Native Americans and their history

The term "American" is associated in most of the inhabitants of our planet with a man of European appearance. Some, of course, can imagine a black man. However, Native Americans look a little different. And they are more known under the name "Indians". Where does this concept come from?

Indians and Indians: why are these names similar?

So, today Native Americans are often called Indians. The word is similar to the name of another nation: Indians. Is this similarity random? Maybe Indians and Indians have common historical roots?

In fact, Native Americans got this name by mistake: the Spanish navigators, led by Christopher Columbus, were looking for a shortcut from the Old World to India. They did not know about the existence of the American continent. Therefore, when they met the first inhabitants of the new land, they thought that they were residents of India. According to ethnologists, the first Indians are not autochthonous population. 30 thousand years ago they came here from Asia along the Bering Isthmus.

Where did the name "redskins" come from?

Native Americans often appear under the term "redskins". It does not have the negative character attached to the word "black" in relation to the African-American population of the United States.

Often the Indians themselves called redskins, contrasting the white colonizers. On the contrary, the term "white" in their eyes has a negative color. This term appeared due to the tribe of the beotuki. It was located on the Canadian island of Newfoundland. It is believed that it was the beotuki who first began to contact not only the Europeans who arrived, but even the Vikings, who, according to some reports, appeared long before Columbus.

Beetics not only had a characteristic shade of skin, but also applied bright red colors to their faces, opposing themselves to white colonizers. It is believed that it is for this reason that all Indians received such a nickname. The tribe of the beotuki ceased to exist in the first half of the 19th century.

Colonization

Native Americans (Indians) were not going to give up their territories so simply. From the time of Columbus and until the 20th century colonization of the continent was going on. For the sake of justice, let's say - both sides suffered losses before the Europeans fully settled here.

It is noteworthy, but the first European settlers could somehow get along with the Indians. The situation changed when the development of these lands became a political goal. Frenchmen, Englishmen, Spaniards, Portugueses, Russians poured into America. By the way, wars and land redistributions were not only between Europeans and Indians.

Native Americans are a belligerent people. Constant conflicts, wars between tribes are a frequent phenomenon on this continent. It is noteworthy, but the first settlers from the Old World just took part in the conflicts between the tribes.

It can also be noted that some tribes of Indians took part in the war on the side of Europeans. The reason is that the blood feud lasted not for decades, but for centuries. Therefore, to support foreigners in the struggle against blood enemies in some tribes was considered a holy affair, "a testament of fathers and ancestors".

Europeans were also not part of a single union. There have been conflicts within various colonial settlements, and even wars between countries. For example, active hostilities between England and France in the early 19th century occurred precisely in the American territories.

Thus, it can be concluded that the colonization of the continent did not take place in the form of a mass, purposeful extermination of the indigenous peoples by the European peoples, but represented the unraveling of the tangle of permanent centuries-old contradictions. In Latin America, the Spanish and Portuguese colonialists organized the total genocide of the indigenous population of the Incas, Aztecs, Mayas. The situation in North America was different.

Assimilation from the middle of the 19th century

Europeans considered the Indians barbarians, savages because of their peculiar way of life and individual culture. Often issued various laws that prohibited the language of Native Americans, religion, traditions, etc. The government sought ways to assimilate indigenous people.

Very successful were attempts to protect the Indians from the bulk of the population in isolated reservations. Similar autonomous villages exist today. Of course, there are already many elements of modern life in people's lives: clothes, homes, transport. However, they are still true to many traditions and customs of their ancestors: they preserve their language, religion, customs, mysteries of shamanism, etc. By the way, each language has its own language.

The struggle for the rights of Indians

The first half of the 20th century was marked by the beginning of the struggle for the rights of indigenous people. In 1924, a law came out that gave full citizenship to all Indians. Until then, they could not move freely around the country, participate in elections, study in general schools, universities. In the same year, all laws that at least somehow oppressed their rights were abolished.

There were activists fighting for the return of all illegally selected lands from the Indians, as well as compensation for the damage caused to them. There was even a special commission for Indian complaints. Since that time, a native in the United States has become profitable: only in the first 30 years of the Commission's work the government paid about $ 820 million in compensation, which equals several billion dollars in terms of current rates.

The home of the Indians

Before the emergence of European colonizers in the modern US and Canada, there were up to 75 million Indians. Today, this figure is much more modest: just over 5 million people, which is about 1.6% of the total population of the United States.

Where did the Native Americans live? There was no single state. Tribes differed in their traditions, way of life, level of development. Therefore, each ethnic group occupied its land. For example, the Pueblo Indians occupied the territory of the modern states of New Mexico and Arizona. Navajo - the territory of the south-west of the US, next to the pueblo. Iroquois inhabited the lands of modern states of Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois. A little to the north of the Iroquois lived the Hurons, who were the first to trade with the Europeans. The Mohicans tribe lived on the territory of the modern states of New York and Vermont, the Cherokees inhabited modern North and South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Virginia.

"Native Americans" - coins for collectors

Interest in the culture of the Indians has not faded even today. Especially for collectors, coins of the series "Native American" were issued (photo below). This is a one-dollar copper coin, covered with manganese brass. Such pollination is short-lived, with an intensive treatment, the original appearance is completely erased, so they can only be found in numismatists. The initial name for the series of coins is "Sakagaway Dollars" in honor of a girl from the Shoshone tribe.

She knew many different languages and dialects of Indian tribes, helped the expedition of Lewis and Clark. On some coins there is its image. As a prototype of Sakagaway, a 22-year-old girl from the same tribe was chosen - Randy Teton.