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Ellen Campbell

AP English & AP History

Cooper & Whipple

May 22nd, 2017

The Negative impacts of Societies on Native traditions and Cultures

Guiding Question: How might influencing cultures impact native culture in a negative or positive

way?

Throughout the history of American colonies expanding, indigenous people have been

effected throughout their way of life and their cultures. When European explorers found the

Americas, run ins with Native Americans caused fear for many, including those who had lived

on these lands for years. As more and more people started settling in the Americas, Natives were

pushed off their lands and forced onto reservations. The government and people that surrounded

Native areas started to control these peoples way of life. This has caused major disruption of

their cultural practices and and has tremendously impacted the way that they live. Although

some influences are positive, influencing cultures have negatively affected Native life and

culture due to the creation of stereotypes based off their identity, taking away their opportunities

and livelihood, and controlling their way of life.

Native American life has been negatively impacted by colonization and governments

controlling these peoples simple ways of life. For example, the film The Mission that my

classmates and I watched in AP English class, gave us an example of a time where native culture

has been influenced by other cultures coming into their territory and controlling them. We were

shown how Native Americans fought for their land from the Spanish that were coming to the
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Americas to settle, and about how hard it was for natives to fight back for their land due to how

powerful these incoming colonists were. The discussion we had following the film allowed us to

expand on dissident and idealism and how these ideas are shown through Native cultures. This

helpedus recognize different perspectives of what each of us took away from the film, which

opened our minds to different ways of thinking that we possibly hadn't thought about prior to this

discussion. From this, Natives lost a lot of their essential traditions due to the influence of

Spanish expansion taking away their lands and controlling their actions. Also, the study of

Native responses to colonization in AP History is another example of a time this year where my

classmates and I saw how Natives were negatively affected by incoming colonizations

controlling their way of life. During this activity my classmates and I analysed two documents

each (ten in total) and took notes on the author's point of view purpose, and audience of the

presented documents. From annotating these historical documents I was able to look in depth at

how Natives responded to colonization. For example, enforcing laws that were extremely hard

for indians to follow exemplifies how people have altered native life. These Natives struggled

with living by these harsh rules and couldn't maintain their original traditions. Lastly, from

personal experience oftalking to a native Acoma member at the Acoma pueblo in New Mexico, I

saw first hand how this community has negatively been affected by incoming cultures. Right as

this group settled in New Mexico, explorers and other tribes started coming into their community

and were trying to control and manipulate the Acoma people so that they would provide food and

shelter for these people. Finally, when a group of Apache people came and tried to control the

Acoma people, the Acoma people grew frustrated and started a war. Resulting from this war,

most of their members died and it is known to be the most harsh conflict in their history yet.
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While talking to this man about this incident I could see how saddened he still felt about this

event and how it still holds a lot of meaning to each of the tribe members. This is an example of

these Indians being controlled and trying to fight back, which led to a devastating loss for the

Acoma community. By societies coming into Native American territory and trying to control

these people's lives, it has and still is hurting and altering Native traditions and cultures in a very

negative way.

Not only have differing cultures affected tribes by controlling them, but they have also

taken away things within their livelihoods. For example, In AP History we studied the Dakota

Wars by analysing documents from several perspectives including the Native Americans, the

Federal Government, and White Settlers. My groupmates and I then proceeded to create a

powerpoint that asked the question of Who is the savage in this war, which my group found to

be the federal government. These documents showed us all of the limitations and restrictions that

were put on Native Americans during this time, like taking away their lands, which provides us

with an example of a time where natives were negatively affected by an outside culture. This has

caused their lives to alter in a very harmful way by creating poverty and lack of resources, like

water or land, to be available. In fact, on the last night in New Mexico my classmates and I had

the opportunity to talk and listen to a Native storyteller named Sunny, who went on to tell us

about how she lives with no running water. Sunny lives with no running water due to the federal

government originally not giving her community funding to extend water pipes, which would

cost millions of dollars to do so but is extremely possible. The government is taking away

resources that they can easily get to these Native people and are treating them with much less

respect then they deserve.This impacts Sunny and her community's way of life because since she
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does not have lively resources that she needs to live, she has to drive twenty miles to get water to

survive. Lastly, we see how Natives have had resources taken away by studying the Mexican-

American war and writing contextualization about how this shows a direct correlation to Native

Americans. The contextualization of the Mexican-American War that I wrote about in my AP

History class discussed people fighting for their land, which started when the Natives were being

moved out of their homelands onto smaller amounts of land when colonies started to move to the

United States. The shows how natives were taken out of their homes and established

communities because colonizers wanted their land, which altered their way of life and cultures

exponentially.

