American Indians

Many Indian tribes were removed from their homelands and their lands taken by whites in the nineteenth century. After the passage by Congress of the General Allotment Act of 1887, Indian lands were cut down by 1930 from 139 million acres to 47 million acres. This destruction and scattering of the tribes had a devastating effect on Indian life and culture. The terrible hunger, deprivation, disease, illiteracy, suffering and death of Indian men, women and children on the reservations and in the city slums are their current and continuing plight.

There are hundreds of claims against the federal government by Indian tribes and tribal groups requiring payment for lands taken from them – some pending for 20 years. In the late 1950s and early 1960s the Senecas of New York State were fighting in the courts to prevent their arable land from being flooded by the Kinzua Dam, and the New York State Tuscaroras were fighting in the courts to prevent the building of a reservoir on a large part of their reservation. The Iroquois later picketed the White House and said that they would take their grievances of confiscated lands and destitution to the United Nations as an international problem.

The Indians have built organizations such as the National Congress of American Indians, an organization representing two-thirds of the 600,000 Indians in more than 20 states, and the National Indian Youth Council which grew out of the discussions at the American Indian Chicago Conference of 1961. Others are the young American Indians United and the United Nations of Pan-American Indians. These are developing leadership toward unity in their fight for Indian rights. Indians are demanding fishing rights on rivers through fish-ins, self-determination and political independence – that, Red Power.

While many Indians have continued to live in their old tribal ways isolated from capitalist life, they exist in a capitalist environment and are basically subject to its economic and political laws. They are developing class differentiations. The Osage Indians of the U.S., one of the rare cases, have even a few wealthy, land-owning Indians. Even the most isolated tribes must adopt a commodity economy_; more or less in order to get the things that they must have.

ЛЕКЦИЯ 3

TWO FORMATIVE EVENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY

The English were slow to establish settlements in North America. Their first colonization efforts were stimulated by their hostility to Spain, when Henry VIII proclaimed himself head of the Church of England. The accession to the throne in 1558 of a protestant, Elizabeth, left the nations bitter enemies. The English were trying to find some base for attacks on New Spain, which had already founded its colonies in the New World. Two Englishmen, Sir H. Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh, persuaded the Queen that New World colonies would serve as bases for attacks on New Spain. But their attempts at colonization in Newfoundland and in present day North Carolina failed. However, two decades later a new monarch, James I, authorized the chartering of a joint stock company to colonize Virginia, the name Raleigh had given to the English New World.

The most important aspect of the first 50 years of English colonization was the meeting of Europeans and Native Americans. The key occurrence of the next century was the importation of more than two hundred thousand Africans into North America. That massive influx of black slaves and the geographical patterns it took, has dramatically influenced the development of American society ever since.

Many other major events also marked the years between 1650 and 1750. New colonies were founded, populating the gap between the widely separated New England and other settlements. England also took over the coastal outposts established by other European nations. As English settlements spread to the north, west, and south, they moved onto territory controlled by powerful Indian native tribes of the interior. Colonists and Native Americans went to war and for the most part the colonists emerged victorious. After a century and a half of English colonization the American provinces assumed a mature form.

One of the most striking characteristics of the mainland colonies in the 18th century was their rapid population growth. In 1700 only 250,000 people resided in the colonies; by 1775 it had become 2.5 million. Immigration accounted for a considerable share of growth, but most of it resulted from natural increase. European immigration flooded England’s mainland colonies. Some of the immigrants were from overpopulated and distressed areas of Europe, especially Scotland, Northern Ireland (Ulster), and Germany. They found in America opportunities undreamed of in their homelands. Many Germans arrived in America as redemptioners. Under that form of indentured immigrants paid as much as possible of the cost of their passage before sailing from Europe. After they landed in the colonies, the rest of the fare had to be “redeemed”. They were indentured for a term of service proportional to the amount of money they still owed. The term extended from one year to over three, but was more likely to be four. The largest groups of white non-English emigrants were the Scots and Irish who fled economic distress and religious discrimination. They moved west and south. If they could not afford to buy land, they squatted on land belonging to native tribes.

When 18-centuiy immigrants came to the New World, they found themselves at the bottom of the social scale. By the time they arrived, American society was already dominated by wealthy, native-born families. Unlike their 17-century predecessors, the new non-English immigrants had little opportunity to improve their circumstances dramatically. They could only accumulate a modest amount of property over a lifetime of hard work. Increasing social stratification – a widening gap between rich and poor – was most noticeable in the cities.

A majority of colonists, black and white, were now native born, and the colonies were beginning to develop a distinctive identity of their own. Colleges had been founded, newspapers established, social clubs and literary societies formed, a regular postal service begun, roads built, laws codified, and histories of the colonies written. The colonies could no longer be seen as extensions of England. Individually and collectively, they had become quite different.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11