American Indian history. And colonial issues.

Found some information, classified as follows, I hope it is useful.

1. The origin of Indian names: 1492. After Columbus arrived in Central America, he mistakenly thought that he had arrived in India in the western legend. After Columbus sailed to America for three times, he didn't reach India in the end, so he thought it was India until his death, so the local residents were called Indians by Columbus. Later, in order to distinguish them from Indians, he directly translated Columbus's so-called Indians into "Indians". North American Indians are not a group with the same culture and characteristics, but a group of indigenous tribes with different cultures. Before the arrival of white people, there was no concept of a unified nation, claiming to be Cherokee, Navajo, Iroquois, Crick and so on. Among them, the names of many tribes, such as Navajo and Hopi, mean "people" in their own languages. Indians are widely distributed throughout the American continent. Before the invasion of Portugal and Spain, they were collectively called Latin Americans.

2. The origin of Indians: There have been four viewpoints in academic circles: ① Asians migrated to the North American continent along the Bering Strait; ② Arrive in Peru from Malaysia, Australia, Melanesia and Polynesia via Este Island; Or arrive at the southern tip of South America via Hawaii and Tierra del Fuego; ③ Arrive in North America from Spain and Britain via Iceland and Greenland; 4 natives.

3. Indian population before1492: Scholars in different countries have different opinions on this. Mooney, a famous American anthropologist, calculated that the indigenous population of North America was about 1492 in 1900. This statistic has been widely recognized by American academic circles. However, in recent years, some scholars began to question Mooney's statistics. Some scholars have suggested that there were about 654.38 billion people in the United States at 654.38+0492, and there were about 9.8 million people in North America alone, while South America, with the most developed indigenous civilization, had a dense indigenous population. No matter how scholars estimate it, there is no doubt that the indigenous population has dropped sharply after whites set foot on the North American continent. To 1900, the United States is less than 300,000, and Canada is only about 200,000. The main reason for India's sharp population decline: (1) War. Wars between whites and Indians, wars between Indians, wars between white colonists, and so on. The North American continent experienced frequent wars after the15th century, and many indigenous people died in the wars. (2) disease. Smallpox, measles, influenza, pneumonia and other diseases are prevalent. (3) drinking alcohol. Indians lack immunity to alcohol, but they like drinking very much. Alcoholism is the norm.

4. Attachment 1 (Indian continent and nation): Almost all the indigenous peoples in America are descendants of immigrants who crossed the Bering Sea from northeast Siberia. This sentence must be modified by the word "almost", because after the arrival of Bering Sea immigrants, there are still ethnic minorities from the South Pacific islands to the west coast of South America. Although no one knows how many times these Argo heroes in the South Pacific "discovered" South America, the fact that they traveled across the ocean to explore America can only be confirmed by the evidence of the plants they cultivated. When the same highly domesticated plants were found on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, they could not survive without human cultivation, and their distribution could only be explained by human migration.

However, one thing is certain: at least 99% of the Indians discovered by Europeans in America are descendants of the people who crossed the Bering Sea. Before modern times, it is believed that Indians crossed the sea for the first time to reach the American continent about 10000 years ago. New archaeological discoveries and the use of carbon 14 dating completely revised this estimate. It is generally believed that human beings must have lived on the American continent before 20000, probably 2000 or earlier. The last great migration of Indians took place about 3000 years ago. Then there are Eskimos, who keep going back and forth at both ends of the strait until the modern political environment forces them to stay on this side or the other side of the strait. In a word, in America, the closest to Asia, the population is already very dense, which prevents further migration.

For these early immigrants, there was actually no difficulty in crossing the ocean to the American continent. At the end of the ice age, a lot of sea water froze, and the sea level dropped by 460 feet, thus exposing a land bridge with a width of 1300 miles, connecting Siberia and Alaska. Such a big "bridge" is actually a big and new subcontinent, which provided a wide range for the wide spread of animals and plants at that time. And because of the sudden low pressure, this area is not covered by ice, but by various shrubs in lakes, swamps, grasslands and frozen soil; These plants provided pasture for large mammals at that time, such as mastodon, mammoth, musk ox, mane, moose, elk, goat and antelope, camel, fox, bear, wolf and horse. When these animals crossed the continental bridge to America, hunters began to catch them for a living.

Even after the rising temperature caused the sea surface to rise and flooded the connected land, the last strait was very narrow, and it could be easily crossed by turbulent boats while seeing the other side. Later, more advanced immigrants may come to America by boat from Asia, then sail along the northwest coast, and finally land and settle in what is now British Columbia.

