Native Americans Vs. Early Europeans
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The English settlers developed a selection of stereotypes against the Native Americans, ranking them as uncivilized and thus making it easier on themselves to lead the culture into their impossible situation, where the Natives have no choice but to either fight and lose or sit and do nothing, however if assimilation could have occurred through education or social structure the final outcome could have been mutually just for the two civilizations.
The early European influences, or prejudices directly linked themselves to the final outcome of the cultural elimination of the Native Americans. The English settlers called the Natives “Savages” and labeled them as uncivilized. Several times John Smith, in his works calls the Natives evil and compares them to the devil with their so-called occult like behavior. These prejudices just allowed for more hate and greed to develop in the English settlers. Even in Crevicure, the author clearly labels the European settlers as the Americans and not even putting into mind the Blackfeet and other Natives who had lived on the land for thousands of years. This ignorance to acknowledge another culture other than their own just shows how easily the prejudice dipictions made it for them to kick the other civilization right out of the picture, making them basically obsolete.
The prejudices and stereotypes of the settlers led the Blackfeet and others to a bad point in their history; in this impossible situation the Natives are faced with a decision, whether to fight and lose or sit and wait for it to be over. In Fools Crow, Owl Child and Three Bears have a verbal duel over which way to go. Owl Child says we must fight now and destroy these Napikwans or white people. However Three Bears says it is too dangerous and we should compromise. In a way Owl Child is right, they have been “trying to make a compromise” with the Napikwans for years and have even produced several treaties but the situation still exist. Three Bears knows in his heart that more compromise wont do a thing but he still wants to maintain hope and not believe that his people are a civization of the past. The “war in the east”, or the Civil War had just ended and the Neo-Americans focused all their attention on the expansion of their land. Some Natives thought they should fight, others believed in patience, however neither choice proved successful.
The final outcome is the slow but triumphant deletion of the Native-Americans. The beginning of this stage is graphically detailed in Fools Crow. They explain the smell of burnt skin that Fools Crow expierences when he first walks into the camp that the Napikwans had ransacked. He sees slaughtered men, women, and even children all slowly burning. Everything is gone. The white men took all of what they valued and destroyed anthing they didnt. The early prejudices are directly linked to this stage. Greed and hate for no apparehent reason other than their own desires led to this final outcome. The Native Americans impossible situation is solved at this time but only through complete removal of their civilization and culture.
The English settlers didnt really fight a fair match against the Blackfeet and other Natives and established themselves victorious; however through a simple idea of assimilation all of this could have been avoided. The two cultures, although obviously diiferent, could have assimilated on several circumstances. The Social Structure and Government of the two societies were seemingly similar. The Blackfeet