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How Did Charles Mann's Effect On Native Americans

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1491 Analysis Charles Mann investigates a new view of the effect the Native Americans had on their western lands before Columbus had visited them. Mann argues that our knowledge of the Indians may be incorrect; life before the New World may actually have been advanced, organized, and prosperous. On a visit to Beni, Mann and two archaeologists examine the Bolivian region and its few native people. One peculiar feature they noticed was the collection of forest islands, huge and almost perfectly round circles of grouped trees raised above the floodplain. The archaeologists believed this construction, which prevented the trees from being flooded, was organized by a complex society 2,000 years ago. They also reason that Indians effectively shaped …show more content…

The Plymouth colony landed in Cape Cod, but found abandoned Indian towns filled with graves and corpses. Disease had ravaged Indian populations. In 1910, James Mooney first speculated that 1491 North America had a population of 1.15 million people. After being accepted for over fifty years, Henry Dobyns challenged Mooney’s conjecture. During a visit to Mexico, Dobyns read Jesuit records of births and deaths and there was much more death. Diseases, such as smallpox, decimated Indian population and allowing Europeans to easily conquer the natives. Since so many people died, Dobyns calculated that the population of the west was actually 112 million in 1491, more than Europe at the time. He estimated that after 130 years after contact with Europeans, the Native American population decreased by 95 percent. Some criticized Dobyns’s publishing's as politically driven. The critics called Dobyn out for supporting the American hate crowd. Nevertheless, the debate about pre-Columbian populations continues to this …show more content…

A few pigs brought to the New World could have transmitted their diseases to the surrounding environment which could have mutated into human diseases. Native Americans did not know of these animal diseases because they did not domesticate many animals. Yet some critics doubt a few pigs could cause so much death; the Black Death would have been much less severe than what the Indians faced. They believe a multitude of plagues and the Indian’s unprepared immune system had a much greater effect. Again, archaeologists argue how many people actually live in the Americas in 1492. Those who believe a smaller amount say there is little evidence of dense population; millions of people would have left without a trace. High counters assume that a 95% death rate means the population was much larger. In the end, everyone agrees that diseases that destroyed Indian

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These diseases completely wiped out the 10 million or so Native Americans on the islands and at least ½ of the more than 100 million on the mainland of North America.” The Europeans that came brought diseases that killed many Native Americans and destroyed entire empires. This

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Another example of the great magnitude of the Indian populations were the Caddo community cemeteries. Sado claimed when he visited the Caddo that their population consisted of 200,000 people. (Pg. 45) he also witnessed public platforms and mausoleums in the great city. Hernan Cortes claimed that the Aztec capitol of Tenochtitlan was larger than the city of Paris and the streets could hold thousands of men commuting around the city. (pg. 49) B. Against Large Populations: By the time that the English began inhabiting the new world, researchers claim that 95% of the Indian population was wiped out by European diseases but many experts claim that immense Indian populations are just "Wishful thinking" because of the lack of evidence.

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On October 12, 1492, an Italian merchant by the name of Christopher Columbus landed on an island in the New World. With him he brought three ships and a small crew of Spaniards. After exploring other islands, Columbus came one that he called Hispaniola; here, they found seemingly primitive and naϊve natives that they immediately began to take advantage of. However, little did they know that this first meeting would bring exploration of South and Central America that would wreak havok among the Natives. Throughout the period of European Expansion, Natives were ripped from their home and forced to work day in and day out.

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Europeans brought deadly diseases with them that caught on to the Aztec and the Inca empires, and all the native people in North and South America died. The Europeans got rid of all the Aztec and Incas Empires. “It was this zealous hunt for gold that drove the Spanish conquistadors throughout Latin America, where they would vanquish the Aztec and Incan Empires, just as they had done to the people in the Caribbean. Spanish conquistadors throughout Latin America, where they would vanquish the Aztec and Incan Empires, just as they had done to the people in the Caribbean.” The European Imperialists did similar things to the Aztec and Inca Empires as they did to the

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The word pre-Columbian is used to discuss the history of the Americas in the era before European impact. Pre-Columbian was frequently used in discussing the abundant civilizations of the Americas. During pre-Columbian America, there was nothing, but wilderness and Indians. There were about thirty thousand square miles of desert. The Indians set fires to the trees to kill the area.

