NCERT Class 11 World History Theme 10: Displacing Indigenous Peoples

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NCERT Class 11 World History Theme 10: Displacing Indigenous Peoples|CBSE|English|AP World History

World History

Illustration: World History
  • The European settlements were called ‘colonies.’
  • Names of many rivers, towns, etc. are derived from ‘native’ names (e. g. , Ohio, Mississippi and Seattle in the USA, Saskatchewan in Canada, Wollongong, and Parramatta in Australia)
  • Natives studies by anthropologists since 1840s
  • From 1960s - the native peoples were encouraged to write their own histories or to dictate them (this is called oral history) .
  • National Museum of the American Indian in the USA has been curated by American Indians themselves
  • Prospect of profit which drove people to establish colonies
  • East India Company made themselves into political powers, defeated local rulers and annexed their territories. They retained the older well-developed administrative system and collected taxes from landowners
  • Africa – only on coastal areas and later moved inside
  • Land was considered as sacred - President of the USA received a letter from a native leader, Chief Seattle - each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water՚s murmur is the voice of my father՚s father.

Names by Europeans

Illustration: Names by Europeans
  • ՚settler is used for the Dutch in South Africa, the British in Ireland, New Zealand and Australia, and the Europeans in America. The official language in these colonies was English (except in Canada, where French is also an official language) .
  • The American empires of Spain and Portugal did not expand after the seventeenth century. From that time other countries – France, Holland, and England – began to extend their trading activities and to establish colonies – in America, Africa, and Asia; Ireland also was virtually a colony of England, as the landowners there were mostly English settlers.

North America

Illustration: North America
  • Geography: The continent of North America extends from the Arctic Circle to the Tropic of Cancer, from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. West of the chain of the Rocky Mountains is the desert of Arizona and Nevada, still further west the Sierra Nevada mountains, to the east the Great Plains, the Great Lakes, the valleys of the Mississippi and the Ohio and the Appalachian Mountains. To the south is Mexico. 40% of Canada is covered with forests. Oil, gas, and mineral resources are found in many areas,
  • which explains the many big industries in the USA and Canada. Today, wheat, corn and fruit are grown extensively and fishing is a major industry in Canada. Mining, industry, and extensive agriculture have been developed only in the last 200 years by immigrants from Europe, Africa, and China.
  • People from Asia 30,000 years ago – during last Ice Age 10,000 years ago they moved further south
  • Oldest artifact - arrow-point – is 11,000 years old (population rose 5000 years ago when population got stable)
  • Local peoples lived in bands, in villages along river valleys. They ate fish and meat, and cultivated vegetables and maize. They often went on long journeys in search of meat, chiefly that of bison, the wild buffalo that roamed the grasslands (this became easier from the seventeenth century, when the natives started to ride horses, which they bought from Spanish settlers) . But they only killed as many animals as they needed for food.
Illustration: North America
  • They believed that time moved in cycles, and each tribe had accounts about their origins and their earlier history which were passed on from one generation to the next
  • They could read the land – they could understand the climates and different landscapes in the way literate people read written texts
Illustration: North America
  • They believed that time moved in cycles, and each tribe had accounts about their origins and their earlier history which were passed on from one generation to the next.
  • They could read the land: They could understand the climates and different landscapes in the way literate people read written texts.
  • First Nations peoples: Canada (Indians Act of 1876 used ‘bands’ & from 1980s ‘nations’ is used) .
Illustration: North America
  • Names of native tribes are often given to things unconnected with them!
  • Stone tablets of Hopis (California) - first brothers and sisters (humans) would come back to them would come as turtles across the land. Spanish Conquistadores coming, covered in armor, like turtles across the land. extended their hand hoping for the handshake but into the hand the Spanish man dropped a trinket. – People had forgotten the sacredness of all things and all the human beings were going to suffer for this on the earth.

