![]() ![]() In the Americas, modern society was built on land-grabbing.Įuropean Contact Pre-1600s: Glory, God and GoldĮuropean empires began exploring the New World over 500 years ago, laying claim to land and riches for their respective crowns. Despite this fact, it’s important to examine the direct impact of European imperialism and colonization on the indigenous people of the present day United States. These diseases spread farther and faster than Europeans themselves. The greatest threat to Native life came from diseases, such as measles and small pox, unknowingly carried by Europeans. What is certain, however, is that their numbers greatly dwindled following contact with white settlers. ![]() It’s difficult to quantify the population of indigenous people inhabiting North America prior to European arrival in the late 15 th century estimates range from 4 million to over 100 million. Native Americans arrived in the Americas about 15,000 years ago. ![]() Meanwhile, their historical and sacred sites are celebrated as treasures of America’s “public lands.” However, barriers, including explicit and implicit biases, have historically prevented native voices from participating fully in conservation and preservation discussions. Today, exposure to environmental degradation is a concern for Native Americans residing on reservations. The structural dynamics responsible for the erosion of indigenous land sovereignty continues to the present. European settlement of North America altered the way people had interacted with the land for millennia, and proved devastating for indigenous communities and their people. The phenomenon of taking land from the Native Americans under the banner of supremacy is highly relevant to the Moving Forward Initiative. These preliminary encounters between Native Americans and colonists laid the foundation for a tradition of land grabbing that repeated itself through the Revolutionary War of 1776, and later through policies of the United States federal government. Over a period of 300 years, from 1609 to 1900, Native American tribes went from inhabiting the entire land area, to living on specifically defined “native reservations.” Long before the founding of the United States, countless acres were taken through illegal treaties, trickery, and bloodshed. They took actions which displaced native peoples and redefined tribes’ relationships with ancestral lands. The settlers’ hunger for expansion drove them to pursue goals of eradication. The British – who would later become the first “American citizens” – viewed the indigenous people as subordinate and uncivilized due to their nomadic lifestyles and “underutilization” of the land. This week, as we celebrate Thanksgiving – a holiday built around the lore of peaceful and mutually-beneficial relationships between Native Americans and Pilgrims – we feel it’s important to add our voice to the growing conversation about the inaccuracies of these stories. This blog will explore the relationships between Native Americans and the first permanent British settlements in the present-day United States. Kellogg Foundation – seeks to address bias and structural racism in the conservation workforce and help increase the employment of young adults of color in public lands management and conservation-related careers.Īs part of this initiative, we aim to provide information to help people develop a foundation to understand the history, policies, practices and societal dynamics that have shaped our country and the conservation field. The Corps Network’s Moving Forward Initiative – supported by the W.K. Blog by Cassandra Ceballos, Programs Assistant, The Corps Network ![]()
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