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1. The environment shaped Native American cultures and civilizations because the first Americans adapted to the land and evolved into hundreds of tribes, spoke different languages, and practiced different cultures. Because of this most of the cultures were based off nature and cultivation. The cultivation helped with trade and also helped feed the growing population. Along with the different cultures and languages, the language barrier helped develop their way of life.

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The Age of Exploration occurred from 1400 to 1700 C.E. It is famously known as the Age of Exploration because it was a time when explorers from Europe travelled by sea to explore west of them, and make many geographical advances. Exploration was motivated by gold, glory, and God. Along with their motivation, the Europeans also wanted to find trading partners, new goods, new trade routes, and simply find new land. With exploration, there were many good effects and many bad ones.

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There are many archeological sites and legends that lead historians to believe that before 1492 there were millions of Native Americans living in the Americas. Some theories explain us that the cause of the native population’s reduction was the European contact and the diseases they brought over. Others theories explain there were no so many millions of Native Americans and that the European contact didn’t have any impact in the reduction of this populations. Historians cannot agree about this topic because of the many theories that have been developed.

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Historians differ on what they think about the net result of the European arrival in the New World. Considering that the Columbian Exchange, which refers to “exchange of plants, animals, people, disease, and culture between Afro-Eurasia and the Americas after Columbus sailed to the Americas in 1492,” led to possibly tens of millions of deaths on the side of the American Indians, but also enabled agricultural and technological trade (Henretta et al. 42), I cannot help but reflect on whether the effects should be addressed as a historical or a moral question. The impact that European contact had on the indigenous populations of North America should be understood as a moral question because first, treating it as a historical question is difficult due to lack of reliable historical evidence; second, the meaning of compelling historical claims is contestable as the academic historian perspective tends to view the American Indian oral history as invalid; and finally, what happened to the native Indians is morally repulsive and must be discussed as such. The consequences of European contact should be answered as a moral question because historically, it is hard to be historically objective in the absence of valid and dependable historical evidence.

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Throughout the late 1400’s and the 1500’s, the world experienced many changes due to the discoveries of new lands and peoples that had been never been visited before. The new-found lands of the Americas and exploration of Africa by the Europeans led to new colonies and discoveries in both areas. It also brought different societies and cultures together that had never before communicated, causing conflict in many of these places. While the Europeans treated both the Native Americans and West Africans as inferior people, the early effects they had on the Native Americans were much worse. Beginning in the late 1400’s, many different European explorers started to look for new trade routes in the Eastern Hemisphere in order to gain economic and religious power.

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On these islands I estimate there are 2,100 leagues of land that have been ruined and depopulated, empty of people.” (Las Casas) Nothing positive came from the people of Spain setting foot on the land of the Indians. Depopulation was just one of many hazardous effects that the Spaniards

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As the Europeans found native along the coasts of the New World, they found them easily malleable and able to be used, so they enslaved them and those who fought back were wiped out. Europeans, as well as the Africans, had built up a resistance to many diseases such as smallpox and were therefore not really affected as much by the diseases if they became sick. However, the Native Americans had not had contact with the disease and it quickly spread rapidly and slowly helped the Spanish rid themselves of the natives so they could take control of the land. Geoffrey Cowley offers insight on just how profound the effect of smallpox was when he writes, “ ...When the newcomers arrived carrying mumps, measles, whooping cough, smallpox, cholera, gonorrhea and yellow fever, the Indians were immunologically

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765 Words | 4 Pages

Should congress consider climate change? Should congress consider climate change, would it make the situation better or worse? Based off the article “PRO/CON: Should congress consider comprehensive climate change laws?” By Kraft and Morris, the government would save money in the future if they were to lower the emissions for greenhouse gases.

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(document 12) The journey Columbus took spanned months so they almost certainly brought medicine. The reason Columbus didn’t help them was unknown but a known fact is that he didn’t bother to help them. Finally, the native American population got decreased by more than 24 million because of Columbus’ actions. The graph in document 13 show a decrease in the Native American population by 24 million people.

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He claimed that there had to have been around 90 to 112 million natives there before Columbus; this meant that there would have been more people living in the Americas than in Europe at the time. With all of the new claims being made, many people have been choosing a side to debate over. It is the high counters verses the low counters; Dobyn’s revised figure of 18 million is debated against Douglas H. Ubelaker’s estimates of 1.8 million natives. For the time being, no definitive data exists. 3.

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