Most immigrants who crossed the ocean to Alaska crossed the frozen canyon in the middle of the Yukon Plateau and continued to enter the interior of North America. The forces that push them forward are the same as those that push them to migrate to the American continent-the motivation to find new hunting grounds and the pressure from the tribes behind to keep moving forward. In this way, scattered hunting tribes soon covered the two continents of North and South America. It is found that there are obvious signs that by 1 1000 years ago, Asian immigrants had reached the southern tip of South America.

With regard to national characteristics, all Indians belong to the Mongolian race. They are characterized by high cheekbones, hard and thick black hair, sparse hair on their faces and bodies, and Mongolian spots on their backs when they were young. However, different tribes are very different; The earliest Indians in America were even less like Mongols than the later Indians, because they left Asia before the so-called Mongols fully evolved today. Immigrants are scattered in small groups of inbreeding, which also explains the existence of various unique physiological types.

As we know, Indians don't refer to a nation. According to their social and economic conditions, they can be roughly divided into seven categories: ① Eskimos and Aleutians along the Arctic Ocean, mainly hunters and fishermen, are the most environmentally friendly human beings who make a living by fishing and hunting; (2) The tribes represented by Wei Xiaobao and Hyde along the northwest coast of North America are fishermen and hunters who hunt with javelin, spear and net. Most of them are in different stages of transition from matriarchal clan to paternal clan. (3) Tabas and Algonquin in the primeval forests of North America lived a hunting life with spears, bows and arrows and thick sticks. (4) Mas Carges, Iroquois and some Algonquians in eastern North America are engaged in farming, hunting and gathering. (5) Dakota, Comanche, Xiating and other tribes along the Mississippi River hunt animals with bows and arrows. The transition stage of matriarchal clan ⑤ California tribes along the Pacific coast are engaged in gathering, hunting and fishing, living a semi-nomadic and homeless life, and the clan retains a strong matriarchal clan system ⑤ Pueblo people in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico are engaged in irrigated agriculture, planting crops such as corn, beans and cotton, building houses with brick and tile soil, and have good pottery and textile skills.

6. Indian culture is a big topic. The main types of Indian culture and history are: ① Mayan culture ② grassland tribes in Amazon basin and tropical forest, mainly Arawak, Caribbean and Tupiguarani; ③ Hunting and gathering tribes in eastern Brazil, belonging to Gezi and Botokudo; ④ pampas and Patagonia; 6 Tierra del Fuego culture; ⑥ Aztec culture; ⑥ Inca culture.

7. Contribution of Indians: Created splendid civilization and made their own contribution to the development of the North American continent.

Main manifestations: (1) Inca and Aztec civilizations, and splendid indigenous civilizations also appeared in North America. (2) Indians' contribution to agriculture. Crops were planted about 5000 BC. By about 1000, an agricultural planting system with corn, soybean and pumpkin as the main crops was formed. By the middle of18th century, five tribes in the southeastern United States had also learned to grow tobacco, potatoes, garlic and peaches. Among them, corn and potatoes have the greatest influence. (3) Indians have rich geographical knowledge and left many place names. These place names are a precious legacy left by the Indians to the people of North America. States, regions, cities, rivers and mountains in the United States generally use Indian names or above. (4) The land in the North American continent belongs to the Indians, and the whites seized their land before the development.

8. The description in "A Brief Account of the Destruction of West India": "The people are the most honest and kind. They are all frank and honest, and never treat others with hypocrisy and cunning. Everyone is docile by nature and loyal to the natural leaders and Christians who work for them. They are patient and patient, calm, and never bossy and shouting. They never lust or quarrel; Don't get angry easily, don't be jealous of others, and don't have worldly revenge. They are thin and weak, unable to do heavy work, and easy to die of various diseases. Its weak body is not even as good as our pampered dude, and even the strong among them are not as good as the latter. They live a very poor life. They are all poor, but no one tries to have more property. Because they are always insatiable and ambitious and try their best to get ill-gotten gains, their diet is poor, and even the food of saints trapped in the desert is slightly better than theirs. Generally speaking, their clothes are just a hide for shame, and at most they are covered with a piece of cotton cloth about 1.5 bara to 2 bara square. They only use a mat as a bed and only sleep on the net. However, they are all kind-hearted, sincere, quick-thinking and talented. They can easily accept all the teachings and our Catholic beliefs, and their good customs rarely violate the commandments set by God in this world. "

"The Spaniards broke into this group of tame lambs like vicious jackals, although they clearly knew that this group of lambs had all the above virtues endowed by the creator. For more than 40 years, the only thing these Spaniards have done is indiscriminate violence and slaughter of local residents. Its brutality is shocking, which is really unprecedented and unheard of. There are some atrocities, which I will elaborate on below. Due to the large-scale massacre of the Spanish, only 200 of the 3 million indigenous people who once lived on the Spanish island remained.

