American Indian Culture

Many myths and realities about American Indian life prevailed in the late nineteenth century following the period of modernization and Americanization. Americanization mainly refers to the process in which individuals become assimilated into American culture and customs while also still practicing other ethnic traditions. This process prevailed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as more immigrants traveled to the United States for work or to evade harsh governmental control. However, Americanization was perhaps most prevalent in American Indian life as an attempt to keep up with their new neighbors. As more American Indian tribes began to accept the American culture they were still largely faithful to their ancestors’ traditions …show more content…
Each of the tribes discussed were described to be incorporating more modern day products such as cigarettes and sewing machines into aspects of their daily lives. The Northern Pacific Railroad published a journal in which they described the new formation of settled agriculture the Indians were developing. Settled agriculture is a vital example of a newly prospering city and population. Therefore, Native Americans began to abandon their semi nomadic way of life to adapt to modern times. Which was a growing necessity because as more groups were settling and urbanizing, the staple food source of wild animals were likely often scared away from humans and had a less predictable migrating pattern. However, Indians were still present and a part of daily life, thus disproving the myth that Indians were …show more content…
American Indians were not dying due to their lack of modernizing and in fact many tribes did actually urbanize and develop methods of society that many of their neighbors had already adapted. Settled agriculture was extremely significant for the American Indians because it led mostly Europeans and some other ethnicities who also lived in the United States that American Indians were not savages or barbaric because of their different lifestyle. It was also significant because it often inspired American Indians to invest in some new technologies to alleviate some of the stresses of producing agriculture. In conclusion, the myth that American Indians were vanishing was likely just a generalization or a realization that it began to become more difficult to spot traditional and stereotypical Indians as tribes and Americans moved into the various features of the Industrial