BF2S Forums What was most responsible for the fall of the Native Americans?

Disease and broken promises by the U.S. government.
But, what other conquering nation has left pockets of sovereign land to the vanquished.

ATG wrote:

Disease and broken promises by the U.S. government.
But, what other conquering nation has left pockets of sovereign land to the vanquished.

True...  but we gave most of them some of the shittiest land available (like Oklahoma).

ATG wrote:

Disease and broken promises by the U.S. government.
But, what other conquering nation has left pockets of sovereign land to the vanquished.

In the beginning there was no U.S. Govenerment, it was the European Countries.

Disease played a major role in decimating the population but ATG, I think you're just thinking of the promises and such of the late 1800s and Wild West-era Injuns.

United States---The expansionist ideas that were supported by manifest destiny led to the land grabbing during the 19th century. You had the Mexican-American war that was almost instigated by Polk himself caused Mexico to lose such a large area of Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and all that land which then was inhabited by settlers who saw them as savages and again, the ideas of superiority over the natives. The Southwest was also one of those regions home to hostile tribes which were a difficult nut to crack. It was those people east of the Missouri who saw all this land as an opportunity who began moseying out there following the gold rushes and as a result, the government almost had to listen to them and begin moving the natives off of that territory.

Last edited by DesertFox423 (2006-12-11 18:53:04)

omg it was the BOOZE. No one can resist...

dubbs wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

ATG wrote:

Disease and broken promises by the U.S. government.
But, what other conquering nation has left pockets of sovereign land to the vanquished.

True...  but we gave most of them some of the shittiest land available (like Oklahoma).

Also, their down fall started before the US government was created.  Another thing, Native Americans are not just located in North America.  The Aztecs, and Mayans were native to America, and the US goverenment did not effect them.  The US government just throw the last, and probally the hardest, of the hits.


The downfall of the Native Americas started when European Nations invaded their land.  Just like other nations, they were not able to defend themselves or their land, so that caused their downfall.

True...  I'm not suggesting that America should solely be blamed.  I would actually argue the Spanish and Portuguese were far less civil in their treatment of the natives (in most cases).  America was relatively civil (all things considered).

i have mixed feelings about this subject.
my heart goes out to all the indians because it was a horrible thing to happen.
however, somewhat regretfully and still somewhat proudly i have to say my families history in this is quite grim in some aspects.
before i start go ahead and say i dont care, or stfu or whatever. someone might find it interesting.
i am a direct descendant of this cat named simon kenton, hes my fifth great grandfather. anyway he used to kick it with daniel boone back in the day, and appearently indian fighting was the thing to do. god only knows how many dead indians he stood over after it was all over......heres a piece from a website about him and his festival(where i take full advantage of my ancestry and sell knives like they were going out of style)

A big man in stature and strength, his stamina was often tested as he endured the worst that was known to the frontier. During the winter of 1773, Simon and 2 companions were attacked around the campfire as they were drying their wet clothes. Yeager killed, the other two barely escaped naked. They finally met some longhunters on the banks of the Ohio River after a week of hunger and barefoot wandering in the Kentucky wilderness.

In September of 1778 Simon was captured by Shawnee Indians. He was tied, his hands bound, to a wild horse galloping through the trees. He was forced to run the infamous 1/4 mile "gauntlet" (which killed many prisoners) nine times. After the sixth, while attempting escape, had a hole hammered in his skull and was unconscience for two days. With a war club and axe, his arm and collarbone were broken. The indians called him "Cuttahotha" which means "condemned to be burned at the stake" which they attempted 3 times. Finally in June 1779 he was able to escape from Detroit. After a 30 day march he made it back to the American settlements.


http://frontierfolk.org/kenton.htm

anyway, he did this sort of stuff for the majority of his life and while i take pride in being related to one of the biggest badasses that ever roamed the ohio river valley, i sometimes feel bad for this pride.
anyway......

Parker wrote:

i have mixed feelings about this subject.
my heart goes out to all the indians because it was a horrible thing to happen.
however, somewhat regretfully and still somewhat proudly i have to say my families history in this is quite grim in some aspects.
before i start go ahead and say i dont care, or stfu or whatever. someone might find it interesting.
i am a direct descendant of this cat named simon kenton, hes my fifth great grandfather. anyway he used to kick it with daniel boone back in the day, and appearently indian fighting was the thing to do. god only knows how many dead indians he stood over after it was all over......heres a piece from a website about him and his festival(where i take full advantage of my ancestry and sell knives like they were going out of style)

A big man in stature and strength, his stamina was often tested as he endured the worst that was known to the frontier. During the winter of 1773, Simon and 2 companions were attacked around the campfire as they were drying their wet clothes. Yeager killed, the other two barely escaped naked. They finally met some longhunters on the banks of the Ohio River after a week of hunger and barefoot wandering in the Kentucky wilderness.

