Native Americans Dakota and Lakota Essay

SAMPLE EXCERPT . . .

The Native Indians also further declined with the arrival of the Europeans. Diseases took the best of every village including pneumonia, cholera, smallpox, and measles. The Indians had no built-in immunity to help them fight these diseases and so they either severely suffered from malnutrition or even died. This also forced them to leave their native villages, farming lands and their traditional hunting (Sutton, 2009).

Early historians, explorers, and colonialists considered the Native Americans as godless heathens and barbarians. Evidently, many the missionaries tried their best to convert the religion of the Natives, which they considered it as their divine obligation to save the savaged souls. In many cases, the Native Americans had involved themselves in trade with the English in terms of food supply when harsh winters prevailed. Starvation would have killed many of the English if the Native Americans would not offer their assistance in such times. Sadly, the preconception maintained its dominance within the English consciousness (Brown, 2006).

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paper NOW! The Indians who had their habitat in the settlement of Jamestown must have experienced mixed reactions with the arrival of the English in the year 1907. They reacted with hostility at first regarding their previous experience they had with the Spanish explorers along the coastline. They made an attack to a British ship before it even arrived. However, the Indians began to assist the newcomers with traditional hospitality and food. The main motive of the leader of the Confederation of tribes, Mr. Powhatan deciding to offer traditional hospitality and food to the newcomers was to facilitate their assimilation in their system. The colonists got so much absorbed with instant wealth that they forgot to venture into planting corn and other activities, which would sustain their colony. Therefore, they had to rely heavily on the Indians for food (Sutton, 2009).

TOPIC: Essay on Native Americans Dakota and Lakota Assignment

As the fortunes of the colonies got even worse in the course of its first two years but the leadership of Captain John Smith came to the rescue of the colony. Part of Captain John Smith's leadership was involved with developing trade with local Indians and exploring the area. It was very unfortunate that Smith wanted the English to offer the same treatment to the Indians similar to that of the Spanish, which was to slavery, drudgery, and work so that the English colonists could live on the sweat of their labor (Nabokov, 2010). Therefore, this made Smith take what he wanted by force in occasions where he failed to negotiate with the Indians for food. By 1909, it came to Powhatan's realization that the English had an intention of staying. His disappointment worsened when the Englishmen failed to reciprocate the hospitality he had offered during their arrival; they also declined to marry Indian women. He knew that the English people had come to invade his people and take away their land. This forced the Indians to start attacking the settlers, burning crops that they planted and killing their livestock. With all these events, Powhatan said that the young men committing these activities were beyond his reach: he could not do anything to stop them. An important issue to note is that Smith who was a fair observer reported the statements of Powhatan (Sutton, 2009).

References

Brown, D. (2006). Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas Publisher

Nabokov, P (2010). Native… [END OF PREVIEW] . . . READ MORE