Displacing Indigenous People PDF

THEME 10 DISPLACING INDIGENOUS PEOPLE RAJESH PGT – HISTORY JNV MAO, SENAPATI MANIPUR  Sources of American and Australian History I. Oral history of natives II. Galleries and Museums of ‘native art’...

THEME 10 DISPLACING INDIGENOUS PEOPLE RAJESH PGT – HISTORY JNV MAO, SENAPATI MANIPUR  Sources of American and Australian History I. Oral history of natives II. Galleries and Museums of ‘native art’ III. Special museums which shows the aboriginal way of life IV. New National Museum of the American India in the USA, curated by American Indian themselves V. Book : Why Weren’t We Told?  European Imperialism ∙ Spain and Portugal did not expand their empire after the 17th century ∙ From 18th century, more areas of South America, Central America, North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand came to be settled by immigrants from Europe ∙ Colonies: - the European settlemen ∙ Ireland: - colony of England ∙ In Africa, Europeans traded on the coast, except in South Africa ∙ Agreement for partition of Africa: -Berlin Conference, 1885  Settler SL. Word Settler (Country) Used for No. 1 South Africa Dutch 2 Ireland British 3 New Zealand British 4 Australia British 5 America Europeans Names given by Europeans to Countries of the ‘New World’ ‘America’ : - First used after the publication of the travels of Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1512) ‘Canada’ : - from Kanata(=’village’ in the language of the Huron-Iroquois, as heard by the explorer Jacques Cartier in 1535 ‘Australia’ :- Sixteenth-century name for land in the Great Southern Ocean (austral is Latin for ‘south’) ‘New Zealand’ : - Name given by Tasman of Holland, who was the first to sight these island in 1642 (zee is Dutch for ‘sea’)  NORTH AMERICA ∙ Location: -the continent of North America extends from the Arctic Circle to the Tropic of Cancer, from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean ∙ Physical features: - I. Rocky Mountains & Sierra Nevada mountains, II. desert of Arizona and Nevada III. Great plains IV. Great lakes ∙ Oil, gas and mineral resources found in many areas ∙ Fishing Industry: - Major industry of Canada ❖ The Native* Peoples *’Native’ means a person born in the place he/she lives in. till the early twentieth century, the term was used by Europeans to describe the inhabitants of countries they had colonised. ∙ The earliest inhabitants of North America came from Asia over 30,000 years ago on a land bridge across the Bering Straits ∙ The oldest artifact found in America – an arrow-point – is 11,000 years ago ∙ These peoples lived in bands, in villages along river valleys ∙ They ate fish and meat, 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 ∙ They did not attempt extensive agriculture ∙ They did not develop kingdoms and empires ∙ Important tradition: - making formal alliances and friendship, exchanging gifts ∙ Goods were obtained not by buying them, but as gifts ∙ Numerous languages were spoken in North America, these were not written down ∙ They were skilled craftspeople and wove beautiful textiles ❖ Encounters with Europeans ∙ In the seventeenth century, the European traders reached the north coast of North America, ∙ Traders finds that native peoples are friendly and welcoming ∙ These adventures came to trade in fish and furs ∙ In exchange for local products the Europeans gave the natives blankets, iron vessels, guns, which was a useful supplement for bows and arrows to kills animals, and alcohol ∙ Alcohol: - the natives had not known earlier, they became addicted to it, which suited the Europeans, because it enabled them to dictate terms of trade ∙ The Europeans acquired from the natives an addiction to tobacco SL. NO. Quebec American colonies 1 1497 John Cabot 1507 Amerigo de Vespucci’s travels reaches published Newfoundland 2 1534 Jacques Cartier ravels down the St Lawrence river and meet native peoples 3 1608 French found the 1607 British found the colony of Virginia colony of Quebec 1620 British found Plymouth (in Massachusetts) ∙ In the 18th century, western Europeans defined ‘civilised’ people in terms of literacy, an organised religion and urbanism ∙ To them, the natives of America appeared ‘uncivilised’. ∙ To some, like the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, such people were to admired, as they were untouched by the corruptions of ‘civilisation’. A popular term was “the noble savage’ ∙ Some lines in a poem by the English poet William Wordsworth indicate another perspective. Neither he nor Rousseau had met a native Americans, but Wordsworth described them as living ‘amid wilds/Where fancy hath small liberty to grace/The affections, to exalt them or refine’, meaning that people living close to nature had only limited powers of imagination and emotion ∙ To the natives, the goods they exchanged with the Europeans were gifts, given in friendship ∙ For the Europeans, dreaming of becoming rich, the fish and furs were commodities, which they would sell for a profit in Europe ∙ In their impatience to get furs, they had slaughtered hundreds of beavers ∙ Thomas Jefferson ‘dream’ was a country populated by Europeans with small firms SL. CANADA USA NO. 1 1701, French treaty with natives of Quebec 2 Quebec conquered by the 1781 Britain recognises USA as British independent country 3 Quebec Act 1783 British give Mid-West to the USA 4 Canada Constitutional Act ∙ That countries that are known as Canada and the United States of America came into existence at the end of the 18th century ∙ Large areas were acquired by the USA by purchases -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 ∙ The landscapes of America changed drastically in the 19th century ∙ The Europeans treated the land differently from the natives ∙ Some of the migrants from Britain and France were younger sons who would not inherit their father property and therefore were eager to own land in America ∙ Later 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 ∙ They cleared land and developed agriculture, introducing crops (rice and cotton) ∙ They felt totally secure when the innovation of barbed wire in 1873 ∙ The climate of the southern region was too hot for Europeans to work outdoors ∙ Plantation owners bought slaves in Africa ∙ Protests by anti-slavery groups led to a ban on slave