By controlling and taking away part of Native Cultures, we are shown how differing

cultures have negatively affected native life through stereotyping. For example, a movie that we

watched in my AP English class this year called Smoke Signals, illustrated thisfor my classmates

and I very clearly.This movie helped further my understanding of Native life and culture as a

whole because it was told from the perspective of a Native American, which made my

classmates and I think far beyond stereotypes that we had previously witnessed .The film shows

how these stereotypes have affected this group of people, when two Native Americans were on

the bus and the white women spoke to them in a super racist tone. From being acknowledged and

ridiculed about their culture and being made fun of it in a way, really impacts Natives emotional

thoughts of being proud who they are. By displaying the native American side of how these

cultures are being changed due to stereotypes people put on them and what people also think

about them, it gave us a direct example of how stereotypes negatively affected Native

Americanculture. This is creating a stigma on their culture which has had a negative impact on
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their communities around the United states and will continue to do so. Also, In AP English we

held a socratic seminar where we discussed native American stereotypes, talked about what the

majority of the human population think of them, what they think of us, and how these stereotypes

are caused. From watching and reading various movies and articles on this topic my classmates

and I compiled information from various sources to expand upon while discussing. This let each

student grow credibility to what they were trying to say, which influenced other students to

believe what the student was saying and led to heated debates and also very complimentary

discussion. In conclusion, the discussions purpose was to talk about how these American

stereotypes have influenced Native American Culture tremendously by painting a false image

that most Americans perceive Indians as. This shows how differing cultures have impacted

Native American culture by putting a stigma on their traditions and way of life. Lastly, I have

seen this through personal experience in New Mexico on our Float Trip down the Rio Grande,

with our Native American Storyteller. While on the boat my groups storyteller proceeded to tell

us how at a young age she would get made fun of how she dressed by other children her age, and

how they would tease her for the culture and tribal community that she was apart of. Children

would laugh at her becuase she looked like pocahontas and accused her of puts her hand to

her mouth to make a sound. This emotional experience that she shared with my groupmates

and I really opened my eyes to see the emotional toll that stereotypes put out there for the people

being stereotyped. This was something that emotionally affected me while on the trip and opened

my eyes to realize how hurtful things like that are to the people who are being criticized.

Even though Native Americans have mostly been negatively affected due to influencing

cultures, there have also been positive outcomes from influencing cultures that have created
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great opportunity for Natives. For example, on our travels in New Mexico we visited the

Nuclear Science Museum where I learned about how the nuclear bomb created great labor

opportunity for unemployed Native Americans. Native Americans lived on lands that held

uranium mines, which was a very needed product in order to make a successful nuclear bomb.

From living on these mines, they became the primary miners that got uranium for the inventors

of this deadly bomb. This created labor opportunities for these Natives and let them be apart of

one of the biggest advancements in United States history, which had a very positive effect on

their lives. Another example of positive outcomes on Natives due to differing cultures that I have

seen is through the studying the comanche empire in AP history. While taking textbook notes

about conflict in the west, we studied in depth how the civil war impacted the Comanches in a

very positive way and brought buffalo hunting, trading alliances, and fighting into their lives.

This is an example of how interaction that might not seem positive at first has brought resources

to their lives that have changed and shaped their culture for the better by being exposed to

greater food resources and great trade opportunity, that has created strong relationships with

other groups of people. Through the years, Native Americans have had interactions that have

opened doors for their communities and brought different and easier ways to live that have

changed their lives forever.

During my time in my Junior year of High school, the Academy for Global Studies has

opened great academic opportunities for me to learn and experience native cultures and traditions

through classroom studies and traveling expeditionto New Mexico. From studying this for nine

months, I have focused on looking into how Native Culture has been affected by other people.

From the times that the Americas were discoveredby European settlers to present time, Native
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Americans have been negatively affected in their cultures and livelihood due to other

communities and people putting stereotypes on their identity, taking away their opportunity and

livelihood, and controlling their way of life. Culture is something that has shaped the world

today that makes people unique and connected, and Native Americans are experiencing other

societies demolishing and changing theirs. This is an issue that people need to be educated on so

that the world can take action and stand up for these people's rights and traditions. Unfortunately

until we start taking initiative, Native Americans are going to keep living in confined areas,

being negatively controlled and influenced by opposing societies.

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Work Cited

Eyre, Chris, et al. Smoke signals. Accessed 12 Apr. 2017.

Huey, Aaron. "America's Native Prisoners of War." TED. September2010.https://Www.

ted.com/talks/aaron_huey. Accessed 23 May 2017.

The Mission. Directed by Roland Joffe, performances by Robert DeNiro, Jeremy Irons,
and Ray McAnally, 1986.

Why do people make stereotypes? . Mar. 2015, www.thinglink.com/scene/7207385

40501073922.Accessed 23 May 2017.