How were the Native Indians when Columbus arrived?[Angels?, Savages?,etc]

Myself ^ | 12-3-01 | electron1

[michigander]

You may find this interesting.

[martian_22]

Subdivide any slice of humanity - Episcopalians, Plumbers, Fat Ladies that like to bowl on Thursdays between 1-4pm, Oriental Midgets - It matters not.

You will find Good and Bad in every group, no matter what YOUR standards are.

I've even heard the proposition put forth that there are even Good French People! ;)

[anothergrunt]

Some people (make that read brain dead liberal eco freaks) seem to think that native Americans were peaceful noble savages living in an ecologically perfect harmony with nature. The truth is they were warlike, ignorant, superstitious stone age (literally) people who in some cases were cannibals and in almost all cases practiced torture and slavery. The only reason they didn't rape the land worse than the white man was that they didn't live long enough to create the population density necessary to have much of an impact on the ecology.

[MosesKnows]

Native Americans should never be equated with environmentalism.

I have seen similar comments before and I am always puzzled by what the author of the comment might have meant. Is it possible the author felt that societies who only returned to the land that which they had taken from the land should have been more environmentally friendly? Does that make sense?

To those who feel it does make sense I ask if they expect modern man to exceed the Indians as the superior custodians of the land. The Native American Indian had no plastic or paper to dispose of. They created no chemicals. I would assert that all the waste created by an American Indian tribe in one year would take less than one additional year to have been returned to the earth from which it came. Have Archaeologists retrieved any yellow pages, metal cans, six-pack containers, or packing foam from an ancient Indian garbage mound?

One clear way in which modern man could improve on the Indians treatment of the land would be if he were to remove himself from the planet.

After you!

[fish hawk]

What were we like: Re-watch Dances With Wolves and you will see what we were like. There were good Indians and Bad. There were Very good Indians and Very Bad. Just like every other race throughout the world...no different.
By the way I am an American Indian or an Aboriginal American . Most of you are "native Americans".

[electron1]

Romanus Pontifex Bull

Hey hey know, your making things up. For one, right off the bat I can tell that it is not a true statement because the Pope NEVER refers to any statement as "Roman Pontiff", plus the name itself is something that would not be given to a true pronouncement cuz of its self discriminating nature "Roman Pontiff Bull"???

It truly surprises me to what degree people are willing to accept things.

[rustbucket]

Here are a couple of first hand accounts of dealing with the Indians in the very early days.

Penquin Books published a book by one of the members of Cortez's 1519 expedition, Bernal Diaz. The book was titled, "The Conquest of New Spain". According to Diaz, the Indians repeatedly tried to ambush and kill the Spaniards before the Spaniards had apparently done anything. You never know, but it has the ring of authenticity.

Diaz was also a member of the 1517 Francisco Hernandez expedition to the mainland. He mentions their first encounter: "The canoes came close to our ships, and we made signs of peace..." The Indians invited them to their village. On the way to the village, the Indian chief "started shouting to some bands of warriors whom he had placed in ambush to kill us....the bands quicky fell on us with great fury..."

Captain John Smith's, "The General Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles with the names of the Adventurers, Planters, and Governours from their first beginning An. 1584 to this present 1624." also describes assaults by Indians. The settlers of Jamestown had the following welcome:

"The first land they made [after their voyage across the Atlantic] they called Cape Henry, where thirtie (sic) of them recreating themselves on shore, were asaulted by five Salvages (sic), who hurt two of the English very dangerously."

The fort they built was frequently attacked too. "for many were the assults, and ambuscadoes of the Salvages, & our men by their disorderly stragling were often hurt, when the Salvages by the nimbleness of their heeles well escaped."

[Question_Assumptions]

Lawrence Keeley's War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage, an excellent book that not only explains how violent primative people were but how academia preserves the myth of the "peaceful savage". This is an important book because assumptions about human nature is an important element of why liberals think the way that they do.

Do a web search for "Crow Creek Massacre" (see, for example, http://www.usd.edu/anth/pathology/creek.html) and "Anasazi cannibalism" (see, for example, http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/cannibalism000906.html) if you need some quick points to make.

[verity]

"I have a question"

I, too, have a question. Are you related to Phelectron? ;-)

[MosesKnows]

The only reason they didn't rape the land

May I ask, how does a society with neither paper nor plastic rape a land? What possible evidence exist today of the Indians rape of the land? Did you really think that a society with over five million square miles to roam and possessing only that which the earth could provide could actually pollute or even have need to care for that matter? But they did care.

