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Carter Harrod

English IV

Ms. Cooper

March 23rd

AGS Junior Reflection

Before Columbus ever sailed the ocean blue in 1492, there was a massive group of

culturally diverse people living in the Americas. Many different religions, traditions, and customs

sprouted up throughout the two continents. These cultures were not always compatible, and due

to this there was often conflict and wars between native tribes. An example of this was when the

Aztecs would conquer enemy tribes, and perform blood sacrifices for their religion. This type of

conflict only helped Europeans when they finally did arrive. Junior years assignments,

investigations, and projects have led me to the conclusion that this conflict, division, and

isolation between native tribes has placed them at a major disadvantage when resisting

European and U.S. expansion, and as such were easy to exploit for economic gain, for political

and expansionist growth, and a loss in social freedom and relations. This disadvantage has led

to many examples of exploitation and oppression throughout colonial and U.S. history.

One of the ways that natives lost their political rights and freedom was through

exploitation of slavery which occurred in the encomienda system. This system was exemplified

in the movie The Mission, which we watched and took notes on in English. The movie helped

show the political, religious, and economic struggles that Guarani faced. The specific political

struggle that they faced was maintaining their sovereignty and freedom from the Portuguese

slave traders. The main protagonists of the movie, and the people who helped the Guarani were

the Jesuits. Throughout the movie, the Jesuits attempt to help the natives by appealing to the

Spanish crown and the religious cardinal that the Pope sent to Spanish America. Their efforts,

however, prove fruitless. In the end, the Portuguese are given the right to take slaves from

Spanish territory. This spells the doom of the Guarani, however, the Portuguese still required
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navigational and geographical expertise, so in order to acquire this they used a tribe that was

warring with the Guarani to successfully conquer and enslave the Guarani tribes. This movie

helped show early ways that European powers exploited the conflicts between natives to

expand politically. A second way that natives lost political rights due to inter-tribal competition

and conflict was during the move to reservations on the Trail of Tears. In History, we had to

read and answer questions about chapter readings. One of the most applicable readings that

we read talked about the political turmoil that resulted from the mass forced migration of natives

on to reservations. When the United States moved multiple warring nations into close proximity

on reservations this caused massive conflict between warring tribes. These conflicts that existed

between Native Tribes led to individual tribes being forced off of reservations. These tribes

would then attempt to return to their homeland. However, once a tribe left the reservation

federal troops would force them back into the reservation, causing even more conflict and

weakening the tribes power. These two examples show how warring and competing tribal

nations could lead to an easy weakness for Europeans and Americans to exploit for land

growth.

The exploitation of conflict and isolation also led to major economic gain for the United

States and major economic loss for natives. One of the ways that natives have lost economic

standing was discussed in an English Socratic Seminar. We talked about the effect that

stereotypes had on Natives, and how these stereotypes led to unintentional conflicts between

Natives and U.S. citizens. However, this conflict was not contained to only different cultures and

their interactions. During our preparation for the Socratic Seminar we found that these

stereotypes also led to conflicts between natives. One of the most detrimental stereotypes is

that Natives are poor and uneducated. This stereotype is also pushed forward due to the fact

that being smart in a native school is stigmatized. This stereotype has had negative

ramifications for natives on the educational system because natives feel as if they are unable to

get ahead. The lack of education also leads to natives being unable to compete when going for
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a higher education. This loss in educational growth has led to Natives remaining poor and in

poverty because they are unable to acquire higher paying jobs. This only furthers the downward

cycle of poverty and educational loss. A way that native isolation and division has been used for

economic gain of companies is through the more recent Keystone and DAPL pipeline that the

current U.S. President, Donald Trump, pushed forward. I specifically analyzed this issue when I

created my IBL project for English. For my groups IBL project, we answered the question, how

has recent actions by modern presidents helped or hurt native communities? We

communicated our findings in a presentation to the political club at Austin High. During this

presentation, we discussed the future presidents policies (Donald Trump was president elect at

the time) and how these policies could hurt natives. One of Trump's intended actions was the

pushing forward of the DAPL and Keystone pipelines. This action could cause future risks in

regards to water supply for natives. One of the major reasons that these pipelines could be

pushed forward is because of the isolation of the tribes. The protesters were largely isolated to

the Dakota tribes and conservationist sympathizers. Most other native nations were unable to

help due to being isolated from the protests. This isolation made it easier for the President to

push forward the two pipelines, which would lead to a financial gain for oil companies. A similar

situation was talked about during our trip to New Mexico. On the last day, we had a speaker

who talked about the difficulties of getting water at their land because of the costs of piping

water to reservation land. Also, well drilling is a limited option due to the natural contamination

of the water with uranium. This continued lack of water is a persistent problem in native

territories, and serves to be detrimental economically for the tribal nations due to them being

unable to expand businesses without available water infrastructure.

The third way that natives have been exploited because of their cultural conflicts and

differences is socially. One of the ways that we further explored this topic during the year is

through the reading of Bartolome De Las Casas and Sepulveda. Las Casas was a Native

American advocate and often wrote letters towards the Spanish king arguing against the use of
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the encomienda system of slavery because of the inhumanity that existed in the system. After

we read Las Casas view we then proceeded to read Sepulveda, who argued for the exploitation

of Natives due to their inferiority. The ideas of the encomienda system also led to problems

between enslaved natives, due to their previous conflicts. The previous conflicts led to fighting

and division among slaves in the encomienda system. This only served to help further the

abilities of the Spanish to exploit them. Another assignment that showed the ways that natives

were exploited socially was our analysis of The Pocahontas Paradox. This article talks about

the ways that Disneys movie Pocahontas and specifically the song Savages negatively affect

the social relations of natives. The negative effects occur when kids parody the song and call

Native Americans Savages! This could lead to social conflicts between natives, because

sometimes native kids would join in on the parody in order to fit in with the majority. This would

lead to further social conflicts between natives, and result in more problems for native

communities.

Before I close this essay, I must say that Native Americans did not always compete and

war with each other. A famous example of the cooperation of tribal nations was the Pueblo

Revolt. In Spanish, we read a short reading about how Native Americans united in the pueblo

revolt to overthrow the Spanish. The reason for the revolt was to retain religious freedom from

the Spanish, who were forcing Catholicism on natives. In the reading, Natives united against the

Spanish despite cultural differences among the pueblos. They eventually succeeded in

overthrowing the Spanish for 13 years. This shows that Native Americans, when united, can

achieve reform and change to regain some of their political, social, and economic losses.

Overall however, Native Americans have not united, and as such have faced exploitation

after exploitation. This lead to a loss of land ownership and political sovereignty, a loss of

economic prosperity, and a loss of social standing among natives. This resulted in a decline of

their culture, communities, traditions, customs, and religions. However, the future of native

exploitation is not so bleak. Recent pushes among native communities to retain and remember
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languages, traditions, and customs is leading to a turn towards the better for Native Americans.

Also, the rise of information in the form of the internet is also leading to more people being

sympathetic with Native Americans plight.

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Works Cited

Fraser, James. By the People: A History of the United States. Pearson School, 2015.

The Mission. Directed by Roland Joffe, performances by Robert DeNiro and Jeremy Irons.

September 2010. November 2017.

Pewewardy, Cornel. The Pocahontas Paradox. Journal of Navajo Education. December 1996.

January 2017. <http://www.hanksville.org/storytellers/pewe/writing/Pocahontas.html>