The Conquest of North America

Before the first Caucasians arrive in the Americas the natives had been living on and battling over the land for thousands of years. In North America the natives held land in the name of the tribe, they could lose land or take land from another tribe by force. However the concept of land belonging to one person with the power to sell it was unknown. The natives only used the land for sustenance. They traded with other tribes but never had the opportunity for commerce on a large scale.

When white men arrived they saw the natural bounty as an asset to be owned and controlled. Wild life and trees where a commodity to be exploited. Trees could be cut down and turned into lumber then sold to far flung places. Animals could be hunted, not for immediate food for a tribe but for their hides which could be sold or traded for profit on a large scale.

Whenever white men first encountered a new tribe the Indians where always friendly and peaceful, welcoming the strangers. This was true when Cortez landed, when the Pilgrims landed, and when Louis and Clark trekked west; the Indians where always hospitable. However, study what the Spanish did in Central and South America. Read about the brutality Desoto did on his march through the southern states and tell me about savages.

Where did the Indians go wrong? What was the cause of their downfall? When white men first encountered them the Indians still had stone age technology and naturally wanted to trade for the iron and steel tools that the white men had, so they could easily be talked into hunting for hides beyond the needs of their tribe, hunting the game to near extinction. They saw an endless landscape so they could be easily talked into selling pieces of real estate cheaply.

As the whites moved deeper into the continent the greed and lust for land took over. The government began to aid rich well connected individuals in taking by guile and force more and more land. This is a pattern that started with the very first white settlements on the east coast and continued for several hundred years until every foot of land was taken, all the way to the pacific ocean.

Long before North America was called the United States Kings of Spain, France, Holland, and England give title to the land to rich well connected subjects; estates of hundreds even thousands of square miles where deeded to wealthy families and the original inhabitants be damned.

The natives did resist, they fought, and at times won however they did not understand the way the white man fought wars and did not have a manufacturing base for modern weapons. They also could not draw large armies from the general population. A chief could call on the men of his tribe and even friendly tribes near by. Had they been one vast nation from coast to coast with the ability to make modern weapons they could have kept their land. Feudal Japan adapted and in a very short time brought themselves into modern times and very nearly succeed however even they could not resist the overwhelming numbers that a nation the size of the United States could bring to bare.

So the North American aboriginal natives where defeated and deprived of their land. European Caucasian culture took over the continent and the Indian way of life disappeared forever.