Native Americans

Who were the first Americans? They were aboriginal dark-skinned people, called “native Americans” (also called Amerindians, American Indians, Indians, indigenous Americans, aboriginal Americans). Their ancestors had been living there for about 50,000 years.

Numerous tribes of Amerindians were scattered across the grasslands and forests. Some were hunters, some were farmers. Some were peaceful, others – warlike. They spoke over 300 distinct languages.

The tribes followed very different ways of life. Amerindians in Mexico were growing and eating beans, maize, squash and peppers. The best organized were the Pueblo people of present day Arizona and New Mexico. They lived in terraced houses made of adobe (mud and straw) bricks, dried in the sun. The pueblo made clothing and blankets from cotton and wore leather moccasins. Long before Europeans came to America the Pueblo were building networks of canals across the deserts to bring water to their fields.

The Apache were the neighbours of the Pueblo. They were fierce and warlike, they were wandering the deserts and mountains in small bands hunting and gathering wild plants. The Iroquois who were also fierce warriors, skilled farmers, hunters and fishermen lived in the thick woods of northeastern North America in permanent villages. They built long wooden huts and birch bark canoes. On the vast plains of grass that stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains lived another warrior nation – the Sioux (or Dakota, as they called themselves). They grew no crops and built no houses. For food, shelter and clothing they depended upon the buffalo. They moved after these huge animals. The Sioux used conical buffalo skin tents – tepees – that have become a symbol of the Amerindians’ way of life. The tribes of the Pacific coast - like the Haida – lived in large houses built of wooden planks. In front of them they placed specially decorated tree trunks – totem poles. The carvings on the totem pole were a record of the history of the family that lived in the house.

Amerindians developed their own way of life lasted for many centures. But the arrival of Europeans eventually destroyed it. It is one of the most brutal stories of genocide in modern history.

The original population of native Americans was about 12 mln. As many as 280 distinct aboriginal societies existed in North America prior to Columbus. Some of them developed great civilizations (the Incas and the Aztecs) which contributed greatly to the world culture and the welfare of the human race: they domesticated corn, potatoes, peanuts, peppers, tomatoes, pumpkins, pineapples, cocoa; cultivated tobacco and discovered at least 59 drugs that are now used in medical science today.

The conflict between the Native Americans and the white settlers began in 1822. The latter wanted to dispossess the former of their land and resources, and to get rid of people who could not be exploited. The means included not only mass extermination, but also slavery, bounty-hunting (scalping for profit), massacre of women and children, the assassination of leaders, the forced relocation of people. The slogan “The only good Indian is a dead Indian” was used for more than 200 years. Even the Declaration of Independence pronouncing that “all men are created equal” was not true for the Native Americans. The government forced the Indians to sign treaties that were enormous land robbery. While a number of Amerindian nations were fully annihilated, some tribes managed to survive as ethnic communities, like the 130,000 Navajo (Navaho), the 72,000 Cherokee, the 60,000 Sioux and the 35,000 Pueblo. Today there are about 764,000 American Indians and nearly 40 % of them live in 200 reservations under terrible social and economic conditions. There is no running water in many reservations, and most Indian homes are dilapidated, unsanitary and crowded. There is a high death rate for children, a high suicide rate, and a very low educational level of all Amerindians. In the middle of the 20^th century they were the most oppressed ethnic minority in the USA. Of course, The Indians have never stopped their struggle for civil rights.

Today Native Americans are full citizens of the USA. They are proud of their own cultural heritage: they taught the Europeans to cultivate some crops (see above), canoes and moccasins are their inventions. Their handcrafted artifacts such as pottery, silver jewelry, printings and woven rugs are highly prized.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-29