American Indians
Ever since the first Europeans inhabited America there has been a fascination with its land. Its beautiful scenery and its rich soil made, for the settlers, an attractive place to settle . Shortly after the colonies formed, the people started to accept farming as a way of life. Gradually the colonists became self-sufficient and eventually broke all political ties with their mother country, England. In the distance the native Americans (dubbed Indians by the settlers) watched as more and more Europeans came into their homeland. American government took advantage of the Indians by tricking them into selling there lands, not aware of what they were doing, and forcing them off if they resisted. The Indians became upset as they were constantly being shouldered off of their land. In order to respect each others space, treaties were made between the government and the various tribes of Indians. The discovery of gold, however, changed all of this. Instantaneously the treaties were out of the question and white settlers streamed into tribal lands. As society kept surging west and more treaties were broken, Indian tribes either resisted or were taken advantage of in the formation of other treaties. The beginning of capitalism only enhanced
the whites progress west. After the civil war ended people flowed into the west in search of new land. Soon, railroads were plowing through Indian lands, then telegraph wires, then stagecoach lines. The end result was the Indians lost their homeland and their way of life. Because the Indians did not understand-until it was too late-the true essence of white culture, their existence as a people was essentially doomed. Part of the cause of the Indian's downfall was related to certain assumptions that they made regarding the white culture. One assumption was that the whites would fight with honor on the battlefield, and that they would use tactics similar to those used by Indian war parties. The honorable way of fighting to an Indian was one on one, or one warrior's tactics and skills against anothers. When they fought the whites, however, they found themselves up against not individual men, but a group of soldiers fighting in a line together. This put the Indians at a serious disadvantage, and brought them to defeat very quickly. Also, they had never heard of the tactic of pursuit before. In the winter months, when normally they would have time to rest and no tribes would declare war, they found themselves under attack from pursuing American soldiers. The one assumption that led to the Indians losing almost all of their land was that they thought they could hold whites to their word. Time after time, whites made treaties with tribes, declaring a mutual respect for each others land. While the Indians thought they were holding up their end of the treaty, the whites would invade or push the tribes off their precious land t
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Approximate Word count = 1097
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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