American Literature Before 1865

AMERICAN LITERATURE BEFORE 18652007While the land issue is oft invoked as the reason behind the extermination of indigenous Americans by European settlers , the real issue was a clash of cultures that held ill-matched world run acrosss . Among inherent Americans (hereafter referred to as Indians for convenience and because this is actually Native peoples appellation according to Coeur d Alene writer Sherman Alexie , society was normally very egalitarian , and even democratic . Europeans on the otherwise hand believed in top-down , societal structures with rigid s and classes Most Indians were hunters and gatherers this is how they survived acknowledging farinaceous and wild edible plants as gifts of disposition . In light of the harsh , puritanical Yahwist world view of the Europeans , it is significant that those in a hunting-gathering society rarely get to to work more than five or six hours per calendar week in to satisfy their basic needs Euro-Christians were children of a despiteful , patriarchal god who demanded that they earn their bread by the worn spot of their brow (unless of course , one was a successful capitalist , in which lower classes would do it on one s behalf . Their distort belief system demanded that they till the earth hunting was for fluctuation . Many (not all Indians found the thought of agriculture as an affront to the earth if the Great Spirit had provided berries , roots and game animals , why would they scratch open the Great Mother pursuance more ? Sexuality was another issue while most Indians embraced it as any normal , healthy life socio-economic class and exhibited great tolerance for homosexuality and trans-gendered people (some of whom had high place , as was the case of the Cherokee Two Spirit , Europeans were - as numerous Americans are now - embarrassed , ashamed , intolerant and restrictive when it came to sexual matters .

Women among many Indian tribes also had a great degree of freedom and equality with men , which was rigidly denied to European womenDifferent European groups had very different experiences and problems in encountering and interacting with Indians . In A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virgina , write in 1587 prior to the mysterious disappearance of the Roanoke Colony , the venturer Harriot - a product of the Elizabethan England of Shakespeare - wrote under the heading Of The spirit and Manners of the People that the Indians .are not to be feared , but sample that they shall have cause to feare and love us , that shall inhabite with them (241Harriot goes on the set forth them in some detail as to their animal-skin clothing , their lose of edged tools and their style of warfare . He writes , In follow of us , they are a people poore , and for insufficiency of skill and judgement in the knowledge and use of our things , doe esteeme our trifles [toys , coins and training tools] before things of greater value (242 . This statement is significant , oddly in light of later experiences of the English in Virginia - experiences that knotted great suffering , death and privation . Here , Harriot indulges...If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com

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