Consequences of contacts with Europeans

The colonization of the North European continent by the Europeans was into a chain of wars that sometimes turned into bloody massacre of the native population. The main reasons for the extinction of the indigenous population, however, were diseases unknown in the past and the supremacy of European technologies, especially in agriculture. Buffalos and maize were defeated and replaced by cattle and wheat. The extermination of the native population as such rarely was the aim of colonizers. The Spanish aspired to spread Christianity among inhabitants of the new lands and to make them subjects of their king. In many countries of Latin America they succeeded in that. The Portuguese and the English tried to make Indians work on sugar-cane and cotton plantations. When they failed (Indians escaped of died of hard labor), they began to replace them with slaves from Africa. The French in Canada treated the native population in the same way as the Russians treated the peoples of Siberia – for them they were mostly providers of expensive furs. The 19th century was fatal for the indigenous population of North America. It was then that the gap between the quickly developing industrial civilization and the culture of the native peoples became so huge that no further cooperation was possible. Indians became “unnecessary” and colonizers sent them along “ways of tears” further west to the special lands – reservations. In the 20th century the extinction stopped and the cultural gap between the native population and the Europeans began to smooth over. Although it is two early two claim real equality, by the end of the 20th century most disputes in American courts were decided in favor of the native population. Some Indians became rich. The total number of North American aborigines at present exceeds the number of the native population in the times of Columbus. 

Although direct contacts with colonizers did not bode well to the native population, mediated connections were sometimes beneficial. Iron tools, European fabrics, glass beads spread across America. In jewelry making beads replaced porcupine quills, and encouraged appearance of a new type of pattern – flowers and leaves instead of traditional rhombs and triangles. Of highest importance was the appearance of horse that the Indians of Utah and Wyoming got from the Spanish in the 16th century. Before that the only domestic animal that native people knew was the dog and (in the South-West) the turkey cock. Soon Indians of the Great Valleys and the neighboring regions started to use horses. In the beginning, Indians hunted mustangs like they hunted other animals, but soon they learned to tame and domesticate them. 

Landholdings of the American Indians in 1880		Landholdings of the American Indians in 1980		Landholdings of the American Indians by 1854