Europeans). They deserved to ‘die out’, they argued. The prairies were cleared for farmland, and wild bison killed off. ‘Primitive man will disappear with the primitive animal’ wrote a visiting Frenchman.
ACTIVITY Comment on these two sets of population data. USA : Spanish America : Natives . million . million Whites .
million . million Mixed Europeans . million . million Blacks .
million . million Total . million . million Meanwhile, the natives were pushed westward, given land elsewhere (‘theirs in perpetuity’) but often moved again if any mineral – lead or gold – or oil was found on their lands.
Many tribes were forced to share the land originally occupied by one tribe, thus leading to quarrels between them. They were locked off in small areas called ‘reservations’, which often was land with which they had no earlier connection. They did not give in without a fight. The US army crushed a series of rebellions from to , and in Canada there were armed revolts by the Metis (people of native European descent) between and .
But after that they gave up. In , the President of the USA received a letter from a native leader, Chief Seattle. The president had asked the chief to sign a treaty giving a large part of the land they lived on to the American government. The Chief replied: ‘How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land?
The idea is strange to us. If you do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can one buy them? Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine-needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and every humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people.
The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man… So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us. The Great Chief sends