This paper provides knowledge about
the settlement of Europeans in North America by
seizing control of the Atlantic seaboard of North
America. The Indians are not the natives of America;
instead they are the natives of Asia.
They had migrated from Siberia
to the land that exists between continents. Approximately
150,000 Native Americans were living in North
America at the time when Europeans arrived there.
There were three tribes; each of them with a different
linguistic group. So Europeans first had to encounter
with them.
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There were some similarities between
European settlers and Native Americans. Both of
them believed in religious and their lives were
full of ceremonies. Initially, the relationship
between the European settlers and Native Americans
was peaceful but after some time, differences
had begun between them.
Both of them were of different
cultures. Native Americans were believed in the
strong role of women while European settlers were
totally against giving rights to women. Then some
differences over land had also led to the seized
control of the Atlantic seaboard of North America.
How European Colonists
Seized Control of the Atlantic Seaboard of North
America from Its Native Inhabitants?
When European explorers first sailed
to North America, they thought they had arrived
in the East Indies, near the continent of Asia.
That's why the explorers called the people they
found living on these lands 'Indians.'
Scientists now believe that these
'American Indians,' commonly known today as Native
Americans, arrived in the Americas more than 20,000
years ago, most likely from Northeast Asia. Many
probably came across from Siberia by a 'land bridge'
that existed when sea levels were lower. Native
Americans are not one people, but many different
peoples with their own distinct cultures and traditions.
Warfare was not the only reason
for the removal of Native Americans from North
America. Disease was the greatest killer. Many
European diseases had brought to North America
with the European settlers. Such diseases were
previously unknown to Native Americans. Among
those diseases were cholera, smallpox and measles.
A great destruction had occurred due to the wreaked
havoc of those diseases among tribes that were
already without any immunity. Small pox was the
greatest killer among those diseases.
There were about 850,000 Native
Americans living in what is now the United States
when Columbus arrived. During the 17th, 18th,
and 19th centuries, diseases (including many brought
by Europeans) and wars with European settlers
and soldiers caused the deaths of thousands of
American Indians. As more settlers came, and moved
westward, the Native peoples were often displaced.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 allowed the government
to force all Indians east of the Mississippi to
move to Indian Territory (part of what is now
Oklahoma).
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In 1838 and 1839, in what came to
be known as the 'Trail of Tears,' 16,000 Cherokee
Indians in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and
Tennessee were moved from their homelands to Indian
Territory. Nearly a quarter of them died on the
way, of hunger, disease, and cold.
By 1910, there were only about
220,000 Native Americans left in the U.S. In 1924,
Congress granted native peoples citizenship. Since
then, the American Indian population has increased
dramatically. According to the U.S. Census Bureau,
the total number of American Indians and Alaska
Natives in 2002 was about 2.7 million (not counting
people who reported belonging to other ethnic
groups in addition to Native American).
Native Americans have been living
in North Carolina for thousands of years. When
the first European settlers landed off the North
Carolina and Virginia coastlines they interacted
with the Natives who were living there. At first,
the relationship between the two different cultures
was relatively peaceful.
The Indians had much to teach the
Europeans about surviving in the "New World."
In exchange for the Natives' help the settlers
gave the Indians manufactured products from Europe.
The Native Americans conserved their resources,
living in harmony with the land. They fished,
hunted, and grew corn, melons, and tobacco.
Most Europeans did not share this
respect for nature as they over-hunted and over-harvested
the land.
Eventually, the friendly feelings between the
settlers and Native Americans changed. As more
and more Europeans infiltrated the Americas food
sources became less available for the Natives.
The settlers brought many new diseases
with them that the Native peoples had no natural
immunity against. Over time, the Native Americans
became dependent on many of the products from
Europe and certain aspects of their culture began
to change.
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In 1838 well over half of the Cherokee
Indian population in North Carolina and Tennessee
were forcibly moved to Oklahoma. This forced migration
was called the Trail of Tears. Native Americans
all over the state and country were given few
rights. However, some progress has been made in
the last few decades.
For centuries before the Indians
ever saw a white man, they slaughtered one another
in bloody tribal warfare. When the Europeans arrived,
there commenced a long war of about 150 years.
The Indians lost decisively.
The Indians were by no means "native"
to America. At the end of the Ice Age, they crossed
from Siberia on a land bridge that existed between
the continents. The Indians are Asians.
Then they worked their way down
from what would become Alaska and encountered
a resident people now known as "Mound Builders"
because of the large earth structures they left.
The nomadic warriors from Siberia extinguished
the Mount Builders, and then fought each other
for centuries.
European settlers had gain land
through royal charter or treaty rights. The reasons
the Indians lost the long war against the European
settlers were not mainly technological. Soon the
Indians had muskets and horses and, later on,
rifles. They were excellent riders and fighters.
They could have formed a united
army of some sort to do battle, but that was far
beyond them. They were a Stone Age tribal people,
the tribes hating one another as much or more
than they hated the whites. In fact, the most
warlike tribes, such as the Sioux, the Comanches
and the Apaches, were so savage that other tribes
often joined the whites against them.
Among the young braves of the warlike
tribes, fighting was the most honored activity,
and the only route to honor, booty and captured
women. Any Indian chief with an impulse toward
peace would have been regarded as an old woman
and replaced, similarly any chief who tried to
form a coalition with other tribes.
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The whites did not win because
of rifles and horses, but through better organization
and steadiness of purpose. The frontier advanced
steadily against the nomads, farms were established
and forts built to protect the settlers. European
settlers used their wisdom and tactics to make
their colonies.
The Indians lost the long war because
their overall culture and Stone Age tribal organization
were inferior and could not prevail. There was
not unity among the people of a tribe and between
tribes. They were enemies of each other.
The Indians had another position
besides fighting. They could have rejected tribalism
and its ethos and assimilated to 19th-Century
Western civilization. Indeed, many of them did,
and their descendants today live among the rest
of the Americans.
So, the Indians lost the war. The Scottish Highlanders
were destroyed after the Battle of Culloden in
1745 for the same reasons.
It is utterly frivolous to wish
that the Indians had won.
Work Cited :
Colin J. Calloway. (1998). New Worlds for All:
Indians, Europeans and the Remaking of Early America.
John Hopkins Univ Pr. ASIN 0801854482. p. 134-152.
Ibid. p., 152-178.
Ibid. p., 178-195.
Ibid. p., 178-199.
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