histnasus

History
There are many theories about where the first Native American people came from. People today believe that the first Native American people came from Asia about 35-40 000 years ago.  They came travelling in thousands of years, while they were moving longer and longer south in the continent. Even though this is the option that is normal today, can we not exclude that they emigrated from other places.  In 1492 came the man who has got the honour of discovering America, Christopher Columbus. He said this about the Native American people: “I have never met someone as nice, willing and goodhearted people as the Native American people. When they first understood that we weren’t going to hurt them, they were very nice to have something to do with.” Unfortunately, Columbus and the European came up with the idea that the Indian people were so willing that they could use them as servants. The Indians did what they asked them to, and they didn’t have a real religion so they made them Christians as well. In 1492 it were 200 000 – 300 000 Indians on the island, but in 1514 it were reduced to 14 000. In 1548 there were just 500 Indians left and they who were alive were servants for the European.

The European colonizing in North-America and South-America changed the lifestyle and culture for all indigenous people in the continent. From the end of the 1400s and to the end of the 1800s the indigenous people were exposed to diseases, forced to displacement and in many cases, warfare and slavery. The first group Columbus met was the 250 000 people from Hispaniola, and they were made into Spaniards slaves. In 1500 there were only 500 of the people from Hispaniola that survived and the culture was extinct in 1650. Still they sat genetic traces of population in the Caribbean Islands. The European brought also diseases that the indigenous people didn’t have antibodies against. Chickenpox and measles that were normal diseases in Europe, and that no one or few died of, had high mortality among indigenous people. Chickenpox was a particularly deadly disease and killed millions of people. It’s hard to estimate the mortality, but some historians suggest that the mortality in some indigenous groups were up to 80 %. Before the European came, there were about 300 languages in North- America. More than half of them are gone now.

<- Back - Next ->