trade, but the Africans who were in the USA remained slaves, as did their children ∙ The northern state of the USA, where the economy did not depend on plantations (and therefore on slavery), argued for ending slavery which they condemned as an inhuman practice ∙ In 1861-65, there was a war between the states that wanted to retain slavery and those supporting abolition ∙ In 1763, Canada had been won by British after a war with France ∙ In 1867, Canada was organising as a confederation of autonomous states SL. CANADA USA NO. 1 1803 Louisiana purchased from France 2 1825-58 Natives in USA moved to reserves 3 1837 French Canadian 1832 Justice Marshall’s Judgement Rebellion 4 1840 Canadian union of 1849 American Gold Rush Upper and Lower Canada 5 1859 Canada Gold Rush 1861-65 American Civil War 6 1867 Confederation of 1865-90 Americans Indian wars Canada 7 1869-85 Red River 1870 Transcontinental railway Rebellion by the Metis in Canada 8 1876 Canada Indians Act 1890 Bison almost exterminated in America 9 1885 Transcontinental 1892 ‘End’ of American Frontier ∙ In the USA, as settlement expanded, the natives were induced of forced to move, after signing treaties selling their land ∙ Georgia: - a state in the USA ∙ Cherokees Tribe ∙ Officials of Georgia had argued that the Cherokee tribe was governed by state laws, but could not enjoy the rights of citizens ∙ All of the native peoples, the 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 judgement 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 not force’, and that they had sovereignty in certain matters ∙ US President Andrew Jackson, refused to honour the Chief Justice’s judgement, 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 the land occupied by the tribes justified it by saying the natives did not deserve to occupy land which they did not use to maximum ∙ Meanwhile, the natives were pushed westward, given land elsewhere (‘theirs in perpetuity’) but often moved again if any mineral – lead or gold – or oil was found on their lands ∙ The natives were locked off in small areas called ‘reservations’, which often was land with which they had no earlier connection ❖ The Gold Rush, and the Growth of Industries ∙ In the 1840s, traces of gold were found in the USA, in California. This led to the ‘Gold Rush’ ∙ Gold Rush: - when thousands of eager Europeans hurried to America in the hope of making a quick fortune ∙ This led to the building of railway lines across the continents, for which thousands of Chinese workers were recruited ∙ The USA’s railway was completed by 1870, that of Canada by 1885.  Andrew Carnegie ∙ the old nations creep on at a snail’s pace” - Andrew Carnegie, ∙ 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” Andrew Carnegie  ∙ In North America, industries developed for very different reasons – I. To manufactures railway equipment so that rapid transport could link distant places II. To produce machinery which would make large scale farming easier ∙ In 1860, the USA had been an undeveloped economy. ∙ In 1890, it was the leading industrial power in the world ∙ Large scale agriculture was expanded ∙ By 1890, the bison had almost been exterminated ∙ In 1892, the USA’s continental expansion was complete ❖ Constitutional Rights The Winds of Change….. ∙ The Problem of Indian Administration, a survey directed by social scientist Lewis Meriam and published in 1928, painted a grim picture of the terribly poor health and education facilities for natives in reservations ∙ White Americans felt sympathy for the natives who were being discouraged from the full exercise of their cultures and simultaneously denied the benefits of citizenship ∙ This led to a landmark law in the USA, The Indian Reorganisation Act of 1934, which gave natives in reservations the right to buy land and take loans ∙ 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 of Canada announced that they would “not recognise aboriginal rights. ∙ The natives, in a well-organised opposition move, held a series of demonstrations and debates ∙ The question could not be resolved till 1982, when the Constitution Act accepted the existing aboriginal and treaty rights of natives  AUSTRALIA ∙ The ‘aborigines’(a general name given to a number of different societies) began to arrive on the Australia over 40,000 years ago. ∙ They came from New Guinea, which was connected to Australia over 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  Torres Strait Islanders: - group of indigenous people, living in the North The term ‘Aborigine’ is not used for “Torres Strait Islanders” Australia is sparsely populated, most of the towns are along the coast (where the British first arrived in 1770) because the central region is arid desert ∙ Vast sheep farms and mining station were established over a long period and with much labour, followed by vineyards and wheat farming. These came to form the basis of 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 Woolwheatgpld, Ultimately, it was called Canberra (=Kamberra, a native word meaning ‘meeting place’) The Europeans Reach Australia 1606 Dutch Travelers sight Australia 1642 Tasman lands on the island later named Tasmania 1770 James Cook Reaches Botany Bay, Named New South Wales 1788 British penal colony formed. Sydney founded ❖ The Winds of Change …. ∙ In 1968, people were electrified by a lecture by the anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner, entitled “The Great Australian Silence” – the silence of historians about the aborigines ∙ “Why Weren’t We Told?”: - Book, written by Henry Reynolds ∙ This book condemned the practice of writing Australian History as though it had been begun with Captain Cook’s ‘Discovery’ ∙ Since then, university department have been instituted to study native cultures, galleries of native art have been added to art galleries ∙ ‘Multiculturalism”: - 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 ∙ The government had always termed the land of Australia terra nullius, that is belonging to nobody 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 recognise native claims to land from before 1770 1995 National Enquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Insider Children from their Families 1999 (26May) “A National Sorry Day” as apology for the children ‘lost’ from the 1820s to 1970s THANK YOU