Trade Begins

Illustration: Trade Begins

  • Further south, along the Mississippi river, the French found that the natives held regular gatherings to exchange handicrafts unique to a tribe or food items not available in other regions.In exchange for local products the Europeans gave the natives blankets, iron vessels (which they used sometimes in place of their clay pots) , guns, which was a useful supplement for bows and arrows to kill animals, and alcohol.
  • Younger sons of migrants from Britain & France who could not inherit land – aimed to own land in America.
  • There were waves of immigrants from countries like Germany, Sweden and Italy who had lost their lands to big farmers, and wanted farms they could own.
  • People from Poland were happy to work in the prairie grasslands, which reminded them of the steppes of their homes, and were excited at being able to buy huge properties at very low prices. They cleared land and developed agriculture, introduced rice and cotton which could not grow in Europe and therefore could be sold there for profit.
  • To protect their huge farms from wild animals – wolves and mountain lions – these were hunted to extinction. They felt totally secure only with the invention of barbed wire in 1873.
  • South America: Hot climate for Europeans – many died (brought slaves from Africa)
  • North America: no plantation and no slavery
  • In 1861 - 65, there was a war between the states that wanted to retain slavery and those supporting abolition. The latter won. Slavery was abolished, though it was only in the
  • twentieth century that the African Americans were able to win the battle for civil liberties, and segregation between ‘whites’ and ‘non-whites’ in schools and public transport was ended.
  • The Canadian government seemed more urgent than the question of the natives – in 1763 Canada had been won by the British after a war with France. The French settlers repeatedly demanded autonomous political status. It was only in 1867 that this problem was solved by organizing Canada as a Confederation of autonomous states.

Who is Civilized? European View

Illustration: Who is Civilized? European View
  • In the eighteenth century, western Europeans defined ‘civilized’ people in terms of literacy, an organized religion and urbanism. To them, the natives of America appeared ‘uncivilised.’
  • To some, like the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, such people were to be admired, as they were untouched by the corruptions of ‘civilization.’ A popular term was ‘the noble savage.’
  • Washington Irving - The white men (as I have witnessed) are prone to treat the poor Indians as little better than animals
  • Natives were saddened by greed of Europeans who considered fur and meat as commodities for European market – the rates would change year to year.In their impatience to get furs, they had slaughtered hundreds of beavers, and the natives were very uneasy, fearing that the animals would take revenge on them for this destruction
  • 17th Century – Europeans were persecuted as they were form different sect of Christianity – protestants in Catholics and Catholics in Protestants and hence migrated to Americas – from coast – moved inland to native villages – cut forest for farms
  • The natives, who grew crops for their own needs, not for sale and profit, and thought it wrong to ‘own’ the land, could not understand this.
Illustration: Who is Civilized? European View

The countries that are known as Canada and the USA came into existence at the end of the 18th century. At that time, they occupied only a fraction of the land they now cover. Over the next 100 years they extended their control over more territory, to reach their present size. Large areas were acquired by the USA by purchase – they bought land in the south from France (the ‘Louisiana Purchase’ ) and from Russia (Alaska) , and by war – much of southern USA was won from Mexico.

Illustration: Who is Civilized? European View

Quebec

  • 1497 John Cabot reaches Newfoundland
  • 1534 Jacques Cartier travels down the St Lawrence river and meets native peoples⧵
  • 1608 French found the colony of Quebec

American Colonies

  • 1507 Amerigo de Vespucci՚s Travels published
  • 1607 British found the colony of Virginia
  • 1620 British found Plymouth (in Massachusetts)

Canada

  • 1701 French treaty with natives of Quebec
  • 1763 Quebec conquered by the British
  • 1774 Quebec Act
  • 1791 Canada Constitutional Act

USA

  • 1781 Britain recognises USA as an independent country
  • 1783 British give Mid-West to the USA

