Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

How the West Was Lost by Native Americans
Frontiers of Anthropology ^ | 11-20-2012 | Dale Drinnon

Posted on 11/21/2012 5:24:18 AM PST by Renfield

Everybody knows that Europeans took a lot of land from Native Americans, but this animated GIF by Tumblr user sunisup gives a great sense of just how fast the people living in North America were pushed west after Christopher Columbus "discovered" the continent.

She turned an old graphic by Louisiana State professor Sam B. Hillard into a mini-movie that viscerally demonstrates the gradual chopping away of Native American land through cessions, or a surrender of territory to another entity. The green represents Native American land, and any part that turns white was ceded. She writes: "Made because I was having trouble visualizing the sheer scale of the land loss, and reading numbers like 'blah blah million acres' wasn’t really doing it for me." Numbers wise, the amount of green land shown after 1895 is about 2.3 percent of the original size.
Hillard got his information from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of American Ethnology. The history of Native Americans is complicated, so the graphic only documents land that was ceded. Any land that was ceded but then later turned into a reservation may shop up again later in the time lapse. Whatever the in-between negotiations, it's clear the land disappeared quickly. The difference between 1784 and present day Indian reservations is striking.


sunisup.tumblr.com (via atlasextinctnations.blogspot.com)



TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: americanindians; anthropology; godsgravesglyphs; indians
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-105 next last
To: sean327
I keep seeing the words “nomad” here and only the Plains Indians could be identified with that word. I do not know what the percentage of Indians could legally be called nomads but I believe it to be a small number on the total population. Tribes like mine, the Yuroks, of the Klamath River in N. Calif, as well as all their surrounding tribes, were settled along the river in redwood plank houses and hardly ever moseyed outside their tribal area. ( Yuroks are thee biggest tribe in Calif. over 5000)
61 posted on 11/21/2012 8:15:08 AM PST by fish hawk
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 59 | View Replies]

To: fish hawk

Too many people on this board don’t know or understand basic American history. Their ingnorance tends to show up in comments such as the nomad statement.


62 posted on 11/21/2012 8:22:43 AM PST by sean327 (God created all men equal, then some become Marines!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 61 | View Replies]

To: Renfield
The Native Americans, Aborigines, 5000 Nations, lost out because when the Pilgrims landed the Indians said, “We aren't wearing those funny hats and we want casinos on our terms”.

Of course the Pilgrims didn't go for that and pretty much unionized the construction trades and made it tough for anyone to get a good drink on Sunday. And that pretty much took the fun out of wearing feathers and living on tax free cigarettes.

63 posted on 11/21/2012 8:30:52 AM PST by count-your-change (You don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GenXteacher

Savages are the opposite?


64 posted on 11/21/2012 8:36:17 AM PST by stuartcr ("When silence speaks, it speaks only to those that have already decided what they want to hear.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Cronos

“well, for classification, what term would you use to define a person who identifies with a pre-columbus ethnicity?”
Amerindian, except for the Eskimo-Aleut Liguistic Family such as the Aleuts, Alutiiq, Cupik, Yupik, and Inuit peoples of the northeern regions of North America.

The Amerindians represent at least two to three or more prehistoric immigrant populations having very different physical and cultural characteristics.


65 posted on 11/21/2012 8:40:14 AM PST by WhiskeyX
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Cronos

Are you aware of a recent court decision in, I think, Louisiana, that puts limits on the land that the tribes can claim as sacred? The case has the potential to be a watershed case, allowing the liberals to pick and choose in which areas to give the tribes preferential treatment.


66 posted on 11/21/2012 8:46:43 AM PST by Eva
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Cronos

The definition for the word, civilized, originates from describing a person or culture that has abandoned a nomadic culture to live in relatively permanent communities described as cities, towns, and villages. The other usages of civilized then tend to be comparative between the social customs of the more civilized and uncivilized cultures to the more civilized and more technologically advanced cultures. Among Amerindian cultures, one Amerinidan culture discriminated against another Amerindian culture by describing its own culture as civilized and the enemy culture as uncivilizedd because of differences in ethnic origins, language, and cultural habits.


67 posted on 11/21/2012 8:52:24 AM PST by WhiskeyX
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: stuartcr

“Who gets to define civilization and savagely?”

The consensus of the surviving community and culture define the relationship.


68 posted on 11/21/2012 9:01:24 AM PST by WhiskeyX
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Strategerist

The destruction of nearly all of the New World Amerindians by pandemics of disease was also destined to happen when a an Amerindian civilization eventually attempted to colonize and conquer and enslave people in the Old World.


