The Daily Life Along the Mississippi Rivers - Book Report/Review Example

14089 14089 Academic Research Assignment 214891 April 2 2008 Mississippi River The lives of then, calling for the changes of now The book The Daily Life Along the Mississippi Rivers takes you along the history. It describes the the rivers environment, the ecosystem it's citizen, it's history. Since 9500 BCE people lived along the river and used it's Natural sources. But we also know that a river gives and takes. The floods make the land alluvial, but can destroy it to. The swamps bring misquotes who bring diseases. Another important fact is technology. From the very first beginning there are archeological findings in the region in different sorts like Paleolithic, Archaic, Woodland and Mississippian. Each had their own specifics of course in technical constructions for tools, food, buildings and ceremonial centers. The coming of the Europeans obviously changed those techniques drastic. In the beginning the natives traded with the Europeans for having and easier live, status, build kinship alliances with their neighbors and protect themselves. They received in exchange for that guns, powder, knifes, flints, axes, blankets, glass beats and kettles. Overtime the invention of the value of cotton another huge change came. The cotton empire expanded, slavery began, steamboats came for transportation. The economy changed totally. But again another price had to be paid for all this prosperity for the entire region. Thousands died in accidents from the steamboats, slavery who build the cotton industry, the Civil War and the beginning of the industrial revolution made the empire weak and vanish. The economic factor was important for the region, because it changed everything. It influenced the lives of the people who lived along the river. The trade itself was a cause for many strife between the tribes over land and hunting areas to use for their trade with the Europeans. The biggest threat came in 1803 after the Louisiana Purchase. The new settlers introduced a new system, gift-giving with a credit system. It putted the entire native community in debts, and the only way to pay it out was through land cession. In 1820 during Jackson's Administration most natives where removed from the land they lived on along the river. The participation with ended drastic in not being wanted. In 1851 the Eastern Dakotas native tribe gave their land to the United States. 14089 2 Mississippi River, for centuries land of the Native Americans, who lived in peace, where captured for the conquest of the Spanish search for Gold and Fortune. During the middle and later Archaic Period from 7000 BCE till around 600 BCE , according to the book Daily Lives, the total population Grew and settlements became larger. Before this period the Clovis people came to live in the area Around 9500 BCE. Unfortunate there is little knowledge about that time. Later the Dalton people moved into the area. By reasons unknown we do not know why the Clovis disappeared. The Daltons lived in more stable settlements. In small bands of 20 till 50 people. The Daltons buried unlike the Clovis their death close to the settlements. They hunted and gathered nuts, fruits and edible plants. Daily Live continues in explaining the changes of the natives. At Poverty Point at northeast Louisiana a very sophisticated tribe arose. They spread to over 100 settlements between 1200 and 800 BCE. They where more organized and used materials who had to be exchanged with other regions such as Copper, fluorite and mica. Of course they spread their own technologies into the areas where they got this from like baked clay balls to be found in the area Mesoamerica. Their religious rituals where also found in the Rocky Mountain area. But like the Clovis the Poverty tribe disappeared without any reason around 800 BCE. In around 400 BCE we can find about the Woodland people in the Daily Life. They where the first to use the bow, they heated their food in clay pots directly over fire. Further interesting is that they lived in permanent homes, in base camps. Used extensive pottery and developed horticulture. Followed by the Adena, another culture, who lived in circular houses, they experimented intense with plants as gourd and pumpkin. Fact is that a lot is learned from the first people who lived along the river. For nearly 10 thousands years before the first contact arose with the Europeans natives have lived there. Hunted there, and settled there. The conquest, not expected by the natives, came with tensions, killings, diseases and strange ideas. After the first glory of the invaders from Spain the disillusion came to surface. The Spanish had only managed to conquer the tribes but not North America, their original idea. Leaving the country behind with a few to stay, it took the natives about 150 year to recover from the first meeting with white people, the Spanish. In the book the Daily Life is market: "the period between 1682 and 1803 as a fierce competition between the European powers. They recognized the Mississippi River's strategic value." In 1673 the French rediscovered the Valley. Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette where looking for a passage to the Pacific Coast and hoped to find it through the river of Mississippi. 