Reflection Essay Example on Relationship Between Indigenous Peoples and Settlers

📌Category: Americas, World
📌Words: 369
📌Pages: 2
📌Published: 24 January 2022

The irony of referring to indigenous people as savage and the complete disregard for the lives of the natives who had previously helped the colonists to survive is disrespectful and egregious. To elaborate, in the early 1600´s, the Powhatan Confederacy was an alliance between the early settlers and the Native Americans that was essential in order for the colonizers to live. According to source C, ''Bloody Footprints”, “The firsts Jamestown colonists were among the many early arrivals who could have not survived without the help of indigenous peoples. The colonizers [...] were not successful at growing crops or hunting.” This text piece from paragraph six of source C elucidates how it's wrong that the colonists killed a myriad of indigenous people, overlooking how they wouldn't have been alive without their alliance and help. Furthermore, source A, “This Land” says, “The following ideas are basic to American Settler Colonialism: white supremacy [...], African American slavery [...], A policy of genocide and land theft…” This evidence from page ten of the text delineates the irony in calling Native Americans savage when the colonizers believed that there was a righteousness in these ideas, the ideas of genocide. As you can see, it's clear that the mockery in labeling Native Americans as savages and ignoring the enormous help of the previous Natives, who are the reasons the colonizers survived, is wrong and unfortunately quintessential of figures in America. 

The irony in marking Native Americans as ferocious and neglecting the help of past indigenous peoples is hypocritical and unfair. For example,in source A, the following quote is from General William T. Sherman: “ We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women, and children...during an assault, the soldiers can not pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age.” This quote illustrates the hypocrisy in calling Native American feral, because the colonists followed this ideology. Additionally, source C says, “Their survival depended on ongoing diplomatic conversations between Wahunsona, the leader of the Powhatan confederacy, and Jamestown, leader of the Jamestown colony.” This supports my claim because it shows how illogical it was for the colonists to commit acts of genocide against the people who gave them the aid to remain alive. In the final analysis, the injustice of characterizing as uncivilized and bypassing the fact that the colonists survived because of the indigenous peoples, is pretentious and unethical.

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