Natives People Lose Their Land

Illustration: Natives People Lose Their Land
  • Europeans cheated by taking more land and paying less than promised
  • High officials saw nothing wrong in depriving natives of land.
  • Cherokee tribe in Georgia was governed by state laws, but could not enjoy the rights of citizens. Cherokees were the ones who had made the most effort to learn English and to understand the American way of life; even so they were not allowed the rights of citizens
  • In 1832, an important judgment was announced by the US Chief Justice, John Marshall. He said that the Cherokees were ‘a distinct community, occupying its own territory in which the laws of Georgia had no force,’ and that they had sovereignty in certain matters
  • US President Andrew Jackson had a reputation for fighting against economic and political privilege, but when it came to the Indians, he was a different person. He refused to honor the Chief Justice՚s judgment, and ordered the US army to evict the Cherokees from their land and drive them to the Great American Desert. Of the 15,000 people thus forced to go, over a quarter died along the ‘Trail of Tears.’
  • Those who took land believed that natives were lazy, do not deserve land, could not use skills for good markets and could not dress correctly. They deserved to ‘die out,’ they argued. The prairies were cleared for farmland, and wild bison killed off. ‘Primitive man will disappear with the primitive animal’ wrote a visiting Frenchman
  • Natives were forced to move if lead, gold, or oil was found in their land. Forced to share land occupied by 1 tribe and led to quarrels amongst them.
  • Were forced into reservations (land with no previous connection- only after a fight) .
  • US army crushed a series of rebellions from 1865 to 1890, and in Canada there were armed revolts by the Metis (people of native European descent) between 1869 and 1885.

Gold Rush

Illustration: Gold Rush
  • 1840s- Gold traces in California
  • Europeans hurried to America in the hope of making a quick fortune
  • Railway built by Chinese workers – completed by 1870s in USA & 1885 in Canada
  • Andrew Carnegie, a poor immigrant from Scotland who became one of the first millionaire industrialists in the USA, ‘the Republic thunders on at the speed of an express’ .
  • Industrial Revolution happened in England when it did was because small peasants were losing their land to big farmers, and moving to jobs in factories
  • In America – Industrial revolution for railway equipment՚s (link distant places) & large machinery for large scale farming
  • Industrial towns grew and factories multiplied, both in the USA and Canada.In 1860, the USA had been an undeveloped economy.In 1890, it was the leading industrial power in the world.
  • Large-scale agriculture also expanded. Vast areas were cleared and divided up into farms. By 1890, the bison had almost been exterminated, thus ending the life of hunting natives had followed for centuries.In 1892, the USA՚s continental expansion was complete. The area between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans was divided up into states.
  • Within a few years the USA was setting up its own colonies – in Hawaii and the Philippines. It had become an imperial power.

Constitutional Rights

Illustration: Constitutional Rights
  • Independence in 1770s – defined against monarchies and aristocracies of the Old World
  • Also important to them was that their constitution included the individual՚s ‘right to property’ , which the state could not override
  • Thomas Paine, the champion of democracy at the time of the War for American Independence and the French Revolution, ‘used the Indians as models of how society might be organized’ . He used this to argue that ‘the Native Americans by their example sowed the seeds for the long-drawn-out movement towards democracy by the people of Europe’
  • Lewis Meriam - The Problem of Indian Administration in 1928 - few years before the USA was swept by a major economic depression that affected all its people, painted a grim picture of the terribly poor health and education facilities for natives in reservations
  • Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which gave natives in reservations the right to buy land and take loans.
  • In the 1950s and 1960s, the US and Canadian governments thought of ending all special provisions for the natives in the hope that they would ‘join the mainstream’ , that is, adopt European culture. But the natives did not want this.
  • In 1954, in the ‘Declaration of Indian Rights’ prepared by them, a number of native peoples accepted citizenship of the USA but on condition that their reservations would not be taken away and their traditions would not be interfered with.

Development for Rights

Illustration: Development for Rights
  • Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which gave natives in reservations the right to buy land and take loans.
  • In the 1950s and 1960s, the US and Canadian governments thought of ending all special provisions for the natives in the hope that they would ‘join the mainstream’ , that is, adopt European culture. But the natives did not want this.
  • In 1954, in the ‘Declaration of Indian Rights’ prepared by them, a number of native peoples accepted citizenship of the USA but on condition that their reservations would not be taken away and their traditions would not be interfered with.
  • In 1969 the government announced that they would ‘not recognize aboriginal rights.’ The natives, in a well-organized opposition move, held a series of demonstrations and debates.
  • 1982, when the Constitution Act accepted the existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the natives
  • Indians under British rule - Taxed arbitrarily; seen as not equal (rationalisation – not ready for responsibility of representative government)
  • Natives in America Not seen as citizens; not equal Australia (rationalisation ‘primitive’ as in no settled agriculture, provision for the future, towns)
  • African slaves in America Denied personal liberty; not equal (rationalization – ՚slavery is part of their own social system, black people are inferior) .

