Catawba Indian Argumentative Essay

When the Indians and the Europeans encountered one another, social and environmental changes spurred, in which the colonists, for the most part, benefitted, while the Indians suffered by being subjected to inferiority and death. The natives of North America got the short end of the peace pipe once colonists from Europe began to settle in their land. A common misconception today is that, the Indians were always territorial and non-welcoming, but they in fact wanted to live in harmony with the colonists. An early 18th century map created by the Catawba Indians represented "an Indian bid to incorporate the newcomers into a native nexus of diplomacy and trade in the hope that the colonists could learn how to coexist in a shared land." (Alan Taylor page 4) On the

They brought along plants and animals such as "honeybees, pigs, horses, mules, sheep, and cattle," as well as "wheat, barley, rye, oats, grasses, and grapevines" so that they may farm in a European manner. (Alan Taylor page 20) Although, that is not the only thing the Europeans brought with them; they also brought diseases that the natives had never experienced yet the Europeans were more immune to them. Some of theses diseases included "smallpox, typhus, diphtheria, bubonic plague, malaria, yellow fever, cholera, and influenza," which killed about 90% of the Native American population. (Alan Taylor page 18) Although most of them were killed, some Indians dispersed themselves across North America. "About 150,000 Indians remained in the area east of the Mississippi. New England had few hostile Indians, but in New York there were 2,000 warriors." (Gordon Wood page 10) Though some were turned hostile, New England had their own native allies who "helped turn the tide of war in favor of the colonists" over the enemy Indians. (Alan Taylor page 75) Despite the fact that some of the natives were allies, they were still treated as inferior people. In fact, there was