In September of 1778 Simon was captured by Shawnee Indians. He was tied, his hands bound, to a wild horse galloping through the trees. He was forced to run the infamous 1/4 mile "gauntlet" (which killed many prisoners) nine times. After the sixth, while attempting escape, had a hole hammered in his skull and was unconscience for two days. With a war club and axe, his arm and collarbone were broken. The indians called him "Cuttahotha" which means "condemned to be burned at the stake" which they attempted 3 times. Finally in June 1779 he was able to escape from Detroit. After a 30 day march he made it back to the American settlements.


http://frontierfolk.org/kenton.htm

anyway, he did this sort of stuff for the majority of his life and while i take pride in being related to one of the biggest badasses that ever roamed the ohio river valley, i sometimes feel bad for this pride.
anyway......

Thanks for sharing...  that's pretty cool, despite the brutality of it...  Different times = Different ethics...

Turquoise wrote:

In another thread, unnamednewbie and I were having a discussion about Native Americans and why they fell to the European colonists.

My personal argument is that, while some tribes could be described as savage in their bellicose tendencies, I would argue that at least an equal number of if not more tribes were peaceful and tended to themselves.

Infighting among tribes was a significant factor in the fall of the Native Americans, but I still believe disease and technology played much bigger parts.

What do you guys think?

I believe that disease and technology played their part because of the unproductive infighting among the tribes. If their civilization hadn't fallen into chaos, then they would've likely had the means to counter the two big killers you list. That was the spirit of my argument. On the matter of peaceful tribes, I don't deny that they existed, but they were swallowed all the same by the leviathan of European and European-descended power.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2006-12-11 19:07:36)

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

In another thread, unnamednewbie and I were having a discussion about Native Americans and why they fell to the European colonists.

My personal argument is that, while some tribes could be described as savage in their bellicose tendencies, I would argue that at least an equal number of if not more tribes were peaceful and tended to themselves.

Infighting among tribes was a significant factor in the fall of the Native Americans, but I still believe disease and technology played much bigger parts.

What do you guys think?

I believe that disease and technology played their part because of the unproductive infighting among the tribes. If their civilization hadn't fallen into chaos, then they would've likely had the means to counter the two big killers you list. That was the spirit of my argument. On the matter of peaceful tribes, I don't deny that they existed, but they were swallowed all the same by the leviathan of European and European-descended power.

Well, the main reason why the Indians didn't form large monolithic cultures in most cases was because of the sparse numbers of natives and how far spread out they were from each other.  Europe was jampacked full of people constantly at each other's throats for hundreds of years.  This forced them to invent new ways of killing each other.  Indians had less reason to develop this way, and instead, they focused on things like agriculture and hunting.

In the cases where the tribes did form large sophisticated societies (like the Aztecs), they still could not survive the onset of diseases the colonists brought, and they did not have the technology necessary to militarily defeat the colonists in the end.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Aztecs are a good example of where infighting was not an issue, and they still failed to defeat the Europeans.

Smallpox.

Disease was the greatest blow to the Native Americans. Easy to spread, and devastating. The initial blow was so poweful that Native American cultures could not rally once the Europeans had gained their foothold.

And disunification of Native American states. The sole reason the Aztecs fell was their tribal independence.

Turquoise wrote:

Well, the main reason why the Indians didn't form large monolithic cultures in most cases was because of the sparse numbers of natives and how far spread out they were from each other.₁  Europe was jampacked full of people constantly at each other's throats for hundreds of years.  This forced them to invent new ways of killing each other.₂  Indians had less reason to develop this way, and instead, they focused on things like agriculture and hunting.₃

In the cases where the tribes did form large sophisticated societies (like the Aztecs), they still could not survive the onset of diseases the colonists brought, and they did not have the technology necessary to militarily defeat the colonists in the end.₄

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Aztecs are a good example of where infighting was not an issue, and they still failed to defeat the Europeans.₅

₁And the fact that due to their inability to retain order, they were (for the most part) not able to maintain a cohesive, (somewhat) unified society.

₂The historical threat of the East and the interaction with the occasional Imperial power is largely responsible for whipping Europe into some kind of shape.

₃...and robbery and torture and rape and murder. I'm sure you realize the truth, but there are some people out there who really believe that all Indians did was roll around in flowery fields with raccoons and twirl atop beatific cliffs while birds chirp merrily by.

_4,5Agreed, in part.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2006-12-11 19:47:36)