The length of Cuba Island is equivalent to the distance from valladolid to Rome, and it is almost uninhabited at present. San Juan Island and Jamaica Island are two extremely rich and beautiful big islands, which are now in ruins. Located in the northern part of Spain and Cuba, Lucayo Archipelago consists of 60 other islands, large and small, which used to be called "Giant Island". Every island there is more beautiful than the Royal Garden in Seville, and it is the most wonderful place in the world. There used to be 500 thousand residents on the island, but now there is none. When the Indians on the Spanish island were exterminated, the people of Lucayo Islands were rushed there, and soon they were all tortured to death.

More than 30 islands adjacent to San Juan Island have also become ruins for the same reason. These islands have a total land area of 2000 leagues, and now there is none.

We can say with certainty that120,000 innocent Indians were killed during the above 40 years because of the extremely cruel and bloody Spanish rule. Actually, I personally think that150,000 people died innocently. "

The whole article describes in detail the Spanish massacre of Indians, which is really unbearable. In this article, we can also see the primitive life of Indians. If you like, I will send you the article and download it in the library.

9. France-India War: It was caused by land control, and it was a war between Britain and France for control of the North American continent. If United, the Indians could have resisted the colonists' westward movement, but there were contradictions among Indian tribes, so they lacked cohesion. After the anglo-French war, Indians were also divided into two camps: pro-British and pro-French. General Montcalm, commander of the French army, assured the British camp that he would get preferential treatment as long as he surrendered, but the Indians failed to keep this promise and slaughtered 1000 British soldiers who surrendered. In the end, the British defeated the French and gained a large area of land from the east coast to the Mississippi River basin. In order to resist Britain, France gave all the remaining land to Spain. Except Texas and New Mexico, the whole west is actually controlled by Indians.

10, Indians once sincerely helped those new whites who they thought were weak and pitiful, but as soon as Americans appeared in the west, the disadvantages of white civilization made Indians suffer deeply. 65438+1940s, immigrants from Oregon and Salt Lake City brought cholera and smallpox to the Great Plains, killing thousands of Indians. 1849, the "gold diggers" who went to California drove trucks into the Great Plains to kill prey, cut down rare trees, destroy and burn grasslands, pollute water sources and destroy Indian homes.

After the Civil War, although the federal government imposed some mandatory restrictions on the plain Indians, a considerable part of the vast plain area has been designated as the permanent residence of the Indians. In order to clear the "obstacles" of the westward movement of white settlers, the federal government has perfidiously ignored the law 1834 and continued to adopt the barbaric policy of expelling and killing Indians. This genocidal policy brought them great disaster. The core problem of racial conflict between white immigrants and plain Indians is soil.

Land problem. The plunder of Indian land was carried out at the same time in a combination of folk and official ways. As far as ranchers are concerned, they seize the land of Indian tribes by forced entry and occupation. In order to continuously deprive the Indians of their land, the American government launched a continuous "Crusade" war against the Indians. This bloody "crusade" lasted from the 1960s of 19 to 1890. Among them, the massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho by more than 1000 militiamen led by Colonel J.M. Chivington was very terrible.

1 1. Some problems that need to be clarified in American Indian studies;

First, Indians are by no means "inferior peoples". Maya culture, Aztec culture and Inca culture have all experienced their respective glorious periods and become important chapters in the history of world civilization. In order to consolidate their rule in the North American continent, Americans vilify Indians with vicious ideology.

Second, who is the "traitor"? In many American history textbooks and monographs, Indians are described as "irresponsible", "non-compliant" and "treacherous". It is based on the fact that Indians never abide by and break their promises after signing the treaty. If we only look at the superficial phenomenon, such examples abound. But as long as we look at the cause and process of the incident a little, then this crime can't be imposed on the Indians anyway, and the US government may not escape the blame. The federal government imposed the Treaty of Land Occupation on Indians, which made them accept the unbearable and endless occupation of Indian land and seriously damaged their fundamental interests. In order to defend their land and fight for the right to exist, Indian tribes refused to recognize the treaties they were forced to sign, which was not considered as "treachery".

Third, who is the "cruel killer"? As we all know, European colonists set foot on the land of North America to slaughter the natives, but in American history books, this fact has been reversed. Indians are described as "cruel killers". They often describe the Indians' resistance to pursuers as slaughter, but they praise the officers who fought and commanded for the Indians, calling them heroes and great heroes who defended the war and protected immigrants, and so on. Robbers are rampant.