Themes In World History Chapter 10 Displacing Indigenous Peoples

The word 'settler' is used for the Dutch in South Africa, the British in Ireland, New Zealand and Australia, and the Europeans in America. The official language in these colonies was English (except in Canada, where French is also an official language).

'Native' mean a person born in the place he/she lives in. Until the early twentieth century, the term was used by Europeans to describe the inhabitants of countries they had colonised.

These peoples lived in bands, in villages along river valleys. They ate fish and meat, and cultivated vegetable and maize. They often went on long journeys in search of meat, chiefly that of bison, the wild buffalo that roamed the grasslands (this became easier from the seventeenth century, when the natives started to ride horses, which they bought from Spanish settlers).
But they only killed as many animals as they needed for food.

The Hopis are a native tribe who now live near California.

Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the USA and a contemporary of Wordsworth. 

New Zealand name was given by Tasman of Holland.

A museum gallery displays the culture of a people in the various ways:

(i) Icons of the ancient period, the theology in its basic forms and coins are also found in the museum.

(ii) Remains of pots, apparels, ornaments and other things are displayed.

(iii) Books, research papers, survey reports and works of historians and archaeologists are kept in the gallery of the museum.

(iv) In a museum, we seek information regarding dialects and languages.

The northern states of the USA, where the economy did not depend on plantations (and therefore on slavery), argued for ending slavery which they condemned as an inhuman practice.

In 1861-65, there was a war between the states that wanted to retain slavery and those supporting abolition. The latter won. Slavery was abolished, though it was only in the twentieth century that the African Americans were able to win the battle for civil liberties, and segregation between 'whites' and 'non-whites' in schools and public transport was ended.

Tips: -

(M. Imp.)

 

1. In the seventeenth century, the European traders who reached the north coast of North America after a difficult two-month voyage were relieved to find the native peoples friendly and welcoming.
Unlike the Spanish in South America, who were overcome by the abundance of gold in the country, these adventurers came to trade in fish and furs, in which they got the willing help of the natives who were expert at hunting.
The expansion of the USA
2. Further south, along the Mississippi river, the French found that the natives held regular gatherings to exchange handicrafts unique to a tribe of food items not available in other regions.
In exchange for local products the Europeans gave the natives blankets, iron vessels (which they used sometime in place of their clay pots), guns, which was a useful supplement for bows and arrows to kill animals, and alcohol.
This last item was something the natives had not known earlier, and they became addicted to it, which suited the Europeans, because it enabled them to dictate terms of trade. (The Europeans acquired from the natives an addiction to tobacco.)
3. To the natives, the goods they exchanged with the Europeans were gifts, given in friendship. For the Europeans, dreaming of becoming rich, the fish and furs were commodities, which they would sell for a profit in Europe.
The prices of the goods they sold varied from year to year, depending on the supply. The natives could not understand this -they had no sense of the "market" in faraway Europe.
They were puzzled by the fact that the European traders sometimes gave them a lot of things in exchange for thier goods, sometimes very little.
They were also saddened by the greed of the Europeas. In their impatience to get furs, they had slaughtered hundreds of beavers, and the natives were very uneasy, fearing that the animals would take revenge on them for this destruction.
4. Following the first Europeans, who were traders, were those who came to "settle" in America. From the seventeenth century, there were groups of Europeans who were being persecuted because they were of a different sect of Christianity (Protestants living in predominantly Catholic countries, or Catholics in countries where Protestantism was the official religion).
Many of them left Europe and went to America to begin a new life. As long as there was vacant land, this was not a problem, but gradually the Europeans moved further inland, near native villages. They used their iron tools to cut down forest to lay out farms.
5. Natives and Europeans saw different things when they looked at forests - natives identified tracks invisible to the Europeans. Europeans imagined the forests cut down and replaced by cornfields. Jefferson’s "dream" was a country populated by Europeans with small farms.
The natives, who grew crops for their own needs, not for sale and profit, and thought it wrong to "own" the land, could not understand this. In Jefferson’s view, this made them "uncivilised"

Even high officials saw nothing wrong in depriving the native peoples of their land. This is seen by an episode in Georgia, a state in the USA. Officials had argued that the Cherokee tribe was governed by state laws, but could not enjoy the rights of citizens. (This was despite the fact that, of all the native peoples, the Cherokees were the ones who had made the most effort to learn English and to understand the American way of life; even so they were not allowed the rights of citizens.)

 

The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 gave natives in reservations the right to buy land and take loans.

 

1. The American empires of Spain and Portugal did not expand after the seventeenth century. From that time other countries - France, Holland and England - began to extend their trading activities and to establish colonies - in America, Africa and Asia ; Ireland also was virtually a colony of England, as the landowners there were mostly English settlers.

2. From the eighteenth century, it became obvious that while it was the prospect of profit which drove people to establish colonies, there were significant variations in the nature of the control established.

3. In South Asia, trading companies like the East India Company made themselves into political powers, defeated local rulers and annexed their territories. They retained the order well-developed administrative system and collected taxes from landowners. Later they built railways to make trade easier, excavated mines and established big plantations.

4. In Africa, Europeans traded on the coast, except in South Africa, and only in the late nineteenth century did they venture into the interior. After this, some of the European countries reached an agreement to divide up Africa as colonies for themselves.

5. The word 'settler' is used for the Dutch in South Africa, the British in Ireland, New Zealand and Australia, and the Europeans in America. The official language in these colonies was English (except in Canada, where French is also an official language).