Native Americans

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Native Americans
The United States of America for decades has been the best example of a nation that is a melting pot of cultures. This has mainly been due to the fact that currently, the country may be the most racially and culturally diverse nation on the planet. There may be other facts disputing this assumption but the United States beats other culturally diverse nations in terms of the tolerance and harmony between the resident cultures. All this can be attested to the fact that America is an Immigration Country. The country’s population constitutes people from different parts of the world. The process of people moving into the new world that is the Americas where the United State lies began centuries ago and has been an ongoing process to the current day.
This paper examines the origins of the Native Americans. This paper also explores their journey into the Americas as the first Immigrants. Their settlement patterns and ways of life will also be examined. The paper also explores how the Native Americans in the Americas fared during the European conquest of the region that is currently identified as the America. Euro-Indian relations, conflicts and their aftermath is also a focus point of the paper, which culminates into the current state of affairs of American natives in the Americas.
Origins of the Native Americans
There are diverse sources of information on the origins and history of the Native Americans. They include oral history passed down through generations. This oral history is as diverse as the Indian Nations. Different tribes have different folklore to explain their origins. For instance, the Haida who reside in British Columbia say that man was shaken out of a clam shell by a raven. The Navajo of Arizona say they sprung out of the ground after which there was a time of great wandering and searching for a home. Almost all Indian nations have their versions of creation that are hard to harmonize.
An alternative source of information on the origin of Native Americans devised and conducted by non-Indians was the use of structural scientific study. This included the utilization of radio carbon dating of Indian archeological sites, archeo-magnetic dating of material and equipment used by ancient Indians and dendrochronology. Through these methods, DNA of skeletal remains from archeological sites has been studied. Most research results locate the Native American origins to be south western Asia and the larger Siberia where they lived, long before travelling to the Americas.
While living in Asia as part of the ancient population, they participated in hunting of animals like mammoths, wild sheep, giant bison, caribou and elks for food. They also used the animal dung probably for firewood and hides for shelter.
How the Native Americans moved to the Americas
During the Pleistocene era, several thousand years ago, a land bridge appeared and disappeared interchangeably where there currently is the Bering Strait 75, 000 and 45,000 years ago and again 25,000 and 14, 000 years ago, between the continents Asia and North America. Native Americans are said to have moved to the American side walking on this bridge. An alternative theory suggests that they may have moved to the Americas on boats. This is during the Ice Age.15, 000 years ago, Native Americans are believed to have come to the continental America. A scientific theory based on dental morphology, linguistics and America - Siberia geology suggests this happened in at least three waves, even though they descended from the same ancestors. Initially, it was thought to be one wave. There are other theories mentioned like the two wave and four wave theories, each wave representing a batch of populations immigrating with interruptions that stop the migration. The three wave theory results in classification of Native Americans into three distinct populations: the Amerind, Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleuts whose order of immigration still remains unclear (Barton 2010).
It is suggested that first wave constituted Paleo-Indian or the Amerind, 16,000 to 40,000 years ago, Na-Dene Indians, 12,000 to 14,000 years ago and Eskimo-Aleut, 9000 years ago (Crawford 1997).
Native American Nations
Native Americans are very diverse. When they arrived in the Americas, They are grouped into numerous tribes based on language and culture. Based on culture, there are the Pacific North West (Hesquiat, Haida, Hupa, Cowichan, Achamawi, Chamakum, Chukchansi, Clayoquot, Coast Salish)Arctic people (Eskimo, Inuit), California Indians (Yuki , Kato, Maidu, Miwok, Yokut,, Wintun, Wailaki), Great basin Indians(Cahuila, comanche, Washo), north west coast Indians, north east Indians, south east Indians, plains Indians, plateau Indians(Cayuse, Chinookan, Kalispel, Klikitat, Kutenai), southwest, sub-arcticIndians and prairie Indians.Basing on Mesoamerican civilizations, there are the Toltec, Maya, Aztec, and Olmec. Comprehensive maps are used to show these classifications. (Waldman),
Specific Native American nations in the United States of America include Apache, Shawnee, Arapaho, Sioux, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Shoshone, Comanche and crow who are nomadic hunters and gatherers, Cherokee who are static hunters and gatherers, Navajo, Nez-Perce and Pawnee who are semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers
It is believed that before Christopher Columbus came to the Americas, there were approximately 25,000,000 Native Americans in Mexico alone. Canada’s aboriginal people are believed to have been half a million. At 90 to 112 million people, the population of the Americas was larger than that of Europe at the time. The population of the Native Americans declined over time even though it was high before European conquest in the 15th century.
The arrival of the other Europeans and Spanish saw an increase in violence meted out by the visitors on the Native Americans. The blood shed led to a drastic decrease in their populati...