Compare And Contrast Native American And Early European Settlers

From The Start If someone asked you to behave like a civilized person what would that mean to you? When you think about the word “civilized” what comes to mind? Maybe the idea of structure, or the trait of courteousness. Now imagine someone tells you this definition you’ve formed for yourself is not only inaccurate but also primitive. Imagine someone imposing ideas on you that are the farthest from your own. How does that feel? I imagine if feels a lot like being a Native American in the early age of european exploration, and even now. When the early settlers came to present day America, aside from land and wealth, one of their main quests was this idea of “civilizing” and educating (on Christianity) the native people and convincing them to trade their land for “civilization.” But instead of this all the Native Americans received was strife and pain. The early european settlers idea of civilization wasn't worth the ideas about civility that the Native Americans already had. The Early Europeans acted as if they were doing the Native Americans a great service but in reality they weren’t motivated by …show more content…
As evidenced by “Between Church and State, by James Fraser,“white leaders advocated the great removal of Indians from land east,”(Fraser 83) and Native Americans were left with two options, “genocide or conversion,”(Fraser 84). Early Europeans felt the only thing they could do about the ‘Indian problem’ was to get rid of them all or force them to give up all aspects of their culture and become more like the white men. So as far as the Early European definition of civilization goes advanced cultural development is clearly not present. The supremacy the europeans felt they possessed over the Native Americans is very far removed from the idea of cultures interacting, learning, and growing from one