Native American History
Native American history goes back tens of thousand of years and is spread all over the globe. The history of the Native American people has been passed on for years from Native American elders to young Native children and this helps keep the history and culture alive within each specific tribe. It is widely believed that the Natives originated from Asia and migrated here via the Bering Straight, somewhere between around twenty five thousand and eight thousand B.C., when a land bridge existed there.
This knowledge of the Indian history is usually passed down in the form of stories and covers the tribe's history, their origins, plus many spiritual beliefs and other moral lessons. These storytelling traditions also help to teach tribal rituals and other tribal information. It is an important element in helping to maintain the tribal unity and sense of identity. Native American history varies greatly depending on which native tribe you are speaking of, and some tribes have a much longer and accurate timeline.
Contact with the European settlers began in the fifteenth century and this brought about a lot of changes in Native American history. Native Americans have faced many problems over the last few centuries trying to maintain their close relationship with nature in the constant changing economic conditions of today. Much of the initial contact between the European settlers and the Native American people was all about trading. By the sixteen hundreds European traders visited the northeast coast of North America looking to trade things such as metal, glass and various kinds of cloth in exchange for beaver pelts. Successful trade was dependent on healthy relationships between the traders and the Native American tribes. After the Europeans started settling all was well for a while and slowly this started to have large effects on Native American history. The Europeans wanted the land the Natives had live with for thousands of years, and with all the trading the Natives started to become accustomed to some of the luxuries of European society and they started losing touch more and more with nature. Many of the Native American tribes started selling land to the European settlers and eventually their land was just being taken and they were pushed to find new homes. Eventually the government designated specific regions of land to many different tribes. Native American history is still kept alive for the many tribes that still remain on their government granted reservations.
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