European Influence On Native Americans

The arrival of Europeans conquistadors to the Americas mainly led to negative consequences for the Native Americans. Essentially, Europeans invaded Latin America to exploit its riches, not caring to preserve the Native American culture but creating a path of destruction wherever they went. Consequently, the Native American culture could not defend itself and withered away. In this paper, I argue that the European invasion was to a great extent destructive to the native culture because it contributed to the decline of native population, the loss of native history and diminished the Native American identity.

The arrival of Europeans had the deadliest effect on the native population because it introduced contagious diseases, leading to a great

Europeans came to the Americas with the goal of enriching themselves through the New World’s resources at the expense of the Native Americans. The Spanish forced Native Americans to “settle at the missions so that they could be more easily controlled and their labor used” and when the natives were rarely permitted to leave the mission to hunt “they would hold family members hostage to ensure that the hunter-gatherers would return” . Furthermore, Europeans have used all possible means to extract wealth from the Americas including legalizing practices such as the “imposition of intolerable tribute burdens on the Indians, the destructive, wasteful exploitation of Indian labor in enterprises like mining and pearl-fishing and in some area a large-scale traffic in Indian slaves” . Clearly, the Spaniards jeopardized the lives of Native Americans to serve their ambitions, as they were forced to work in difficult, often dangerous conditions such as mercury mines without giving them a rest, completely disregarding of their humanity. de Ayala argued “the Indians should not be forced to labor in the mercury mines for a year. They should be allowed to rest” . In his statement, he was implicitly criticizing the Spanish rule for denying the Indians their most basic right. These unjust systems led to the extinction of many Native Americans, as they were not able to survive the unbearable conditions they were put in by Europeans. Although Spanish officials such as La Vandera claimed that deaths occurred due to compulsory labor is “quite a small number compared with the previous population of seven million and cannot satisfactory account for the decline” , his statement is subject to bias because he had the most to gain through the Indian’s labor. Indeed, the enslavement of Indians aided the