destiny and the Westward Expansion was made so that the Americans could expand as far as the Pacific Ocean. All though this was a benefit for the Americans, it caused the Native Americans and the Mexicans to deal with a lot of hardship. There were many political, economic, and social reasons for Manifest Destiny, but these reasons did not always have positive outcomes.

Could you imagine the government coming to your family 's property you have had for years and taking it and making everyone walk a 1000 miles? Well thats is what happened to the Native Americans. They were drove from there property beaten and killed. Then made them walk over a 1000 miles to their new place that was awful. There was no food or water or anything while the government took there land and made fun of them. The government people also raped thousands of the Cherokee women. And also killed many of them as well. Now the Holocaust on the other hand had a tremendous drop in population as well. Accept it was towards a different race. It was led by a man name Hitler and he hated the jewish society. So he developed his own clan. They had one mission and it was to destroy all Jews that they possibly could. There were between five and six million Jews killed during the Holocaust. So they did succeed in there one mission they had. So in both the Holocaust and the Trail of Tears there were well over a million people killed in both of these disasters.

The American Revolution lasted six years and the impacts of it were everlasting(Schultz, 2010). The effects were felt by every group of people in North America and many worldwide. Even though George Washington had all of his troops vaccinated against smallpox, the colonists were not so fortunate and as a results some estimates are that as many as one hundred and thirty thousand people died from this dreaded disease. This loss of life combined with the divisions among the colonies into those loyal to Britain and those who wanted freedom would forever change the way of life for the colonists.

What would it be like to have everything common and normal in life taken away within a moments notice? The film Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee explores this question through the historical events that took place during the Indian removal era. Furthermore, the film reveals the motives of the U.S. government through the many scenes in which they attempt to negotiate for land with the Sioux Indians. The Sioux refuse to sell their land, so the United States forces the Sioux to pay for the western expansion with life, land, and freedom.

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.

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.

The first new idea that I learned was from page 27, chapter 2 of Deculturalization. This portion of the chapter reflects on the history of when Sequoyah created a Cherokee alphabet of his own ideas. “The genius of Sequoyah’s alphabet was that because each of the 86 characters matched a particular sound in the Cherokee language, it was possible for a Cherokee to quickly become literate in Cherokee” (Deculturalization 27). To me, it is so amazing to think that someone created an entire written language by themselves to make others literate in their language. He wanted to create a written language to allow a Cherokee to become fully literate in Cherokee like a European would be in their own language. When I was reading this portion,

“We must be united” was the plea from Tecumseh to the Osage tribe. In 1811, Tecumseh, known as the “Greatest Indian”, gave a speech pleading with the Osage tribe that they should unite together to fight against the white man (Tecumseh, 231). He goes on to tell how they had given the white man everything they needed to recover health when they entered their land but in return the white man had become the enemy. The speech to the Osages by Tecumseh illustrates the dangers of the white men to the Indian tribes, and why the tribes should unite together against the white man.

Something that had one of the biggest impacts on the world as it is today is colonization. There’s no way that the world we live in would be the same without it. From colonization, a multitude of good things came out of it, such as wealth for many nations, new land discovered, and colonies established. However, all of those things came at a price to others. The negatives of colonization affected the Native Americans (North, South, and Central America) and the Africans. This paper will show the pros and cons of colonization and how it changed the world forever.