Rhetorical Analysis

Improved Essays
The retelling of the first accounts of European contact seemingly always mark the beginning of a “civilized” America while portraying the Native population as having been rescued from a “savage” lifestyle. The lack of formal evidence from the Aboriginal side of the story, in the form of letters and writings, makes it hard to deicer what the truth actually is which leads us to believe that the evidence that does exist, is the truth. In the quest for the big picture, Neil Salisbury, Ramsay Cook and Cornelius Jaenen have analyzed different types of evidence for the Aboriginal side to reveal that the Native population was in fact flourishing well before contact. Salisbury uses archeological evidence to show long standing exchange networks and social …show more content…
If we use the three articles mentioned within a timeline, Salisbury’s article would highlight Native achievements before contact including how the many Natives populations interacted with each other using Salisbury’s term of exchange. Salisbury uses the term exchange because he finds archeological evidence in his research that reveals that there was, “exchange across community lines of marriage partners, resources, labor, ideas, techniques and religious practices” (p. 20). The evidence that Salisbury uses to support this idea is through archaeological evidence found in burial sites all over North America. The skeletons and resources buried in these sites reveal a class structure that is revealed by the amount of resources that are buried with the person, and trade of resources is revealed through the place of origin of the resources found within these sites. Salisbury says that there were many resources that were found a great distance away from their place of origin which shows that Native peoples did in fact have an understanding of trade well before the arrival of the Europeans which is also mentioned in Cook’s article. Cook’s article features Cartier’s Voyages, a primary source

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    By viewing the early European-Indian encounter through the eyes of the Native Americans, this revolutionary examination intends to “turn familiar tales inside out, to show how old documents might be read in fresh ways...and to outline stories of North America”…

    • 1184 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The intended audience of the article “ The Indians' Old World:Native Americans and the Coming of European”, are the general public and historians because the article shows how a lot of people give more importance of American history after Columbus rather than before Columbus and criticize how historians know much less history prior to arrival of columbus in 1492. For instance, the author Neal Salisbury states that “historians now recognize that Europeans arrived, not in a virgin land, but in one that was teeming with several million people (435)”. 2. The author’s main argument is that there was densely populated society before European arrival, how certain patterns and processes originated before and after contact with the Europeans.…

    • 331 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Collision Of Cultures

    • 752 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Beginning in the late 1400s, the contact between the Europeans and the Native Americans has claimed to shape the time period into an era called the Collision of Cultures. This time period experienced drastic changes amongst these two groups, which primarily were not supposed to be as life changing. Everyone in America and Europe were completely unaware of the existence of each other—much less aware of how to interact and get along with one other first hand. The Collision of Cultures seemed to be inevitable while the Europeans constantly searched for bigger and more beneficial ways to better themselves. On the other hand, the Native Americans were settled in their own ways and they seemed content until the Europeans came along.…

    • 752 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    He notes that in William Bradford’s Plymouth Colony, the settlers would rob Indians in order to survive throughout the harsh winter once they got off of the Mayflower. Diseases brought over by the Europeans also aided in wiping out many of the Native cultures living there as well; before the Mayflower, Europeans had already been exploring the Americas. These diseases would, therefore, have wiped out a vast amount of Indian cultures before many of the colonists ever arrived, skewing their views on the Americas and who inhabited them. Mann then brings up the debate of how many Natives actually lived in the Americas ‘at the time of contact’. James Mooney in 1910 wrote that 1.15 million people were inhabiting the Americas in 1491; however, in 1966, Henry F. Dobyns published a paper that completely changed anthropologists’ views on the number of Native societies in the Americas.…

    • 1388 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The context between Native Americans and European colonists is the early encounters between the first European explorers to travel to the New World. These early encounters led to an exchange of products and a “collision of cultures” that influenced development of American societies politically, socially, and economically. Politically, the colonists gained more land and the colonies became stronger. Socially, religion continued to thrive in the colonies and the continual mistreatment of Indians were set in place. Economically, there was more trade and an increase in crops.…

    • 434 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Helen C. Rountree’s book displays the interactions between Native Americans and English settlers from a never-before-seen perspective. Contrary to the Europeanized works published over the years that favor the Europeans and excludes the Native Americans, Rountree chooses to take a different road that is seldom traversed. Instead of using the mundane dialogue that is taught throughout grade school she has come from the Native Americans’ point-of-view. In doing this, use of the Native’s language is seen throughout the book, alongside Native’s take on the Europeans. Helen Rountree calls attention to the fact that a great majority of mainstream sources involving natives and Englishmen's relationship were extremely biased and non-inclusive of the Natives in their writings.…

