Many of our parents, textbooks, and even teachers fail to mention the early life before European arrival onto American soil. Most Americans don’t even know about the complex irrigation systems Natives built, the glorious cities which stood before the Europeans, and even the thousands of diverse tribes who had their own language, cultures, and history.
Many textbooks illustrate and write about how Europeans have had a huge impact on our country, but what about the impact Natives had? Native Americans have had just as big of an impact on our country’s history as Europeans, even though textbooks fail to mention it. The common American textbook starts our country’s story at the arrival of Europeans, just like many of our story-boards. However, …show more content…
The documentary We Shall Remain shows us that the relationship between the two groups wasn’t always troublesome. In the documentary, we see Native Americans helping out the Europeans adapt to the tough conditions of the land and offering them hunting tips, and in return the Europeans would teach them English and how to use modern weapons for defense. The relationship between the two was friendly, and even considered as an alliance. However, as more Europeans arrived, the documentary shows the backstabbing betrayal that the Europeans inflicted on the Natives. They carried diseases, took their land, and broke their promises. By taking the Natives land, the Europeans stripped away their history and memories. The US government seems to continue on the same destructive path. In the article Pipeline Fight and America’s Dark Past by Bill McKibben, the U.S. is constructing a pipeline that cuts through the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation Sacred burial ground. We have already taken land and memories away from the Native Americans, and we seem to be commiting the same action thousands of years later. Bill McKibben writes, “All of which is sad because this case offers the U.S. government the chance to make at least small amends for some of the darkest parts of its official history.” Our country’s actions today show we have learned
Many textbooks illustrate and write about how Europeans have had a huge impact on our country, but what about the impact Natives had? Native Americans have had just as big of an impact on our country’s history as Europeans, even though textbooks fail to mention it. The common American textbook starts our country’s story at the arrival of Europeans, just like many of our story-boards. However, …show more content…
The documentary We Shall Remain shows us that the relationship between the two groups wasn’t always troublesome. In the documentary, we see Native Americans helping out the Europeans adapt to the tough conditions of the land and offering them hunting tips, and in return the Europeans would teach them English and how to use modern weapons for defense. The relationship between the two was friendly, and even considered as an alliance. However, as more Europeans arrived, the documentary shows the backstabbing betrayal that the Europeans inflicted on the Natives. They carried diseases, took their land, and broke their promises. By taking the Natives land, the Europeans stripped away their history and memories. The US government seems to continue on the same destructive path. In the article Pipeline Fight and America’s Dark Past by Bill McKibben, the U.S. is constructing a pipeline that cuts through the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation Sacred burial ground. We have already taken land and memories away from the Native Americans, and we seem to be commiting the same action thousands of years later. Bill McKibben writes, “All of which is sad because this case offers the U.S. government the chance to make at least small amends for some of the darkest parts of its official history.” Our country’s actions today show we have learned