Page 146 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol III

indigenous peoples 965

Columbus on the
Indigenous People of Cuba

From the 24 December 1492 entry of the Journal
of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus, as Botany Bay, mistreated the foraging Australian abo-
1492–1493: rigines by taking away their land and often simply killing
them. In turn, the British competed with the French for
A better race there cannot be, and both the peo-
New Zealand. The native peoples there, called Maori,
ple and the lands are in such quantity that I
were better organized and had access to muskets as part
know not how to write it. I have spoken in the
of the trade that had begun in the late eighteenth century.
superlative degree of the country and people of
The British signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 with
Juana, which they call Cuba, but there is as much
many Maori chiefs, converting the Maori into British sub-
difference between them and this island and
jects.The Maori conceptions of land tenure were very dif-
people as between day and night. I believe that
ferent from that of the English; for the Maori land sales
no one who should see them could say less than
signified the payment for temporary use rather than per-
I have said, and I repeat that the things and the
manent loss. As European settlers began to overwhelm
great villages of this island of Espanola, which
the Maori, they rebelled in a series of wars in the 1860s,
they call Bohio, are wonderful. All here have a
but the Maori lost.Thereafter, the British acquired lands
loving manner and gentle speech, unlike the oth-
with impunity and there was little the Maori could do.
ers, who seem to be menacing when they speak.
In the Japanese archipelago, the far northern island of
Both men and women are of good stature, and
Hokkaido is populated by a people called Ainu, who are
not black. It is true that they all paint, some with
ethnically distinct from the rest of Japan.As the Japanese
black, others with other colours, but most with
state expanded, it gained control over this population by
red. I know that they are tanned by the sun, but
the fourteenth century CE. During the Edo or Tokugawa
this does not affect them much.Their houses and
period (1600/1603–1868), the state favored the Japan-
villages are pretty, each with a chief, who acts as
ese over the Ainu. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868,
their judge, and who is obeyed by them.All these
things only got worse for the Ainu. In the name of
lords use few words, and have excellent man-
progress and because of population pressures, the state
ners. Most of their orders are given by a sign with
sent Japanese to Hokkaido, turning the Ainu into a
the hand, which is understood with surprising
minority in their own lands. The Ainu were forced to
quickness....
learn Japanese and abandon their own customs, though
Bourne, E. G. (Ed.). (1906). The northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985 –1503:The many families continued to speak their own language
voyages of the northmen (p. 203). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
and maintain their culture clandestinely.
especially during the Qing dynasty (1644–1912 CE; The Nation-State and the
ironically, the Qing emperors themselves were non-Han Indigenous in the Americas
Manchurians), extended their control westward, subju- By the early nineteenth century, most of the former Euro-
gating some of the same Mongol and Turkish peoples in pean colonies in North America had become independ-
what is the Xianjiang region in northwestern China. ent, but the situation of indigenous peoples worsened
In the eighteenth century it was the turn of the peoples uniformly. In North America, the United States and
in the Pacific. Although the Muslim and Buddhist peo- Canada killed the Indians in their way or forced them
ples of Java and the other main islands of the Indonesian into reservations far from their home territory or on eco-
archipelago slowly but surely dominated peoples from nomically marginal lands. In nineteenth-century Brazil,
islands toward the east, turning them into “indigenous,” the Brazilian imperial troops likewise saw Indians as peo-
the British took over Australia and New Zealand. The ple who had to be absorbed into general society or exter-
Australian colony, founded in the mid-eighteenth century minated if they opposed assimilation. In the former