The Inconvenient Indian By Thomas King

Mikaal Khalifa

Ms. Sobiera

NBE3U1-02

30 January 2023

How Indigenous People Have Been Oppressed and it Negatively Affected Them

Picture This. People come into your house forcefully, take your thing, eat the food in your house, and then section off part of your house where you have to stay. This is what happened to Indigenous people when the Europeans came to their land. In the text “The Inconvenient Indian” by Thomas King, Thomas King talks about how Indigenous people have been oppressed throughout time by the Europeans or Colonizers. These events show how being oppressed can lead to a worsening quality of life for the Indigenous people. The literary text “The Inconvenient Indian” by Thomas King demonstrates the various aspects of colonial

This text shows how Indigenous people were used for their worth and thrown to the side. This was shown on page one hundred where it said “So long and thanks for all the fish” (King 100). The symbolism used here shows how the author developed the text by showing how Great Britain and France treated the Indigenous people. This is because when the Europeans came to North America the Indigenous people showed them places to get food and how to get fish. After the Europeans used the Indigenous people for all their worth, they got rid of them. This shows how Indigenous were oppressed. After all, the Europeans kicked the Indigenous people off their land because the Europeans did not need them anymore. Due to the Indigenous people getting kicked off their land, the Indigenous had to leave their homes and sacred pieces of land. This in turn worsened their living quality because how Indigenous people had to leave everything behind and abandoned their way of life. The government also oppressed the Indigenous people. This was shown how the government does not want the Indigenous people to be in control. This was shown on page two hundred one where it said “They are not about to buy a shovel and dig it up” (King 201). This quote uses symbolism to demonstrate how the government wanted to stop dealing with Indigenous people but to do so the government

This text illustrates how the Europeans said that indigenous people hindered their expansion. This was shown on page nineteen where it said “Too little information or too much, what history encourages us to do is to remember the hindrances that Native people posed to forward momentum of Europeans westward migration” (King 19). The use of text details in the quote shows how Indigenous people were oppressed because Europeans depicted them as an obstacle even if they assisted them. This in turn worsened their quality of life because The Europeans would make up untrue facts about them and use those facts to remove them from their land. Also, since the history books were made by Europeans, Europeans would include how Indigenous people are bad because how Indigenous were an obstacle for them to overcome. This also shows how Indigenous were affected by colonial oppression because of how Europeans will say how Indigenous impacted their western migration, even though Indigenous people helped out the Europeans by showing them trade routes, and river systems, and introducing them to their family and friends. The government also hid details about Indigenous people. This communicates how the government hid the Indigenous culture. This was shown on pages one hundred seventy to one hundred seventy-one where it said “The Final report ran over four thousand pages contained in five