Essay Sample on Native Americans Resistance

The Native Americans opted to resist against the European colonizers who came into the country and tried to change the ways through which they used to undertake their operations. The Indian men are the ones considered to have been the Native Americans. Most of their economic and social activities mainly involved being hunters and warriors. On the other hand, the women were entrusted majorly with the task of taking care of children, cultivating crops as well as harvesting them. The women equally maintained the tents and grounded the maize that was used for making flour for the family. Initially, the Native Americans collaborated very well with the first European colonists. In addition, it is their help, which enabled the first European settlers in the northwestern parts of the United States to build Jamestown in Virginia. In addition, the pilgrim colony of Plymouth s based in Massachusetts was created with the aid of the Wampanoag Indians (Clash of Cultures Native Resistance part 2. MP3.) Additionally, the Indians played the vital role in showing the immigrants the ways through which land needed to be cultivated. However, as time passed by, the massive immigration of the Europeans and the methods through which they applied in cultivating the land generated immense tension with the Indians. It is critical to note that while the Native Americans hunted water birds, deer, wild turkey and gathered seafood for their ways of survival, the colonists engaged in contrary activities. The white people started to mow the grass to feed both their cattle and horses, as their pigs destroyed the claim reserves. Such alterations in the environment that brought immense tension between the Indians and the colonists as the Europeans tried to change the natives ways of lives (Di Santo 9).

The Native Americans considered the whites as primitive and rude, and they failed to recognize the superiority attitude that the Europeans had towards them in their native land. The Indians strongly believed that the Europeans mainly had different values to them in their own land. The aspects of selling land were not in any way comprehensible to the natives. It is mainly because they were used to living harmoniously with nature without bothering to disturb the natural balance that was in place. Both violence and atrocities erupted, and the Indians were feared mainly due to their reputation of persistently taking the scalp. The Indians, however, lost the battle as the colonists outnumbered them not only in numbers but also with the quality of the weaponry that they used in undertaking the attacks (Di Santo 14). In addition, whereas the Europeans were resistant to the epidemics that they brought along to America, the Indians were affected immensely by the epidemics. Some of the epidemics included flu, chicken pox, measles, malaria, TBC, and smallpox among others. The levels of mortality rates in the Indian villages reached 90%, and this reduced their numbers tremendously. In the course of the American Civil War (1861- 1865) most of the soldiers had to retreat from their territories mainly the Navajo Indians. Between 1820 and 1845, most of the Native Americans died due to the tough winters when they were chased from their lands to the southeastern parts of the United States. The last Indian resistance that took place in the year 1890 was defeated at the massacre of Wounded Knee in the Great Plains.

Works Cited

Clash of Cultures Native Resistance part 2, MP3

Di Santo, Anthony. Indians in the mirror: Playing the myths of Aeneas and Cato in early American drama, 1600-1860. Diss. Northern Illinois University, 2013.