Native American Treatment and Resistance (Westward Expansion)
NATIVE AMERICAN TREATMENT AND RESISTANCE environmental review of the route was completed But after Donald Trump took the presidency in 2017 construction was allowed to resume The pipeline fight was only the latest in a long string of conflicts between Native American peoples and those who have sought to control their land or deny their rights There is much to admire about the expansion of the United States from the colonial era to its status as a world power But the displacement and destruction of Native American cultures during this period represented the dark side of progress In the early years of the American colonies Native Americans and the newly arrived settlers some times lived peacefully side by side The harvest feast shared by the Wampanoag Indians and the Pilgrims in Massachusetts in 1621 commemorated in the annual Thanksgiving holiday is the most famous example of friendly relations in the colonies Even before that event however disputes between Native Americans and colonists had erupted into conflict elsewhere in New England Warfare would become increasingly common as the colonies and then the United States pushed farther westward Eventually the US gov ernment would make hundreds of treaties that were supposed to guarantee the rights of Indian peoples In the end however these treaties proved to be little more than a long series of broken promises 6
INTRODUCTION For many generations the cycle of mistreat ment by the United States and resistance by Native Americans would be a recurring theme as the coun try expanded westward The lengthy and brutal conflict between Indians and whites is one of the most tragic chapters in US history Yet while the military conquest of the Indians was completed long ago the spirit of resistance among Native Americans remains strong to this day 7
CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER ONE Whose Land lthough native peoples had lived in North and South America for thousands of years the continents were unknown to Europeans when A Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean islands in 1492 Sailing for Spain he had been searching for a sea route from Europe to Asia Columbus did not find a new trade route but his voyage paved the way for European exploration of what became known as the New World European powers competed with one another to find riches or to plant colonies in the new lands Spain conquered the Aztec and Inca empires in Mexico and South America before turning northward to claim large parts of what would become the southern and south western United States France claimed territories in what are now the eastern United States and Canada It was England however that established the colonies that would become the United States 88
WHOSE LAND A Native American army battles Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and his soldiers in the village of Mabila in what is now central Alabama in about 1540 The population of Native Americans in what is now the continental United States before the arrival of Europeans is unknown but it has been estimated in the millions The subsequent history of the American colonies and then the United States cannot be dis cussed without considering the role of the Indians As a whole the Indians were an important influence on the Europeans who settled in the New World Nevertheless relations between the groups were characterized mainly by tension and conflict 9
