Amerindians

The term Amerindian , or Indian of America , designates the first occupants of the American continent (formerly called “the Western Indies”), and their descendants.

In the absence of name which makes consensus, one uses sometimes the expressions of “people autochtones” or " aborigènes" , more precis, “First nations” or “First people” (according to a literal translation of the expression étatsunienne First Nations ). The expression “Skins Red” is old and is not used much any more in America (except for the name of the sporting club the Redskin). One also speaks about people précolombiens for the Mesoamerica and the Andean surface. In English, with the Canada as with the the United States, one uses the expressions Native Americans (American of origin), Native peoples (people of origin), American Indians , First Nations , Aboriginal Peoples (indigenous people ) or North-Amerindians. However, these terms are often rejected by the interested parties who prefer being called according to the names of their people. In Canada, exist Inuit (plural of Inuk), Amerindians and Métis recognized (called " Métis" in English also, considering the importance of the French origins among them), all also indicated by name " first nations".

With the Quebec, the Amerindian term is spread and one employs officially the " term; first nations " , as the name of indicates it the Parliament of the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador, whose current chief is Ghislain Picard. The " term; First Nations" , or First People, offers the advantage of also gathering the Inuit, which are not Amerindians. In French Guiana, one speaks about Amerindians divided into eight ethnos groups - which are thus citizens of the French Republic.

In Spanish and Portuguese, one speaks still readily about Indios, to distinguish from the Mestizos.

Original settlement

Old theories

See also: Amorce=Voir also, Theories of the first settlement of America

The arrival of these people in America went up, still some time ago, with 12 approximately 000 years but of recent archaeological discoveries would make go up the first migrations with more 40 000 years. Coming from Siberia, they would have crossed the Bering Strait, then cold, then populated the continent américain.

Other theories speak people Oceania NS having crossed the Pacific Ocean, expressed by Paul Rivet (one of the founders of the Musée of the Man), or of European people : this last assumption is that of the archeologist Dennis Stanford.

The Mormons believe that the Lamanite S (principal ancestors of the American Indians, according to the Livre of Mormon), are downward of the people Juif.

The Amerindians themselves support that they always lived there. At all events, the diversity of the natural environments of the continent generated very different cultures.

Discovered most recent

History and prehistory (concept)

The use of the writing versus the oral tradition is usually the line of demarcation between the history and prehistory. It is interesting to know that 90 % of the spoken languages on this ground are or were of oral culture. It is the case of the very large majority of the languages autochtones of Americas. The year 1500, time of the first contacts, represents this separating line rather. It is thus necessary to constantly readjust our shooting on the " truth historique". Autochtones contemporaries base a good part of their claims on this historical anteriority, over the period that we qualify usually the prehistoric one.

Therefore, the history among indigenous people of Americas could be transmitted only by the verbal form. Legends, tales, adventures of hunting and facts historical travelled through time and changed in the mouth of the storytellers. For Inuits and the Amerindians, the exactitude of the places, dates and actors as examples did not have the same importance as for the historians academicians of today. The latter see the history rather as a tended arc which projects an arrow towards the future. It is a linear way to see the things. On the other hand, for people of the First Nations, they see the history as a circle where time returns continuously on itself in the mouth of the storytellers. These perceptuelles differences of the history did not always facilitate the relations last and present between the Amerindians and the foreigners from Europe.

North America

Central America

Large and Lesser Antilles

South America

See also: Southern Amerindians, Native-born people of Brazil

The Chibcha S (with the borders of the Central America and the South), the nations Quechua S, the nation Aymara, the Mapuches, People of Amazonia, People Patagons.

The Spanish conquest

With the Mexico, Hernan the Cortes unloads near Veracruz in 1519; it is first of all well accommodated by Moctezuma emperor Aztèque. Spanish enters Tenochtitlan the November 8th 1519. But the June 30th 1520, they are driven out by a revolt of the population. Cortez, supported by the other Amerindian people, gains the victory of Otumba the July 7th 1520 and comes to besiege the capital which ends up falling the August 13rd 1521. The last emperor, Cuauhtémoc, made captive to avoid a new revolt, are carried out towards 1524 - 1526, while Tenochtitlan is shaven to leave the place to Mexico City.

