How would European settlers explain their superiority to Native Americans Indians and justify both the conquest of native lands and terminating their freedom?
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journal article Native Americans in America: A Theoretical and Historical OverviewWicazo Sa Review Vol. 14, No. 1, Indigenous Resistance and Persistence (Spring, 1999) , pp. 7-28 (22 pages) Published By: University of Minnesota Press https://doi.org/10.2307/1409513 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1409513 Read and download Log in through your school or library Alternate access options For independent researchers Read Online Read 100 articles/month free Subscribe to JPASS Unlimited reading + 10 downloads Purchase article $16.00 - Download now and later Journal Information Wicazo Sa Review is an interdisciplinary journal devoted to the mission of assisting Indigenous peoples of the Americas in taking possession of their own intellectual and creative pursuits. During the past two decades, American Indian Studies has emerged as a central arena in which Indigenous populations in the United States define the cultural, religious, legal, and historical parameters of scholarship and creativity essential to the ongoing process of decolonization and to survival in the modern world. Founded in 1985, Wicazo Sa Review is a journal in support of this particular type of scholarship, providing inquiries into the Indian past and its relationship to the vital present. Publisher Information Founded in 1925, the University of Minnesota Press is best known as the publisher of groundbreaking work in social and cultural thought, critical theory, race and ethnic studies, urbanism, feminist criticism, and media studies. The Press is among the most active publishers of translations of significant works of European and Latin American thought and scholarship. Minnesota also publishes a diverse list of works on the cultural and natural heritage of the state and the upper Midwest region. Rights & Usage
This item is part of a JSTOR Collection. Learn about the ideas the first Europeans brought with them to Canada that determined their responses to the Indigenous Peoples they encountered. Last Updated: September 20, 2019
What are the ideas the first Europeans brought with them to Canada to determine how they would respond to the Indigenous Peoples they encountered? European voyagers, clergymen, merchants, and, later, policy makers in the so-called New World projected an array of ideas onto the people they would describe as Indians. Those ideas were formed even before contact, when Europeans responded to the encounters with non-Europeans in other places, such as Asia and Africa. When they met the Indigenous populations in North America, peoples of whom they had little knowledge, Europeans imposed these older ideas and stereotypes. This reading is designed to explore these prejudices and stereotypes. Many of these ideas are still circulating in the media today, and it is important to learn the origins of these problematic notions. A word of caution: the language in the excerpts below is offensive and racist. The offensive words and terms are not presented here as valid; instead, they provide opportunities to study how stereotypes work. When the French and British began to receive news about North America from merchants, explorers, and missionaries, the local people were often described as noble, simple people. Some Europeans imagined the Indigenous communities as an ideal primitive society, living freely in a simpler and more peaceful state than in Europe. Other Europeans also described them as barbaric, a term the Greeks and Romans used to describe people who did not speak their language or share their culture. 1 At other times, Europeans used the term savage to describe people they believed to be uncivilized. In the seventeenth century, Francis Daniel Pastorius, the founder of Germantown, Pennsylvania, wrote about the local people he encountered:
The Europeans, fascinated by the life they discovered in the Americas, quickly placed the people they called Indians inside their own worldview. Many Europeans were devout Christians, and to them the Indian represented humanity in its infancy; they likened these people to Adam and Eve. 3 The Europeans believed that the differences between themselves and the Indians could be overcome in a civilized and religious environment. Thus, the “savages” could become just like them—European. 4 But this view of Indigenous life had a darker side. The Western image of Indigenous people in North America led many to the judgment that noble savage were also uncivilized, animal-like creatures. For example, the French priest Louis Hennepin did not spare the First Peoples he encountered in 1683 from his harsh judgment. His report on this encounter led to a crude assessment of these “uncivilized” people:
Connection Questions
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Using the strategies from Facing History is almost like an awakening. — Claudia Bautista, Santa Monica, Calif How did the views of freedom differ between Native Americans and Europeans?Many Europeans saw Indians as the embodiment of freedom, but most others saw freedom as absent in Indian societies. The apparent absence of established governments, laws, and respect for authority in Indian societies struck Europeans as barbaric.
What advantages did European settlers have over Native Americans?The Europeans brought technologies, ideas, plants, and animals that were new to America and would transform peoples' lives: guns, iron tools, and weapons; Christianity and Roman law; sugarcane and wheat; horses and cattle. They also carried diseases against which the Indian peoples had no defenses.
How did European conquest affect Native American communities of the Americas?Europeans carried a hidden enemy to the Indians: new diseases. Native peoples of America had no immunity to the diseases that European explorers and colonists brought with them. Diseases such as smallpox, influenza, measles, and even chicken pox proved deadly to American Indians.
How can the relationship between the European settlers and Native Americans best be described?During the colonial period, Native Americans had a complicated relationship with European settlers. They resisted the efforts of the Europeans to gain more of their land and control through both warfare and diplomacy.
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