Where to begin?
American Indian studies thus far has taught me a lot. It’s hard to narrow down just one day in class to talk about, especially since this week we’re only posting one blog post about our in-class experience.
Something that I found extremely interesting, though, was the colonization process. I’ve always known that colonization happened, but I personally have never sat down and thought out how it happens or what leads to the total annihilation of a race or people. It also boggles my mind how one group of people, the Spanish, had absolutely no respect for the native populations of Hispaniola. It’s very apparent that the Spanish had different values than those of the natives. The Spanish would rather exterminate the entire population for gold rather than set up some sort of trade agreement, simply based off the fact that the Native People killed 39 Spaniards for heinous crimes they committed against the natives.
Also, in Anton Treuer’s book, “Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask”, we see that in many Native American tribes women held a lot of power. This changed drastically after European settlers arrived and refused to talk to the tribal women due to their beliefs that women could not be capable of holding political powers.
Overall, I’m baffled by how forward thinking the Native People of North America were and how barbaric and cruel the people from the “civilized world” were. I also find it completely awesome how the Native People of the Americas were so adamant about preservation and tried to establish a good relationship with the Spaniards.
Obviously that failed.
It just goes to show that there are two sides to every story and we’ve been taught one side, and now seeing more into the other side, I am just shook.
Jonathan June 15, 2018
In the first week our class has learned a lot about the Native Americans. We have learned bout their history, religion and culture, the pow wow, and the tribal langues of the Native Americans. I agree with you Jake and I had a hard time deciding on my topic to talk about in my first blog. I also found it fascinating and horrific history about the Spanish encounter with the Native Americans, but I could not help myself with the thought of the tales of El Dorado in the back of my head. I felt both the history of the Native Americans encounter with the Spanish and the tales of El Dorado have a lot of similarities.
mkthomps June 16, 2018
I found the first weeks readings hard to read sometimes. The death and destruction that ravaged the Americas is almost unbelievable. The only positive reflection that I was able to take away was that so much of the culture is still preserved. There is so much destruction that was brought about by colonization. The first peoples have struggled since Columbus landed in the Bahamas, and it never got better for them.
Colton Fangmeier June 16, 2018
I understand where you’re coming from, I’ve learned so much more since coming to college I’ve learned how wrong what we learned about colonization in high school was. We never learned about the Native Peoples’ side of the story which I now find very upsetting.