Skip to main content

Insight into Native American Peoples

I think a most exciting time to visit this continent would be before or shortly after its "discovery."    I think it would have been an amazing thing to see some of the larger "cities", the Anasazi peoples before they abandoned their settlements at present day Mesa Verde, the Cherokee (which are my ancestors), and the Powhatan Confederacy, as well as other tribes across the Americas.  The native people here on this continent were as diverse as tribes or different groups of people in Africa.  Nowadays, most people have one stereotypical idea of "Native American Indians" riding horses, living in tepees, scalping poor innocent whites.  These stereotypes mostly come from old western movies.  But there were very distinct, diverse populations that lived here.  (Horses were not originally here either.) The native peoples had very different and unique cultures with different lifestyles, political systems, language, religions, customs, rituals, legends and diets.  Visiting the Americas would have been like a wonderful National Geographic trip for me.  I would have taken on meeting the different peoples as a great honor, meeting with different tribes, immersing myself into their lifestyle, documenting their customs, language, etc for all people from the "Old World" to know about.  How different would our history be if instead of looking at the natives as free workers or enemies -- we appreciated them for their uniqueness?  How different would our history be if instead of seeing the natives as inferior or beneath us, we saw them as equals?  Unfortunately, I wouldn't want to hang around for long, because I would be so sad to see so many natives die because of disease, then altercations and wars with settlers and finally so many deaths caused by the forced relocation of thousands of natives to what was deemed less valued land.  But, before all of the bloodshed, I think the America's and the native peoples would have been an amazing place to visit and study.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Emmett Till

I think the most important event in African American history since Reconstruction is the aftermath of the murder of Emmett Till.  Till was only 14 years old when he was tortured and killed by two white men in Money, Mississippi after flirting with a white woman at a store.  Till was beaten severely, shot and dumped into the Tallahatchie River, tied to a cotton gin fan.  African Americans were killed often in the South, many times by lynching.  The violence in the South towards African Americans was so prevalent that the two men that killed Till felt they were in the right and had no fear of being punished for this horrific crime.  When Till’s body was sent back to his mother in Chicago, she was shocked and horrified at how horrible her son’s body looked, due to the savage way Till was treated before and after he was killed.  Mamie Till Bradley made the decision to have an open casket funeral and to allow media to photograph his body before and during the f...
Post a Comment
Read more

Disaster Management: A State of Emergency

Before the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was created in 1979, over 100 agencies had to work together to help people during and after major disasters (Smith).  The result was a conglomerate of uncoordinated efforts that didn’t work very well.  FEMA was created after a series of major natural disasters.  Ironically, after FEMA was created, less severe disasters happened and FEMA didn’t seem quite so important.  Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush used FEMA to make appointments as political favors and the people they appointed to head FEMA had no experience, training, or background in emergency management (Smith).  When a severe storm finally struck, FEMA was unprepared.  After a category 5 hurricane hit Florida City in 1992, it took 5 days for troops to show up to assist.  Over 125,000 homes were destroyed and thousands of people were left without federal assistance or necessities, like water or food (Smith).  Jane Bullock, former C...
Post a Comment
Read more

Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women

The United States has not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) international agreement.   According to the National Women’s Law Center, only the United States and six other countries have not ratified this agreement ("Issues").   The Co-President of the National Women’s Law Center testified that CEDAW protects basic human rights and aims to stop gender based discrimination against girls and women.   Nearly 200 countries have adopted CEDAW.   The main tenets of CEDAW are to: 1) prevent crimes of sexual assault, domestic violence, sex trafficking and other forced physical and sexual acts primarily experience by women worldwide; 2) give girls and women equal access to education and job training; 3) improve access for women to healthcare and improve maternal mortality rates; and 4) provide critical legal support and legislation to families, mothers and their children (Greenberger). CEDAW seems like a no brain...
Post a Comment
Read more