The New World was already filled with tribes that had different cultures, settlements and different ways of survival. Although they were different from one another, they had one thing in common, they were human. They were a group of people who owned their land with oppressors. But when the Europeans came to the New world, the Indigenous people were dehumanized, stripped of sovereignty and killed. Later on, Americans would do the same thing, contradicting their ideals of freedom and equality.
The New world was “discovered” by Chritospher Columbus in 1492 during an expedition to find a new trading route from Spain to the West Indies. But instead, Columbus found a new continent, new raw materials, but also, people already living there.The Spanish sought for gold, glory but they also wanted to spread Christianity, and with the New World being discovered, they saw the Natives as the next target. In the letters from Columbus to the treasurer Luis de St. Angel, he described the Natives as “ hopelessly timid people” because they saw the Spanish as “men sent from heaven.” Columbus took advantage of this by saying “ I took by force some Indians from the first island, in order that they might learn from us.” In the eyes of Columbus, the Natives were in need of salvation through christianity, needing help from a supposedly superior race, but this was done through violence.The accounts of the social reformer Bartolome de las Casa described the horrible Spanish treatment towards the Indians , by saying “The Christians punched them, boxed their ears and flogged them in order to track down the local leaders.” The Spanish killed, raped and stoled the land from them in order to have their natural resources like gold or silver, Spain could have an extra way of income but they needed laborers. To achieve this,the Spanish came up with the encomienda system, which enslaved and exploded the Natives under the crown so they could extract valuable minerals, beginning the oppression of the Natives from the Old World.
When other countries such as Great Britain and France started to move to the New World, they started to build relations with the Natives. They would marry each other, trade, and have mutual respect for their boundaries and leaders. However, the Europeans started to push beyond the borders of the Natives, to gain land for future settlements and have their raw materials. Countries like Great Britain and Spain would abuse them. Meanwhile the French had friendly relations with them, marking the beginning of conflicts between the Europeans with the Natives allied with some Europeans over land. Famous conflicts like the French and Indian war or Pontiac’s rebellion showed how Europe was determined to fight over land that Natives once owned for many years. Later on, when the British colonies declared independence in 1776, the U.S. was born with the belief of “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” But this would not include the Indians.
In the early years of the country, presidents started to relocate Indians in order to gain more land. When president Thomas Jefferson ordered the Indians to relocate West of the Mississippi River, it established how the U.S. government would treat the Natives for the future. Presidents James Madison and James Monroe also enforced relocation. But, the policies under Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren became severe. Jackson persuaded congress to pass the Indian Removal act in 1830 to negotiate land ownership in the South in exchange for the Natives to move west of the Mississippi River. At first it was voluntary, but Natives refused to leave their ancestral lands. The U.S. government used military force to forcefully kick out the Natives, causing the trail of tears. The Native Americans walked thousands of miles under harsh conditions like rain,poor trails and walked through the wilderness. An account from a Native says “many of the aged Indians were suffering extremely from the fatigue of the journey, and ill health…” The United States saw all men equal, but they turned a blind eye towards the Natives.
Native Americans were the original inhabitants living in the New World, yet their land was taken from them. Driven by the idea of imperialism and human greed, European colonizers and later on Americans would see them as savages and obstacles to their plans, not human. Stripping away the human rights that revolutionaries used in the American Revolution, showing the exclusion of the natives in the “freedom” that Americans were proud to fight over. Raising the question, who truly benefited from American freedom in the past?
- https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/amerbegin/contact/text1/columbusletter.pdf
- https://minio.la.utexas.edu/webeditor-files/coretexts/pdf/149320columbus20letter20_20abridged.pdf
- https://web.as.uky.edu/history/faculty/myrup/his208/Casas,%20Bartolome%20de%20las%20-%20Short%20Account%20(1992,%20excerpts).pdf
- https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
Isaac Soto
In the Margins 
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