Australia

Illustration: Australia
  • Aborigines arrived 40,000 years ago from New Guinea by land bridge
  • In the natives traditions, they did not come to Australia, but had always been there. The past centuries were called the ‘Dreamtime’
  • In the late 18th century, there were between 350 and 750 native communities in Australia each with its own language (even today 200 of these languages are spoken) . There is another large group of indigenous people living in the north, called the Torres Strait Islanders. The term ‘Aborigine’ is not used for these as they are believed to have migrated from elsewhere and belong to a different race. Together, they make up 2.4% of Australia՚s population in 2005.
  • Australia is sparsely populated, and even now most of the towns are along the coast (where the British first arrived in 1770) because the central region is arid desert
  • 300 years old history, natives were friendly. There was a sharp reversal of feeling on the part of the British when Cook was killed by a native – not in Australia, but in Hawaii. As often happened, a single incident of this nature was used by colonizers to justify subsequent acts of violence towards other people.
  • 90% of them would die by exposure to germs, by the loss of their lands and resources, and in battles against the settlers
  • Most of the early settlers were convicts who had been deported from England and, when their jail term ended, could live as free people in Australia on condition that they did not return to Britain. With no recourse but to make a life for themselves in this land so different from their own, they felt no hesitation about ejecting natives from land they took over for cultivation.
Illustration: Australia
  • Vast sheep farms and mining stations were established over a long period and with much labor, followed by vineyards and wheat farming. These came to form the basis of the country՚s prosperity. When the states were united, and it was decided that a new capital would be built for Australia in 1911, one name suggested for it was Wool wheat gold but named Canberra (= kamberra, a native word meaning ‘meeting place’ )
  • Some natives were employed in farms, under conditions of work so harsh that it was little different from slavery. Later, Chinese immigrants provided cheap labor, as in California, but unease about being dependent on non-whites led to the governments in both countries to ban Chinese immigrants. Till 1974, such was the popular fear that ‘dark’ people from South Asia or Southeast Asia might migrate to Australia in large numbers that there was a government policy to keep ‘non-white’ people out.
Illustration: Australia
  • Anthropologist W. E. H. Stanner, entitled ‘The Great Australian Silence’ – the silence of historians about the aborigines – 1968
  • Henry Reynolds – Why Weren՚t We Told - condemned the practice of writing Australian history as though it had begun with Captain Cook՚s ‘discovery’
  • From 1974, ‘multiculturalism’ has been official policy in Australia, which gave equal respect to native cultures and to the different cultures of the immigrants from Europe and Asia.
  • From the 1970s, as the term ‘human rights’ began to be heard at meetings of the UNO and other international agencies, the Australian public realized with dismay that, in contrast to the USA, Canada and New Zealand, Australia had no treaties with the natives formalizing the takeover of land by Europeans. The government had always termed the land of Australia terra nullius, that is belonging to nobody.
  • There was also a long and agonizing history of children of mixed blood (native European) being forcibly captured and separated from their native relatives
  • Agitation around these questions led to enquiries and to two important decisions: one, to recognize that the natives had strong historic bonds with the land which was՚sacred to them, and which should be respected; two, that while past acts could not be undone, there should be a public apology for the injustice done to children to keep white and coloured people apart.
  • 1974 ‘White Australia’ policy ends, Asian immigrants allowed entry
  • 1992 Australian High Court (in the Mabo case) declares that terra nullius was legally invalid, and recognizes native claims to land from before 1770
  • 1995 National Enquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families
  • 1999 (26 May) ‘A National Sorry Day’ as apology for the children ‘lost’ from the 1820s to the 1970s.

Manishika