"We must protect the forests for our children, grandchildren and children yet to be born. We must protect the forests for those who can't speak for themselves such as the birds, animals, fish and trees."
Qwatsinas (Hereditary Chief Edward Moody), Nuxalk Nation
Rain-in-the-Face - Sioux (???-1905)

"I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of a nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love."
Red Cloud (Makhipiya-luta) Sioux Chief

Brother, you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why not all agreed, as you can all read the Book? "We also have a religion which was given to our forefathers, and has been handed down to us their children. It teaches us to be thankful, to be united, and to love one another! We never quarrel about religion."
Sogoyewapha, (Red Jacket), Seneca 1752-1830

"Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.". . . . "Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth. "This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. "One thing we know: our god is also your god. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.
Chief Seattle, Dwamish - 1786-1866

[Unassuaged]

The fact that some of the tribes encountered by Spanish were Matriarical (children took their mother's name) was enough to call them savages and kill them all, one priest wrote back to Spain recounting stories of the Spanish throwing Indian children to their Mastiffs--etc. My teacher had a novel thake on that, he said that the worst of society was often 'on the boat' to the new World looking for plunder and war. --my 2 cents

[Dale 1]

Dear Electron1,

Being a suspicious person to a fault, I suspect that you might be a lazy student getting someone else to do your research. On the other hand, you might be an enterprising student, taping a reasonably talented source for information.

Just kidding. You got’a love the basic knowledge base of your fellow freepers. Have a great day!

[genefromjersey]

Some of the Indians did have a written language; others used "living computers" : record keepers who memorized important history, with the use of menomic aids-usually in the form of shell belts.The Maya ( for all the good it did them ) had written language,a system of written mathematics, a basic knowledge of astronomy, etc.

None of these things were particularly effective, when dealing with heavily armed settlers.

[genefromjersey]

Some of the Indians did have a written language; others used "living computers" : record keepers who memorized important history, with the use of mnemonic aids-usually in the form of shell belts.The Maya ( for all the good it did them ) had written language,a system of written mathematics, a basic knowledge of astronomy, etc.

None of these things were particularly effective, when dealing with heavily armed settlers.

[Lazamataz]

How were the Native Indians when Columbus arrived?[Angels?, Savages?,etc]

How were they?

They were tender.

And if you dipped them in the BBQ sauce, they tasted a lot like chicken.

[IronJack]

There are numerous resources available on the internet and at your local library if you want to research Indian history. Suffice it to say that history is written by the victors, and the White Man vanquished the Indians. So the traditional view of Indians is that they were essentially barbarians whose repeated depredations were answered by benevolent whites who rounded them up and gave them a place to live on their reservations.

The revisionist view is that the white settlers were greedy savages who poisoned the Indian culture with their materialism and their diseases, thus crushing forever a gentle pastoral people who lived in harmony with the land and who would willingly share all its blessings.

Both views are poppycock. Anthropological evidence suggests that the Plains indians lived a subsistence life, barely surviving the hostile climatic extremes of the American Midwest. Other tribes fought intermittently among themselves, often inflicting untold tortures on their prisoners and victims. That same depravity would mark their clashes with Whites.

The Whites were hardly blameless. The constantly reneged on their agreements with the natives, expanding ever westward into their hunting territories, and squandering the buffalo herds on which their very lives depended. Overwhelming profligacy and wanton destruction of Indian property accompanied the westward expansion, and it is not unreasonable to expect resistance to White encroachment. Yet when the Indians resisted, they were hunted down and slaughtered.

Like most history, the answer lies somewhere between the extremes. However, look at the fate of both races today, and you'll have an answer of sorts. An answer that probably just asks more questions ...

[RedBloodedAmerican]

I think the Indians were still struggling. Their pitching staff was weak and they could never get past the Mariners. Other than that, I think they did win their division 2 consecutive years.

[Caipirabob]

*Sigh*

Now everyone knows that the Indians were all completely civilized and all the Indian women were complete babes who talked to trees and assorted vermin and liked to date white explorers particularly when it pissed off their Chieftan fathers.

Seriously, there was such a vast variety of Indian cultures sharing so many different languages, technology levels, cultural traits and values that they had as much trouble presenting unified front as we do today.

They most likely experienced the same issues that most smaller communities experienced. Each groups experiences impacted slightly different by local traditions and values.

I love to read about them and feel the stories, such as the plains Indian cultures, are particularly Romantic. However, on the whole, the fact that they didn't pay taxes is the singular most attractive aspect of their entire culture to me.

By the way, my wife really looks like the picture above. She's a babe!

[Dqban22]

Some tribes, as the Siboneys in the Caribbean Islands were in the Paleolithic Age, living by hunting and fishing; others as the Tahinos were in the Neolithic already cultivating different crops, but both were pacific and amiable as Columbus testified. Other Indians were cannibals and primitives as the Caribbean Indians from the North of Venezuela and the Small Caribbean Islands. They attacked the Indians of the mayor Islands slaying and eating their inhabitants, or taking them as slaves.

In the Continental part, most, if not all the tribes, were man eating, including Central America, North and South America. Some like the Mayan civilization were well advanced even though their civilization disappeared before the European arrived. The Aztecs were particularly sanguinary, that is the reason the other tribes allied with the Spaniards in hope of freeing themselves from their Aztec oppressors. The Incas also had an advanced civilization although nothing to compare with Europe that was already in the Renaissance after assimilating great cultures such as the Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Muslim civilizations. I have visited both parts of the world, and although remarkable the achievements of the Amerindians, fell short of XV century Europe’s accomplishments in art, music, architecture, science, literature, and institutions of higher learning.