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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.

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