When Pizarro arrives at the Peru in 1532, it is perceived like a god. It removes the emperor Atahualpa and encourages the revolt of the people subjected to Incas. The empire is parcelled out and the emperor is finally carried out by the Spaniards in 1533. The conquistadors control the INCA territory in the middle of the 16th century, even if resistances still take place. The formation of the Spanish colonial Empire is accompanied by plunderings, new diseases which make devastations, famine, control of the Amerindians in the encomiendas and by the evangelization of the population.

The April 16th 1550, Charles Quint orders to stop the conquests of the New World for reasons morals. The debate which is followed from there, entrusted to the theologists will see the famous tournaments of Bartolomé de Las Put and Sepulveda at the time of the Controverse of Valladolid. With its exit, the Catholic church recognizes that the Amerindians “have a heart” and thus have for this reason same the right S as the other men.

Into 1556, the terminology changes, Conquista is officially replaced by descubrimiento (discovery), and conquistador by poblador (colonist).

Arrival of Europeans: the viral and bacterial shock

The arrival of the Européens at the 15th century upset the life of the people of America. Among the hundreds of nations which populated the two continents, much completely disappeared: they were decimated (see the demographic article Histoire of the Amerindians), were off-set, acculturées and for some, reduced in slavery. However the historical Démographie established that a majority of Amerindians died following the Virus and diseases (like the Coqueluche, the Rougeole or the Variole) introduced by Europeans, against which the Amerindians were not immunized. The process started as of the years 1500 and carried hundreds of thousands of lives. In 1617 - 1619, an epidemic of Bubonic plague devastation the New England. The assessment of these epidemics is difficult to give with exactitude. The sources are non-existent and the historians are not agreement on the estimates. Some advance 10 million Amerindians for all the continent; others think rather of 90 million, including 10 for North America. If one takes the data of Anne Garrait-Bourrier and Monique Venuat (see the bibliography), the whole American continent (of the Alaska to the Cape Horn) sheltered approximately 50 million inhabitants in 1492; as a comparison, there had 20 million French at the XVIIe century. The advanced figures for the territory of the United States of today lie between 7 and 12 million inhabitants. Approximately 500 000 Amerindians populated the east coast of this space. They are nothing any more but 100 000 at the beginning of the XVIIIe century. In the Spanish empire, the mortality of the Amerindians caused such devastations that they had outward journey to seek slaves in Florida to mitigate the lack of labor in South America.

Examples among others of the devastations which caused these Pandémie S:

The Timicuas, in Florida, which in 1650 was 13 000 distributed out of 40 villages were after an epidemic of small Vérole only 35 in 1728 gathered in one hamlet.

The Wampanoag which occupied the territory of current the Massachusetts were carried until the last in 1617, 3 years before the arrival of the first unloaded colonists of the Mayflower who will found Plymouth.

The identity alarm clock

Since 1968, one assists with the political and cultural alarm clock Amerindians and mongrels. That started with the the United States then with the Canada, the Mexico, and maintaining in all the Latin America:

Of the demonstrations of Amerindians takes place at the time of the Thanksgiving, in remembering the Amerindians who were gradually forgotten in this festival of Thanksgiving,
Reconnaissance by UNO,
Participation in many international movements: ATTAC,…
political Participation: Bolivia, Mexico, Canada, Venezuela,…
Of the armed actions was also carried out in the name of the fight pro-native or for the recognition of the basic rights and the indigenous culture, as with EZLN with the Chiapas (Mexico).
In 1990, an American federal law " The Native American Serious Protection and Repatriation Act " (NAGPRA): this law requires that the Amerindian cultural goods be returned to the native people when these goods were unearthed. This law authorizes nevertheless the teams of archeologists to analyze the discoveries but within very short time. By cultural goods, the law indicates the human remainders, the funerary and crowned objects, and any object and artefact of the inheritance amérindien.
Although this federal law was made necessary to put a term at plunderings of historic sites, the archeologists and enquiring American show this law to seriously restrict archaeological research on the origins of the first inhabitants of the the United States. The case of the Homme of Kennewick is symptomatic, the Amerindian tribes requiring the return on their respective grounds of this skeleton whose study revealed an origin Caucasienne or Europoïde.

Technique of communication

The Amerindians use drums, which make it possible to communicate remotely following the example modern apparatuses. Thus, while striking a drum, a Chaman can exchange information with another Chaman or locate game.

See too

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