sunisup.tumblr.com (via atlasextinctnations.blogspot.com)
Posted on 11/21/2012 5:24:18 AM PST by Renfield
Everybody knows that Europeans took a lot of land from Native Americans, but this animated GIF by Tumblr user sunisup gives a great sense of just how fast the people living in North America were pushed west after Christopher Columbus "discovered" the continent.
She turned an old graphic by Louisiana State professor Sam B. Hillard into a mini-movie that viscerally demonstrates the gradual chopping away of Native American land through cessions, or a surrender of territory to another entity. The green represents Native American land, and any part that turns white was ceded. She writes: "Made because I was having trouble visualizing the sheer scale of the land loss, and reading numbers like 'blah blah million acres' wasn’t really doing it for me." Numbers wise, the amount of green land shown after 1895 is about 2.3 percent of the original size.
Hillard got his information from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of American Ethnology. The history of Native Americans is complicated, so the graphic only documents land that was ceded. Any land that was ceded but then later turned into a reservation may shop up again later in the time lapse. Whatever the in-between negotiations, it's clear the land disappeared quickly. The difference between 1784 and present day Indian reservations is striking.
sunisup.tumblr.com (via atlasextinctnations.blogspot.com)
The areas of the country largely settled by white Americans of pre-Revolutionary ancestry have a high percentage of persons who self-identify as Americans. This is true in the Deep South, northern New England, and the Ohio Valley. A similar phenomenon may be noted among English-speaking Canadians, who increasingly self-identify as Canadians rather than Scots, English, Irish, etc.
As for the American Indian/Native American, there is no really good term, unless we use the term aborigine, as the Australians do, or Original People, a term used by the Canadian government.
A civilization is often described as a complex culture with 5 characteristics: cities, specialized workers, record keeping/literacy, institutions, and a level of technology roughly equal to that of the Sumerians or Egyptians.
We get it: white people are inherently evil and earth would still be the Garden of Eden if they weren’t around.
Whew, does this not give any background at all. Background essential to knowing what happened.
To start with, when the British colonies were established on the coasts, westward expansion was effectively blocked by the northern and southern tribes, except that in pre-history, they had such an enormous and bitter war, that they had agreed that most of the area of what is now Kentucky was a “neutral zone”, prohibited to both sides.
So when new immigrants, particularly tough Scots-borderers arrived, they were encouraged to settle in Kentucky, making an effective wedge between the northern and southern tribes. Once established, neither Indian confederation could drive them out. So a westward expansion corridor was created.
The next big problem came with the Louisiana Purchase, which included vast areas claimed by the Plains Indians. But these claims were problematic, as there were far too few Plains Indians to control such an area except intermittently. Settlers could easily move in and set up defenses before their presence was detected.
Then came Andrew Jackson, who though he had fought side by side with Indians against the French, had no problem in ordering a massive “ethnic cleansing” of the southern tribes, pushing them West across the Mississippi. The infamous “Trail of Tears”.
The next phase of westward expansion was conducted to a great extent with considerable tact and diplomacy by the US military, whenever they could, who generally rejected the anti-Indian hatred devolved from Washington.
But at the same time, the US military was well aware that it faced several very large and reasonably capable armies of the western tribes, most of whom were more than willing to go toe-to-toe with them in a fight.
Much of this came to a head with a withdrawal of many US Army forces because of the Civil War. But after the war was over, the battle hardened Army went West with resolve and broke the resistance of the western tribes during the Indian Wars. The last skirmishes ended just before the turn of the 20th Century.
> Aboriginal Americans
Why FreedomPoster, you must be from my generation.
When I was in school (50s & early 60s) the PC term for indians as Aboriginal Americans. Americans like me were called Native Americans, because we were born here and our families had been here for generations.
In this day, how far back do you have to trace your ancestry to be able to use ther term Native. My family is traceable back 406 years.
It just took one hundred and eleven years for the ignorant freedom loving Indians to lose America to the Europeans.
It has actually taken less than that for the ignorant freedom loving whites to lose it to the socialists.
The only consolation in the whole thing is that there has to be a purpose behind it that is ordained by God.
I often offer this speculation in regards to the Native Americans: what do you think would have happened if it were Genghis Khan or Tamerlane who had come here instead of Columbus?
“Well, for classification, what term would you use to define a person who identifies with a pre-columbus ethnicity? >North Asian migrants”
Probably the most accurate term. When I was deployed to Central Asia, the Uzbeks told me of their wide ranging Turkic ancestors. A young Uzbek woman with a UCLA degree said to me, “We headed west and conquered Constantinople, we headed east and defeated Custer!”
She was so good looking I could only nod in agreement.
;^)
I’m a tad younger. One just has to have a reasonable command of the language, and not be wedded to the constraints of political correctness (AKA cultural Marxism) to be able to come up with a properly descriptive term. You are, indeed, a native American.
Asian invader
“All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian.”- Pat Paulsen
Asian immigrants!
It’s no one’s fault the warriors weren’t up to the challenge. When you play with the big boys you might lose your toys.
Great clip!
That about sums it up in a historically accurate way.
Sure America existed before Columbus discovered it for Europe.
Genetics also existed before Gregor Mendel discovered its rules. DNA existed before Watson, Crick and Franklin discovered the structure of DNA. Gravity bent light before Einstein discovered the principle and before the principle was observed and measured.
Just for the record, Andrew Jackson never fought against the French. He was a mere Carolina lad of 7 years when the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired at Lexington Green. He was a early teenager when he first encountered a British soldier in that war and acquired a hatred for them which would last a lifetime.
His cruel policies toward Indians were a natural outgrowth of his seeing them as allies and collaborators to the British to limit American expansion.
Nonsense. In 1492 the vast majority of people in the Western Hemisphere were settled farmers.
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