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Lance Goss

Ms. Whipple and Ms. Cooper

APUSH and AP English Language and Composition

May 24th, 2017

A Better Future for Native Americans: The Non-Native Influence

Already as one of the most influential global events, Columbuss discovery of the

Americas completely shifted the lives of Native Americans due to the interactions they would

have with a new, foreign, and powerful type of people. From all the way back to European

colonization, Natives have always had historical interfaces with other ethnic peoples which have

defined them as a group. Looking at the current situation of Native Americans in the modern

society of the United States, it seems evident these interactions have sided against Natives and

put them as a forgotten piece of American history. Although Native Americans have struggled

greatly in their past, there many different types of connections between them and non-native

peoples which explains their present state of seemingly poverty but promises a brighter future in

freedom and resurgence of their traditional culture in innovative ways. Since the arrival of

Columbus in the Americas, the Native American cultural values have been affected by non-

native people negatively through loss of land but also positively through economic opportunity

and modern technology.

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Land disputes along with discrimination are common issues in todays world and put

many people low in society. Native Americans, however, have experienced genocide due to these

conflicts and millions of their peoples lives are lost to these dilemmas. Both problems have

haunted Natives since their introduction to Europeans and are still crippling Native American

communities all over the nation. Arguments over land marked one of the first disagreements

between the two contrasting societies. Natives were pushed westward into uncharted and

typically useless land so that colonists could enjoy land on the eastern coast. European seizure of

Native American land was not only happening in what is now the United States. The Mission, a

movie about a native group in South America and its interactions with different Europeans,

reflected the extreme consequence of fighting the Europeans to protect their own land. The

Portuguese claimed the Guarani peoples land through a treaty but the Guarani had no authority

in the treaty so they fought. The Guarani are massacred only because they seemed to be just an

obstacle by the Portuguese. In this case, the Portuguese affected the Guaranis cultural values by

causing them to shift their focus from regular tribal rituals to preparing for attacks and defending

themselves. Also, by killing the majority of the tribe, the likelihood of the tribes culture to

survive much longer is low so the Portuguese are destroying every aspect of the culture and its

significance. Another example of land trouble for Native Americans comes from a personal

experience. Towards the end of the New Mexico expedition, the Academy for Global Studies

junior class connected to eat at a restaurant named El Pinto. While eating dinner, a Native

American woman named Sunny talked about her experiences on a reservation and she had an

interesting humorous but thoughtful style. She explained that one of the greatest conflicts on her

reservation was access to water. This is ironic because Sunnys tribe worships water and treats it

as if its given from the gods. The reason access to water is difficult is the amount of Uranium in
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the soil. Uranium makes the ground very hard to construct water pipes which means that

implementing them is expensive. Sunny explained that her tribe was pushed onto this reservation

in the past because it was very infertile, challenging to manage, and problematic when

constructing houses or buildings. The US government, which was completely non-native at the

time, assigned them this land. This shows that through land issues, these government officials

disrupted a Native American agriculture reliance and deprived a tribe of a resource that they not

only value, but worship.

Although Native Americans are known for being an ethnic group abused with

disadvantages and troubles, they have benefitted from other ethnic groups, especially today,

through economic opportunity and new technology. I learned a lot about economic opportunities

offered to Native Americans in a place I didnt expect. At the beginning of the New Mexico

expedition, we visited the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. There, I read about

the Manhattan Project, the operation to build the atomic bomb, and Los Alamos, NM which was

the test site of the new bomb. The area around Los Alamos became very developed due to

government funding of the project so a small city grew. Also in the area were many Pueblo tribes

who settled in the Southwest and benefitted from the land and climate in New Mexico. In Los

Alamos, Pueblo people were hired to do maintenance work which included construction workers

and drivers. Many Native Americans benefitted from these opportunities by gaining money

which allowed them to expand their communities and cultural influence. Ultimately, the US

government allowed the Pueblo culture to become more prosperous-driven which assisted them.

Many Native Americans also benefitted from technology developed originally by non-

native people. In my United States history class, we completed a summer assignment which

focused on the early time periods of America. One important event was the transport of horses
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and guns to the Americas by Europeans. Europeans traded these things for certain crops or

materials and these were considered new technologies to the natives. The horse and gun altered

many different Native American tribes cultural values in several ways. Transportation was now

very easy and less time-consuming for Natives which allowed them to become more active and

able to travel farther for resources. The horse and gun incredibly modified war for Native

Americans because they now had more effective methods of battle and they could effortlessly

hunt bison, deer, and even new animals they couldnt hunt before. By the Europeans introducing

these objects, they altered the Native American mode of transportation, war strategy, and diet

which are all aspects that compose their culture. A more modern example of Natives adapting to

new technology is the reservation school today. During our New Mexico expedition, we visited

the Tohajiilee School on a reservation. First, we did community service there by assisting the

teacher with organization or cleaning and then we helped elementary students with reading

assignments. I was surprised at how similar I found this school was to my elementary school.

The school structure was very alike and the kids played with Legos which was my favorite toy

growing up. One of the shocking things was that in one class, all the students were using laptops

to practice math. These laptops were similar to the one provided to us in high school. This shows

that the school system crafted by Europeans in early America and computer laptops invented by

a British designer have benefitted Native American methods of education which is a keystone to

the culture of the young.

Non-native people of America typically either feel great pity or great opposition towards

Native Americans due to their alleged state of powerlessness and savagery. Although neither of

these adjectives correctly describe Native Americans today, many people perceive them

incorrectly and therefore make an opinion that is incorrectly backed. Non-native people must
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explore the roots of our peoples origins and the first societies that served as a foundation for the

following developments in this country. Native Americans may have had countless conflicts in

the past with non-native people like Europeans colonists or the US government but if non-native

people stand together today to stop this historical trend, an important group of people with

treasured cultural values can strive and maintain themselves as a powerful example of a society

composed in the past and present.

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Sources Cited

The Mission. Directed by Roland Joffe, performances by Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons, and

Liam Neeson, Warner Bros, 1986