    • 475 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This week’s assignment enlightened me about the true history of the Jamestown settlement and early Native American- English relations. To begin with, I was unaware the founders of Jamestown were not famers but actually held gold mining centered professions. Also, these craftsmen and artisans had such an aversion to farming that they would risk the possibility of starvation. This aspect of week two’s lesson harkened back to my middle school history class’s study of Jamestown. Specifically, the now infamous John Smith quotes “If you do not work, you do not eat.”…

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The history of the North American continent started long before the first European explorers landed; however, the arrival of the Europeans changed the dynamic of the continents land and population forever. At the time neither the Europeans nor the Native Americans ever experienced a culture similar to each other’s. The conservative and religious nature of the Europeans contrast to the simple yet effective ways of the Indians. The Europeans settler’s lack of cultural sensitivity and acceptance led to a poor partnership, which in turn reduced the productivity and survivability of the early colonists in the new world. For the purpose of this paper there will be a focus on the English interactions with the Eastern Woodland Indians.…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Native Americans and Their Fight for Simplicity The earliest accounts of Native Americans expressed a civilization with a great sense of community. A civilization that was based on essentials, treasuring items that only improved their well-being. A civilization far from excessive, doing only enough to provide for themselves.…

    • 1247 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1491 Mann Summary

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages

    My view of the contact period is significantly different than what it used to be. Even as a history major, there is a lack of education surrounding the Americans and much of what I had learned about it was later 18th or 19th century unites states history. Anything that I had learned about the last 2000 years or so had happened in a high school classroom that glosses over most of the content. I had learned that many European explorers had brought over disease to the native populations and was one of the main reasons why they had conquered them but it was not until Mann’s book that I had realized that these civilizations rivaled those on the European continent and would have most likely never been conquered if they populations had not been so diminished. The most surprising fact was the amount of impact that they had on the landscape.…

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A hallmark of this pre-existing culture was the presence of natural curiosity and the desire to learn and advance understanding of the surrounding world. This is evident throughout primary source accounts of interactions throughout the age of exploration, but is often buried underneath overtones of blatant racism and prejudices, which were present in all three societies. The essential point of understanding early Atlantic history is that while some actors, such as Sepulveda and Cortes, expressed brutality and the “natural slave” sentiment, widespread adoption of new ideas, foods, clothing, and tools occurred throughout the Old and New Worlds. If interactions were only taking place under the context of annihilation and with disregard for the learning about culture and biogeography of other groups, then how can European willingness to adopt the rituals of Native American tobacco and chocolate consumption, or the near obsessive documentation of African and American plants and animals be explained? Whether Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans at the time knew it or not, all interactions were taking place with a context of cultural learning and an attempt to understand how the “other” operated.…

    • 1420 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As Europeans increased in numbers to settle America, their presence had a profound effect upon the native people living there. The exchange of knowledge on food items, weapons, religion, language and the introduction to disease are just a few examples of the impact Europeans had on Native Americans (Schultz, n.d.). Initially, the relationships between the two were friendly, the Natives traded food, fur pelts and knowledge to be self-sufficient in this new world for European manufactured items such as cloth, iron pots, tools, and guns. Nevertheless, the Europeans greed for power, wealth, and land led to disagreement, slavery, violence, and war. As more and more colonists entered the New World, this was the beginning of the end for the Native…

    • 272 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Neil Salisbury and Joyce Appleby composed two articles about the era the “New World”. The two articles are closely related and have several similarities, for instance they both talk about how the discovery of the “New World” affected certain people. Salisbury went into great lengths about the indigenous people of the Americas, and Appleby wrote about how the encounter affected the Europeans. Both of the documents have substantial arguments and both are greatly supported, however, it was brought to my attention that Mr. Salisbury’s article was far more convincing than Ms. Appleby’s. Neil Salisbury uses artifacts to defend his argument, but he also states, “… a number of scholars have been integrating information from European accounts with the…

    • 237 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Earthworms Human Exchange

    • 2909 Words
    • 12 Pages

    Throughout history there have been several events that I have been extremely pivotal moments in the development of the human race. This list includes momentous occasion such as domestication of animals, the invention of agriculture, the invention of writing and written laws comma the invention of the firearm, however no one event contributed to a greater ecological, economic, political, and social upheaval as the bridging of the old world and the new. In discovering the Americas, Christopher Columbus brought forth one of the greatest exchanges of goods people ideas and perhaps most importantly species that mark the beginning of a truly global society in order to better understand the tremendous impact of this exchange I'm going to be examining…

    • 2909 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Introduction (1/2 pg) Native Americans had been a recurring topic throughout my academic education. I have always been interested in learning more about their history and culture so I may better understand my own culture and heritage decent. According to Public Broadcasting Services (PBS) by the year 1793 most of the Native American population indigenous to southern Texas decline or intermarried Hispanic population.…

    • 1310 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays