Do you believe the Native Americans to be savages?

@hawkeye10,

First the question itself is invalid as there was many cultures cover by that label that had more differences between them that existed in the Europeans of that day.

Now google the key words "Five Civilized Tribes " to get the view of one side of the extremes and then do research on the plain indians tribes for the other end of the spectrum.

One group was settle farmers the other raiders who you would not wish to live near unless you enjoy being attack for your horses and women and whiskey supplies.

Yes you could made short terms agreements with them such as long as they would only raid into Mexico you would leave them alone on this side of the border for example.

Raiding however was as must a part of their culture as it was for Vikings before so they where not good neighbors to have if you was sitting on a farm with only yourself and wife and kids within many miles.

There was time that the raiding got so bad near the border that there were food shortages in Mexico as the Mexican farmers fear to be out in the field working alone or even in small groups.

They ended up sheltering in large groups and just letting a large percent of the crop rot in the fields.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

you should read more about the "plains" tribes, Bill...

you sell them short.

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@mt774,

Here is the sad truth of the matter Native Americans were not and are not savages. The reason they were looked upon as savages is because the white eyed invaders had a policy of extermination because they occupied the land. As someone of Native American descent (Shawnee) it angers me that some people still refer to my forefathers as savages.Did you know that in some states it was illegal for Native Americans to vote until 1965 and some states had "Indian Hunting laws " on the books until the 60s the fact remains that Native peoples took wild wheat and changed to produce corn, they made the most accurate calender the would has ever seen I can go on and 0n. I summit that the white eyes were the savages by the way they tried to exterminate a whole race of people because they were different.

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@mt774,

mt774 wrote:

I am keep hearing people describe those Native Americans as violent savages and when i seeing movies sometimes they are portrayed as making lots of screeching noise and mindless killings and being uncivilised, so what will most current Americans consider them to have been?

I was born in New York,
which is in America; that makes me a native American.
I do not believe that I have been savage.

David

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@hjlands,

Quote:

Here is the sad truth of the matter Native Americans were not and are not savages. The reason they were looked upon as savages is because the white eyed invaders had a policy of extermination because they occupied the land.

Not that simple by far once more.

There was indeed very civilized tribes that was mistreated without question however repeat however there was tribes who culture revolved around not farming or hunting but in raiding others.

Similar in a way to the vikings and such people can not by their very nature have peaceful relationships with their neighbors long term

The Comanche along the US Mexican border was so bad in that regards that some parts of northern Mexico had period of famines as the farmers fear to work their fields due to Comanche raids.

I guess if you had have your family and neighbors wiped out by a Comanche raid or two you would consider them savages yourself.

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@hjlands,

hjlands wrote:

I summit that the white eyes were the savages by the way they tried to exterminate a whole race of people because they were different.

I believe that if the Native Americans collectively told the Europeans that they would all go to South America, then there would have been no confrontation.

It all came down to the land and the Manifest Destiny that the Europeans believed was their destiny, I believe. The buffalo had a nasty habit of stampeding over railroad tracks. The two cultures were just incompatible, I believe. So, since there was no way to reconcile the totally diverse world views, hostilities manifested.

I wouldn't think of Native Americans as savages, nor of Europeans as savages. They were just fighting over turf. What exacerbated the situation, in my opinion, was the racial aspect, in that the Native American appeared quite different than the northern European that came during the 16th - 19th century. If Native Americans were all tall, blond, and were eager to assimilate into the European culture, there would have been no problems, in my opinion.

When all is said and done, I believe many problems between groups are only partially solved, until one or the other group gives up and assimilates into the dominant group. Trying to out produce the other group with more children just leads, in my opinion, to wars that thin out the population of the less dominant group. History seems to prove that, in my opinion.

1 Reply

@Foofie,

Quote:

f Native Americans were all tall, blond, and were eager to assimilate into the European culture, there would have been no problems, in my opinion.

There was tribes that was very eager to adopt European culture sitting up tribal governments on the American model, producing a written language and newspapers to go along with that language.

Adopting the technology of the day such as metal working and farming methods and so on.

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Quote:
f Native Americans were all tall, blond, and were eager to assimilate into the European culture, there would have been no problems, in my opinion.

There was tribes that was very eager to adopt European culture sitting up tribal governments on the American model, producing a written language and newspapers to go along with that language.

Adopting the technology of the day such as metal working and farming methods and so on.

Right. That's the Cherokee you're talking about. And what'd it get them? They were the ones sent on the Trail of Tears to be resettled in Oklahoma. Hundreds died on that trail. That's what they got for trying to learn 'white man's ways.' President Andrew ('Old Hickory') Jackson simply ignored a Supreme Court order telling him he couldn't do that.

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@Lustig Andrei,

Quote:

They were the ones sent on the Trail of Tears to be resettled in Oklahoma. Hundreds died on that trail.

Quote:

Many died, including 60,000 of the 130,000 relocated Cherokee, intermarried and accompanying European-Americans, and the 2,000 African-American free blacks and slaves owned by the Cherokee they took with them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Quote:
f Native Americans were all tall, blond, and were eager to assimilate into the European culture, there would have been no problems, in my opinion.

There was tribes that was very eager to adopt European culture sitting up tribal governments on the American model, producing a written language and newspapers to go along with that language.

Adopting the technology of the day such as metal working and farming methods and so on.

If you are talking about the Cherokee, then they represent the tribe that has mixed the most with other peoples in the U.S., I thought. My point is proven; assimilation might be a good preventive to genocide. It just has to be done before the decision of genocide is made.

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@Foofie,

Quote:

If you are talking about the Cherokee, then they represent the tribe that has mixed the most with other peoples in the U.S., I thought. My point is proven; assimilation might be a good preventive to genocide. It just has to be done before the decision of genocide is made.

What has caused you this minor spate of honesty, Foofie, admitting that the US committed genocide against Native Americans?

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@Foofie,

Quote:

If you are talking about the Cherokee, then they represent the tribe that has mixed the most with other peoples in the U.S., I thought. My point is proven; assimilation might be a good preventive to genocide.

By the way I was talking about the Comanche not the Cherokee who would not assimilated.

A tribe by that name still exist but the majority of it members who could or would not change their culture ended up dead and the descendants of those who did change and survived would not at all be typical of the population in 1840 or so.

So in a way it was a form of genocide.

1 Reply

@Lustig Andrei,

Sure. The Cherokee were highly civilized. One of the Five Civilized Tribes, as a matter of fact. I don't know if the other four had plantations worked by slaves, or not.

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@Lustig Andrei,

Quote:

Right. That's the Cherokee you're talking about. And what'd it get them? They were the ones sent on the Trail of Tears to be resettled in Oklahoma. Hundreds died on that trail. That's what they got for trying to learn 'white man's ways.' President Andrew ('Old Hickory') Jackson simply ignored a Supreme Court order telling him he couldn't do that.

They was still far better off then the tribes that would not adopted and that most of their populations was wiped out as a result.

Oh why do we have Jackson on our money as he did have some large faults the treatment of Indians tribes that was allies being only one of those faults.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

More admissions of US government supported genoicide of Native Americans.

What has happened to y'all?

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@BillRM,

Quote:

Oh why do we have Jackson on our money

You have a great tendency to "honor" your war criminals and your terrorists, Bill.

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@mt774,

Quote:

Do you believe the Native Americans to be savages?

I believe that the Indians
were savages thru the 18OOs; not now.

(That does not necessarily apply to every tribe.)

David

0 Replies

Do you believe the Native Americans to be savages?

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