Native Americans and the Environment

 

Before the Europeans came to North America, the natives lived synonymously with the environment. They hunted, fished and grew crops, but only in amounts that were sustainable and necessary. The natives lived with nature, instead of trampling it. When the white man came ashore though, Indian agriculture was dramatically changed. As the Europeans bean to take over more and more land, they pushed away the ideas of agriculture that the Indians had to teach and instead, implemented their own. Not adopting the Natives' ways though, wasn't enough for the whites, they instead had to force their ways upon the Natives. The thoughts of the European's were that the only good kind of Indian, was one that was assimilated into European culture. This belief was so strong, that many whites thought that there was no point in a Native being alive if it didn't follow the European ways.

Cultural ideas such as language, schooling, and agriculture were forces on the Natives. After being relocated to specific reservations, the Indians were forced to cut out their old ways of hunting and fishing, and to implement farms. The Europeans were not pleased though, when they saw that the Indians were making a good profit off of their farms. Some farms were then cut into sections or taken over by the white men in order to cut off the Indians' profit.

We now know today, as we experience the effects of global warming, that the European forms of agriculture are not in any way sustainable or sensible.  It would have benefited the United States significantly more if the Europeans had listened to and observed the ways that the natives lived with the land.The Europeans could have leaned a lot from the Indians and we still could use their help in getting out of our current environmental crisis. This help that they could offer us though, is not what most people see. Instead, we continue to seclude the Indians to small unwanted pieces of land and then harm them with our terrible ways of polluting the earth. We should take a lesson from the Natives, instead of hurting them and ourselves more.


Below is a video of an old commercial that shows an Indian crying over what the white man has done to the environment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OHG7tHrNM