Europeans and American Indians
The ‘New World’ in the 1500s was explored by European explorers. Until that time, the world had been a region unknown to them. Such explorers saw it as a brand new land to be explored with animals and plants. And in this exciting new world, they encountered new people — people with interesting ways of life that the Europeans had never seen or heard. To Europeans, this New World was also an incredibly old world despite the different people they encountered in North America. We name the American Indians today. (John W. Kincheloe)
Archaeologists tell us that Americans might have been fifty thousand years on the North American continent. We were the first Americans and great explorers as well. They haven’t arrived all at once to this continent. Such old explorers are believed to have come across several milliers of years at various times. They went on foot or by boat from Asia. They visited the beautiful countries and coastlines. They were visiting them. Such early US explorers gradually spread across the world.
The Europeans were not concentrating on who they were, but who they were when they identified the “Indians.” And they explained what they didn’t have for Aboriginal Peoples. The “Indians” were identified in Amerigo Vespucci as neither Muslims nor as Jews for whom the Americas are named. The English, John Winthrop who helped found the Massachusetts Bay colony, justified his claims for the indigenous peoples’ land in claiming that they did not mark its possession in a manner accepted by European men. He claimed that they were “bigger than heathen,” since we could see they gave not any sacrifice, nor did they have the House of Prayer.” The “no land is enclosed, no settled houses, no domestic livestock, he wrote.”( holocaust and Human Behavior)
The Indigenous people have been risky for many immigrants as well as “backward.” In the words of the historian Ronald Takaki, they represented what English men and women did not believe to be – and what should not be – in the United States. Colonial leaders warned that colonists needed to adhere strictly to the rules and moral values that formed their communities; nor would they be permitted to become “individually.” “To be ‘individualized’ gradually meant to serve the Devil.”After all, the English regarded “Indians” as “civilizing” people. At least in part, religious values are embedded in these concepts. Carroll and Noble also described Spanish explorers in their overview,
Upon the discovery and abundance of luxury, non-European products. Europeans systemically discovered each ink of the gingivae, creating unavoidable circumstances for interaction between European and non-European. During the latel7ORTT to Me, European attitudes towards this interaction differ greatly due to their intellectual and cultural attitudes. Europeans have been constantly increasingly focussed on the motivation of “god, glory and gold.” Early interactions were guided by generally accepted Enlightenment Ideals that promoted individualism and thus generated reverence and admiration for northern Europeans. Nevertheless, the rise of nationalism, the Indust / Revolution and contrasting and frustrated ideas in the 1760-1010 era brought a European image of non-Europeans condescending, divisive and disrespectfulness. Mimi. Mimi .. Non-RumPeans perceptions have shifted from prudent regard. my nationalism, local hegemony and superiority complex motivated an exposed condescension by the growing thought.
Pagans who are uneducated. Spanish, German, French, and English all expressed their intention to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Native Americans. This was also a prime reason for European colonialism to spread Christianity to the benighted inhabitants of the New World. The spread of faith however also took place in a broader cultural sense, indicative of the ethnicity of the colonists. (Native Americans) Both Spanish and English thought about changing the way of life of the Indians, but only Spanish followed that goal rigorously and made it the cornerstone on which much of the Spanish American culture was centred. It was, of course, much more the product of European and Indian sexual interweaving than the colossal educational efforts made jointly by the Catholic Church and the Spanish Crown. Moreover, in the borderlands of Florida, Texas, and New Mexico, Spanish success in gathering Indians was limited at best.
Paganism is a wide range of beliefs that emphasize respect for nature and the rebirth of ancient polytheistic and animistic religious practices. Some modern manifestations of Paganism have their origins in the 19th century, e.g. the British Order of Druids, but most contemporary Pagans trace their immediate origin to the 1960s and emphasize their spiritual interest in nature. Pagan was used by the Christians to appoint men on the land who adopted the old faith. The term is generally used by all religions, whether monotheistic or polytheistic, not originating from the Abrahamic, Jewish, Christian or Islamic faiths.
The Christians are generally the ones who determine who Pagan is, and the Catholic Church finds the native American religions to be witchcraft and devil worship, much as they did to the European witches they burned. That’s possibly why Native Americans were not permitted to observe their religious rituals until 1978. Native Americans were Pagans by Christian definition, but not by their own.
When the French and British started to receive news from traders, explorers, and missionaries about North America, the local people were often portrayed as noble, simple men. Some Europeans saw the indigenous cultures as an ideal primitive society, living openly in a simpler and more prosperous environment than in Europe. Other Europeans have characterized them as barbarous, a word used by Greeks and Romans to describe people who did not speak their Speech or share their history.
At other times, Europeans used the word barbaric to describe people they felt were uncivilized. (Stolen Lives: Aboriginal Peoples of Canada and Indian Residential Schools) Yet this portrayal of indigenous life was deeper. The Western portrayal of indigenous peoples in North America led many to a conclusion that was often uncivilized, animal-like creatures. For example, the French priest, Louis Hennepin, did not spare the First Peoples he had met in 1683 from his harsh judgment. His essay on this meeting led to a blunt evaluation of these “uncivilized” people.
After the arrival of the Europeans on the American shores, the border — the frontier between the culture of the white man and the untamed natural environment — has been a common region of massive, contradictory disparities that have led the U.S. government to sanction more than 1,500 battles, assaults and raids on the Indians, most of any nation in the world against its indigenous peoples. By the end of the Indian Wars at the end of the 19th century, fewer than 238,000 indigenous people remained, a sharp decrease from the approximate 5 million to 15 million people living in North America when Columbus arrived in 1492.
The motives for this ethnic persecution is multi-layer. Settlers, most of whom had been barred from inheriting property in Europe, arrived on American shores hungry for Indian land — and the rich natural resources that had come with them. The collusion of the Indians with the British during the American Revolution and the War of 1812 increased American animosity and distrust toward them.
More fundamentally, the indigenous people were just too different: their skin was dark. They had foreign languages. And their world views and spiritual beliefs were beyond the comprehension of most white men. To settlers fearing that a loved one might become the next Mary Campbell, all this stirred up racial hatred and paranoia, making it easy to portray indigenous peoples as pagan savages who must be killed in the name of civilisation and Christianity.
References
John W. Kincheloe, III. “American Indians at European Contact.” North Carolina Museum of History (2007): 6-8. web.
“Native Americans.” 23 June 2020. Encyclopedia. web. 17 July 2020.