The America's History of Colonialism, Native Americans and War of 1812

The Indigenous people have been around ever since Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the New World. They brought powerful allyship and served as a great help as the European Empire flourished, but the Indigenous people did not receive the same benefits the Europeans got from them. Due to differences in religion, agricultural practices, housing, and other characteristics, it indicated to them the Indigenous peoples’ inferiority. They were often exploited for economic advancement and profit through trade and resources. The dominant presence of multiple European empires impacted Indigenous people in North America through economic development, colonization, diseases, cultural assimilation, and detrimental wars.

Long before the Europeans arrived in 1492, the Indigenous people formed the very first democracy. The Haudenosaunee, people of the longhouse created what they claimed to represent their democracy, the Hiawatha belt (Native America: “Natures to Nations” PBS 2018). An important factor to their people were the Wampum belts. The purple and white beaded belts represented who they were and acted as peace treaties. The Indigenous people were quite clever and figured out how to flourish in agriculture. They cultivated the Three Sisters (Chapter 1: The New World), it consisted of corn, beans, and squash. They explored the New World by sending mobile hunter-gatherers, exploiting vegetable, animal, and marine resources. Fast forward to 1492, Christopher Columbus arrived in his great voyage for new land after his promise to Queen Elizabeth. This was the beginning of the tragic sequence of events that the Indigenous people endured. Columbus nicknamed them the Indians.

By the time Columbus arrived in 1492, the land was home to 100 million Native Americans. In the journal Columbus kept, he repeatedly described their incredible looks, masculinity, and the ability to work. He believed that they were people that could be easily converted to their faith (Journal Of Christopher Columbus, 1492). The Native Americans faced a deadly crusade, they stood no chance to what the Europeans brought that weren’t weapons: diseases. Smallpox, influenza, bubonic plague, malaria, and many more to which Native Americans had never been exposed to. Within 200 years, 90% of the population of 100 million plummeted to 10 million. They were forced into reservations and 98% of their territory was taken from them. (Native America: “New World Rising” PBS 2018). The Europeans had already made a deadly impact on the Indigenous people. Their unintentional presence of diseases had already decimated half of their population. Quickly, they began to trade with the Indigenous people. To gain higher status with the French fur traders, they had to cooperate with the Native Americans. The French wanted to assert dominance in the region and use the skilled Indian trappers to access more wealth. Frenchmen journeyed to the New World to settle permanently. (Chapter 2:Colliding Cultures). In Richard Hakuylt’s document, he promised Queen Elizabeth I that more conversions from the Native Americans would satisfy God and all of England. Richard Hakluyt explain the religious, moral, and exceptional economic benefits of colonization (Richard Hakluyt makes the case for English colonization, 1584). Hakluyt suggested that it might provide the only salvation from Catholic rule in the New World. It offered obvious economic advantages, trade and resource extraction which would enrich the English treasury. They seized all Indians that did not comply and pressured Catholicism onto them. Their first encounter with the Indigenous people had already impacted them immensely with diseases, settlement, and the desperation of converting the Native Americans. The Indigenous people no longer lived peacefully like they once did.

As English colonists settled into the New World, they craved more resources and trades. English traders encouraged wars with Native Americans to purchase and enslave captives. 24,000 to 51,000 Native Americans were forced into slavery throughout the southern colonies (Chapter 3: British North America). In 1761 a prophet, Neolin had a vision from his deity, the Master of Life; the only way to enter heaven would be to stop the corrupting influence of Europeans by taking the British away from Indigenous peoples’ country. Pontiac an Ottawa leader, gathered 300 Native Americans and killed half of Fort British soldiers. The Master Of Life encouraged them to go into war and earn their land back. (Pontiac Calls for War, 1763). Though the Native Americans did not win Pontiac’s War, they succeeded in fundamentally altering the British government’s Indian policy. This policy, the Royal Proclamation of 1763, created the proclamation line marking the Appalachian Mountains as a boundary between Indian country and British colonies.

The French and Indian War was determined on the allyships between the Indigenous people and European empires. It was them who initiated conflict. The Half King, an Indian leader, orchestrated confrontations between British and French, to strengthen his powers in the region. It was this confrontation where he kills a Frenchmen and places the blame on George Washington. War broke out and tension grew between the British and French. The French always had an advantage against the British because of their neutrality and allyship with the Native Americans. They often used their strategy of attack that countlessly defeated the British by surrounding the enemy and blundering them with primitive weapons. The allyship was essential for the French to keep advancing against the British (The War That Made America, PBS 2006). In 1759, the Iroquis made a momentous decision that changed the outcome of this war to abandon 50 years of neutrality with the French. This is when the British won the war, solely because the French lost their alliance. Because of the detrimental change in allyship, the British won the war. Quickly after the war, the American Revolution broke out. Britain had failed to define colonies' relationship to the empire to institute imperial reform (Chapter 5: The American Revolution). Once again, the Indigenous people were majorly impacted by being placed in war with the Europeans. They had countlessly help the French with their men so they could have an advantage against the British and when they lost that allyship, the British were named victorious.

In the primary source, “A Confederation of Native people seek peace with the United States, 1786”, Native American leaders gathered on the banks of the Detroit River to offer a unified message to the Congress of the United States. They expressed that they did not feel the peace between the United States and Great Britain. The Native Americans' relationship with the United States grew worse to a point where a group of Native Americans tried to drive out the Americans by the Tecumseh confederacy. In the end, the Tecumseh confederacy was defeated and America was yet in another war, The War of 1812. (Chapter 7: The Early Republic). The war of 1812 paved the way for the Americans to take Native land. Native Americans who were fighting alongside the British lost the most from this war, their land. Due to the Treaty of Ghent opening doors to U.S. expansion all over the country, the power Natives held over their land fell to the wayside and wouldn't return (War of 1812, Diane Garey, Lawrence Hott, PBS 2011). The War of 1812 was pernicious to the power of their land. Once again, the European presence of Indigenous people had ruined their future hopes of a peaceful life.

The Indigenous peoples’ lives never remained the same after the presence of European empires. They once lived peacefully on their land until Christopher Columbus arrived. They brought diseases that they’ve never been exposed to and new religions forced onto them. With the many wars, they participated in changed the entire course of their future, resulting in the loss of power in their land. The Europeans continued to expand with advances like the Market Revolution and democracy (Chapter 8: The Market Revolution), leaving the Native Americans out of it entirely. The fate and livelihood of the Indigenous people were detrimental due to the dominant presence of the European empires.