Soaring eagles
the effects of european migration to the americas
LIFE BEFORE COLONIZATION
FIRST CONTACT
In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean, unlocking what Europeans quickly came to call the ‘New World’. Columbus ‘found’ a land with around two million inhabitants. He thought he had found a new route to the East, so he mistakenly called these people ‘Indians’. Within a hundred years, Europeans were trying to settle in the Americas. With Spanish and Portuguese explorers in the south, English explorers focused on North America.
EUROPEAN IMMIGRATION
The reasons for the English Immigration to America was at first based on obtaining profit from the new lands but quickly changed as people decided to move from England to escape religious and political prosecution. The prospect of a new life and owning some land was also a major reason for the English immigration to America, but there was one problem, all of this "free" land was already owned by the native Americans. and this caused conflict. alot of it
LIVING AND SHARING LANDS
SOME TRIBES PREPARED FOR WAR
OTHERS CREATED ALLIANCES
SOME JUST MOVED WEST TO PREVENT CONFLICT
THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
INDIAN REMOVAL ACT
It is generally acknowledged that this act spelled the end of Indian Rights to live in those states under their own traditional laws. They were forced to assimilate and concede to US law or leave their homelands. The Indian Nations themselves were force to move and ended up in Oklahoma.
NATIVE AMERICAN UPRISINGS
"This war did not spring up on our land, this war was brought upon us by the children of the Great Father who came to take our land without a price, and who, in our land, do a great many evil things... This war has come from robbery - from the stealing of our land." - Spotted Tail
MANIFEST DESTINY
LOOKING FORWARD
But what it'll mean to be Indian, will change subtly.
Current blood-quantum laws that require a certain percentage of Indian blood in order to be a citizen will be changed. Those tribes who do not change them will die out. This is inevitable since inter-marriage always results in a "thinner" Indian blood.
Instead, most tribes will adopt laws similar to those most other countries in the world today has, where you become a citizen either by having parents who are citizens, or by meaningfully being a part of the tribe over a long period, perhaps also with requirements for things like knowledge of language or customs. In other words, the requirements for becoming a citizen of a Native American tribe, will become similar to the requirements we already have for becoming a citizen of a country