69 posted on 11/21/2012 9:07:26 AM PST by WhiskeyX
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: fish hawk

The Woodlands Culture of Eastern regions of North America maintained semi-permanent communities in some time periods. It was necessary to pursue this semi-nomadic lifestyle due to the incidence of disease when occupying the same tonsite long enough for the groundwater to become contaminated with typhus and the parasites and parasitical diseases to become established in the communities. The Missippian Culture was somewhat more permanent, but its cities probably succumbed in part due to such sanitary and epidemiological problems and limitations. The City of Rome was so unhealthy to live in it required a constant influx of eager citizens to keep the city from rapidly depopulating as the consequence of disease. The immunities which developed in the Old World populations due to this incidence of disease is why they survivedd while the New World populations could not.


70 posted on 11/21/2012 9:20:16 AM PST by WhiskeyX
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 61 | View Replies]

To: stuartcr
Who gets to define civilization and savagely?

The victors!

71 posted on 11/21/2012 9:21:21 AM PST by Roccus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Renfield
Photobucket
72 posted on 11/21/2012 9:50:49 AM PST by Fast Moving Angel (A moral wrong is not a civil right: No religious sanction of an irreligious act.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Stepan12
P.S. Everyone born here is a native American.

THANK YOU!! I get so sick of hearing this phrase applied to American Indians!

I was born here; my parents were born here; my grandparents were born here. I am indigenous to this land. I am native to it. Period.

Same thing applies to "African-Americans" whose grandparents and parents were born in Savannah,GA,Poughkeepsie,NY or Selma,AL. You're black.Get over it.
73 posted on 11/21/2012 9:54:45 AM PST by gimme1ibertee (When injustice becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: WhiskeyX
The definition for the word, civilized, originates from describing a person or culture that has abandoned a nomadic culture to live in relatively permanent communities described as cities, towns, and villages -- then by that definition the Pueblo indians and Aztecs were civilized.

Not that i'm disagreeing with you, mind

As you correctly point out, the other definition is relative.

74 posted on 11/21/2012 10:04:23 AM PST by Cronos (**Marriage is about commitment, cohabitation is about convenience.**)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 67 | View Replies]

To: sean327
The younger generation learn history from TV and movies. I once had a friend from LA came up north to visit me on the Reservation and the first thing he asked me was, “where are the teepees?” Only the Lakota and Cheyenne and a few other tribes (buffalo hunter people) lived in teepees.
75 posted on 11/21/2012 10:06:22 AM PST by fish hawk
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 62 | View Replies]

To: djf

Not necessarily because of the rifle. Many was the time when the Indians had and used a better rifle they bought from the gun-runners. The U.S. Cavalry sometimes fought with a single-shot breechloader against a Plains Indian armed with a breechloading and lever action repeating rifle. In any event, the Amerindian cultures lost their effective control of the real estate long before they set eyes upon the first Old World colonists. Between the constant inter-tribal warfare and the pre-Columbian and post Columbian pandemics,the Amerindian cultures lacked the populations necessary to control the vast and depopulated real estate of the Americas.


76 posted on 11/21/2012 10:09:07 AM PST by WhiskeyX
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: fish hawk

Next time remind him how the U.S. Army lived in teepees called the Sibley tent.


77 posted on 11/21/2012 10:11:40 AM PST by WhiskeyX
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 75 | View Replies]

To: Cronos

Yes, by that definition there were many Amerindian cultures that were civilized.

One of the reasons many amerindian cultures were deemed to be uncivilized beyond just the non-Christian religions was Amerindian attitudes towards such subjects as torture, the genocide of enemies, and cannibalism.


78 posted on 11/21/2012 10:16:15 AM PST by WhiskeyX
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 74 | View Replies]

To: gimme1ibertee

The whole African-American thing is another oxymoron and myth. One of the things you learned in a 1972 Black History class was the history of the many cultures and civilizations in Africa. You learned that the vast majority of Africa was not populated by the Negro or black cultures until the the development of sickle cell anemia in the black populations permitted an explosive populaton growth in the very late Middle Ages and early Enlightenment period. before then Africa was peopled by the Medditerranean, Semitic, Arab, Bushmen-Hottentot, Negroid, and other peoples. ven now Africa is peopled in great part by cultures other than the Negro or black populations. so, to identify all African-American people as necessarily being Negro in race is factually false and misleading iin the extreme.


79 posted on 11/21/2012 10:29:12 AM PST by WhiskeyX
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 73 | View Replies]

To: wizr

You think that Christians worship Gods?


80 posted on 11/21/2012 10:31:15 AM PST by ansel12 (The only Senate seat GOP pick up was the Palin endorsed Deb FischerÂ’s successful run in Nebraska)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 60 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-105 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson