Native Americans in the United States

I am a Native American who would like to be heard. The journey my fore fathers went through was filled with pain and sorrow. It all started back in the Ice Age. My people traveled across the ice from Siberia to what is now Alaska. They used a land bridge called the Bering Sound. They gradually and slowly made their way into the center of the land. It is estimated that 10 - 90 million Native Americans habited the land before the white man set foot here. No matter what tribe we were, no matter where in the United States we settled, we knew how to use all of the natural resources available. My ancestors were very intelligent. They could fish, hunt, make adobe for houses, chop logs for houses, and make clothes out of animal fur.

We got our name “Indian” from Christopher Columbus who had mistakenly thought he landed somewhere in the Indies. In the 16th and 17th century they met the white men. We were curious about their weapons and their appearance. Their way of dress, hairstyles, and weapons intrigued us. My people were very kind to the new settlers. We shared our food, our land, and our homes. We taught them how to hunt for food. We have many different tribes in our culture. The white man starting arriving in huge numbers and we found it harder and harder to coexist in the land with them. So the white man had a plan. They brought my people diseases such as yellow fever, small pox, measles, cholera, etc. These sicknesses caused the death of so many of my ancestors. Entire villages were killed. We had a march called the Trail of Tears where many people died from exhaustion and starvation. The children were taken from their parents in an effort to “civilize” them. Can you imagine how painful it must have been to have your child taken from you?

My people were slaves in the 16th and 17th century along with the African Americans. An estimated 30,000 – 50,000 Native Americans were shipped out to become slaves between 1670 and 1715. It was much more...