American Civilizations
History 1700
Before starting this course I can honestly say I had never paid any attention to history. I truly do not even remember it from high school. So to be asked who I found most intriguing or inspiring is an extremely hard question to answer. I found everything I learned about to be intriguing and inspiring. However I would have to say my biggest surprise was when I first opened the book and read about the many different tribes living in North America before the white man. I knew there were Native Americans here and I knew the white had come over and had taken land from them, what I did not know about was how long they had been believed to be in North America and how far and wide their people and culture spread across the country.
The people we would come to know and refer to as Indians were actually “decedents of Siberians” believed to migrate from Northeastern Asia more than 15,000 years ago. It was hard for me to imagine what that must have been like for them to travel so far and what they must have lost braving the many different elements they had faced to get here. Then to read about them hunting the mammals called the megafauna, and to have these animals described as “mammoths that were twice as big as elephants, sloths that were taller than giraffes, and 8-feet long lions” made me think I was reading some kind of science fiction novel. I had no idea animals that big and humans had co-existed. The Siberian people used the megafauna for food, shelter and clothing to survive the remainder of the ice age.
I took a “few thousand years” for the people to completely migrate across the continent and for many new and diverse cultures to arise. With the ice age coming to an end, temperatures on the rise, animals becoming extinct, and the rise of sea level creating new lands and rivers the people had to adapt to their new environments. Diets, shelters, clothing, and language became distinct based on the region the people occupied.
I found it interesting to learn about the different tribes and their way of life. How they were city builders, architects, artists, hunters and farmers. I enjoyed reading about how many of the foods and plants we enjoy today were acutely creations of the Native Americans, discovered through their experimentations with different seeds and soils.
What I did not enjoy reading about was the pure brutality many Native Americans faced how the life they knew was taken away from them so easily. Many were wiped out simply by disease brought over by the Europeans. The rest were beaten, raped, murdered and forced from their homes and lands. I could not imagine what it must have been like to have these people come from out of nowhere and take everything from them they had worked so hard to have. I knew that many of these things had happened, however it puts it in a different perspective when you learn more about the people it happen to.
Source: Experience History, volume 1 SLCC