14089 3 Two reasons made them leave soon after going down the river. The mouth of the Arkansas River made a turn to the West to the Gulf of Mexoco and the fear of being captured from the Spanish conquistadors. Nine years later Robert Cavelier de la Salle came back and claimed the land after being welcomed by the Quapaw tribe. He went further south to the Mississippi Delta and claimed the land in the name of France and called it Louisiana. It took the French a few years only to make the first permanent settlements. Before 1541 the residents living along the river where Native Americans as you have read. Hernando De Soto and his army intruded the Central Mississippi Valley in 1541 which changed the entire way of living. Between 1541 till around 1803, the Louisiana Purchase and the War of Independence, most of the tribes where ravaged by diseases, wars against eachother and tension between them. The entire century after 1803 made then natives landless, poor and only a few managed could hold on to the new life. The given changes brought by the Europeans where also the start to end the native culture and life. Today some of the tribes, Tunica - Biloxi, Objibwe, Chickasaw, Ioway, Quapaw and Dakota are still living in the Region, far away from their original ancestral homes. But finally after many centuries there is a law that strengthens them again, Special Status of the Tribes. Most drastic changes in the region where made abroad in Europe in the European Capitals. In the book Daily Lives we learn that: " the Spanish sought expansion through Florida and the Mississippi Valley to make it serve as a barrier, one to prevent the English and French to take the possessions of the Spanish that they made in Mexico and Central America." On the other hand the English wanted to break through the Appalachian Mountains to gain trade in the Mississippi with the tribes. The French thought to have found in the Mississippi a passage through the river to Canada with the Gulf of Mexico, and eventually also a drive out for the Spanish and English. The tribes however made no difference in the powers from Europe, they would trade anyway. After France colonized the region along the Gulf of Mexico the Monarchy appointed in 1699 Pierre LeMoyne Sieur d'Ibberville to lead. In Biloxi he resigned in the first Fort. One year later Fort Boulayne on the Mississippi River was constructed. From the North the French and their missioners to convert the natives also entered the region. In 1733 the relationship between the French and the natives got disturbed by the killing of a Frenchman by an native. The tension rise. 14089 4 Yet the French managed to keep the bond as good as possible, they lived close to and with the natives. And when the French ladies where outnumbered the men also obtained relationship with native woman. Center of the Towns became New Orleans, despite the climate and diseases. In 1802 and smallpox epidemic killed thousands of people and crops where destroyed in 1732, 1734 and 1740 by Hurricanes and floods. In the find of the new land the Europeans brought also something in the new world. Slavery. Short of men in the colonies they needed workmen to do do the work on the land. In the beginning of their coming to the region some natives where forced to work as slaves. They needed the knowledge is explained in the book Daily Life. However the European needed more slaves then the few natives they had. They turned to the Company of the Indies who brought the African Slaves in the Region through the Caribbean. For many years the African slaves where traded through Muslim countries, however the trade was very different back then. New world slavery was based on race, the Muslim slavery not. They produced any kind of slave, no matter what race. The new world slavery only contained the black population of West Africa. We all know how many slaves from Africa died on ships, one third, during the journey. And the more the French expanded the more slaves they need. The numbers increased from a couple Of hundred into thousands around 1713. In 1763 France was defeated in the Seven Years War. The economy was devastated, the English had been able not let French ship into the region to reach Louisiana, nor could the French export any goods, so to obtain there live in the new colony was not possible. They gave Louisiana to Spain. The Spanish where able to lead the colony better then the French and they created a better health and made for example New Orleans cleaner by paving sidewalks, draining the streets from the water, not allowing to much gunpowder in houses (to prevent explosions). Success was gained in the rise of St. Louis. It become foremost the trading point in the Missouri and was build for European. Cotton came and became a main important economic state and when Louisiana was full in bloom Spain give it back to France to Napoleon Bonaparte. The Antebellum period reached and many new settlers came into the region. The book Daily Life gives us many examples of families who came to live in the new land. The book is not giving us a example of how life could have been, it goes into many details of then till now. From the very beginning of people living there till 1865. It tells the entire history of the region. Works cited and used "Daily Life Along the Mississippi River." George S. Fabis Greenwood Press 2007 Read More