Ronald Takaki A Different Mirror
American identity has been created by many events throughout the course of history. This country was founded on the clashing and mixing of many different cultures and lifestyles. One of the most important periods of time for this country was during the period of conflict between Americans and Native Americans over land rights. Americans had an idea of manifest destiny and that this land was theirs for the taking. The Americans were going to walk through anyone who opposed them in this quest for land. The treatment of the Indians during this time period was harsh, cruel, and violent to say the least. It is in this treatment that Americans came to view the Indians as a "racialized other" and where race began to matter. This early thinking is what created our American identity which is based on race. In the early settling of this country, when the English first encountered the Indians they viewed them as uncivilized beasts. "The first English colonizers in the New World found that the Indians reminded them of the Irish" (Takaki, 28). To the English the Irish represented a lower and uncivilized class of people, a group that the English considered to be beneath them. This association was the beginning of creating an "India
The killing of Indians for this purpose could then be justified by they were doing what God had wanted them to do. They saw themselves as messengers of God and they needed to get rid of theses "Devilish creatures to do so." The English created these negative and unholy images of Indians to lower their own moral standards. In their minds they weren't killing another human being, they were killing a demonic unholy beast. "savagery" (Takaki, 44). The natives were then considered to be an unimprovable race. They were incapable of being changed, their traits were inherent and their descent caused them to be this way. The thinking of the Americans was that the Indians had to removed off their lands. One of the leaders in this movement was Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was a man who pushed for the advancement of his country. He saw the need for the Indians to be moved out the away for this to occur. He removed Indians from their lands and sought to place them out of the way of expansion. He could rationalize this as the fact that Indians were wasting the land, and we could use it better, so it is our duty to take it from them. The removal of the Indians was done through signing treaties with them and by giving them land to live on that would be out of the way of progress. This is the beginning of classifying people by location. Indians live on Indian reservations and the Whites lived elsewhere. The areas that the whites moved the Indians to was out of the way o
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Approximate Word count = 996
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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