Native Americans:

Yesterday & Today

A Project Work by Irene Petrashchuk, Group 34-E
Under the general supervision of O. Zabolotnyi

Many different Native American groups lived in North America. Different tribes living in the
same region shared the same culture because the land they lived on shaped their way of life.

LONG BEFORE the white man set foot on American soil, the American Indians, or rather the
Native Americans, had been living in America. When the Europeans came here, there were
probably about 10 million Indians populating America north of present-day Mexico. And they had
been living in America for quite some time. It is believed that the first Native Americans arrived
during the last ice-age, approximately 20,000 - 30,000 years ago through a land-bridge across
the Bering Sound, from northeastern Siberia into Alaska . The oldest documented Indian
cultures in North America are Sandia (15000 BC), Clovis (12000 BC) and Folsom (8000 BC)

Although it is believed that the Indians originated in Asia, few if any of them came from India.
The name "Indian" was first applied to them by Christopher Columbus, who believed mistakenly
that the mainland and islands of America were part of the Indies, in Asia.
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So, when the Europeans started to arrive in the 16th- and 17th-century they were met by Native
Americans quite enthusiastically. The Natives regarded their white-complexioned visitors as
something of a marvel, not only for their outlandish dress and beards and winged ships but
even more for their wonderful technology - steel knives and swords, fire-belching harquebus
and cannon, mirrors, hawk bells and earrings, copper and brass kettles, and so on.

However, conflicts eventually arose. As a starter, the arriving Europeans seemed attuned to
another world, they appeared to be oblivious to the rhythms and spirit of nature. Nature to the
Europeans - and the Indians detected this - was something of an obstacle, even an enemy. It
was also a commodity: a forest was so many board feet of timber; a beaver colony so many
pelts, a herd of buffalo so many robes and tongues. Even the Indians themselves were a
resource - souls ripe for the Jesuit, Dominican, or Puritan missionaries, who tried to turn them to
Christianity.

Right: Locomotives from the eastern

and western United States are depicted
here meeting in Promontory, Utah,
where crowds gathered to watch the
joining of the Union Pacific and Central
Pacific railroads on May 10, 1869. This
first transcontinental railroad opened the
West to supplies and resources from the
East and served as the chief means of
transportation for settlers in the West.

It was the Europeans' cultural arrogance, coupled with their materialistic view of the land and its
animal and plant beings that the Indians found repellent. Europeans, as a whole, were regarded
as something mechanical - soulless creatures that used diabolically ingenious tools and
weapons to accomplish their crazy plans.
Buffalo

The buffalo provided the Plains Indians with food. Its skin was used for clothing and for shelter.
The bones were turned into spoons, cups and other tools. The stomach was cleaned and made
into a bag for carrying food and water.

The end of the buffalo came with the

Europeans. Some killed it for sport, others
for business. Passengers of the trains
shot the animals from train windows.
Professional hunters like Buffalo Bill Cody
shot them for their valuable skins.
Railroad companies hired hunters to
keep buffalos away from the new rail
lines. The hunters did their job well.
Between 1870 and 1885, they killed over
10 million animals. For the first time,
many Indians did not have enough to eat.
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Right: William
Frederick Cody, (1846-
1917) known as Buffalo
Bill, American scout and
showman, at Fort Garry
Gateway, Winnipeg,
Manitoba, Canada with
Native Americans.

The Europeans brought with them not only a desire and will to conquer the new continent for all
its material richness, but they also brought with them diseases that hit the Indians hard.
Conflicts developed between the Native Americans and the Invaders, the latter arriving in
overwhelming numbers, as many "as the stars in heaven". The Europeans were accustomed to
own land and laid claim to it while they considered the Indians to be nomads with no interest to
claim land ownership. The conflicts led to the Indian Wars, the Indian Removal Act empowered
by President Andrew Jackson in 1830 and other acts instituted by the Europeans in order to
accomplish their objectives, as they viewed them at the time. In these wars the Indian tribes
were at a great disadvantage because of their modest numbers, nomadic life, lack of advanced
weapons, and unwillingness to cooperate, even in their own defense.

Left: U.S. Cavalrymen are chasing

the Indians.

Below: The map of the battle of

Little Big Horn, where on June 26,
1876 a U.S. cavalry unit
commanded by General Custer
was rooted by the Sioux Indians
led by Chief Sitting Bull.
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Left: The last moments of the

battle of Little Big Horn, when
General Custer (the upper
central figure) was killed.

Below right:
A rare print made in the early
1870's in Montana territory,
showing General George A.
Custer and some of his scouts
when the General was in
command of troops detailed to
guard surveying and building
crews constructing the
Northern Pacific. The Indian
standing by the tent door is
thought to be Curly, recorded
as the only survivor of the
Battle of the Little Bighorn
where Custer's entire
command was wiped out by
the allied Indian tribes under
Sitting Bull on June 26, 1876.

The end of the wars more or less coincided with the end
of the 19th century. The last major war was not really a
war; it was a massacre. In 1890 Indian warriors, women,
and children were slaughtered by U.S. cavalrymen at
Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in a final spasm of ferocity.

Left: A group of U.S. soldiers who fought

at Wounded Knee. Indian warriors were
no match for such modern weaponry as
this Hotchkiss cannon.

A stupefying record of greed and

treachery, of heroism and pain, had come
 to an end, a record forever staining the immense history of the westward movement, which in its
drama and tragedy is also distinctively and unforgettably American.

Page 5.

Native Americans today

The European settlers of the United States treated the Native Americans badly. They were
attacked and their crops were destroyed. Their land was taken away from them and many were
forced to move far from their native lands to Indian reservations. They were forced to send their
children away to school.

Today, there are schools on the reservations

like this one on the Havasupai reservation in
Arizona.

Many of the Native American people moved

from the reservations and into American cities
to find work to support their families. Today,
Native Americans live both in reservations and
in the cities and towns of the USA.

Native Americans have had to fight for their

rights to teach their children about the traditions
of the tribes, to hunt and fish, and to open new
businesses in the reservations. This is a lumber
mill on the Menominee Reservation in
Wisconsin.
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Today, Native Americans pass down their traditions, such as native

dances, to their children.

Today, the Native American

population is split between those
living in and out of federal
reservations. And while urban
Native Americans are less impoverished than those living in
reservations, they remain concentrated at, or near the bottom
of the class system. High unemployment, elevated high
school drop out rates, low achievement levels, suicide,
alcoholism, health issues, high crime rates, and ongoing discrimination all plague modern
Native American communities. A few years ago, statistics indicated that three of the ten poorest
counties in the U.S. were Sioux reservations located in South Dakota.

Comprehension Questions:

1. Where did Native Americans come to America from?

2. Why buffalos were so important for Native Americans?
3. Why did buffalos disappear?
4. What were the roots of the conflict between the Europeans and the Native Americans?
5. Who was Sitting Bull?
6. Who was General Custer?
7. What happened at Wounded Knee?
8. How can you describe the life of Native Americans today?
9. Can you predict the future of Native Americans? Share your opinion.