Module 2 Reflection: First Americans
The First Americans
I am going to talk about the First
Americans in which the North American Indians consisted of small migratory
bands that were used for hunting, fishing and etc. Native Americans were rich
and sophisticated. During the
thousands of years preceding European contact, the Native American people
developed inventive and creative cultures. They prepared plants for food, dyes,
medicines, and textiles. They also domesticated animals, established patterns
of trade, built cities, built monumental architecture, developed systems of
religious beliefs, and lastly created systems of social and political organization
ranging from kin bands and tribes to city states and confederations. Native
Americans not only had to change to diverse and demanding environments, they
also changed the natural environments to meet their needs. Once the arrival of
Europeans in the New World, the Native Americans struggled intently to preserve
the essentials of their diverse cultures while adapting to changing conditions.
30,000 years ago, the Paleo-Indians,
ancestors of Native Americans followed herds of animals from Siberia across
Beringia a land bridge connecting Asia and North America into Alaska. By 8,000
B.C. the people had spread across North and South America. No one knows for
sure how many Indians lived in the Western Hemisphere in 1492, but the number
was in the millions. In no sense were the Americas empty lands. At least 2,000 languages were spoken in the Americas in 1492. Cultural differences were
marked. Some Indian people belonged to small bands of hunters and gatherers and
some practiced sophisticated irrigated agriculture. All Indians lived in organized societies with political structures,
moral codes, and religious beliefs. All had adapted to the particular
environments in which they lived. The idea of private land ownership was foreign.
The land was held communally and worked collectively together by different
tribes and city states.
Studd, Mark. "Paleo Indians."
Paleo-Indians in Virginia. 2017. 27 Aug. 2019
<http://www.virginiaplaces.org/nativeamerican/paleoindians.html>.
Hello Jalen,
ReplyDeleteTo read that the Natives were an organized people who contributed to the early establishments of this country was not so much as a shock but a slap in the face. To know that Europeans are trying to not only take credit for these accomplishments but wipe them away from the history books is demoralizing to an entire culture. The only thing that I’ve ever read about wrong doings on the Native American culture was The Trail of Tears. I can understand fighting amongst tribes and different cities based off of territories because that was just the way of the land. But robbing and invading a land to try and make it your home is barbaric and has me thinking that the actual savages were the Europeans. I never knew there were millions of Natives, I was always taught the numbers were in the thousands, just goes to show how much we rely on the words of others.
excellent comments!!!
DeleteHello Jalen,
ReplyDeleteI also find it very interesting that before European contact the Americas were filled with native people living peacefully amongst themselves. What little fighting happened was over land or tribal territory. As you said there was over 2,00o languages and it is impossible to know the number of natives but I can assume the number was pretty high. Kind of sad to think about how European contact pretty much decimated the native population and reduced it further and further to what it is today.
Hi Jaelan! I like your brief overview of the original Americans, I think it is necessary to know about the indigenous people's of the Americas. I wish they kept better track of their history and culture so that more people's today can know of the many things they accomplished with the little technology and resources they had available to them at the time.
ReplyDelete