Native Americans and European Colonists

Race and Ethnicity SOCI 1306 History of Intergroup Relations Pre-Columbian Native American culture is that which existed before European settlers arrived in North America in 1492, or before Christopher Columbus arrived. Columbus incorrectly labelled the native people "Indians," mistakingly thinking he had arrived in the East Indies. This term has endured for centuries, despite being a geographical misnomer that has been applied to hundreds of independent tribal countries (NCAI 2020). There has been a terrible history of intergroup conflict between Native Americans and European colonists. The impact of European settlement in America was to almost completely eradicate the native inhabitants, as was covered in the section on genocide. Furthermore, although the majority of Native American deaths were due to their lack of antibody to European illnesses, the deliberate abuse and murder of these people by Europeans also had a terrible impact. European settlers advanced throughout the continent at freely, taking whatever territory they desired, starting with the first Spanish colonists and continuing with the French, English, and Dutch. Native Americans were repelled by Europeans using better weaponry if they attempted to maintain their guardianship of the land. As one academic notes, Native Americans are the only minority population in the United States whose subjugation resulted solely from invasion by the dominant group, proving that Europeans' dominance of the Americas was in fact a conquest (Marger 1993). Discrimination against Native Americans was formalised and defined in a number of laws meant to keep them under control and prevent them from obtaining any authority when the United States government was established. Here are a few of the laws that have the biggest effects: • The Indian Appropriation Acts funded additional removals and declared that no Indian tribe could be recognised as an independent nation, tribe, or power with which the U.S. government would have to make treaties. • The Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced the relocation of any Native tribes east of the Mississippi River to lands west of the river. • The Dawes Act of 1887 reversed the policy of isolating Native Americans on reservations and forced them onto individual properties that were mixed with White settlers, thereby reducing their capacity for power as a group. This made it even easier for the U.S. government to take land it wanted. The construction of boarding schools in the late nineteenth century contributed to the further degradation of Native American culture. The explicit goal of these schools, which were administered by the US government as well as Christian missionaries, was to "civilise" and assimilate Native American students into White culture. In order to guarantee that students were kept apart from their family and culture, the boarding schools were situated outside the reservations. Children were made to speak English, cut their hair, and convert to Christianity by their schools. It took decades for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to establish a policy on sexual abuse at boarding schools due to the widespread physical and sexual abuse that occurred. Some academics contend that over a century of maltreatment at these boarding schools is to blame for a great deal of the issues that Native Americans confront today. Up until the 1960s, when Native Americans were allowed to take part in and profit from the civil rights movement, Native American culture was being eradicated. The majority of the rights outlined in the US Bill of Rights were granted to Indian tribes by the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968. Tribal governments were acknowledged and given increased authority by new legislation including the Education Assistance Act and the Indian Self-Determination Act of 1975. There are now very few Indian boarding schools, and Native American cultural groups are working hard to retain and conserve ancient customs in order to prevent them from disappearing completely. According to NCAI 2020, Native Americans are citizens of three sovereign states today: the United States, their home state, and their tribal countries. Nonetheless, the consequences of centuries of dehumanisation still affect Native Americans, some of whom prefer to be referred to as American Indians in order to escape the negative connotations associated with the name "native." Native American communities are disproportionately at the bottom of the economic scale due to factors such as prolonged poverty, poor education, cultural disruption, and high unemployment rates. With shorter life spans than the majority of American communities, Native Americans thus bear a disproportionate amount of hardship.