Positive Influences on Native Americans

Kendra Williams

Mr. Brader

US History AP

2 October 2013

Positive Influences on Native Americans

European explorers had a positive influence on the Native Americans introducing them to agriculture and weaving, forms of transportation, trade, and architecture. Native Americans were hunters and gathers. They were nomads, and continuously migrated to look for food. Deer and buffalo were common animals that were hunted and the Native Americans would eat whatever berries and nuts they could find. When Europeans introduced agriculture to the Native Americans, they were able to stay in one place for a longer period of time, and sustain a bigger population because food was regularly available. Another introduction of the Europeans was weaving. Native Americans wore animal skins or whatever else they could find to clothe themselves. The Europeans taught them how to grow cotton that was then dyed with plants to color thread. The thread then could be used to weave clothing and blankets. The introduction of agriculture and weaving positively helped the Native Americans with feeding and clothing their population.

Forms of transportation were not common. If Native Americans found themselves by a lake or a river, they would carve a canoe and use dogs to pull them across it. When the Europeans path crosses with the Native Americans, they introduced horses and cattle. This helped the Native Americans be able to hunt and travel faster and longer. Another introduction was trade, which greatly upgraded hunting and Native American lifestyle. They traded tobacco and fur with the Europeans in exchange for wheat flour which was used for baking, cloth for clothing, and rifles for hunting. The rifles really helped the Native Americans with hunting because they were able to hunt more efficiently and it would take them less time to kill an animal, which meant that they could bring more meat home for the population. This was yet another thing that helped them sustain a bigger...